EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
BURY A FRIEND

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: october 9-17.
content: the hallucinations begin...
warnings: psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

it's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud

October 9 feels like a normal day at first, save for the red lighthouse beam cutting through the darkness overhead. You know by now—or you've heard—that the lighthouse is only active during ferry arrivals and events... And there's definitely no ferry docked at the, er. Beach. The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! Will did warn you all about the effects of living without a sun and a proper day/night cycle.

As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever!

...Right?

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[pearlstrings]

beginning. open.
[He's due to make a trip into town square. Bruce doesn't spend much time there if he can avoid it, he keeps himself occupied near the village instead and lives inside the museum. When he does cross the bridge it's to visit the general store or use the facilities at the Invincible. It's to check whatever records he can get his hands on or it's to go to the lake and wash up.

It's on his way out that something seems... amiss. What sounds like a conversation on while he's at the threshold of the bar. Bruce pauses momentarily. He makes a point to come here during off-peak hours, where traffic is at it's lowest and the risk of coming across others has decreased. It isn't just the sound that gives him pause, there's a quality to it that feels familiar.

Bruce doesn't want to recognize it right away- there are too many emotions that come with it, too many sensory memories. He tells himself instead that it isn't possible. He monitors the network and registered usernames. He hadn't come in on the ferry. It's statistically unlikely. But where anyone else might shy from knowing, turn back or convince themselves that this is the truth- Bruce can't be satisfied with the question. He comes around the other side of the wall in two quick strides and looks.]


middle. open.
[Alcohol. It won't solve anything, but if he drinks enough of it he'll probably be able to sleep through the worst of it. He fits one bottle, two, three, four into his bag from the shelves. Their medical supplies have always been slim and though Bruce has a collection to meet his needs and tend to emergencies, there are a marked lack of sedatives. This will have to do.

The bag goes back over his shoulder and Bruce pushes his fringe back from his face, where beads of sweat have begun to gather. Strange. Given the gradual change in climate. He heads for the door of the bar only to be stopped short once he reaches it, wrist caught by a- hand.]


end. open.
[He makes a second trip earlier than he'd wanted, but that isn't the only reason that he pulls a mask down to cover his face. It isn't the first vision he's had- he knows that he's hallucinating because this has happened before. Not just beneath Ivy's toxins and not solely from the work done by Ra's al Ghul's men- their attempt to change him.

He makes notes in the earlier days- a way to keep track of what he hears and smells, the sensations that he experiences as reality even when he can't rationalize a cause. By extension it becomes easier to recognize it as it happens and to force his attention away. He's afraid that at some point, he'll hear his mother or father.

But fear doesn't change anything.

Bruce is careful to stay outside of the warm light of the bonfire and to conceal his lantern- both of which have become habitual with practice. The hands that reach out are another story entirely because there is no predicting them. One pulls him across the ground along the way- another shoves at him. He walks carefully and takes his time, an attempt to equalize around the constant yanking and pushing that's escalated as the days have passed.]


end. closed to riku.
[They've only met once, if it could be called that at all.

They'd coordinated briefly over the sinking of the ferry which had left no room for pleasantries, and then they'd spoken again over the network. He keeps himself busy and his activity on the network suggests that he'd been one of the first to arrive. Bruce hears his voice outside the museum one night, talking about a kind of cloak for the torches, and he pays closer attention. He comports himself well when he engages with others- goal oriented and polite.

It stands at odds to his character, the boy he sees now.

Bruce watches from between the trees, nearly invisible for his clothes and his mask- as his pale head turns. Looks from one direction to the other. As if he's searching for something no one else can see, or following it.]

end;

[originallutece]

[Her own hallucinations have been . . . worrying, to say the least. Disturbing. Heartbreaking, as she sees the ghosts of those she knows aren't here, as hands push her into bowing, stumbling, clumsily dropping her things and leaving her scattered and unorganized. And now this: faces blurring and distorting, smeared expressions and warped features that turn her stomach.

She's learned to ignore them for the most part.

