voidtreckerexpress | It's Peanut-butter Jelly time!

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It's Peanut-butter Jelly time!

Who: Lea, Xion, Kairi, Demyx, and later anyone!
When: Anytime during Jelly aside from off-train things
Where: Various places
What: Catchall for Jelly (AKA January/February) plus a couple closed threads
Warnings: Shouldn't be any? Will update if need be.

Introducing Xion and Kairi- Standard Car, late Day 1

You know how you have one awesome friend, and they meet your other awesome friend, and together their awesomeness just increases exponentially? Yep, that was Lea's feeling as he led Xion to the standard car where Kairi was waiting. Though he wasn't sure how Xion would react, he still couldn't wait for them to finally meet each other.

Giving Demyx a gift and an explanation- Music Car, Day 2

Lea found Demyx in the music car, as was pretty much the norm since he'd arrived on the train. So much so that Lea had gone looking their first in stead of Demyx's room. He still needed to give him his gift from the faire, as well as an explanation for... Xion's attempt at an explanation. "Hey, Demyx," he said. "Got a minute?"

OTA-various cars and days

The rest of the month, when not otherwise busy, Lea applied himself to his chores and to general life on the train. He could often be found in the Kitchens, either cleaning or helping cook, though he also spent time various other cars. In the Library, he could either be found either reading, or at one of the tables, writing or doodling in his notebook. In the Greenhouse, he could sometimes be found tending to his and Taiki's little patch of plants; mostly herbs and a few tomato plants, they seemed to be coming along well, but he wouldn't object to some help or the advice of someone more experienced with plants. He could also be found sparring or practicing his Keyblade forms in the Training Gym, or for those less physically inclined, he was always up for a bit of fun in the Games Car And of course, he could occasionally be found just moving between cars, or relaxing in the Standard Car. If anyone wanted to find him, he generally wasn't too hard to spot with that hair of his.

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"First of all, I got something for you," Lea said. He pulled out a small, sturdy-looking leather case and offered it to Demyx. "It's a belt holster for a phone. I saw it at the faire and figured you could put your gummi phone in it; help make sure it doesn't break or get lost or something, you know?"

Admittedly, that was not the direction he was expecting this conversation to go. He blinked at Lea a few times.

"You...you did?" He accepted the gift and looked it over. "Uh, thanks." He was surprised, if a bit awkward. He wasn't really expecting Lea to give him a gift.

"Welcome," Lea said. "I thought about something music-related, but they didn't really have anything in that area that I thought you might like, so I figured this'd be a good option."

"The other reason I wanted to talk to you is that Xion told me about what she tried to explain to you at the faire. And from the sound of it, I think I'd better explain her explanation. She's... really not the best at talking to anybody who's not me or Roxas, to put it mildly." There were one or two possible exceptions on the train, but sadly, Demyx wasn't one of them.

"Nah, it's good." Demyx wasn't going to complain about a gift.

"Look..." He started, a little guarded. "If you're just messing with me some more, it's way out of line."

Coming after his heart was a little too cruel.

"She's the one that came after me, I didn't do anything. She wasn't making any sense."

"I'm not messing with you," Lea assured him. "And neither was Xion. In fact, if I'd known ahead of time she was going to talk to you about that I'd have told her to just let me do it so we could avoid pretty much this exact situation." Two conversations could have easily just been one, but hindsight was 20-20.

"Anyway... remember when the train did its Q&A session? One of the questions Xion asked was whether she, Roxas, you, and a few others were considered real people, and the train's answer was yes. It was- to put it mildly- a big deal for her. I mean, I've been telling her she's a person for awhile now, but I'm her best friend; of course I'd say things like that. But the train doesn't have any reason to lie or sugar-coat things, so someone relatively impartial saying it finally managed to make the idea stick for her. I guess she just though that it would be just as big a deal for you to hear it was it was for her."

"I don't know what she was doing." Demyx said with a little huff. He hadn't thought much of that encounter at all, and he didn't particularly like being treated like he was some monster waiting to pounce. He might technically be a monster, the jury was still out on that, but that didn't mean he wanted to be cowered from.

"That's good for her and all." Demyx said, leaning back a little. "And she could be a Somebody or whatever, I don't really know her. But I know I'm not. Sure, it might be big news if it were true, but it isn't." He glanced away, and he had no intention on dying, especially with his heart an untold number of miles away.

