It was twenty to two and Vexen honestly, truly, almost had it figured. Clearly - and he should have realised this far earlier - each Nobody's personality was not governed by who they once were (Roxas being a prime example for evidence against this), but by a single, resonating emotion. It worked: Demyx's was happiness, Saïx's apathy, his own was most likely grudging annoyance. Marluxia's couldn't have been anything other than pure lust.

Vexen absently tapped his pen against his cheek as he thought, it was a habit he'd possessed even as a Somebody. That was another thing - habit. It defined almost all of their actions. One former emotion formed the core of their personality, and each quirk and kink was a habit, carried over from the other side.

Or... something. Without sufficient evidence, which would have been difficult enough to obtain even with competent, co-operative colleagues, it was impossible to know anything for sure. Of course, analysis of his own personality was easy - call it strange, but he always diaried and catalogued all of his actions, brief summaries of his dialogues, his diet, the clothes he wore under the thick Organisation coats that kept the Darkness so efficiently at bay. And Marluxia was always up for physical examinations. But he had no one for cross references, and so all his theories and ideas meant nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

Vexen neatly tucked the pen into the ring binder at the top of his notepad, folded it shut with a snap, and filed it away in the top drawer. Then - with nothing to do and his mind still racing from his ponderous thoughts - he rifled through the second drawer. There was nothing of interest there, just work. Xemnas forced him into all kinds of menial tasks, scientific or otherwise, on top of missions - he had a whole stack of mission reports from recon to heart collection to grand theft and espionage - and none of them really held any interest with him whatsoever. He was a naturally inquisitive man, but only in the areas he chose. None of Xemnas' blatantly obvious requests and orders. The third draw was locked with ice and contained his own personal belongings. Aside from his journals, which he kept on a bookshelf, and his clothes which had a wardrobe of their own, he didn't possess much. A pocket watch that he didn't use now that he had a much more useful digital one; a thick, leather bound album. He flicked through the photographs inside and in the pit of his stomach felt an odd mixture of revulsion and humour. Marluxia; such a curious - not to mention shameless - specimen. As he filed away the folder, so too did he file away each faux-emotion and idle thought that popped into his mind. He'd write it all, later. His hairbrush. Two books that had some kind of special meaning to him, but that he'd never admit to keeping. Curious, he thought (and not for the first time), that even Nobodies experienced nostalgia. Otherwise, he reasoned, they'd have no driving motivation to ever reclaim their hearts. It worked for other, more menial items, too. A CD. Classical, relaxing. Vexen knew every note in each symphony by heart, now. A letter, written on baby pink paper in a fountain pen a lovely shade of blue, each letter a swoop and a curve in perfect calligraphy. A bracelet, worthless in any currency but posterity. A piece of ribbon. A little glass bottle of clear liquid, about half full. He picked that one up, inspected it, and laughed as he closed the drawer. It only took one well aimed toss to land the bottle onto the duvet lying haphazardly on the bed.

Vexen turned off the light.

"Wake up, Marluxia. I'm going to bed now."

There was a hmph from the lump under the duvet, and the sound of a yawn in the darkness.

"And actually staying, now...?"

Vexen huffed, less of the respectable scientist that he'd been just minutes ago as he shrugged his shirt and trousers off in just a few carefully calculated manoeuvres.

"Just as long as you don't make too much of a mess this time,"