But as she exits her lab, to her immediate right there's there's a jerking, twitching thing coming towards her, just outside the bounds of the bonfire. Five feet away, if that, and approaching swiftly. She stares in revulsion at the way it moves, limbs thrashing against nothing. Its expression is still, the mouthpiece twisted up in what appears to her a lopsided grin, its face split and smeared, warping even as she stares. Four feet, then, three, and before she knows it she's moving swiftly: her right hand striking out, palm striking hard against the creature's cheek, the movement more instinctive than deliberate, shock and terror surging in her veins.]

[pearlstrings]

[It isn't the first time that Bruce has encountered another person out here. There aren't many who choose here and now to start traipsing through the woods, especially now that the hallucinations have grown stronger- now that people talk about them openly. Everyone seems to know what's going on even if they don't share experiences beyond the phantom touches. The pushing and pulling and tugging.

Mostly Bruce tries to give people a wide berth. The mask he wears is a matter of privacy and protection, not a desire to exacerbate or exploit the situation. But he can't avoid every person every time.

He stays off the path and keeps his lantern covered, an attempt to minimize opportunities to spot him at all much less to garner attention. But Madame Lutece seems to notice him immediately. Her eyes follow him with horror and revulsion, and instead of running from whatever vision replaces him in her eyes- she closes the distance.

Bruce could run. It's a possibility. But he has never been very good at it and further, what happens if she gives chase? How far into the woods will she follow? How much danger would following him put her in? She doesn't have a weapon in hand and there's a small comfort in that- before her hand raises and she strikes him. The blow turns his face and floods his mouth with the taste of copper. Bruce doesn't raise his hands to her in turn. Instead his head comes back up. His palms remain empty at his sides.]

[originallutece]

[The spirit moves passively, allowing the strike to happen, and wouldn't they protest? For that matter, wouldn't her hand go right through if it's nothing more than a hallucination? And yet the thing lingers, and that means--

--she grabs for his mask, wrenching it upwards a little too roughly.]

For god's sake!

[pearlstrings]

[But that's where he has to draw the line.

Bruce has been very careful about how much of anything he lets any one person see. He's taken measures to present different personas to different people, to allow opinions of him to conflict and to avoid undue attention wherever possible. But to be seen with this mask and for this part of him to become known is unacceptable.

She reaches for his mask and Bruce knows already which direction she intends to pull it because it can only be removed one way. It makes halting that movement very direct. Bruce catches her wrist in one gloved hand and knocks her elbow hard with the other, not simply forcing her arm to bend but also placing pressure upon the nerves running through it, making her fingers numb. The mask comes up his throat but no further, and once her touch is disengaged, his weight drops and he kicks forward with one leg, an attempt to sweep her feet out from under her and drop her to the ground.]

[originallutece]

[He succeeds, of course. She's been learning how to defend herself, but she's no match against anyone even vaguely competent. The instant she reaches for his mask she's done for; in a breathless moment she doesn't know what's happening, and then she lands hard on her back. The mask is still on, her hand is still numb, her back hurts, but none of it, none of it compares to the sheer terror rippling through her.

But the figure doesn't fly up and then lunge down at her, not as it should. Nor does it morph into the figure of a young girl, dark haired and pale skinned, furious at Rosalind for her short-sightedness. And when it does not, she takes in a breath and speaks.]

And which are you? Spirit or person?

I would've followed all the way to the graveyard

[equinoctials]

[ He thought he'd be happier.

For all that Riku has wanted to with every minute, every hour, every cell of his continued existence, it's amazing that this hurts as much as it does. Instead of growing around a slumbering kingdom because a princess pricked her finger, it feels like there are dark thorns pushing out through his every nerve, stinging hot between his eyes and out of the tips of his fingers. Out through every chamber of the heart that still beats, despite everything.

He feels like one great and whispered ache. Like everything is off-center and the world lists like the ferry did before it sank. Like the world is a fever dream, gone strange and unpredictable.

That the sense of wrongness, the way some of his senses contradict (and so vehement their rebellion) with the one they see meandering among the trees. ]

Why won't you say anything?

[ Riku asks of the air.

Sometimes, he sees him stooping like he would when he was looking for mushrooms or seashells, or dancing off into the shadows like he'd seen something else of greater interest. The boy had set off in search of a way to right all the ways everything had gone wrong for not just him but for all of them, just like always, a hero to the very core of him, and somehow it seems right he'd get distracted, and wrong that he would knowing what it cost.

