logsinthenight

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characters: Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd, Riku, Vanitas
location: The museum + the church
date/time: Post Sandman event- from the point that the dreamers wake +4days
content: Jason tips his hand and some complicated truths are revealed + Bruce goes to the church to wait for familiar faces to be resurrected
warnings: violence, gore, character death

museum | jason todd
[He's dreaming until he isn't. It's a difficult thing to describe as dreaming in the first place when Bruce doesn't remember falling asleep. They're before and after images- he had been there, at the dinner. And then he'd been looking up at the church, squinting through barely remembered sunlight.

His body feels stiff and that's perhaps the first sensation to occur to him. The muscle in his stomach and arms is tight from disuse, his back feels like one solid shape that's been locked together. Everything is dark and cold. Bruce tries to flex his toes but he isn't sure if it follows through- if it's an idea of if it actually carries. He tries his fingers. And slowly he becomes aware of his face- the muscle around his mouth and the space between his brows. There's no corona behind his closed eyes and Bruce is sure he must be back where he started, but he isn't vertical anymore. Everything around him feels strange and muted- as if his hands are over his ears.

A small noise comes out of him, not quiet a grunt, but more than a breath. And slowly Bruce is able to open his eyes for the first time in two weeks.]

church | riku + vanitas
[Jason leaves. This is not unexpected because in the time they've known each other, if it could be called that, Jason leaving has become a sort of constant. Their paths intersect from time to time, and then they are forcibly diverted. Bruce doesn't blame him; he suspects that Jason would have fled while he was still smouldering if he could. It was necessity that had kept them together, reversed their positions.

But alone in the museum once more Bruce hears his tablet respond, an incoming message. It's reassuring to see that Riku is present and accounted for, that he's already trying to get on top of things, to organize. Bruce understands this reaction because it's one that they share.

And that changes as soon as the tablet chimes again. The bulletin.

If he is honest (and Bruce tries to be honest) he isn't take aback to find Vanitas's name on the obituaries. He has been listed before, but there is a chaotic recklessness in him that Bruce has long since been aware of. A kind of fearlessness in regards to his own limits, to whatever pain his actions might incur. There is a moment where he considers how this might change his demeanor and what Bruce might be able to learn about his motivation. But that moment is subsumed by Jim Gordon's name on the list. It strikes Bruce like a glancing shot- that makes his ears ring and makes his body feel hot with urgency and nausea.

The James Gordon he knows has always been part of the GCPD and by extension his life has always been close to danger. Sometimes that danger is more present than others, sometimes it's more personal. He has been targeted more than once and Bruce has lost sleep for worry before. He has has practice clamping the lid down on what might have happened, on his worst fears. He tries to remind himself of this now, as he climbs to his feet and tears out the door without bothering for a jacket or even his shoes. The dead do not stay dead here. He knows this to be fact, he has seen it, Vanitas himself is a testament.

But the fear persists.

Bruce races to the church like a man possessed, along dirt trails and through trees, until the building looms ahead of him- a strange twin to the place he'd just woken from.]

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[ It's less a compliment to the comfort of the pews or the atmosphere in the church that Riku dozes off than it is a testament to how exhausted he is. He hadn't meant to, not with someone to wait for and his company grieving twice the loss.

The black bomber jacket had been lended to Bruce to ward off the cold and in its stead, he wears a gray hoodie, the hood up for warmth... and partially because in the siege he hadn't really the resources to waste on washing his hair, now dull and disheveled.

Bruce chooses wisely, the gentle weight of his palm wakes him but without the alarm (or the potential for a drawn weapon) jostling would have caused. He inhales through his nose, glancing sideways at him through his pale lashes, starts to sit up--

And, drawn to look at what has caught Bruce's attention, Riku straightens at once. He looks for a moment like he might speak and something changes his mind, exhaling. It sounds, maybe, a little relieved. ]

[ The response doesn't give him an answer to his question. Vanitas stares at them each with the sort of blankness that comes with incomprehension. If his name was in the obituary, it only really tells him that Robin is probably back. Whether that's good or not is mostly irrelevant to Vanitas, and all he does is circle back around to the present situation.

