It's Not Like Home, But...

[Demyx]

He'd forgotten what his home had looked like, anyway.

Beings of nothing typically didn't have very much to carry with them, and Demyx was no different. Hoisting a shoulderbag with only a few changes of clothes (ones he'd just bought, no less, having nothing else but his Organization cloak to wear), the barest of hygienic essentials, and his most precious possession ever, he happily trotted down the hall towards his room...

...until he was certain he was out of sight, at least. Glancing around for any other signs of life, he slowed to a measured walk, smile fading into a blank expression. Starting over was going to be tough. If there were other Nobodies around, he'd hadn't sensed them yet, though he hadn't gotten much of a chance to get to know anyone. Regardless, even the smallest amount of guidance would be helpful; what was he supposed to do now? Without the Organization's help...

Am I...going to be stuck this way?[/i]

What would he have done if the Organization didn't find him first..?

He'd almost passed his room without realizing it. Fishing the key out of his pocket, he held it to the lock and paused, frowning a little at a distant memory. It...wasn't supposed to be this way, was it, Roxas?[/i]

He gave the key a twist, opening the door to an empty room. Well...that wasn't so bad. He got to pick first, but...what did that matter? He had no real preference or attachment to either the window or the wall, and his roommate might, so...

Better wait 'til they get here.[/color]

[r]

Finally.

He was getting a room at the school. Enrolling late had been a part of the reason why he'd been stuck at the hotel for so long while they tracked down a roommate, and after he'd heard Sora was there he'd figured he could just room with his best friend...but apparently Sora hadn't requested him. In an awful way, Riku was slightly relieved. After all, Sora had been acting so oddly at the summer ball...not like himself at all.

It was enough to make Riku suspect foul play.

So when he found the room door open and stopped dead at the sight of an Organization cloak, Riku's mood did not improve. "What the hell?" he demanded, instantly suspicious. "Where do you people keep coming from?!"

His fingers ached to call Way, but he didn't get hasty. Even if he didn't recognize this one, Vexen back at the science classroom hadn't been openly hostile, and if he could avoid violence that would be for the best. The school couldn't be expected to understand to begin with, not to mention while he didn't think the Organization was up to any good, their members were scattered and some may very well be trying to escape it like Axel and Roxas had. At the same time, he couldn't afford to let them get back to full power again.

[Demyx]

It was true that Demyx honestly didn't know what to expect from his roommate; even having only done a minimal amount of socialization, he knew that there were all kinds of crazies here, and he made a mental note not to be surprised if he got anything from a blank stare to a squealing, screaming, flying tackle-glomp that could potentially break his spine.

Even so, that didn't prevent him from jumping at the loud voice in the doorway, spinning to face the intruder his roommate with a hand already reaching out for Arpeggio -- but he stopped himself, just as he always did, summoning not his sitar but an expression that told just how scared he was.

"Where do you people keep coming from?!"

He blinked, drawing his hands up in a chill out sort of gesture, and gave an awkward laugh as he tried to figure out how to respond to that. Great -- he'd gotten one of the crazies. And a hostile one, too, if this introduction was any indication. Uncertain of what it was that categorized him as you people (His hair? His coat? His award-winning smile?), he decided to set that matter aside for the moment and work on dispelling any hostilities before they got out of hand.

"...Well that wasn't very nice," he said finally, forcing the poutish tone a little too hard. He stayed hunched over, trying his best to keep his stature as diminutive and nonthreatening as possible. "Don't you think you should at least say hello?"

Or, wait. Maybe he was going about this wrong. Maybe he needed to assert control, show that he wasn't someone to be pushed around, or, or...he hesitated, twitching in the indecision between keeping up his current facade or trying for one that commanded a little more respect -- but no, no-- don't want to aggravate things. He must have looked awkward.

"I mean, since we're gonna be roommates and all." He paused. "I mean. You do live here, right?"

[r]

The stranger's reaction was ignorance, of course--Riku would have expected that even if he'd been calm enough to be specific--but the way he managed it was so...natural. For just a moment Riku figured this was one of the low tier, he could relax--but no, no, no. DiZ had warned him about this. They would pretend, they would deceive, and they would manipulate. He couldn't afford to fall victim to one of their schemes now. Not after things had finally settled down.

Striking fear in the heart of one without a heart was about as useful as tossing a fire spell at an already dead Heartless, but Riku's old habits died hard like Heroic. So he kicked the door closed behind him and advanced on the stranger, not enough to violate his personal space and start a fight, but enough that he was wrestling for control. Riku didn't have the patience for diplomacy; he needed answers, and if he had to beat them out of his nonexistent roommate he wouldn't hesitate. "Organization XIII," he enunciated impatiently. "I thought we got rid of you and now you're popping up like you were never gone at all. What's going on."

[Demyx]

Well this wasn't good. Door closed, no escape, and now the guy was advancing on him like he was going to rough him up or worse -- what was he supposed to do? They were both unarmed at the moment, and he wasn't particularly worried about a fight (he didn't start it!) so much as he was worried about the mess that would ensue afterwards, and if this guy was his roommate and things were starting out this bad already...

"H-hey, what's with that look?" Out of instinct, he took a step backwards--

"Uagh--!"

--only to find his calf impact with the side of the bed in a really uncomfortable way, and the sudden shift to compensate for the pain caused him to clumsily drop onto the mattress, his bag of clothes falling to the floor. His expression faltered with the cringe that followed, and he didn't think to correct it when he looked back up at Riku to ask just what--

"Organization XIII."

...Well, crap. Maybe he should have changed out of his Organization coat back at the thrift store. But the cat was out of the bag now, and Demyx was struggling with the right response; he couldn't rightly feign ignorance now, and from the way the guy was acting, it seemed like he'd already gotten it into his head that they were his enemies...

