Disclaimer: This is a not-for-profit fanwork.
IV.
They spent the rest of the afternoon preparing the space. Full of dust and dirt, Ienzo insisted it needed a good cleaning before anything else. While Demyx swept and mopped, Ienzo came back with a small cart of books, left, and came back with more.
"For how insistent you were with the cleaning, I figured you'd be helping me," Demyx said.
"It's more efficient if we split our labor," Ienzo said, but there was a hint of a smirk on his face.
Dilan and Aeleus carefully maneuvered the old piano into the space. Ienzo kept bringing books; so many books.
"I hate to break away from my work once I've started," he said. "I'd rather be overcautious with materials than not."
Demyx studied the old upright. The varnish was scratched, and the whole thing was wobbly on its wheels. He bolstered the sides with a few blocks of wood. The old keys were real ivory, but worn and discolored from their years of neglect. He pressed the first key he saw and flinched at how out of tune it was. This was going to be harder than he thought.
For hours he stood over the piano back with a pair of pliers, trying to get the thing into something resembling key. The wire inside was brittle, and he had to turn millimeter by millimeter, so as to not break any of it. Demyx expected Ienzo to run off, but instead he watched; occasionally up close, his long silver hair nearly touching the wires, occasionally in a chair, with a book open in his lap.
"You must have a very good ear," Ienzo remarked quietly. "To tell such minute differences."
"Well, I would hope so." His arm was starting to cramp up, but he couldn't switch hands because the cut was too tender to take the repetitive motion strain. It had been a long while since he'd had to let a wound heal naturally. It seemed to be taking forever. "We wouldn't have to to all this if I just had my sitar." He twisted the last wire into place and rolled his shoulder to try and loosen the tension in his muscles. "That's about as good as it's going to get."
Ienzo touched a key experimentally. "Much better."
"Still a bit flat, but I was afraid to pull much harder, especially on the higher notes. I doubt there's any spare piano wire hanging around. It's not exactly a commodity." He played a chord. "It's bearable, at least."
He nodded. "Shall we get to work, then?"
His expression slipped. "Now? Don't you want to take a break first?"
"Why? There's still so much of the day left."
Demyx rolled his shoulders again. "My arms kinda hurt."
Ienzo sighed. "I could do with some lunch."
After some sandwiches, they returned back to the study room. The books were spread in uneven piles. Ienzo frowned. "I didn't realize I left these so… disorganized." He started picking up books and arranging them.
Demyx sat back down at the piano. The bench creaked slightly. He started with a few basic scales, trying to remember how it felt to play piano. It felt off, wrong. He longed for the smooth steel strings of his sitar.
Ienzo raised an eyebrow. "You look uncomfortable."
"Just trying to warm up."
Ienzo kept shifting the books back and forth. First, he organized them by color; then alphabetically (if the letters he was mumbling meant anything); then chronologically by subject. It was making Demyx anxious. He slipped in his scales. His left hand was aching and he flexed it. "Is your wound bothering you?" Ienzo asked.
"Just a bit stiff," he said, and forced a smile. When at last the scales were coming naturally, he turned to the yellowing text. Ienzo pulled his chair close to the piano bench.
The piece was hard to sight-read. While of course Demyx knew how to read and write music well, for him it was usually an afterthought when his pieces were finished. It was always a bit harder to get into if it were on paper. He was confident he could have played this for the first time fairly well on sitar, but he found himself stumbling again and again on easy passages. And this was just the master score; this wasn't even reading into the section delineations. His face burned with embarrassment.
He played through the first movement sloppily and then pressed his hands between his knees.
"It's lovely," Ienzo commented. "But-rather sad. I wonder what it means."
Demyx had been focusing too hard on the technical bits to notice the emotion in the song. "Could just be what was on their mind when they wrote it."
"Perhaps. We'll know more when I translate. Keep going. I'll try to remember the rhythm of the sung phrases."
He did so. The second movement was even more complicated than the first, until it seemed like every second note Demyx played was a mistake. That wasn't even counting for botched phrasing. What kind of meter was this? He checked quickly; at least the numbering wasn't ancient. 29/16? Fucking hell. That made no sense at all.
Third movement. Ienzo was leaning forward slightly, his head bowed, listening intently. It seemed like he wanted to hear all of it; and there was a lot of this score, hundreds of pages. There was just no way. A thin film of sweat broke out across Demyx's body. He was used to music being relatively effortless, but this was taking all of his concentration.
Fourth, then fifth. Demyx cursed whoever had written this for their inconstant use of meter and the tricky keys and accidentals. He was halfway into the sixth movement when his left hand started to ache, then hurt; and far into the eighth when Ienzo's stupor seemed to break and he seized Demyx's shoulder.
"Stop. Your hand," he said.
Demyx turned his palms over. His wound had split open and was bleeding, leaving faint reddish smears all over the keys. Ienzo grabbed one of the cleaning rags and tightened it over the first soaked bandage. With another, Demyx started cleaning at the ivory, discordant notes ringing out.
"Leave it. You probably need stitches," Ienzo said.
"It'll get stained if I don't," Demyx said. There was a weird undertone to his own voice.
"That's all right." Ienzo stood. "I'm going to get a first aid kit. Put pressure on it. About that much." He squeezed Demyx's right hand to demonstrate.
He put pressure on the injury. He realized his head was positively pounding, in time with his pulse just like his hand. He was sweaty, weak; he had no idea why. And for some reason the feeling of Ienzo squeezing his hand wouldn't go away.
Ienzo returned quickly with a small black bag. He knelt down in front of Demyx and took the offending hand. "Bleeding seems to have stopped. I suppose i must have misjudged how deeply the wound ran the other night."
"Even did too," Demyx said weakly.
