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“You seem distracted! What’s on your mind, apprentice-‘o-mine?”
“Nothin’,” Luxu lies.
Lying comes easy to him these days. That’s what happens when you’ve been doing it for a thousand years, give or take.
The reward’s nice, all things considered. The Master’s gotten comfy in this world – ‘Quadratum’, he calls it, air-quotes and all – and as such, he’s got a pretty penny to spare for his timeless brand of theatrics. (He really hasn’t changed a bit, Luxu thinks to himself bitterly. Should’ve expected that.) Warm lights decorate every corner of the high-end restaurant they’ve set up shop in, the sound of strings and piano wafting through the air alongside the smells of champagne and rich spices. The people around them talk in hushed tones, most of them there for far more mundane affairs than that of a master rewarding his hardest-working devotee.
It’s a ploy, somehow. That’s how things work with the Master – each nonchalant remark has a hidden meaning, his words a flock of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Luckily, Luxu’s gotten pretty good at the ol’ ploy game himself. Got a good thousand-or-so years’ worth of practice in.
“Nothin’.” The Master mocks the tone of his voice, leaning an elbow on the table. “At least give me a smile or something, why don’tcha?” He pulls at the corners of his hood in lieu of his still-obscured expression, no doubt making a face.
Luxu, pointedly, does not smile.
“You’re home free now!” the Master continues, unfettered. He throws his arms out wide, nearly knocking his silverware clean off the table. “Finally got that pesky role of yours all figured out! And not to mention the experience! Well –” the idle wave of a hand, to Luxu’s downturned head and folded arms, “in terms of the superficial stuff, anyways.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Luxu wants to bite back. Xigbar would have. He’d have cocked a brow and half-smirked, no more fazed by it than a bullet grazing his shoulder.
Instead, a bile rises in his stomach and he glances down at the silverware in front of him, silent. There’s your answer, he imagines the Master saying.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t at least save me a story or two,” the Master implores, a little more quietly. He points at the earring hanging off of one of Luxu’s pointed ears – a heart-shaped moon on a silver chain. “What about that little doodad, huh? That’s gotta have some real hot goss behind it.”
(“Take it,” Xemas says. He presses the earring – his earring – into Luxu’s hand. “In case I do not make it.”
“You will,” Luxu lies – to which of ‘em, he’s not sure. “Made it this far, right?”
“Right.” Xemnas meets his eyes, as if to reassure himself of the empty promise.
Then, he meets his lips.)
None of your business.
“Eh. Not really.”
“See, this is what I mean!” The Master’s accusatory finger moves to jab in the general direction of Luxu’s chest. “I come back around for – what’s it been, a day? – and your whole good-liar shtick goes up in flames!” He makes a pchew sound for emphasis, waggling his fingers like makeshift fireworks before his elbow hits the table again. “Guess I should’ve expected it, huh?” he sighs, then, all laborious in a way that makes Luxu feel like he’s being patronized (as if he hadn’t done a good enough job of that just by being the good ol’ Master.) “Though I still wouldn’t have expected the Luxu I know to try something so feisty. What’s that about? More of that show of confidence you’re putting on?”
The bile in Luxu’s stomach churns. An old impulse – it’s been a while, far too long for it to still be his – draws his hands together in his lap, clasping together like twin magnets.
As if.
The Master’s gaze bears down on him from every angle. One eye slices him open from where it lies in wait within Luxu’s heart, the other leering at the object of his current interest from beneath his hood.
It’s just that you’re you.
“Well,” Luxu lets his shoulders ease back, an attempt to chase off the lingering of his old habits. “Things change when you’ve been around for this long.” He cocks a brow. “You of all people would get that, right?”
“Oho!” The Master rocks a little in his chair. “Really getting to be just like your ol’ Master, aren’t you?”
The thought doesn’t bemuse Luxu the way it does the Master. Instead, it grants him the mental image of the Master watching himself watching Luxu from the parasite-eye in his parasite-heart, seeing himself seeing himself in him. It slices Luxu again, down into another fraction of himself. Paring him back to the minimal.
Nah. You don’t know everything about me. Thousand years, remember?
The Master doesn’t have the full story of what’d happened across those thousand years. His eye’d changed hands more times than Luxu could count. If he did, he wouldn’t still be staring down the silvery heart chained to Luxu’s ear, calculation hidden in every easy word.