And he's so quiet. ]

Did you...?

[ Die, he means. Die and come back different, a reasonable enough thing to assume given their circumstances, that maybe Sora hasn't answered because he's lost the ability to hear him. And that- That's okay. They'd make it work, somehow. But the question sits in his throat like a cannonball and maybe that's for the best, if he can't even hear it.

His head snaps up as he hears footsteps retreating quickly. The first thing he thinks is when did Sora get so fast, because whenever they raced Riku usually took the lead. ]

Wait!

thanks satan

[pearlstrings]

[It isn't safe to just go into the woods. This was one of the very first observations Bruce had made after arriving and it was feedback repeating across the network. People made plans to go in groups, to ask Rastus for permission to borrow a torch. People have died in those trees and others have gone missing, their bodies unrecovered.

Bruce knows that it's a hallucination. Whatever is is that Riku's responding to- it's likely a visual cue because he seems to be following it, with his head and then with his feet. And the vision must be deeply personal. He's seen this name appear on the network a number of times and he's heard him around town, eavesdropped on conversations that came near enough. He's come across as level-headed and purpose driven. He's been polite and helpful, if not quite friendly.

He hasn't sounded like this.

This is a choice he can make. Bruce could turn the other way as he has thus far, while people react to sights and sounds that they know, mostly, are untrue. It would certainly protect his privacy. The trouble is that this isn't harmless- this isn't only the pain of an aching heart or a long held grief. Bruce doesn't really linger and consider his options because there is only one option. He can't run into the dark alone. He gives chase but doesn't shout, following the pale streak of Riku's hair and the short flicker of his lantern- and when those fail, sprinting after the sound of his voice. Maybe he'll stop on his own. Maybe whatever vision he's following will wink out. They aren't near enough yet for any other option because there was too much distance between them when they started. He has to hope that Riku will pause, even for a moment, and that it'll allow Bruce to catch up.]

[equinoctials]

[ Riku typically has more sense than to wander off, least of all beyond the known paths of Beacon. Nevertheless, he's out here, torchless and alone, chasing the imagined shadow of something personal enough to throw that tempered caution to the wind.

Distance and speed have Riku vanishing from sight with little more than the occasional call to guide Bruce. When only one of them can see what he pursues, there's no immediate sign to indicate why Riku has stopped when at last the dim gleam of his lantern and the pale halo of his silver hair emerge in a clearing.

The frost has his breath gusting from him in a visible plume, has pebbled his skin all up his arms; he'll cool faster now that he's stopped, now that his desperate sprint through the woods has warmed him enough to sweat.

Unmoved by the cold, Riku's right hand reaches slowly out to touch the empty space. The tilt to his head suggests that whatever he's looking at is a good head shorter than him, his reach not far, like he stands close enough to suggest familiarity.

Then something knocks him onto his back, making his breath fly from his lungs in a surprised rush. Sitting up, he fires off: ]

Hey! What's the big idea?

[ He sees the other boy turn away and that doesn't seem right. No matter what happened, Sora wasn't the type who turned his back on his friends. Riku, who had done so much to wrong him and everyone else they knew, intimately understood how forgiving, how kind Sora was.

If ever his friends saw Sora's back, he was defending them.

His eyes search the dark, trying to understand, hanging on the silence in the wake of his outburst like he's looking for what to say.

And then he senses it, a (familiar) equilibrium of light and shadow, but it's more the presence that registers and Riku turns his head around sharply. ]

Who's there?

[pearlstrings]

[The footfalls stop, an abrupt kind of silence that comes after a heavy snap- the crunch of leaves and twigs underfoot. It isn't much, but it gives Bruce the opening he needs to close the distance.

He could try to negotiate.
It wouldn't be the first attempt Bruce has made to talk someone down. If you know what's good for you, you will let me go. And it wouldn't be the first time it was doomed to failure. He's meant to be learning from his mistakes. Bruce wants to be an optimist. He wants to believe that the people around him, even in their darkest moments, will be able to see the way forward with clarity and to make better, wiser decisions. But he knows first hand that it just isn't that simple. How many times had Alfred tried to take the wheel? Or Jim Gordon, or Selina? How many times have they tried to save him from himself? And how many times did he sputter with anger when they kept him from his worst nature? From what he wanted?

