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Keyblade training had been surprisingly intensive. Lea wasn’t adverse to hard work, exactly, but even in the Organization he’d had a day off once in a while. But he couldn’t complain. Kairi never did, and he was done with being outclassed by children. Although if he was gonna be stuck with one of the brats, at least it was the cool one.
Lea had liked Kairi from the first time he’d tried to kidnap her. Not only was she a surprisingly ferocious fighter, it was a refreshing change of pace to hang out with someone with a scrap of emotional intelligence. It was also exactly what Lea needed. In the evenings, after long bouts of training, they sat around tending to literal and metaphorical wounds. Kairi was able to help Lea put names to all these strange feelings he’d forgotten about in those years without a heart. High on the list was a weird pressure deep in his chest that set in when he thought about the past. More specifically, things he’d done. He hadn’t felt bad about anything in years, he wasn’t used to the sensation, and he wasn’t sure how to make it go away.
Luckily Kairi had a suggestion. A simple one, too. “Why don’t you start by apologizing?”
When their first day off finally came around, Lea slept in. Eventually, though, he rolled out of bed and got dressed. After consideration, Lea had decided his first target would be Ienzo. Murdering him ranked pretty high on the list of Lea’s crimes, even if he technically hadn’t actually murdered him. The Riku Replica did that. Lea just… encouraged it. Still, deserved an apology.
Kairi had recommended he forgo the long black Organization coat, and Lea had to agree. The coat was a glaring reminder of the past, and the folks hanging around Radiant Garden seemed pretty on edge about it. He’d finally deigned to unpack the suitcase Riku had dropped off, and the clothes inside were actually pretty nice. He’d seen Sora’s outfit, and dreaded being dressed by the same people who put that together, but it wasn’t half bad. Dark plaid shirt, black vest, black jeans - practically tasteful. The mid-calf leather boots were completely unnecessary and very good.
He folded his old coat carefully and tucked it away in the suitcase. The hem was fraying a bit, and some of the seams had started to stretch. The leather was scuffed, hasilty patched, and scorched in places. Overall the thing was definitely showing its age, but he wasn’t ready to give it up yet. And he didn’t feel like exploring that feeling, because he had plenty of those already and it was just a stupid coat. So into the suitcase it went. If only he could avoid all his emotions that easily.
Lea waved his hand and summoned a door to darkness. Mickey would scold him if he saw him doing this; apparently it was reckless and dangerous. But it was convenient, and Lea was a fan of reckless. Besides, he’d gotten too used to it, and he’d go nuts if he had to wait until some twerp in a Gummi ship could play taxi. The swirling nothingness between worlds was familiar territory, and it was only a few minutes until he stepped out into the sunlight of Radiant Garden.
The place had changed since he’d lived here as a kid. By his reckoning, he should have exited into a small plaza between two houses. Instead he landed in a pile of rubble. “Figures,” he muttered, glancing upwards to orient himself. There was the castle, as always looming over the city. Or rather, the back of the castle, which meant he’d wound up in the parts of the ruined city that hadn’t been restored yet. Convenient for when you were trying to skulk around doing misdeeds, but the wrong side of town for a social visit. Grumbling, he made his way through the ruins until he arrived at the castle gates.
The castle was in better shape than the town. Lea had visited once while it was Hollow Bastion, all dark and swarming with Heartless. He’d stood on one of the balconies, observing the twisted ruined world that was once his home, and briefly considered it as a metaphor for himself. Almost felt something for, like, a minute. Then he’d gotten bored and left. So it surprised him how pleased he was to see it renewed, gleaming and bright. The marble floors felt familiar under his feet, and he barely had to think about where he was going. Even the little secret places they’d used to dodge guards were the same, as he discovered when he ducked out of sight to avoid Aeleus. Just out of habit, for fun, and definitely not because Aeleus had threatened to beat him senseless if he caught him bothering Ienzo. That Aeleus, what a kidder.
Below ground, restoration had been dictated by usefulness. Some rooms were locked up, full of mysterious lumps under dust covers and crates, and others had been cracked open and any useful materials excised. Lea followed the hum of machines to the room Ienzo had appropriated as his primary lab. The door was open, but Lea knocked anyway. “Hey there,” he said, leaning against the frame. “Got a minute?”
Ienzo was seated in front of a table, a large ragged book open in front of him. “I thought I told Aeleus not to let you in,” he said without turning, addressing empty air instead of Lea.
“Please. As if I couldn’t sneak past that guy. Like sneaking past a brick wall.” Lea took a step into the room, trying to catch a glimpse of the papers on the table. He could spot weird diagrams and strings of numbers, and he had no idea what any of it meant. “Whatcha workin’ on?”
Ienzo didn’t look up. “Did you need something?” he asked, scribbling on one of the many loose sheets of paper scattered around.
Lea crossed his arms. “What, can’t a guy come check on a buddy?”
