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[equinoctials]

characters: Riku, Vanitas, Bruce Wayne
location: The Museum
date/time: Oct 18 thru the end of the month-ish
content: Riku didn't exactly have the option to agree to be Bruce Wayne's guest at the Museum, as evidenced by the rope burns on his wrists.
warnings: descriptions of injuries, this also deals with character death, complicated grief, depression, and suicidal ideation.


Riku doesn't dream.

He hangs suspended in the featureless black of unconsciousness. For a mercy, it's quiet. No imposing figure comes to drip poison into his ears about the Darkness. Nothing changes. It's an emptiness that demands and expects nothing.

Sometimes it slips away. There's one moment he thinks someone has put a hand on his face to guide it up so his mouth meets the curve of something hard. A cup, he thinks, when it tips water past his lips and he drinks. Twice more he flirts with regaining consciousness, he hears footsteps, or an odd sound he can't identify somewhere else.

When he wakes entirely, it's to a persistent and disorienting black. Only when his pale lashes brush against the cloth does he realize he's been blindfolded, which gives him pause for how it launches his mind into speculative motion. Riku associates the blindfold for a time long since passed, with a specific frame of mind. Why would he wear one now?

And why - as he tries to touch the blindfold and discovers both of his hands are tethered by the wrists, arms out at either side - is he tied up?

It comes back to him in pieces.

The cold. The dark. The desperation and fury as he fought his masked opponent, rolling in the dirt. His right eye feels hot too large in its socket, he's sure he has a black eye under that blindfold, his body is stiff, its numerous aches beginning to sound off as his consciousness sharpens. These are fine - as a guardian of light, he isn't a stranger to injuries more serious than these - it's the other realization.

He saw Sora's lantern scatter to the forest floor in flameless and irreparable pieces and that loss swells huge and smothering. Moments after waking, Riku gasps. It sounds loud after all the silence.

Comments

[pearlstrings]

Does he know that he sounds jealous? That he has reason to be? It's an interesting concept to consider, but the evidence he's found thus far runs to the contrary. In some ways it's easy to liken Vanitas to a child- inexperienced with his own emotions, unable to name them and unfamiliar with the cause. The trouble with allowing that similarity to become a blanket assessment is that it minimizes and even eliminates his capacity for agency. Children learn because people are there to model, support, and sometimes teach- they see that their actions have consequences and develop empathy through experience. Vanitas has already passed these benchmarks, not through personal growth and development, but through cultivation. These beliefs and ideas, the way that he acts, these are not innate. These traits have been learned.

He takes up his fork like a weapon and just holds it for a long moment, before he starts stabbing at his eggs.

This is the first time he's mentioned 'Ventus.' Bruce recognizes that it's significant immediately even if he doesn't yet have the details to contextualize it. But with that recognition comes the awareness that this isn't the time or place to pursue it. Vanitas is terrifically hung over and quite possibly also still drunk. Bruce does not have qualms with taking advantage of a situation that presents itself to him, but he can also recognize when his gains will be outweighed by his losses. It's an easy decision to make.

Vanitas has been hurt and exploited in the time before he's come here.
Bruce doesn't want to be one more person to add to that list.

So instead he reaches across the countertop, with his mug still at his mouth. He looks Vanitas in the face as his fingers wrap around the neck of the liquor bottle and begin to lift it. He is, visibly, baiting him. "I suppose you're finished with this then."

[evulsed]

Vanitas doesn't notice directly what Bruce is doing, or reaching for, because he's scowling down at his eggs like they're the source of all his problems— even though in reality the object of his rage and envy had never even been in Beacon. It isn't until the shadow of his arm crosses the plate and he hears the soft sound of the glass coming off the counter that he jerks his head up with much more dramaticism than the situation calls for. Half of that is accidental— and he feels his head throb in protest with the sudden movement.

He has two hands, but Vanitas drops the fork with a clatter and reaches for the bottle. Bruce might be baiting him, but the fact is, Vanitas has never been playfully baited before. He hardly knows what play means in a context that doesn't end in discipline. To him, Bruce is really going to take this thing away from him.