Riku pauses visibly. Bruce sees it in the moment that he turns to look behind him, a sharp, sudden awareness. His breath misting in the air. Riku isn't dressed for the cold; if he keeps exerting himself like this out here, his health will be affected- as a bare minimum.

If he were younger, if he was the person he'd been before the bridges blew, his voice would have called out across the space. He would have said 'It isn't real. You're hallucinating.' But what is reality? Isn't the way he must be feeling, the reaction it solicits- isn't that real?

It makes the decision for him. Bruce doesn't slow. He reaches for the grappling gun at his side instead and fires- catching Riku's ankle with it and pulling it taut- dropping him to the ground.]

[equinoctials]

[ No sooner than Riku is back on his feet from being knocked onto his tailbone by hallucinated hands, a presence draws near, there's a sound, one Riku can't really place-

And then something bites into the ankle of his boot and drops him to the ground again. Riku can't help the grunt the impact kicks loose from his throat. There's a question in it, more surprise than pain.

Sora is walking away.
Why would he push him away?
The reach of his arm towards Sora's retreating back is raw instinct.
Don't bother. Your voice can no longer reach him where he is.

What Riku controls better is the urge to call out after empty air, when he remembers how little it mattered. For whatever reason, Sora can't hear him, deal with that later, but it'll amount to nothing if he doesn't get him back to Beacon, where it's safer.

As for this..? Swinging his attention back around to his ankle caught in that painful clutch, wariness gives way to anger like a switch carelessly flipped. ]

That was the wrong choice!

[ There's a tether shining in a taut straight line under the light of his lantern, Riku follows it, when the arm that had reached out across empty space sweeps back in the other direction. What gathers in his gloved palm curdles like a stormcloud, a ripple of black shot through with dark violet, launched out blindly in the direction of the grappling hook's cable.

Whoever it is - whatever it is, he thinks has this coming. ]

—middle.

[webshoots]

[ peter's tired.

it's not his first experience with hallucinations, with illusions, but it's the first time, he thinks, that they've gone on so long. they'd started off as voices, always just round another corner. he'd heard gwen, and mj—. kraven, too, saying that they're not merely hallucinations, that they're visions. warnings of the future and though he knows that's not true, not when one of the voices is gwen, there's still that what-if at the back of his thoughts every time he thinks he hears mj calling for him.

he thought he'd be better at ignoring it.

he'd tried sleeping, tried burying his head in his pillow and just closing his eyes to the world, but that hadn't helped — he still heard them, and he still felt the hands. he heard, too, other people in the invincible with their own hallucinations, and he's not sure if that's the worst part. he should be able to do something, there should someway to stop this—.

every so often, there's what feels like ants dancing across his skull, sudden and short lived, and it fades, always, into a slight ringing in his ears. it's nothing he's not used to — his spider-sense, intermittently warning him of dangers, but each and every time, there's nothing there, and he—

what good is he, if he can't trust his spider-sense? the jury's out on whether it's reacting to something, or whether it's just another part of the hallucinations, but what it does mean is that his head hurts. a constant, dull ache, one that he should be used to by now, but—.

(would the store have aspirin? tylenol? is it even worth it, when those supplies would be better saved for an emergency?)

he stands at the foot of the stairs leading up into the invincible, just for a moment. there's a boy, a teenager, maybe early twenties, taking one bottle, then two, then three, and peter finds himself, quite suddenly (is it sudden?) thinking of harry.

one step, then two. his hand on the door, then peter's hand on his wrist, and: ] Is that— [ a breath of a pause; peter lets go of bruce's wrist, quickly, like he's only just realised he'd grasped it, and pinches the bridge of his nose. ]

Is that really going to help?

[pearlstrings]

[It's a disquieting experience unlike any other- to be unable to trust his senses. To doubt his perception of the world. This isn't the first time he's felt it and in a way that makes it easier to manage- not the symptoms, but his reaction to them. There's a kind of pause around each external stimuli. A moment Bruce takes to assess whether what he hears or feels, the smell in the air- if it's real. If it's a threat. If it's something he needs to react to.