The pen stopped. “Checking on a buddy.” Ienzo turned in his chair to face Lea. “I have work to do, Lea.”
Lea took in the sight of Ienzo and whistled low. His light blue hair, overgrown at best, looked oily and tangled. It covered most of his face but the eye that Lea could see bore a dark circle under it, stark against skin that was a little too pale. The scowl on his face drew his skin tight over his cheekbones. His lab coat, once bright white, displayed a collection of brown splotches and scorch marks.
“You look like shit,” he offered helpfully.
Shockingly, this did nothing to change the scowl. “If you’re just here to waste my time and insult me,” Ienzo said, turning back to the book, “then you can move on.”
Lea winced. “No, hey, that’s not - I just mean you look rough.” He ran a hand through his hair. “C’mon, let me take you to dinner. You want a kebab? I’d love a kebab.”
“I’m not hungry,” Ienzo replied.
Lea frowned. “You sure about that? Because you look like you haven’t eaten in days. We’re not as durable as we used to be.”
Ienzo paused, turned a page, and resumed writing.
“Gotta eat sometime,” Lea muttered. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Do you some good to get out of here for a while, too. It’s so stuffy down here.” He looked around; the lab, like most of the space in the basement of the castle, was nothing but blank white walls and equipment he didn’t understand. “Couldn’t have built the creepy secret lab above ground, huh? Windows would mess with the whole evil scientist vibe?”
Man, Ienzo was real good at ignoring Lea’s nonsense. He focused on the book, and his notes, and not Lea.
“Fresh air!” said Lea, taking another stab at it. If he gave up now he’d never hear the end of it from Kairi. “Real nice weather out, too. We should go for a walk. Flowers are blooming and all that.” He hesitated. “You like flowers, right?”
Ienzo finally set down the pen. Well, it was more like he slammed it down on the table, but that sounded worse for Lea. “I am busy, Lea,” he said. “I am working, time is short, and I do not have much of it to spend on you. You have taken plenty of it from me already.”
“Hey, I didn’t - “ Lea bit his lip and took a deep breath. He could escalate, but that wasn’t what he was here for. Then he took a second one, because he was still learning to chill. “I didn’t come here to pick a fight,” he said.
“No? Then what did you come here for? Tell me, so I can get you to leave.”
Lea groaned, thumping the back of his head against the wall. “I came to say I’m sorry, all right?”
“You’re sorry?” Ienzo twisted in his chair and arched his visible eyebrow. “For what?”
“For - for everything, pretty much.” He shrugged and looked away, suddenly finding it hard to look Ienzo in the eyes. Eye. “Do you want the full list, or just the highlight reel? I was figuring I’d start with murdering you and work backwards from there.”
Ienzo glared. “Whatever’s quicker.”
“Come on, man.” Lea scratched his neck. “Look, I’m not good at this, but I’m trying. You hate me, I get it, but can you give me a chance?”
“I don’t - “ Ienzo stopped and sighed. The wooden legs of the chair scraped against the marble floor as he stood. “Fine. Let’s talk.” He brushed past Lea into the hallway. Lea shrugged and followed him down the hall, around a corner, and into a small room as windowless as the rest of the basement. There was a small round table with a couple chairs and a ratty couch, and Lea couldn’t help but notice a thin blanket crumpled at one end of the couch and a small pillow at the other. Against one wall stood an array of cabinets, topped with a small brass machine made of tubes and dials. Ienzo started fiddling with it, and a few moments later Lea smelled coffee.
“Since when do you drink coffee?” he asked. “Wait, since when do they have coffee on this world?”
“Since I brought it here,” Ienzo replied. He removed a glass carafe from the machine and poured a generous serving into a chipped ceramic mug. Then he set the mug on the table, sat down, and looked expectantly at Lea. “You have until I’m finished,” he said.
“Wow, alright. Uh.” Lea grabbed one of the other chairs and pulled it out from the table, crossing one leg across the other. He tried to think of how to start and wound up saying, “Are you sleeping down here? Has Aeleus seen you lately?”
Ienzo took a long demonstrative drink of his coffee.
“Fine, fine. Right.” Lea drummed his fingers on the table. “Well, might as well start with the big one. Sorry I killed you.” He cleared his throat. “Or, I mean, had you killed. Didn’t actually kill you myself, so really - “
“Do you think that’s a helpful distinction at this point?”
Lea froze mid-sentence. “No,” he said, lowering his hands again. “No, it’s not. Sorry. Again.” He sighed. “Okay, so, I’m sorry I killed you. It was a stupid, mean thing to do, and you didn’t deserve it. Nobody would, but especially you.”
“Especially me?” Ienzo set down the mug. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lea waved a hand vaguely in the air. “Ah, you know.”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked.”
“Well, I mean. The rest of us were terrible. Just a pack of traitors and murderers, doing evil shit for what amounted to jack shit. Except Demyx. He was too lazy to murder anyone.”