Bruce, as always, is mostly unflappable— and he can't make heads or tails of the relief on Riku's face. He frowns at them, and his eyes fall to Bruce's bare feet. Had he died after all, despite their combined efforts? Had the spirit got Riku after it skewered him?

Maybe it had been a waste of time in the end. Vanitas isn't sure that he got anything out of trying to help, besides his death.

He turns to swing his booted feet off the pew and sets then with a soft sound on the hardwood. It means he's facing the front of the church, and the light of the candles ahead brackets him, turning him into a shadow. ]

Your friends won't come back if you stick around.

You did.

[Riku comes awake with little provocation and it speaks volumes to his history- though how much of those lessons are recent and how many are ancient remains to be seen. Hyper-vigilance is a reasonable reaction for anyone placed in those circumstances, and while Jason has continued to be sparse with the details, there was enough material provided for Bruce to conjecture. Two weeks of near-constant assault. Half of the town's residents helpless for their unconscious states.

He hears the breath and Riku inhales, feels his weight shift on the pew beside him. In his periphery the hood falls just a little from Riku's hair and slopes downward, towards his neck. They both look in need of a bath, in need of a great number of things when one considers the bruises beneath their eyes and the bandages around Riku's throat. But time is valuable. It's always too valuable.]

Riku's still healing. His voice won't work yet.

What about you?

[ There will be a chance for a shower, a change of clothes and bandages. Other things are not so easily replaced. Riku knows loneliness and loss and how even a strong heart can shudder under the crushing weight without someone to share the burden or, at least, someone to be present, the reassurance that one is not alone.

What he has less experience with is death in this world, but he imagines it's easier to know your absence had been marked by someone.

He thinks, as he looks at Vanitas and his turned back, at the way he always seems to absorb the candlelight like some human-shaped event horizon, that Vanitas might be struggling with the idea that anyone would mark his absence at all. Who takes note of the shadows, anyway?

What Vanitas says only verifies it.

He bows his head over the tablet he finally pulls from his pack, tapping fingertips against its restored screen.

When Riku starts to move, the first thing is the warm weight of his palm covering Bruce's shoulder, a glance at his face that could mean anything for how somber it is - gratitude he explained or just the assurance that he won't go far. And then he stands, the pew and floorboards creaking.

That's when he knocks the heel of his palm against the back of Vanitas' shoulder. Stands there, banking on it to draw his golden stare so that Riku can thrust the screen in front of it: ]

about time you showed up
bruce lost someone else too
go easy

Edited 2019-12-07 08:50 (UTC)

[ Vanitas exhales, and the jump of his shoulders and the sound of it suggest it could be a laugh. At least I have some. Ventus isn't here, and yet he still haunts Vanitas' every waking moment. He goes back and forth on his level of bitterness over the fact. His envy at constant war with his desire, with the reality that he knows he is only defined by the light those boys shine, even when they aren't here.

He doesn't answer Bruce, but maybe part of that is how his first implication turned his focus inward. As it stands, he sways under the heel of Riku's palm and twists sharply around when he's shoved. They've never been gentle with one another, and the physical touch jars him back into his body and more toward the high state of vigilance he normally exists in.

His gaze jumps from Riku's face to his tablet, tracking back and forth over the words, before flicking back up. ]

Is that so?

[ Hard to say what he's referencing, especially when his attention skirts to Bruce. Lost someone can mean any manner of things, but now that Vanitas is starting to pay attention— he can sense it. There's a negativity in the room that isn't usually present when Bruce is around. His attention snaps back to Riku, and he goes on with: ]

Maybe your silence will be an improvement.