Like the hand around his wrist.

He's felt hints of this for a few hours, a tug on the hem of his shirt or the elbow of his sleeve, a brush against his hair. This is the strongest of them, the most pronounced- and instead of jerking hard in the opposite direct, instead of the instinctive desire to break free, Bruce goes still. He breathes out, feels the squeeze of adrenaline. But the hand connected to him looks very real and it doesn't need to be fought off. It withdraws all on its own.

There's a young man standing opposite him. Bruce looks up at his face, and then looks towards his lantern. One is more readily identifiable in the dark, after all.

He blinks owlishly and the voice that replies is cavalier.]

What, did you want one?

[webshoots]

[ his expression flickers, just for a second, before the corners of his lips turn down into a slight grimace. peter doesn't drink — deliberately, at least. he can count on one hand the number of times he's been drunk and the thought of being intoxicated here is about as appealing as it was back in new york. that is to say, not at all.

he hates the thought that if something were to happen, he wouldn't be able to help; he helps the thought even more, that if something were to happen and he tried to help, that he wouldn't be able to moderate his strength, that someone would get hurt because of his actions or his lack of care. it's about control and responsibility, and even if it'd help him relax, just a little, it's not a risk he's willing to take.

but if asked, peter will shrug and just claim to be a slightly neurotic teetotaller. ]

Only if you've got some tomato juice squirrelled away.

[ he answers as bruce's attention shifts from his face to his lantern; peter's own gaze follows, and once it clicks, he glances up at ceiling for a short count of three. ] —Look, I don't want to be dismissive, [ uttered with a slight prissiness that's the mixed result of his headache, a lack of sleep, and the burgeoning realisation that he really doesn't like someone using his lantern to identify him. a breath of a pause and he brushes at the strands of hair that — always — fall into his eyes. ] —but given the circumstances. [ hallucinations, the lack of being able to trust one's senses. ], I just want to clarify: have we met?

[pearlstrings]

Suit yourself.

[Duality. It's a theme that Bruce has been working at for awhile. The people closest to him are also those that have known him the longest- a list that consists almost entirely of Alfred. But Selina and Jim had come into his life with the death of his parents, Mr Fox not long after; they see, have seen, parts of him that the public could only speculate at. He has always been strange when standing beside his peers. He never pursued friendships with the people he was supposed to, his interests were always- different. With age and experience he can look at it differently now. There is no outrunning his true self- for better and worse, the things Bruce finds meaningful, the calling he feels, runs in only one direction.

Bruce Wayne has to become the mask.
And choices like this, to be seen in this way, doing these things- the details lend some much needed verisimilitude.

Instead of watching Peter's face and following the way it turns towards the ceiling, instead of continuing to stand at attention while he brushes hair back from his eyes- Bruce lifts another bottle off the shelf and turns it around, examining the label.]

But I don't think so.

[There's a casual disinterest in the phrase and its delivery. That too is a calculation. Bruce frowns, makes an expression of distaste, and puts the bottle back. Trades it for a new one that he examines with the same scrutiny.]

Maybe you weren't very memorable?

What's your name?

[webshoots]

[ maybe you weren't very memorable. peter makes an effort to take it at face value — ostensibly, there's no reason he shouldn't. it earns a quick smile, then, one that doesn't reach his eyes — not of course, that it entirely matters as bruce is selecting, deselecting and choosing another bottle of — something. wine, peter thinks, but he doesn't look over at the label closely enough to work it out. ]

I get that a lot.

[ uttered with an easy level of amusement that implies it's true — peter parker, midtown high's only professional wallflower, might have grown out of some of the awkwardness that imbued his teenage years, grown out of some of the arrogance and the pointed disinterest in others, but he's still used to making a very certain kind of impression. one that means he's inevitably viewed as non-entity, albeit maybe a little flaky and unreliable; one that means peter parker's viewed, at least on first meeting, pretty averagely — or even negatively.

for all of that though, for as much as peter's relatively precious about keeping his identity a secret, the separation, a devoid between the two have never been something he's really cultivated. as peter parker, he is peter parker — he's earnest, and short-tempered, and he wants to help people, and he's all of those things as spider-man, too. he feels bad about lying to his friends, to may. he hates how much he burdens mj with that knowledge, with the fact that his secret is her secret, too.