"Except she didn't really say that. She said I'm a person and when I asked her about it, she said to ask you and practically hid from me." Demyx sounded exhausted. Lea didn't know what had been going on for him in their neck of the woods, but he'd already reached the point of fed up with everything, long before getting on the train. "I didn't do anything to her and she wouldn't answer my questions. She just told me to find you."

Lea sighed. "Yeah, that sounds like Xion alright," he said. "Honestly, I don't understand why she can clobber a Darkside like it's no big thing, but having a normal conversation terrifies her."

"But honestly I think that what's a big deal to her is less how our world defines a complete being and more... about how someone is treated, you know? If someone is a person, that means their life has inherent value. That they deserve a certain amount of respect and consideration. That they matter."

"That was never a thing Xion thought she had, no matter how many times I tried to convince her otherwise. So when she realized that that might actually be true for her, she wanted the one person who was in a similar situation to hers to know that it was true for them too."

"And it is, by the way. Nobody or not; that doesn't matter. Well, I mean, it does, but not in terms of how you should be treated, you know? Even if you don't have a heart right now, no one has the right to treat you like you're less than them because of it. I think that was what she was trying to convey and just... failed really badly at it."

A certain level of respect. There was an interesting turn of phrase. That was probably the biggest driving force in his defection from Xehanort, aside from a few other things running through his head. They didn't care about him, and he was pretty sure no one did. He was probably deluding himself that if he just disappeared that Ienzo would even notice.

At some point his desire to have friends became just as muddled as his thoughts and he didn't know where to go with it.

It was good for Xion, objectively, but he didn't think it applied to him. He didn't know if she was heartless like him, but what he did know, he'd given his up. Maybe. He couldn't really remember. But that's how it went right? Voluntarily sacrificing one's heart to become a monster?

"That's good for her, but maybe she should work on the speaking thing then, if she can't talk to people." Demyx observed a little wryly.

"I don't really care how I'm treated." That was an outright lie, but it fit into who he projected. "People can do what they want."

"Believe me, I'm trying to get her to work on it," Lea said, "but that's easier said than none. There's only a few other people on the train she regularly talks to at all, and I can't really make her talk to people if she doesn't want to, you know?"

"Anyway, one other thing you should know that's kind of related. I don't know if Xion mentioned it, but you don't have to die to get your heart back. Nobodies start out without hearts, but they can develop a new one over time. Xemnas lied about that to keep us in line, and because a bunch of empty shells worked better for his plans. Xigbar was in on it too; he was working with Xemnas and knew that regrowing a heart was possible, but was planning to sell all of us down the river anyway."

He wasn't going to comment further on Xion and her ability to speak to someone or not, it really had nothing to do with him.

Demyx didn't need Lea to tell him Xemnas lied to him. He knew that.

His fingers twitched at the mention of Xigbar. Please don't, he thought, but then again he didn't want to say anything about him either, how conflicted he was about their history. Yeah, selling them down the river sounded about right.

"She didn't." Demyx answered. "But I don't think that's gonna happen, because I already gave it up."

Sometimes, he wondered, did he really? He didn't remember.

Lea noticed the twitch, but in a place where literally anyone could turn up? It was important to know. About Braig, Lea couldn't be 100% sure. But Xigbar had a lot to answer for if he ever appeared on the platform.

"You'd be surprised," he said. "Looking back, I know I was developing one before I broke with the Organization, and I didn't even think it was possible at the time. So it might happen without you even realizing it."

"And honestly, I hope it does. You're already a good musician, but you'd probably be even better if you could really put your heart into it, you know?"

Xigbar had so much to answer for, that was true. The others might not have been interested in Demyx, but he at least gave him some time, some form of kindness or whatever it was. It wasn't a lot. They weren't especially close, but it still hurt to be betrayed. The fact it shouldn't hurt rang in his head, but he just seemed outwardly to frown a little more.

"Is that what it means to want to walk away?" Demyx asked softly and then exhaled.

"It's just as fine if it doesn't. I don't really remember that much about my Somebody. I don't know what Xemnas' plan was to take me, I don't remember agreeing to anything, but he said I did." Demyx shrugged. "I don't remember the thing he wants me for. And maybe I'm better not knowing." He ran his fingers through his hair.

