logsinthenight | Don't Fuck with the Forest Spirits || OTA

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Don't Fuck with the Forest Spirits || OTA

characters: Vanitas (

evulsed) + OTA
location: mostly The Church, the Invincible + the Boathouse
date/time: July 19 and the days following
content: just waking-up-after-being-dismembered things
warnings: violence

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( the darkness writhes like a thing alive an' gene eyes it wary an' unsure. ain't like nothin' he's ever had cause to see before, even ghosts ain't like this.

but he steps into it anyway, grimacing at the wash'a cold that crawls up his legs when he does. the shock of it makes him draw a breath that ain't rightly steady, an' throws him right back into the foxholes at st vith. he has to. stop a moment. close his eyes against it. one boot in front of the other. ain't that what bein' a paratrooper's all about? you move up the stick an' you jump an' the air hits you like a battering ram. ain't any different.

he takes another step. comes up to the kid an' sits down beside him on the pew. he's fully aware this could get him killed or worse, an' wade ain't around this time with a gun, but. gene reaches out with the intent to touch the kid's shoulder. )

Look at me. Focus on how I breathe, an' follow along with that, all right? Just nice an' easy. In and out. Ain't nothin' here but you an' me, kid, we're okay. We're okay.

[ If it were anyone else, things might not have ended so kindly for Gene when he stepped into the Darkness, but as it stands— all it does is crawl against his legs like smoke, coiling and clinging like a curious snake before slipping away. He gets near enough to be close, to put a hand on his shoulder, and Vanitas jerks his head up again.

He's known his share of pain. He's known what it feels like to have his heart broken in half, he's known what it's like to be beaten down over and over until his body couldn't hold itself under it's own weight— and he's only ever dealt with it alone. His Master would never have done something like this for him, and Vanitas has never thought to seek it out.

But he was a whole person, once, before he was nothing but darkness, and when the doctor comes in close and speaks to him soft and grounds him with that touch Vanitas looks at him like he really is only sixteen and desperate for someone to soothe him. He swallows through tears, gasping through an open mouth, staring at Gene without disguising any of the unbridled terror. He couldn't, even if he wanted to, not with it so fresh. Even before he's managed to wrangle any manner of control over his shaking body, he stammers: ]

They were— they—

( ain't nothin' else for it. he just pulls the boy in for a hug, restin' a palm against the middle of his back. )

Easy, easy. Shh. Try not to think about it now. Won't do but make it worse. ( how many boys has he spoke to like this? only, they never came back from the dead an' the only thing to be done was comfort the dyin'. ) Y'ever been to Alabama?

( gene knows he hasn't. it ain't the point of askin'. )

[ The doctor pulls him in and for one brief, shocking moment, Vanitas goes perfectly still, his breathing stops— because he expects the reprimand. It's what Xehanort would do— grab him and shake him like a doll, demand more— but the doctor puts his arms around him and that's all he does.

Just holds him there.

It presses Vanitas' face into the curve where his shoulder meets his neck, so when Vanitas expels the breath he'd been holding so hard in a horrible sob it's like he's been shattered anew. Tucked in like this he can't really see anything, his vision blurred by tears and the rise of the doctor's jacket, so all he can feel is the warmth and strength of the arms around his shoulders and the palm on his back. He's never felt anything like this in his life. It's like Gene is the only thing holding all his feelings in and together in the shell of his body.

Vanitas doesn't know what Alabama is, but it's so far afield from what's happening to him physically that he can't help focusing on it at least a little. Hicoughing, he shakes his head. His arms stay loose in front of him, never coming up to return the hug, almost like he doesn't know what he's meant to do with them in this situation— or he's just so overwhelmed that he can't lift them up. ]

( an' you know, he can almost tell. that this is maybe the first hug the boy's ever gotten in his life, just on account'a that utter lack of reaction. gene lifts his hand up and strokes his hair softly, then continues on, )

Well, I'm from a little city called Agathine. Quiet place. Ain't too many folks there, an' I bet I could name all of 'em in one go if needs be. We're just a minin' town. Coal an' forestry nearby. Hills, but ain't no mountains to speak of. I grew up in a shack on the edge of a forest, just outside'a town. Me an' my folks an' three younger brothers. I used to go out as a kid into the woods, climb trees, swim in creeks. Get myself into a whole world'a trouble. Can't tell you how many times I limped back to my Ma with some bone or other broke because I fell outta a tree or off a bridge.