"That's odd," Ienzo said. "I usually trust his judgement with these things." He unwrapped the bandages and dabbed on more of the stinging salve. He pulled out a curved needle and what looked like thread. "I'm sorry, this will hurt. But it won't heal correctly otherwise."
Demyx braced himself and shut his eyes. He tried not to flinch away when the needle bit his skin, but the pain was sharp and intense.
"Steady," Ienzo said.
Each stitch seemed more painful than the last. He bit his lip but couldn't stop tears from running down his face. Finally Ienzo was done, and rewrapped the wound. His hand was throbbing, and he could barely move his fingers without causing more pain.
"Nine stitches," Ienzo said. "Rather auspicious."
"It fucking kills."
"I can't see how it would be… pleasant. Nonetheless, I think you should let your wound heal before we continue." He sat down next to Demyx. "Of course, I should like to do some translation work. If it's all the same to you, I can translate, and you can rest. For today… i think this is enough."
"I couldn't agree more," he said dryly.
"I am curious, though. How many instruments can you play? I shouldn't have assumed your mastery of piano, though you are rather skilled in that regard."
His question caught Demyx off guard. He exhaled. "Well, I mean I don't really know. Sitar, obviously. Stringed instruments tend to come really naturally to me. I don't have much experience with brass or woodwind, but if I looked at it for a little while, I could probably pick it up. It just seems to make sense to me. You know?"
"Fascinating," Ienzo said. "So you've no formal training?"
"Not that I can remember. I mean, some one must have taught me how to read and write music." Thinking about it was making his headache worsen.
"What else can't you remember?" he asked. His expression had become troubled.
Demyx whistled. "Well, I mean, a lot, really. My past is… kind of blurry."
"That's… peculiar." He crossed his arms. "Did you remember your past as a Nobody? The first time you were one, anyway."
Something hot surged inside of him, and he was nearly sick. His vision started to go gray at the edges.
"Demyx?" Ienzo asked. "Are you alright?"
He crumpled and fell forward off the bench. He was conscious just long enough to see Ienzo's shocked expression.
"...checked his blood count. Everything is normal but the sugar and iron were low. I'm sure that explains the fainting. What you consider a trigger is no doubt a coincidence."
The headache was gone, but his skull felt weirdly warm. Someone had put him in bed, tucked the covers around him. The weight was comforting.
"I'm not so sure. He had mentioned something about lacking memory. Why is it that when I tried to prod, he had this reaction?"
"Ienzo, you know as well as I do that Demyx has a bit of a flair for the dramatic. Perhaps he just wanted some attention. Your worry is misplaced."
"...Even, do you have all your memories?"
"Of course I do! I think I would know if that were not the case."
"How odd. How odd…"
"His heart is not yet complete. That may have something to do with it."
"I'm going to take a look at my notes regardless."
"Still, this brings up the matter of our diet. I had suspected it is somewhat lacking, too high in carbs. Perhaps we can go down to the marketplace and find something more nutritious…"
The voices trailed off. Demyx sat up. He felt a bit sick to his stomach, and his first inclination was to sink back under the covers and sleep. His eyes caught the little plant on the windowsill. Some of the petals were browning at the edges. Demyx touched the soil; it was still moist from the last time it had been watered. It get getting plenty of light. What was wrong with it?
His door creaked open. Ienzo came in, carrying a glass of water. "Oh good, you're conscious. How are you feeling?"
"...Weird," he said. "I don't know why that happened."
"You're a tad anemic. And your blood sugar was low." He pulled two small bottles full of pills out of his coat pocket. "Even recommended you take some supplements. And I brought some mild painkillers for your hand. No doubt it's several weeks' of malnutrition catching up to you. I'm sure it was hard to come by good food when you were hiding."
Demyx took one of each of the little pills. He found he was surprisingly thirsty, which was a feeling he'd had to get used to ever since he lost his powers.
Ienzo looked towards the window. "That's a lovely illumina plant. Where did you get that?"
"Oh. Someone at the marketplace gave it to me. Aerith, from the restoration committee."
"Ah, yes. That makes sense. They're a good group of people. I've been keeping in touch with them about Sora." He reached over and touched one of the browning petals. "You needn't leave this in direct sunlight, you know. They grow at night."
"Did you study botany, too?" Demyx asked.
Ienzo suddenly looked a bit pained, but in just a second he had masked the emotion with a neutral face. "Not quite. A specialty of my parents'." He took the plant off the windowsill and placed it on top of the dresser, out of view of the window. "Can I see your stitches? I want to make sure you're healing properly."
Demyx offered his hand. Ienzo unwrapped the bandages and studied the wound.
"That looks much better. I should be able to remove them in a week or so. You just need to keep it covered and clean." He began rewrapping. Demyx had never really noticed his hands before, especially since they weren't in gloves; the fingers were long and graceful and cool against his overheated skin. When he let go, Demyx found himself again feeling the imprint of the touch like it was still there.
"Thanks," he said. "I'm sorry about earlier."
Ienzo shook his head. "That's quite alright. I forget that you're still adjusting. You should use the rest of the day to get some rest." Not that there was much left; the sky was turning pink. "I'm going to go and see what translation work I can get done while there's still good light. Aeleus is making stew. I'm sure he'll let you know when it's ready."
Demyx watched him leave, his eyes lingering on the doorframe perhaps a moment longer than was necessary. Ienzo was completely different than Zexion. If he had passed out while helping Zexion, no doubt he would have just scowled and walked away. He surely wouldn't have checked on him, or tried to save his houseplant, or touched him at all.
Demyx couldn't help but wonder if he were changing too; but he knew less about himself than Ienzo ever had. Was Even right? Were his lack of memories just due to an incomplete heart? More importantly, did he want to remember?