[There's a phrase about cats and dogs that always comes to mind when he's there, watching the two of them interact. The dialogue they manage to have these days is different, improved if improved is measured by the absence of a fight and the length of time it takes. Until this moment, Bruce has watched them circle one another, has watched the shape of these interactions change with interest and silent curiosity. It isn't that he cares less now, but instead, that the hollow space inside him leaves room for nothing else.

The panic is still there. Bruce's pulse comes too quickly and the movement of his gaze is too sharp. He's been cultivating the proverbial poker face for some time but some instincts are too powerful to be overridden. Maybe Jerome was right. Maybe the death of his parents did make him a little insane. The similarities are here now.

He remembers the way his entire body had trembled inside the alley, where he'd felt compelled to look even when he knew what he would find, when the horror and revulsion and agony tried to keep his gaze anywhere else. He knows that's what he's doing right now. That he's caught between looking and not looking. He knows that he's incapable of the latter.

Bruce stands quietly. His feet and ankles are still streaked with mud. One of his pant legs is shorter than the other and Riku's jacket, broader in the chest and shoulders, slopes over him like a shroud.]

Let's go home.

[He barely feels his mouth move.]

I'll tell you what happened.

[ Riku watches Vanitas closely as he scrutinizes Bruce, aware that if Bruce realizes, he risks offending him. It's not that he expects Bruce to be too proud to accept help - but he's grieving, and he guards his privacy. They've lived for weeks under his own roof and still the man has his secrets. They all do.

He might not be the best at staying within established limits when there's something Riku wishes to accomplish, he has a certain willingness to break the rules. When it comes to... his friends, he puts few limits on himself as well. Vanitas could easily expose him, and to his surprise, the other boy seamlessly plays along.

Before Riku even knows it, his mouth betrays him by smiling. Tsking, and with a small toss of his head, he tucks his tablet under his arm. Under the slow lowering of his eyelids, his teal eyes cut aside to Bruce's face, where his expression sobers.

Home, he says, like a loss that sends a man like him careening barefoot into the night leaves room for feeling at home anywhere, for feeling anything but cut adrift. He has never looked more disheveled and bereft than he has in this very room. Riku thinks he might be in some amount of shock, and being here isn't helping. They need to help him. He doesn't know him intimately well, but he knows enough - about loss, about how Bruce pushes himself.

He holds up an index finger and erases his tablet screen, starting over: ]

know how to ride a motorbike?
take vanitas with you.

[ Home. It's interesting to hear, and not just because Vanitas doesn't know the parameters with which to exist within the word in relation to these two boys. There was something about the word he's divorced from; maybe because he had never had one under the connotation it suggests. Family, friends. Vanitas had the desert and Xehanort and the Unversed. Then he had Beacon, with his own room to be sure— but he isn't a fool. He knows that home is a permanent thing. Home is Sora's Destiny Islands. Home is Ventus' Land of Departure.

He turns his back on them again as Riku starts to type, and gets up from the pew. It's a strange emotion, this one where he wants to know, and isn't sure if that means that he cares. The surge of emotion he'd felt at seeing Bruce face down on that dining table wasn't like anything he'd experienced for another person before.

Or maybe that isn't entirely true.
But the only one to witness the aftershock of that loss isn't above ground right now.

Home.

Vanitas goes into the aisle and walks away from the others, follows it down to the candles, where the light becomes stronger. His lantern stays behind him on the bench only long enough for an Unversed to unspool itself from the shadows underneath to climb up and take it and follow him— but Vanitas doesn't look back at it.

Instead, he walks directly up to the trap door, and crouches down in front of it, his eyes downcast. From here he can't hear her down there, even though he knows she was around maybe hours before— to carry him back. After a moment, he tips forward to press his palms against the door, leaning all the way down to put his ear against it. ]

[Vanitas's reactions have always had an element of unpredictability. Bruce has kept mental notes, has seen the wide swinging of a pendulum that has no true beginning and end, that seems borne by it's own momentum, and learned how to anticipate it to some degree. But people are never completely a known quantity. He can make an educated guess, he can estimate based on the things he's seen and heard, but there is not perfect formula- a fact made manifest by the reply Riku offers him.