His hand closes around the bottle above Bruce's, and he forces it back down to the counter with a soft thunk. It leaves them both holding it, though Vanitas' own grip is a little too tight— possessive, but also just because judging his own surroundings is a little off.

It would bother him more, maybe, if he were alone. If he were with anyone but Bruce. He doesn't yet recognize the significance of that fact.

But then, as the moment stretches, Vanitas' gaze goes from the bottle to Bruce's face— and he lets go of the bottle like it's burned him. Something molten crawls up his spine, then. It comes to him white-hot, and makes his stomach turn, equal parts nausea and the shape of the emotion. He wants that drink. He wants the way it made him feel, like nothing really mattered; the way it chased all his pain into the edges and made it numb, the closest thing to peace he's felt since tucking up with Sora in his stupid hammock. Since feeling that gentle let go of letting life go.

Bruce says I suppose you're finished with this, and Vanitas is reminded that he isn't supposed to have those things. He's reminded of his Master, of I suppose we're done here, when Vanitas hadn't lived up to his expectations. Normally, his barriers are much stronger than this— but that tremble is still under his skin, the vestiges of too much booze and the way it wracks at the body. Inadvertently chastised, Vanitas flushes hard, his cheeks flaming up.

"I'll just take it when you aren't looking," He bites, but there's something brittle in his voice; he can feel the thickness of it, choked up by the Unversed that it wants to crawl out of him as. He picks up his fork again and stabs into a piece of sausage, putting it into his mouth and averting his gaze.

[pearlstrings]

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."

[evulsed]

Even after that first bite, he still can't quite tell if he wants to eat or not. It goes down with some difficulty, though whether that's the nausea or the tightness in his throat, Vanitas can't tell. He doesn't quite look at Bruce: it's almost like he starts to, and then aborts it right at the last second, being aware of him in the periphery.

He's given the drink back, but conditioning leads Vanitas to believe its a test, even though Bruce has only ever done exactly what he said he would in the time they've known each other. Regardless, Vanitas doesn't try to take it again, despite the way he itches to covetously move it away from Bruce's reach.

"Maybe that's how it works where you're from," He spears another sausage. "I don't even care about those things. I just wanted it to stop, and the only way I could do that is through joining my heart with his."

It should be stranger, to explain all of this. But what's the point in hiding it? Vanitas had never made it secret what he was after, even when he was faced with Ventus himself. Ushering in the Darkness, the Keyblade War— all of that played second fiddle to Vanitas' desire to feel anything but the endless anguish.

"But I know that won't happen." Not now that the x-Blade is created, especially not now that he's in this place. "I am the shadow that their Light casts. Darkness is who and what I am."

Maybe emboldened by his own commitment to his place in the world, maybe reminded if his true purpose because of the direction this conversation took, Vanitas finally looks back at Bruce and his expression is fixed in such a way that its clear he won't listen to any argument made otherwise.

[pearlstrings]

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?"

[evulsed]

The question catches him off guard, enough that Vanitas' expression narrows— though he immediately regrets it. The dull, uncomfortable throb in his head swells with the squinting of his eyes, and in the same moment feels his stomach turn over. He's had two bites of sausage and the third was almost a full mouthful, but maybe it's too ambitious. It reminds Vanitas too much of that first time, when his head and stomach ached, when he guzzled the water and it all came back up immediately.

Only now he knows Bruce isn't trying to poison him, the way he thought Gene was.

"Of course I use it. What kind of stupid question is that?" He bites, a little more caustic now just because of his own discomfort. Vanitas puts the fork back down, defeated for the moment by the texture and the discomfort in his stomach. He still keeps feeling it rise up in his throat, like he wants to bring up everything he had the night before. Bracing one hand on the counter, he puts his other one on his bare belly and exhales in a single, long hiss.

It's the sort of self soothing thing he's used before, when the pain became this sort of full-body thing he couldn't shake off. He shoots Bruce a sidelong look from under his lashes, indicating he's actually still waiting for an answer to what may have sounded like a rhetorical question, before closing his eyes to try and stop the world from spinning.

[pearlstrings]

"Just go slow. Your body is trying to fight the impulse to be sick."