( his voice is suffused with warmth. it's obvious that agathine cleaves to the soul of him. even speakin' on pain, he's fond. )

Ain't been back in years, but I reckon it hasn't changed much. They'd spoil you there, kid. Nan Pearson would as soon stuff you full'a pie as look at you.

[ The words come but they don't really mean much. Vanitas grew up in the desert, four years of barren cracked land punctuated by the handful of worlds he'd been ferried out to in search of the rest of his heart. He knows mining like the dwarves in the woods, he knows what green hills look like at a distance, and how a town at the base of a castle sounds. But maybe it doesn't really matter that he doesn't have an imagination to dream up this strange place, Agathine— because the warm, constant roll of Gene's voice works like a charm.

Vanitas doesn't really realize he's stopped crying, but somewhere between the talk of the mountains and the creek, Vanitas had closed his eyes and tucked his face against the doctor's shoulder without making the active choice to do it. To hide. While he still feels like he's going to shake apart at the seams, and the phantom crawl of long, strong fingers still lingers all over his body— it isn't so powerful to prevent him from realizing it's over. He exhales tremulously, long and slow.

The darkness circling Gene's legs folds back into itself and fades away, as though it's sunk through the floorboards and dispersed to places unknown. ]

( any medic worth their salt knows it ain't about the words, it's about the tone. you can calm a horse talkin' about the weather so long's you keep your words even an' soft an' your touch tender.

ain't nobody been kind to this boy in a long, long time. he resolves to do it well.

the darkness slinks away, an' gene takes that as his cue to pull on back. he fishes a kerchief outta his pocket an' presses it into vanitas' hand, ruffles his hair again with the other. )

Always hated cryin', myself. Gets real messy, an' you're stuffed up hours after. One more thing that bodies ain't the best about, huh?

[ This isn't the first time Vanitas has wept openly, but it is only the second time he's ever had a witness. The last time he'd hit this threshold, he'd destroyed so much of himself that the circle of pain between himself and his Unversed had made him collapse under the strain of so much anguish. Only then, Xehanort hadn't touched his hair or given him something to hold— his Master had only told him what to do to end his suffering, and left him there to pick up the pieces afterward.

He should be ashamed of himself, letting this man see him in such a pathetic, weakened state— but there's no room for it alongside everything else. The terror still pricks at him, his face feels hot and swollen, his throat scraped raw with screaming, and under it is the hollow exhaustion following the punch of adrenaline and violent release of so much emotion, so much darkness.

The doctor lets him go and Vanitas, unmoored, stares down at the hankerchief that he holds in his hands. He doesn't wipe his face with it, just grips it like a tether in his lap. ]

( catatonia takes a lotta different forms. gene just looks at the boy a moment longer, then pulls his canteen off of his webbing, undoes the metal cap and takes the edge of the kerchief that vanitas isn't gripping to pour a bit of water out on it. then he'll gently extricate it from the vice of his fingers and bring it up to wipe his face off, motions careful but sure. he's seen enough of young boys with terror in their eyes, etched into every line their face is too young to have.

boys pushed too far used to dig foxholes with their bare hands in frozen ground until their nails broke an' the tips of their fingers were bloody to the bone. he doesn't think vanitas ever knew enough of safety to dig a hole to hide in, he defaults to lashing out. it says a lot that he's not doin' that now. he reaches to tip the boy's chin off to one side so he can clean him there, too. he did this for angel once, just after they lost gleeson at salerno.

soft, )

You remind me of my younger brother, you know. Albert. Real spitfire, that boy. He'd fight his own shadow. But he has a good heart, an' I reckon you do too. Though I think you prefer when folks think otherwise, hm?