As one boy heads down towards the far end of the church Bruce knows now, where he's going. To the trap door. He knows that it should trouble him more to be here, after the way they'd tried to make it back to the entrance, after they'd died, slowly, down there. But Bruce doesn't feel anything around the emptiness. A rage that doesn't stop.

His eyes linger as Vanitas bends down and presses his ear to it, as a small creature materializes out of the dark and comes after him, carrying his lantern. His eyes slide to Riku at his side, the message on display.]

Where will you go?

[ Riku's attention is diverted, perhaps significantly, by the movement as Vanitas leaves the pew, walks down the aisle and makes his way to the candles. It reminds him of when they last spoke in this place, when Gene went missing along with so, so many others, along with people Riku thinks he might never really stop missing.

He watches Vanitas move to the trap door, the one he's never seen open, staring at the arch of his back as the other boy lowers his ear to to the ground. By his side, a hand unoccupied by his tablet curls into a fist. ]

...

[ Bruce's question brings him back around. Riku glances sideways at him, pulls up his tablet and resumes what will become a regular occurrence, at least until his throat has mended enough to speak in short periods at a time. ]

be right behind you

[ Whatever they're talking about, it's lost Vanitas' attention. He can only hear half of it with Riku's muteness, and Bruce always speaks in a voice that doesn't really carry— when he's around Vanitas, at least. The distance makes it easier to let Bruce's feelings slide away from him, but the Unversed lingers in the aisle with his dark lantern, it turns about face to look back at the two discussing their next move. It's red eyes fix on Bruce and stay there, and something about it's stance suggests the only reason it doesn't come toward him is because its been told to stay put.

Vanitas closes his eyes and listens hard. He doesn't always hear her, she can be remarkably quiet for something so large. He's fallen asleep like this without a whisper or a scratch, the only evidence left behind that of the blanket she puts over him like a shroud.

Normally, he makes sure nobody is around when he does this— but things aren't quite the same as what they used to be anymore. ]

[The answer isn't good enough by half. Bruce hasn't made any bold proclamations about his needs; he hasn't outlined his strong preference to know every possible detail, to learn and test it all and to, by extension, control the outcome. It's a double-standard that Alfred has admonished him for many times already, for how selectively he tolerates grey areas. His approval of the vague and nebulous when it suits him.

He isn't Riku's keeper and he has no rights to his time. He's proven himself a level-headed thinker and a competent combatant; Bruce knows he has other priorities, other people who need his help and who are counting on him. When his gaze returns to the boy all but curled up by the trapdoor, Bruce reminds himself that Vanitas is the reason Riku had come here in the first place.]

Go ahead.

[If it's permission he's looking for, he's got it. Bruce's gaze lands on the rows of tiny candles, where he sees without seeing.]

I'll wait 'till he's done.

[ The motorbike could probably fit three if one of them sat on the handles; Riku considers that far too dangerous for driving in the dark, which already has its risks. Bruce has no shoes and Vanitas is freshly returned, it only makes sense to offer them the bike.

Bruce says go ahead, and Riku doesn't move.

He tucks his hands into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt, where the gauze and clothing beneath it have trapped his warmth into his core. The tablet is a cool square wedged between his bent arm and his side, he watches Bruce without saying - or in this case, typing - anything.

It reminds him of a time when he and Sora were very young. They were playing too close to the rickety bridge on their play island, Sora slipped and fell. The sand was soft enough to cushion his landing so he wasn't badly hurt so much as surprised, but when he dropped out of sight over the edge, Riku felt like the world had suddenly dropped out from beneath him.

They were so young, it was just one of those minor mishaps that happen whenever kids play a little too rough, Sora probably didn't even remember.