“I was hardly innocent,” Ienzo said.
“Maybe. But at least the rest of us signed up for this shit. All us apprentices or whatever, we bought into Xehanort’s bullshit and deserved every bad thing that happened to us. But you?” He glanced at Ienzo. “You were just a kid.”
Ienzo tapped a finger against his mug, but didn’t respond, which Lea took as a sign to continue. “I remember thinking it, after we lost our hearts. I remember looking around at all these people, all glazed eyes and half-functioning, and thinking, ‘Oh, he’s just a kid.’ It didn’t seem fair. I thought someone needed to look out for you.” Lea shook his head. “Then I didn’t. Didn’t do a damn thing about it. So. I did actually have a list,” he added. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and dropped it on the table. “I think it mostly stems from that main thing, though. I’m sorry I didn’t look out for you.”
Ienzo looked at the paper, but made no motion to reach for it. He raised the mug to his lips and didn’t take a sip. After a moment, he said, “You were young too.”
Lea shrugged, not looking at Ienzo. “Sure. But I was old enough to know better. And I was old enough to choose. You didn’t even get that.”
“Hmm.” Ienzo set the mug down again. The silence stretched out over several minutes before he spoke. “I don’t hate you,” he said, completing the sentence he’d started in the lab.
“No? Huh.” Lea grinned. “Coulda fooled me.”
“With Even missing, I am the only one with knowledge of the replicas.” Ienzo stared down at his coffee. “All I have are notes from a decade ago and what I remember of his experiments in the Organization. On top of that, I have to crack into Ansem’s computer, and the only help I have with that is a teenager in another world. Lives are at stake, lives I played no small part in destroying. The tasks in front of me should take years, and I’ll be lucky if I have weeks. I don’t hate you. I don’t have time for that.”
Lea had developed a frown during this little speech. “Is that what this is about?” he said. “That’s why you’re killing yourself down here?”
Ienzo didn’t look up. “It is the only option.”
Lea sighed. “The guilt really is the shittiest thing about being a person again, huh.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with some optimistic brats lately,” he said, leaning toward Ienzo, “and they’ve kinda rubbed off on me. And I think I have an idea of what they’d have to say if they were here.”
“Wonderful,” Ienzo muttered.
“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, except don’t, because you definitely have.” He sat up straight and held his hand up, brandishing an invisible weapon. In a squeaky falsetto, he said, “My friends are my power!” Then he glanced back at Ienzo. When there was absolutely no reaction, he let his arm drop down again. “The point being,” he said, back to his normal voice, “you don’t have to do this by yourself. You’re not alone.”
“No one else knows about the replicas,” Ienzo said. “Even is missing. Dilan refuses to even enter the labs, and Aeleus - “
“Might not know about replicas or whatever, but I bet he’d make you take a shower and stop living on coffee.” Lea grabbed the lip of the mug and, with only faint resistance from Ienzo’s fingers, slid it towards himself. “Or at least put some cream in it. I see your face, man. Forcing yourself to drink black coffee is real dumb self-flagellation.”
“It’s not - “
“And so’s sleeping on the couch and not eating and isolating yourself. You say it’s because you’re busy, but that’s a lie, and we both know it. You’re punishing yourself.” Lea took a sip of the coffee and wrinkled his nose. “And you burnt this coffee.” He set it down, but didn’t give it back. “I didn’t realize it was this bad,” he said, more softy. “Seriously, how long has it been since you had a good night’s sleep? Or a solid meal? Or, hell, gone outside?”
Ienzo shrank into his chair. “I’ve had too much to do,” he said from behind his curtain of hair.
“That is not an encouraging answer.” Lea snorted. “Someone needs to look out for you again, huh?”
“I’m not - “
“C’mon. Get up.” Lea stood and offered a hand to Ienzo. “We’re gonna go for a walk, first, because I think you might need sunlight to live.”
Ienzo glared at the offered hand. “I’m not a child,” he said.
“I’m not your dad,” Lea replied, still holding out his hand. “But I am going to feed you a kebab.”
A few seconds passed as Ienzo hesitated.
“You know I can kick your ass if I have to,” Lea said. “Don’t make me murder you again.”
This surprised a snort of laughter out of Ienzo. He sighed and reached for the folded paper still lying on the table. “I’m keeping this,” he said, holding it up before tucking it into a pocket, “in case I need to make you do me a favor later.”
“Blackmail. Harsh.”
“It’s only fair.” Ienzo took Lea’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Lea clapped him on the back and started guiding him out of the lab.
“I am going to have to tell your dad to keep a better eye on you,” he remarked as they walked down the hall.
“Aeleus isn’t my father,” Ienzo answered.
“Good, because he’s doing a shit job. But I can’t adopt you, I’m not responsible enough for kids.”
“You’re not responsible enough for a houseplant.”
“Exactly.”