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3am.
3am, every night, for the past two weeks, Ralyx has found herself jolting awake in the dead of the endless night. Wracked by nightmares that continue to plague her sleep, they disrupt her schedule, and lately, it's been screwing up her performance too. Missions have become a slog. She would otherwise be fine, were it not for the fact that she would fight the overwhelming urge to take a nap while in the middle of some world that she would really rather not be on.
She's tried everything by this point to stave those nightmares off: little over the counter packets of Panacea, melatonin she's managed to buy out of the pharmacies whenever she's got her missions in Twilight Town...
But nothing works.
She jolts awake, cold sweats seeping from her pores as her torso shoots up off the bed. Ralyx catches her breath before looking at the time.
"Again?" she gasps, dragging a long breath and letting it out in exasperation. There it is! 3am. She drags her hand down her entire face before shoving herself out of bed. Begrudgingly, of course-- she would love to continue sleeping away, but as it stands her subconscious won't allow her even a moment's rest. She supposes she'll wander the castle for a while... no one is ever awake at this time. Save for Demyx, or even Axel... Demyx more so than Axel, she thinks idly. God help the soul that tries to sleep when Demyx is, as he put it once, "feeling inspired".
She slides her night slippers on and slips away, out into the resounding hall of the castle. She makes nary a sound as she paddles her way over to the kitchen.
This is my worst night habit, Ralyx thinks to herself for the briefest moment as she preps a filter with newly ground coffee beans-- she loves the kind of coffee beans you can purchase from Radiant Garden. Its taste is rich and deep, and you could feel every morsel of its warmth as it travels down your throat, radiating heat and energy throughout your entire body. Despite its delectable flavor, however, she really should not be drinking any kind of stimulant at this hour of the night.... who knows if she's actually making her recent night terror problem worse in screwing up her circadian rhythm.
She idly leans on the countertop as she waits for her coffee to finish brewing, looking around at particularly nothing. There's no windows here, only the lofty ceiling and the ghastly wiring and piping job that lines its surface. Vaguely, she feels her eyes grow heavy once again-- she fights it as best she can, choosing to instead pick at a dry spot on her shoulder. The smell of the brewing coffee further motivates her to stay awake, sending a distant feeling she can only begin to recognize as pleasantness before it quickly fizzles away as if it were never there.
The machine drips its final drips, and then... ping. The little light at its bottom flashes. She grabs the pot, and a fresh mug from the cabinet above her, fully prepared to enjoy this unwise cup of coffee she's about to drink…
And then a subtle whoosh sound echoes in the air which makes her proverbial heart sink down into her gut. The pressure in the room shifts suddenly. Her head immediately snaps to the right to see who just intruded on her 3am excursion--
Her proverbial heart sinks even further when she recognizes her boss, Xemnas. Now Xemnas, mostly, is a nothing man-- he is not kind, nor is he mean... he's simply, nothing. And in his being nothing, he can be impressively intimidating, leering down upon everyone with eyes that read no expression. One could dig deep into his eyes searching for some speck of treasure and come back with nothing to show except for hands marked in soot and ash.
Imagine Ralyx's surprise when he reels at the sight of her, about 23 degrees into a full-send pour of a pot full of at LEAST 3 cups of coffee. It is a hardly noticeable thing; one would really have to be paying attention to him in order to catch it. And, if one were lucky enough to catch it, one would recognize that it is clearly an instinctual action, no thought or emotion to be seen behind it other than primal surprise. But for Ralyx, someone a part of Organization XIII, for someone who sees Xemnas as this pillar of what a Nobody should be, how a Nobody should act… to see him behave human for even a slight second is jarring.
... perhaps, endearing, if she were to squint very hard, and squeeze every last bit of juice out of the proverbial heart she does not possess. He wears socks and slides? His shirt hangs out of his waistband, tousled and wrinkled by sleep, twisted and bunched and then let loose…
It takes him squinting at her, like a cat having a staring contest with its food, to realize that she's been staring at him for a good while. And he's staring back, waiting for her to say something, anything, to perhaps explain why she’s awake so late it’s almost early. Perhaps to avoid her asking why HE'S awake so late it’s almost early. She shakes her head and recollects her senses, trying to grab hold of any kind of intelligible verbiage to break this increasingly awkward silence between her and her literal actual employer.
"Mm! Uh... good morning, I guess."
Not the best recovery, she thinks, giving herself a mental slap in the face. Even more harrowing, he says nothing. Instead, his eyebrow quirks, as if he's seen a mildly strange thing across the street on the other side of the pavement. His eyes flit between her and the huge pot of coffee she was clearly ready to down all by herself.
Which draws her attention to this giant pot of coffee, again, which she's all but forgotten in the strangeness of the moment. She turns her eyes to look at it. Then, she looks back.
‘To hell with the formalities. it’s fucking 3 in the morning,’ she thinks in a scramble to justify the loss of any sense of her own dignity, ‘The work day is practically over, hearts above. who even cares anymore.’
She's willing to bet even HE doesn't care. No one has the kind of patience to keep up any sort of appearance this late at night, she bets, not even him. She vaguely wonders if he also experiences that late night delirium, where everything feels as though you're drunk, where things just get the slightest bit funnier, where you can either forget you don't have a heart or remember that hopeless fact all the more intensely. where you can violently oscillate between the two extremes within minutes. Where all caution is thrown to the wind for just a few hours until eventually, sleep takes you once again. Where it's just you and the shades which surround you, the absence of light and the presence of nothing.
… The presence of Nothing.
"... You want some coffee, Xem?"
He blinks twice. His eyebrows reset. If he processed the sudden (disrespectful) drop from his title of "Lord" to a literal nickname, he certainly makes no effort to acknowledge it. Perhaps he's more tired than she believes him to be.
She's never seen Xemnas think about his response to a question before, she realizes, in this brief fleeting moment she shares with him. He could answer questions about his plans and potentials with such ease-- his words slip off his tongue like water slides off a rock.
Why does this simple yes or no question make his eyes avert, his nose twitch and his mouth curl? There is this tiniest shift in his practiced yet clearly tired posture-- he stands tall and proud during the days, yet at this vulnerable hour he is slouched, slightly, in a way which accentuates the line of his shoulders. His hand comes up to idly scratch at a spot on his neck. His eyes defocus and refocus, constantly dilating, as if this simple question of offering has caused an ineffable dilemma in his mind for his id and ego to debate. Despite his eyes, his expression remains unreadable, carrying no discernible emotion other than "I am thinking about my response to your question.”
Then it's like something clicks. This briefest instant of a human being emerging out of this hollow shell of a man fades away. It quickly recedes back into his skin, this glimpse of his theoretical soul which she knows intrinsically, deep down, holds nothing, but perhaps could hold something. Perhaps, in seeing him express this vaguest of thoughtful emotion, she scrapes up bits of hope that perhaps someday, she could feel human again too. After all, if this perfect pinnacle of a Nothing man can show that bit of range of thought on his face and body, then perhaps her ability can likewise return to her.
His person-suit vanishes, and his skin of rubber returns as he answers her question, face and body expressing absolutely none of the thought her initial yes or no question incurred.
"... Yes."