[ The the way Gene lifts his chin and wipes his face stirs Vanitas somewhere in his chest, like a long distant memory is being shouted at him from a great distance, smothered by time. The stirring of familiarity isn't his own; it belongs to someone else. Maybe more than one person, those on the side of light that make up the tether to the rest of his heart. He doesn't know that this is the kind of thing a parent or a friend would do for someone they care about, that in another life he could have been a boy with loved ones that would bandage and gentle his hurts.

It's the soft sort of thing that he lashes out against, because he doesn't know it, or understand it. Maybe he's too shaken up to slap the doctor away, the same as he'd done when all the man had done was set a hand on his back.

Focus comes back into his eyes as the cloth makes passes over his face, Vanitas watching him up close. It isn't the touch, or even the cadence of his voice that draws Vanitas back out; it's the sentiment. He has a good heart. Even if the physical sensation is too much, overwhelming and bone-shaking— this is something he understands. His voice is stripped raw from screaming, hollowed out by shock and pain, but it's probably the most honest thing he's said so far: ]

My heart is made of darkness.

( he sits back a bit once he's done, an' when the boy speaks it's with that same bone-deep certainty that five does. he doesn't quite understand the sentiment — mostly, because if he had to guess he'd say the kid weren't speakin' as a matter of metaphor — but. he regards him carefully anyhow. there's a sense that whatever he chooses to say is gonna inform a lot between them on down the line, an' gene is nothin' if not deliberate in that regard.

so. he's silent a spell. then he cants his head to one side. )

So?

( it ain't carelessly or even flippantly said. it's just soft. what difference does that make? )

What you are doesn't have to be the whole of who you are. It's action that informs identity. An' action is always a choice. There's plenty'a people that are good an' kind by nature, but I sure as Hell ain't one of them. That's mine.

( his choice. it's just one he made young, and it echoed through the lines of his life. he could'a gone the other way, after his ma died, after his pa got hurt an' there he was at eleven years old in the midst of the depression an' no way to feed his brothers. lord, he could've spent his life bein' bitter, an' he chose otherwise because he didn't want to be. anger is exhaustive. it burns you up from the inside out an' don't leave a thing in the ashes except the kernel of newborn rage. it's self-immolating. he had to reach for something else to moor him, an' he chose love. but some days it's harder to reach for than others, an' on those days he has to work at it. but kindness has only become an instinct for him because he's practiced it so long as a deliberate, willful act.

vanitas didn't kill him. he could've, he ain't got any doubt of that. instead, the shadows dripped away. he thinks that too was a choice he had to have made consciously, because animal instinct and terror makes just about every livin' creature lash out in some way. an' yet he didn't. if that's nothin' else so much as darkness, then it can't be all bad. )

Edited 2019-07-23 14:44 (UTC)

[ Even before he says it, Vanitas knows it coming. It should be a choice, Ventus had said. Not just Light. Not just Darkness.

That's what the doctor is saying, too, and Vanitas feels some part of him sink heavily down through the floor. It isn't sadness. Vanitas is always sad, a sensation that stretches end to end with varying degrees of anger and hurt in between. No, this is that same sensation from before— the one he had right before the power had gone out of him. Darkness is all he has, and all he is.

Gene doesn't understand, and how could he? This man fought a war and in it, was their cleric— their healer. Like Sora, he's the kind of person that chooses to reach for the Light, even if it isn't all that makes him up.

But Vanitas doesn't share that kind of fate. When he'd been riven from Ventus, the reality of his situation had been set in stone. He hadn't understood it at the time, of course. He'd been lost, lonely— confused by why he existed at all. Why was Vanitas in this endless cycle of anguish when Ventus, his other half, didn't suffer the same way he did? It wasn't fair. He hated Ventus then, just as he still does— but the difference is that Vanitas understands, now. I've made my choice, don't you see? Darkness is what he is. Darkness is all he can be. If he loses that, then everything he'd been created for, all that pain would be for nothing. ]

You're wrong, if you think I haven't already made my choice.

