It's shame that colors Vanitas's face. Bruce recognizes it immediately in the way that all empathetic squeezes take hold of the heart. But it isn't so simple either. Vanitas moves in stop-starts. He looks accusingly down at his breakfast that he perhaps hasn't yet decided to eat, and then looks up just in time to see the bottle moving away from him. Bruce expects the reflexive reaction that follows- that he lashes out immediately to take hold of the bottle in turn. To keep it because he wants it, but perhaps also because he considers that it belongs to him.
The synapses catch up to him.
Bruce's gaze is on his face when he freezes, when he lets go of the bottle as abruptly as he'd grabbed hold of it in the first place. There's a momentarily stiffening to his limbs that he's sure doesn't even register around the noise that must be screeching through his head. The bottle hovers there, but then it had never been Bruce's intention to take it away to begin with. Vanitas has made every decision that's brought him to this point, in his interactions with Bruce that is, and that agency isn't something he's eager to strip away.
"That's what I mean."
The bottle lowers, on Vanitas's side of the table once more, precisely where he'd left it. "Whether I'm looking or not is irrelevant. You're pursuing it for yourself. For the pleasure of it." In anyone else's mouth these words might sound smug or self-satisfied. Bruce is actually mildly embarrassed to find that he sounds like an echo of Alfred- patiently explaining a point that Bruce had refused to acknowledge, that he thought he could just circle. "You might never be whole, but that doesn't mean you're obligated to live a life that's nothing except pain. Everyone is selfish about something."
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The synapses catch up to him.
Bruce's gaze is on his face when he freezes, when he lets go of the bottle as abruptly as he'd grabbed hold of it in the first place. There's a momentarily stiffening to his limbs that he's sure doesn't even register around the noise that must be screeching through his head. The bottle hovers there, but then it had never been Bruce's intention to take it away to begin with. Vanitas has made every decision that's brought him to this point, in his interactions with Bruce that is, and that agency isn't something he's eager to strip away.
"That's what I mean."
The bottle lowers, on Vanitas's side of the table once more, precisely where he'd left it. "Whether I'm looking or not is irrelevant. You're pursuing it for yourself. For the pleasure of it." In anyone else's mouth these words might sound smug or self-satisfied. Bruce is actually mildly embarrassed to find that he sounds like an echo of Alfred- patiently explaining a point that Bruce had refused to acknowledge, that he thought he could just circle. "You might never be whole, but that doesn't mean you're obligated to live a life that's nothing except pain. Everyone is selfish about something."