There are moments where Vanitas seems to look without looking. He doesn't raise his eyes to Bruce's face just yet and he doesn't glance at the bottle either. But Bruce has learned through both practice and study that there is just as much evidence to be found in absence. In what's missing.

He doesn't push. Some things can only happen in their own time, no matter how much he might want to unravel them. His forearms are too damaged to lean his weight into, so instead it's his hip that comes to rest against the countertop. The mug remains between his palms and Bruce's fingers, bandaged in some places and purple in others, thread around the ceramic curve. There's very little warmth left to be found in it, but it is not his first time drinking the dregs of cold coffee and he suspects it won't be the last. Vanitas's fork clicks hard against his plate a second time, as he goes for another bite. It's a promising sign. Bruce remembers how little he'd wanted to eat, how little he'd even wanted the smell of food waking up after a night of drinking.

But there's something to be said for the power of distraction- the ability of a task to loosen thoughts and ease the way. Vanitas doesn't seem to chase the thought; instead it catches up to him and then lingers in the air. He says that he doesn't care about "those things" and while Bruce believes this is perhaps intellectually true, that he isn't consciously aware. It doesn't keep him from reaching out, to find a means to stop a pain that is otherwise unstoppable, to distract from the inevitable.

Bruce is not a stranger to darkness. He recognizes what it is that lives inside of him and what it is that he's chosen- this part of his nature. Vanitas stares back at him, steely and unflinching. Bruce looks back at him and like recognizes like.

"Do you use it, or does it use you?"