He felt the same when he thought he saw Sora's lantern shatter. Like the world was ending. That's how Bruce looks right now, drawn into himself and numb. No, he doesn't think he'll be going anywhere. Riku turns his attention, then, to what Vanitas is doing near the trapdoor, which feels kind of voyeuristic, like he's peeking in on something personal.

Curiosity killed the cat, they say. ]

[ Vanitas isn't there for very long, in the end. He listens until he's sure she won't be making any noises at all, and after an extended period of time finally eases himself back onto his heels.

It's a strange sensation, the crestfallen shape it takes in his heart. Vanitas has never had a parent, or a guardian. Not the way Ventus had his friends and Master Eraqus, or Sora had his mother and father. Maybe when he was whole, back before he was the thing he is now, he might have had it. Vanitas was taught not to seek out this sort of comfort i this life, to not want it— but how could he not, when he knew it existed? When he knew Ventus got to have all these nice things, and Vanitas was sequestered into his dry, empty existence?

Things like pleasure and happiness were supposed to be beyond his reach. Pain was where he achieved his greatest power. And yet— he had a taste of what it was like to be full. That brief, shining moment of joining his heart with Ventus'.

He keeps coming back here because he wants to see her again. He hasn't seen her— just felt whispers of her existence. He still has the little blue flower she gave him, though it's long since dried into something brittle.

Pushing back up to his feet he turns around and freezes to see the two of them still there. It had become so quiet in the church that he somehow expected they would have left. The way they're watching him can only mean one thing: that they're waiting for him. Vanitas pulls both gloved hands into fists at his sides— and walks back down the aisle toward them.

His eyes go to Riku, but keep sliding to Bruce, because the closer he gets the stronger that dark feeling becomes. He doesn't look down when he says: ]

You're not wearing any shoes.

[Time has felt distended since the moment he woke and Bruce is as disconnected from it now as he was when Riku had first contacted him. You've been out for two weeks. It has to mean something even in a place without sunlight because the perpetual darkness doesn't change the urgency of the situation. They're here for a reason. There's something they're meant to do, conditions that necessitate working quickly and wisely. He can't estimate how long Vanitas is there, doing what he wants to, what perhaps he feels like he has to. Bruce wonders if he's ever seen beneath it, the mysterious figure that lives beneath the trap door, and then he wonders if that mysterious figure was the person they'd heard. If they'd been the cough, the rustling of movement.

It doesn't escape his notice that despite his ability to leave, the permission he's been given- Riku chooses to remain by his side. This doesn't seem out of character for the person he's come to know. But.

His face turns, a waning moon cast on the boy beside him, and Bruce finds that he can still see him- even through the murky lens of his own fear. Of his own pain. There's a terrible truth that lives in him and sometimes Bruce can put the words to it, hold them in his head. This will never stop for him. He knows, from the years that have passed since the funeral for his parents, from the way Jason looks at him and finds every reason to look away- that he will lose the people he loves for the rest of his life. There may be good things, beautiful things, in between. He might have another dance with Selina. He might watch the sunrise with Alfred. But this will be his universal constant.

Bruce does what he does because he doesn't believe that this is a cycle everyone is destined for. He wants to believe that people like Riku are going to see home again. That they'll be surrounded once more by the ones they love even if they can't always believe it for themselves. He doesn't know if that brings him comfort here and now. But it makes things quiet.

Neither one of them speak as Vanitas climbs to his feet and slowly begins to close the distance. There's no telling even on the best of days, how Vanitas will respond to their company, how long any temporary peace might last. But it's clear that he doesn't expect the reply that comes. Bruce stands still not with composure, but instead like a ship at sea, bereft of wind. And then he looks down- realizing for the first time that he's barefoot.]

[ When Vanitas turns - right before he realizes they're still there, waiting - Riku thinks he sees... something, something in the slope of Vanitas' shoulders, in the gold of downcast eyes that makes something tighten heavily in his chest. A sympathetic response, like the time Kairi dropped her pencil case off the docks when they were kids after showing her friends what the Mayor had given her on her birthday.