There's no soothing pain like that, and in Bruce's experience this is true of most hurts. They can only be felt and endured. There are ways to lessen the blows or numb the edges, but it isn't something that can be outrun. It always catches up. Vanitas's body is revolting against the binge drinking and sympathy is easy to find- he's been in this position often enough, had once been the figure doubled over countertops and curled inside beds, waiting for it to stop. It did very little to discourage repeat performances and he suspects that this will hold true for Vanitas too. He needs tools and resources before he can hope to make different decisions.

He hisses, resting one palm against the counter and the other against his stomach. Bruce doesn't stare. There isn't much privacy to be had for Vanitas's largely undressed state and wretched appearance, the unsteady movement of his limbs and shadows under his eyes. But perhaps it's the spirit of the thing. His eyes close a moment later and Bruce stays where he is, a still point on the opposite end of the counter.

"I suppose I don't see why that would keep you from pursuing things that bring you pleasure. It doesn't change the darkness. The darkness will always be there."

[evulsed]

Vanitas exhales thinly, long and slow, from between his teeth. It comes out like a hiss, and he does this a couple more times when he realizes the soothing quality it has— which maybe shouldn't be so surprising. He's learned breathing techniques like this from his Master for battle. Even before, when he hadn't been as arguably human as he is here, it didn't mean he couldn't feel pain, or break bones or skin.

But it also means that he has to stand and listen to what Bruce is saying to him. It's a little strange, to hear; this idea that he could have something good, while being so dark. Vanitas doesn't think he shies away from going after what he wants— but he also just doesn't understand that he hasn't had the opportunity to do it. Being here, in Beacon, has been an exercise in living.

Vanitas does go after what he wants, in baby steps. Food, and sleeping in a bed, and now alcohol— things that are so simple, but have an enormous impact on him.

"I know that," He finally says, his voice gone low for the tenderness in his belly and his head. All this excitement is exhausting. He wants to go back to bed. "You think I don't just take what I want?"

well look what the cat dragged in

[pearlstrings]

It's a good sign that he's able to regulate his breathing; it controls the swelling of his lungs and reduces the pressure that his diaphragm exudes on his stomach. It happens in degrees at a time but he's able to watch Vanitas reign his responses in, to focus on these smaller things happening in pieces at a time- to stay with them in the moment until the intensity begins to fade. Now that there's food in his stomach to help with the absorption of alcohol, going back to bed isn't a terrible idea. He could use the time to rest. Bruce might not have a crystal clear understanding of his sleep patterns, but Vanitas is chaotic in every other aspect of his life. It would be a strange exception.

"I think you haven't wanted very many things."

Bruce eases away from the counter and leaves the plates, the dishes, where they are. He can take care of them later, when he makes his way back. He brings a canteen of water with him instead and moves in the direction of the door, a signal to follow and abandon the table. Bruce's head tilts towards the hall, to the place Vanitas has been sleeping.

my unsuccessful creep into the back fo the classroom...

[evulsed]

Vanitas could laugh at that. What a ridiculous notion. All Vanitas has done is want things since the day he was created. He's wanted to be whole, he wanted reprieve, he wanted power. He wanted to stop the Unversed from sloughing off of him, a physical manifestation of all his weakness. He wanted to get out of the desert. He wanted Ventus.

He doesn't laugh, but only because doing it makes the muscles in his stomach squeeze and his throat feel tight. Instead, he exhales a sound that could almost be amusement.

Bruce moves away, and Vanitas opens his eyes to consider the plate of eggs. The idea of eating them is unpleasant, so he picks up the last bit of sausage with his fingers. It's bizarre, to want something but also feel sick at the sight of it. But then, that was how he'd felt about Ventus and Sora, too, so maybe it's not so unusual.

"Shows what you know," Vanitas says, looking up at him, standing there in the threshold of the kitchen. It's an invitation, if he ever saw one, though Vanitas can't actually parse where it is Bruce is asking him to go— despite the fact it would be obvious to probably anyone else. After a brief pause, he picks up the alcohol he'd been drinking to take with him, more because he's claimed it as his own and doesn't want to leave it there than any other reason, and trails after Bruce.