(but he's also glad for it, more glad and grateful than he'll ever be able to put into words that he has her. that she puts up with him.) ]

—It's Peter.

[ he shifts his weight, turning away from bruce and leaning against the wall. in the silence, he thinks he hears a voice that says something about things being too good to be true, but it's been years since he'd heard that voice, in that context. they'd all been together, happy, for one of the last times. gwen, harry, flash, mj.

he inhales. it's a light breath, the precursor to a sigh, but instead he speaks: ]

Look, I'm not judging your choice of self-medication, all I'm asking is if it's wise given the circumstances. [ beat. ] But if you've got any aspirin...

beginning

[saibot]

[Well, just as Bruce would come around the other side of the wall, this guy kind of walks through it. Like he just stepped out of the wall, but that's not really what happened. He just teleported through a shadow portal from the other side.

He's wearing all black and it almost looks like there are two of him, but that second one is no illusion. Thankfully both figures stopped short of walking right into Bruce. The two kind of stare at him for a moment through all white eyes.]

Who are you?

[pearlstrings]

[Bruce has been caught off guard before. He doesn't give much away but he isn't unflappable either, and that's the reason that his entire body freezes in place. It isn't a locked up stillness, but instead the kind of motionlessness that he's practiced- learned to cultivate. In Gotham, in the play of light and darkness he's gotten used to, this allows him to almost vanish from sight.

That doesn't apply when he's half leaning through a doorway, as if he's expected to catch-

The thought cuts off.

Instead Bruce's gaze moves from one man's shape to the other; both black, more suggestion of a person than substance. Both white eyed. He's been asked a question and it would be rude not to answer. But instead of inching backwards or even drawing himself up to full height- he steps further into the doorway instead. Allowing himself to be seen.]

Were you inside the wall?

[saibot]

[How very ... brave? Was that the correct term to use? He wasn't sure, but he did find this kid to be slightly intriguing. Not many people dared to stand there ground around him (even before he became what he is now).

Were he still human he might have felt a bit of respect towards him. But alas most of those feelings were something he were incapable of anymore.

A very small part that might have remained of his humanity did find the question somewhat amusing.]

That would be impossible.

[He says as though he didn't just walk right through the wall like it was something completely normal to do.]

[pearlstrings]

[Brave is a word for it. Others might call it stupid; Selina certainly would. But then she's always been quick to remind him of his recklessness- the moments that he allows his desire to learn and know to eclipse any self-preservation instincts.

But the figure pauses long enough to entertain his question, and then reply. It makes Bruce hesitate in turn. That would be impossible, he says. And instead of arguing this point at all, he accepts the fact for what it is. It would be impossible. The reply seems to chide him in a way, offer a reminder that Bruce had been too quick to accept what he sees as reality instead of digging a little deeper.

It's polite curiosity that beckons him forward another step. He never comes close enough to infringe on the other's space or to block his exit. The question lingers in the back of his mind: can he be sure that this is real? Can he be sure that this isn't simply a new and strange hallucination?]

Then, you were just passing through?

[saibot]

[He's certainly no hallucination, though the way he can phase through things and create shadow clones of himself might make him seem like one. Which, the clone beside him steps to the side, moving a small distance away. When he's traveling the shadow clone carries his lantern leaving him free to fight without much as much risk.

In a way it was kind of light cheating.

His gaze follows Bruce as he steps forward, but he does not move. He almost reminds him of himself in his youth. Reckless and unafraid of danger. It made him a good assassin, but ultimately aided in his original death.]

That is correct.

[He takes a very brief pause before adding ...]

You are unafraid of me.

lil jon voice: shots shots shots

[evulsed]

[ He isn't unaffected by what's happening. The hands come for him, too, but Vanitas thinks maybe he has a leg up on everyone else. Is it the Darkness itself? Because he is Darkness? Is it that he doesn't fight them so much as let them exist around him? Is it the way everyone's stress and anxiety feed into him, making him stronger, a direct correlation to all the negative emotion they pour all over everything? He doesn't know, but he doesn't really care to know, either. The old man would; but Vanitas knows now that the figure he's been seeing isn't actually him. So there's nobody left to wonder.