Her disappointment. Sora and Riku had gotten their clothes soaked hurrying to be the first to fish up her present from the water and a scolding besides, but they couldn't bear seeing her look like that. Riku's been thinking about them a lot the last few months, like he's filling up for the holes in his heart with childhood memories.

He's not the only person he's heard express an interest with whatever's on the other side of that trapdoor, but this seems to stem from something other than curiosity. Something more personal. The questions keep piling up, and this time, Riku doesn't even have the option to ask them, he sees the fists at Vanitas' sides and how his gaze keeps falling to Bruce, but he doesn't respond until he says aloud an observation.

Riku snaps his fingers. Right? Thank you. That's exactly why he's so insistent on lending him the bike. One jaunt through the cold mud barefoot is one thing, but twice? Forget it. These are things that are actionable, direct. Food and warmth are fights anyone can understand. The more complicated matters of the heart he can be present for, he can relate, they're not fights to win but experiences that build up or tear down what makes them who they are.

He doesn't speak, but he steps forward, closing this triangle of them around the fixed point of Bruce. There's no attempt to urge them to leave; Riku waited for Vanitas but there's no reason he can't wait for Bruce except if the waiting puts either of them in danger. With the spirits retreated, that leaves the elements, but his breath doesn't plume in the Church like it does outside, so perhaps... it's okay enough. ]

[ He's never seen Bruce like this before. He's seen him quiet, and focused. He's seen him frustrated— but there's usually something kinetic in him, even when he's still. Maybe the way his mind is always moving, even when his body is not. But this... he looks like a shift with it's sails sagging, the wind gone from them. He looks like he could be pushed and pulled in any direction.

He looks a little like the Ventus Vanitas had met that first time. Empty-eyed and listless, and he doesn't like the look of it one bit. There's something more at play here, Vanitas knows because that darkness boils off of him like steam from a geyser, whispering of something bigger and deeper underneath— but he can't pinpoint it just yet. The not knowing is just as frustrating as this opposite person, with his hunched shoulders and his empty expression. ]

Idiot.

[ Vanitas isn't affectionate, but something about the cadence of the word almost lends itself to the suggestion of it. He frowns. ]

Can't you get sick from that sort of thing?

[He isn't cut off from the world. Bruce still notices the things happening around him, even if they don't seem to land as close- details occur on the other side of a window, things he can see but that don't touch. Riku and Vanitas have been in a fixed orbit around one another long before Bruce arrived- evidence was available even on the network- conversations that could be replaced by a choreographed fight. One lunges, the other parries. It seemed like a familiar routine even if neither one of them had justified it- had outlined the how and when and why.

But for some reason, in the last few months that's begun to change. There's a margin of patience around them, a shift in tone that's also become a shift in dynamics.

Riku snaps his fingers and Vanitas frowns, two parts of a wordless conversation. Bruce looks at his bare toes, then at his new bookends. It doesn't feel as oppressive as perhaps it should. The reply too is a kind of observation- quiet and out of body.]

I wasn't thinking.

[ Idiot, Vanitas says. The word itself isn't new, he's heard that drop out of his mouth so many times that it's started to lose its potency as an insult. The way he says it prompts a glance, first at him and then at Bruce. Speculatively.

He wasn't thinking.

Riku can relate; unable to even say that much, he feels his fingers curl in against his palm. There have been times, even recently, when all Riku could do was act unthinkingly, driven by instinct or some other, more powerful sentiment housed in his chest, fear. Love.

After a thoughtful glance at the floor - and possibly at the muddy state of Bruce's feet - he points his thumb towards the door. Vanitas is right. The last thing they need is for Bruce to fall ill while most of their meager medicine is needed for the severe injuries people incurred during the two week siege.

He does have the bike parked outside, at least neither of them have to walk. Riku can jog--well, maybe up to a point. Walk, then. ]

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