If he did, he’d know what’d happened past the Gardens. He’d know of Ansem-the-Heartless’ other half. He’d know Luxu’d never given up on his vice, the attachment he’d warned him against all those years ago.
He’d know.
Luxu can’t let him know.
(“He’s not in there anymore,” Luxu hums, his double meaning more than thickly veiled. He taps against Xemnas’ bare chest with a finger. “Is he? D’you think he knows about all this?”
“Xehanort?” Xemnas cocks a brow. The aftershocks of his voice, low and methodical, rumble against Luxu’s hand. “Or – his Keyblade?”
“Sure,” Luxu shrugs. “Let’s go with that.”)
The music seems to grow louder around him, the smell of the air stronger. His fingers wring tighter against one another in his lap.
“What about the rest of ‘Braig’, huh? You’re awful lucky being locked up that tight kept my prying eye outta the back half of that one.” The Master puts a hand over where his leftover eye should be. “Makes for a real boring six years when you tap out n’ come back to your poor little apprentice gettin’ his heart stabbed clean out and screaming ‘ack, no, I’ve been betrayed!’”
“You’re –” Luxu gestures to his own chest. His hands shake despite themselves. What? “I know you’re watching me from in here.”
“Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!” The Master claps, drawing a few looks. “But think about what you know about hearts! Can’t do much if whoever’s got me in their heart doesn’t know I’m in there. All that stained glass drives a guy bonkers!”
Guess you are right. You’re a real bad liar, too.
Well – Luxu has no idea if he is or not. Lying, that is. The premise he posits is comforting, at least – the Master lying dormant when his eye is metaphysical, stuck in the hazy otherspace of the heart. Another affirmation that what he’d had with Xemnas was something the Master couldn’t claim was a part of his plan.
The Master trusted him not to get sentimental. Getting sentimental had almost cost him his mission. Getting sentimental had –
(This is going to be the last time, Luxu tells himself.
The amnesiac apprentice’s breaths rise and fall alongside his own. Luxu runs a hand through his hair idly, and he shifts to meet the touch, a soft sound bubbling up from his chest amid the haze of near-sleep. He’s a listless, pretty thing; and moreover, a mirror, a matryoshka-doll of people just like Luxu is.
Someone like him. Ain’t that a development.
He wraps his arms tighter around Luxu and Luxu pulls him nearer in turn. It’s an odd little dance they do when they’re this close – Luxu thinks this is going to be the last time, and knows it gets a little less true each time he does.)
The Master trusted Luxu’s single-minded devotion to him. He’d bet well; one thousand years, and Luxu’s still playing his game. Getting sentimental had given him something beyond all that; beyond the all-encompassing destiny that’d taken up the majority of his existence. Something that stopped being a part of it even before keeping an eye on No Name left the picture.
Something his. Luxu’s.
Figures the Master ain’t too keen on that.
“Here you are,” a waiter interrupts, setting down plates of some elegant dish the Master had suggested he try. Their face reminds Luxu of an old body of his; short hair and a smattering of freckles, long lashes. He wonders distantly what it would be like to be underneath their skin, to see through their eyes. Bad habit.
“Soup’s on!” The Master exclaims, loud enough to cause Luxu to start. “Don’t think this means I’m gonna let you off the hook,” he teases as he lifts his spoon.
Luxu’s sure he won’t.
He doesn’t feel all that up for eating. Even without the sickness in his stomach, the smell of meat and sour sauces is enough to make him want to gag. The Master’s already too busy digging in to be insulted by that – though, if Luxu was gonna be honest with himself, he wouldn’t mind if he was.
Xemnas’ earring pulls like a weight on his ear. Xemnas would’ve liked this place. Luxu pictures him in the crowd as he idly scans it; silver hair among a sea of blonde and brown and black, the dim light catching in his topaz eyes. Dressed to the nines, probably. It’s enough to make him believe that he might actually see him somewhere out there.
That Luxu hasn’t already started outliving him.
Hey, Luxu wants to say. You don’t have to. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna let you in on all my dirty little secrets.
"Where are we goin’?" he says, instead. "After this, I mean. Gotta stay somewhere for the night."