The stores dwindle. He's seen more than one person come this way to pick at the alcohol. It's funny, in a way, given what that man on the network had been going on about: rationing. Did liquor count for that sort of thing? Maybe it doesn't matter. Everyone is so distracted that Vanitas doubts anyone will notice until this is all over.

Bruce reaches for a bottle— Vanitas knows it's him, despite the way he's got his face covered— and something unseen jerks him away from the bar. Glasses behind him clatter to the ground, smashing on impact. Vanitas rolls his shoulder underneath one groping hand, slips under the counter and in between Bruce and the backbar. He pulls the bottle off and turns around, shaking it and it's mostly full contents at the other boy. His eyes gleam like twin suns in the dim. ]

After this?

and they say bruce has no chill

[pearlstrings]

[It's happening more frequently.

The hallucinations are becoming more intense and more convincing, and Bruce has seen others in town that look for too long at an empty space. Who talk to air or who react to the invisible. And if he's honest with himself, he doesn't know if he's afraid or if he's angry: of all the things he's heard, the voices in another room, the questions to dead air- none of it has been Thomas or Martha Wayne. Instead the presence of the hands have increased.

What were one tugs on his sleeve or nudges, a poke or a brush- has turned into pushing and grabbing and shoving. The bag has come off his shoulder twice. His head is shoved down. His ankles have been pulled out from under him. There's no point fighting against it because he can't control it- he can only control his own momentum. How much power he gives them. Mostly he allows his body to travel with it, yielding into the force and accepting redirection instead of spending all of his energy trying course correct.

He reaches for the next bottle and is grabbed, shoved bodily backwards. The pressure is significant enough that his back slams into the side of the bar. It hurts. Maybe enough to bruise. But when he looks up, instead of being alone, Vanitas is there. Less of a surprise is how pleased his expression is- the almost childish triumph glinting back at him in the dark, as he sloshes the bottle from side to side.]

Yes.

[Bruce tells him, because that's the answer. And because it lets Vanitas have the win.

He tips back onto his feet and feels the muscle in his back flex, where he'd made impact. Sore.]

Did you want it too?

he has some chill

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas has little experience with what's in this bottle. The closest he's gotten to it was when M.K. put that glass of juice in front of him, looking uncannily like whatever Riku had been drinking. But that felt like eons ago, now. It's less that Vanitas can't keep track of the time, and more that all this power warps his sense of reality. Nothing else really matters but the darkness, and the way it's pooled into all his empty, jagged holes. He doesn't even think about the finite nature of it.

He only exists here, in this moment. Between Bruce and something he wants, doing his best to exacerbate all the negative emotion seeping like a fog through this town.

The bottle is stoppered. Vanitas flips it over in his hand, using the neck like a handle. It's hard to tell if it looks more like a club or a knife, the way he tosses it and catches it again, over and over. In either case, it's potential to be used like a weapon is there in the arch of his wrist everytime it lifts into the air. ]

People drink this stuff when they want to forget something.

Are you trying to do that, Bruce?

citation needed

[pearlstrings]

Not always.

[He swings it casually, not like a bottle but like a weapon- and that suggests that he's more familiar with the latter than the former. It isn't the first time Bruce's safety has been threatened and the cumulative experience is the reason he's able to maintain a level head. There's no jolt to his posture or wary framing of his hands. Vanitas has always been antagonistic and conversations on the network have mentioned this aspect of his behavior, that it's to do with his nature. Bruce isn't sure if he believes that in it's entirety; everyone he's met is a combination of both nature and nurture. What does that mean for Vanitas then? How much of the boy in front of him has been cultivated?

There's a lot of night in him.

Bruce was afraid of the dark until he took it into his hands. This isn't a competition and he can't treat it that way- he knows that what Vanitas is asking for is a fight- a race to some mutually destructive point. He reaches for his own bag instead and pulls out one of the bottles he'd already taken from the shelf, turning the label into the space between them. A sweet liquor.]

People also drink it because the like the taste.

Have you tried this one before?