Regaining his heart for his music, huh? It was possible that regaining his heart was just going to hurt more than anything. "Things didn't work out, and I'm just going to figure out what happens after that." Demyx admitted. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do, enemies on both sides, but I'll think of something."

"Might be part of it, yeah," Lea said also somewhat quietly. "It was for me, though not quite for the same reasons." He shrugged a bit. He hadn't really realized he'd been developing a heart until after it wasn't really relevant any more, so who could say whether it was Demyx's heart or just a stung ego and lack of confidence in the overall plan that had led him to abandon Xehanort's new Organization?

At the last bit, though, Lea gave a slight, wry smile. "I think you'll find you've got a lot fewer enemies than you think. Sora and his friends are almost too forgiving for their own good. Though given that that led them to give me a second chance, I can't really complain too much, you know?"

"I had my reasons." What they were specifically, he didn't seem inclined to expand upon, he wouldn't confirm one way or another what hewas thinking or why he did what he did.

The whole mess just gave him a headache. Everything was so exhausting, in a bone weary kind of way.

"I'm not holding my breath." He shrugged like he didn't really care one way or another, which wasn't true, but that dark side of him that lingered all too strongly because he was still a Nobody liked that.

Yeah, Lea wasn't entirely buying that shrug. But at the same time, he didn't really have any grounds to call Demyx out on it, so he mostly let it go. "Well, let's just say I hope you're wrong then," he said. "Might be fun working with you sometime without Xemnas breathing down our necks."

He gave a bit of an amused smirk. "Well, for a given value of 'working', anyway." Demyx's shirking abilities were near unrivaled, after all, and both of them knew it.

"Even if they give me a chance, I'm not much of a hero." Demyx commented with a bit of an amused smile.

"No matter what this train thinks..." He murmured. He hadn't mentioned his true answers from speaking to the train.

A hero. It was something that was hanging over him in its own way.

"Well then you could be our trusty sidekick," Lea said, also smiling a bit. "Or maybe the plucky comic relief. You are pretty good with one-liners after all."

"Or you could be that one guy who keeps showing up in the background, and doesn't say or do much, but is cool enough that they develop a fanbase anyway. You know those kinds of characters in TV shows and stuff right? Though I'm not really sure how that'd work in real life..."

"I don't really know what you're talking about." Demyx admitted with a bit of a nervous shrug. He hadn't really seen much TV, if any at all. He was from the past, that much he did know.

"But it's alright. That's more my problem than yours." He commented. "I'll figure something out." He was resourceful.

"Oh... well then we can hit the cinema car sometime," Lea said. "I'm sure we can find some things that could get you caught up. And maybe some movie musicals or something too. Those tend to be pretty fun, even if the songs do tend to get stuck in your head."

"Wait." Demyx said, suddenly leaning forward. "You're telling me there's movies full of music?"

How did he not know that?

"You've been holding out on me!"

Lea chuckled. "Hey, I figured you already knew," he said. "I mean it's not a big secret or anything."

"But anyway, most movies have music in them, if only in the background to help set the mood for scenes and stuff. It's not usually something that's really there in the world the characters are in though; it's just for the audience's benefit. Musicals are different; they have a lot of songs in them that the characters themselves are actually singing, and that other characters can hear and react to."

"Yeah, okay that sounds great though!" Demyx said enthusiastically.

It wasn't really Lea's fault, but if he really knew about it, Demyx was from the past. Of course he hadn't had the experience of watching musicals.

"I know about background music, I ordered a sitar book and got movie music."

"Nice," Lea said. "What movie or movies was it from? Or didn't it say?"

"Anyway, I'll keep an eye out for a time when there's not too many people vying for control of the cinema carriage so we can check out a musical. Which is easier said than done, I know, but we'll work something out."

"Nah, just says movie themes. It says the titles on each piece, but I'd have to check. I didn't really memorize what they were all called."

Demyx grinned. "Okay, cool. That sounds...good."

Lea nodded. "If you let me take a look at it I might be able to identify some of the movies," he said. "At least, if they're movies from back home." Diatu really hadn't had movies, after all.

"I'll let you know if there's an opening in the cinema car too."

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It's Peanut-butter Jelly time!

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