"I thought we got rid of you, and now you're popping up like you were never gone at all. What's going on."

Demyx hesitated.

Two very important pieces of information. One, as the guy had been suggesting: Demyx wasn't alone. Somewhere in his immediate area there were other Organization members. Somewhere in the city. Somewhere in this school even. That much was enough to inspire hope; if Xigbar was around, or Axel, or Roxas, or Xion -- anyone, really -- then that meant he wasn't alone. He needed to find the other Nobodies ASAP if he was going to figure out what happened -- no, if he was going to figure out where to go from here.

Two: this guy had a hand in the downfall of Organization XIII. That, for the moment, was entirely more important; now he had a reason to worry about entering combat, and now he had a reason to have a problem with all this. He could have been just one of their enemies -- or he could have been the one to mess up Oblivion -- or even...

Demyx's eyes took on a dangerous gleam.

You took away Roxas, didn't you?

"We?" he stressed, trying to draw out a little more information. Smothering the inklings of anger and hurt was becoming quite a bit more difficult thanks to certain reoccurring thoughts, and he needed a second to find that innocent tone of voice again. New plan: take things down a notch, get him to divulge as much information as he possibly could -- and then focus on remembering the appropriate emotion once he got the whole story.

"...I'm not sure what you've been told," he more or less laughed, still seeming relatively pleasant -- except for that look. "But we're not bad guys or anything -- in fact, we can be pretty cool once you get to know us."

Wait, wait, wait -- he really shouldn't be using plural here.

"You haven't even given me a chance..."

[r]

The stranger backed right into the bed and fell on top of it, faking innocence--Riku recognized the slight stiffness, the halting emotions playing across his face, from a year of Naminé and other Nobodies.

"We?"

Riku hesitated, not sure what to make of that. Had the stranger somehow forgotten the other thirteen members? Or was he going for a pathetic attempt at ignorance? Because in that cloak he couldn't very well--

...What was that look?

That one was so strikingly real that Riku stopped short of the distance he'd planned for, second-guessing himself. These people were still Nobodies and dangerous and he couldn't afford to get too close to this one if he was a complete nutter like that one blue-haired guy.

"But we're not bad guys or anything."

Of course not. Railroading Naminé and kidnapping Kairi and trying to kill Sora isn't "bad or anything."

But then... Bad or good, I don't know, Naminé had said.

"You haven't even given me a chance..."

The boy's voice was fainter now, and Riku could already feel his heart give just a little. He's good at this. But it was more than that. There was a note in his voice that reminded Riku of standing in a darkened room and watching a heartless boy fall apart from the inside. There hadn't been a second chance to help Roxas, the only Nobody aside from Naminé that he'd ever honestly cared about; wanted to save from an inevitable fate. Wasn't it ironic, then, that he would get a second chance to help the people who'd started this mess in the first place?

"Guess not. But why should I? You didn't give Naminé a chance, just used her like a tool. Sora, too. You're the ones who fought us every step of the way. You're the ones who threatened all the worlds to get what you wanted. You're the ones responsible for Ansem's death, the year Sora lost, and all the shit we had to go through for so long! After all that, you just want me to turn around and say, hey, no hard feelings?" He scoffed, glaring. "Sorry. Doesn't work that way."

[Demyx]

You're the ones.

You're the ones.

You're the ones.

Demyx's eyes slowly widened with every word, expression turning unreadable; it almost seemed to mimic shock, except that there was still that venom that made it impossible for him to appear the slightest bit innocent, and with every plural you that venom grew more and more potent. Maybe he looked offended. The truth was, realization was finally dawning, and Demyx did not like what he was hearing.

Demyx had nothing to do with Naminé. Demyx had never touched Sora's strings, never played the part of puppeteer -- he didn't even know who Ansem was, let alone that the man had died. Threaten all the worlds? Demyx did little more than the reconnaissance work -- and besides, if the Organization's plan had gone off without a hitch, all the harm would've been reversed...wouldn't it? The end would justify the means, and Demyx would be a person again...

Riku's words only reminded him of that little detail. That he was not, in fact, a person.

Riku spoke to him like he would have spoken to a group. You, plural, ones, pinning the blame shared by the entire Organization onto him and him alone. As if they had all had equal parts in the plan. As if Demyx was nothing more than a cog in the machine. Riku did not see him as an individual, did not even begin to think that he had his own reasons for joining the Organization...

He didn't even see him as half a person, did he?

"We didn't have a ch..." he near-whispered, breath halting before finishing that last word.

Even if other Nobodies had survived, that didn't mean he was still a part of the Organization. He had no safety net, no fellows to rely on, no pillars of support -- and right now, he was alone. How the noose felt so much tighter without a stool to stand on... and here was Riku and Riku's judgement, reminding him of his condemnation even after having kicked the stool out from beneath him.

His hands tightened into fists. Where was his trial? Where was his chance to defend himself?

"...I had no choice." Voice and expression both darkened then, and Demyx rose from the bed, standing tall with conviction. "Do you know what it's like to be like this? When you can't even laugh or cry without forcing it? Tell me what I should have done. You tell me what I should have done when the only choice I had was 'yes' or 'no' -- and I didn't even have a heart to guide me."

Without any real rage to drive him, Demyx fell silent, the anger in his expression melting into mere disappointment. For a moment, he looked at Riku as if seriously expecting an answer, maybe giving him the chance to argue -- Well? -- but that moment passed, and he shook his head, lifting his arms in a shrug of helplessness.

"It's the cloak, isn't it? Bad guys wear black? If I had been wearing anything else when you walked in..."

He paused.

One fist uncurled halfway, pointer finger waggling in admonishment.

"You shouldn't judge anyone by appearance."