[ There's no indecision or falter in his voice, despite the way it still rubs like sandpaper around the edges. He swallows against the dry feeling and his eyes go to the cloth the doctor had been using, because it had been wet. He swallows again. ]

—Water.

( he unscrews the top of the canteen, holds out the canteen on offer. soft, )

If you'd made up your mind, you wouldn't'a called off your shadows.

( if this 'darkness' is a stand-in for what it means to be evil, it's a good enough parallel. ain't nobody evil an' nothin' else who craves comfort like that, who cries in the arms of someone who's barely beyond a stranger.

an' he knows full well too that sayin' that with someone who's expressed a fair amount of volatility in the past might take it as a challenge. could be, he's signin' somethin' like a death warrant with that observation. he finds he don't much care. he's seen that same terror an' fear in boys on the front lines, an' it's as much his job to tend it as it is to fix broken bones an' bullet holes. )

[ Vanitas takes the canteen, and there's something like de ja vu there, with their first interaction having been exactly this. Only this time, when Vanitas looks at him over the canteen, it isn't with the violent uncertainty of that initial meeting. The truth is he hadn't really been thinking about it. He doesn't have an argument against what Gene is saying because in the moment, it had all been recognition. Seeing the man, instead of those monsters that came at him so quickly.

Just thinking about it makes everything in him go tight, makes his throat lock up around the water. He nearly chokes, and swallows hard, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and inhaling— but it comes quick and uneven, and then keeps coming. Vanitas knows fear. He's known it all his life, but this sort of terror, this kind that keeps rising up on him in waves—

It spills out of him, sprouting up as the little black, jagged creatures that follow him around. He can't keep it contained, even if he controls them. Their beady red eyes materialize from underneath the pews, the sound of their tiny claws scratching like rats against the hardwood as they skitter into dark corners away from Vanitas and the doctor. On the edge of hyperventilation, Vanitas puts his arms around himself, like he's worried he might fly apart otherwise. Some part of him still is, as his eyes dart into the dark corners of the church, looking everywhere but at Gene even as the unfiltered desperation for some kind of control keeps him speaking: ]

I could kill you if I wanted. You couldn't stop me.

I know.

( he ain't hardly a fool. his voice is mild, but there's no fear lurking in behind it. he recognizes that he's losing the kid to panic an' fear an' so he just leans in again, pullin' him back into his arms, rubbing a hand up and down his spine. )

I've known you were dangerous from the start. First time we met I had a fella here with a gun trained on you just in case you tried anythin'. I was a noncombatant in war, boy, I ain't blind.

( medics couldn't even carry guns or risk violatin' the geneva convention. he only started carrying a pistol a few weeks before he died, an' even then it was beneath his coat, an' only because of the way marion died in holland. the s.s was respectin' the medic's band less an' less as the war rolled on. )

But that's livin'. Hell, a bad case of TB would kill me just as sure. Humans are fragile when they can't call lightnin' or fire to their fingertips. ( like kyna. ) Or darkness, I s'ppose. ( like vanitas. ) I've made peace with that. But could ain't will. Bein' dangerous don't mean you ain't deservin' of kindness anyhow.

[ The tremble lingers in his frame, and it speaks to his headspace that when Gene leans in to pull him close again, Vanitas doesn't fight him. He lets it happen, lets the wrap around his shoulders act as the band holding his body together. Without unbridled terror facilitating his every thought and movement, he can recognize that it does something to him. It calms the static in his brain, and he can feel the rapid gallop of his heart ease.

He doesn't understand that this is what being soothed feels like. He's never had the experience before.

But it isn't just that. It's I had a gun trained on you, it's I've known you were dangerous— familiar sentiments, things that aren't insisting that Vanitas be more, or better, or good, or light. He cleaves so desperately to these shadows because without them, he doesn't know what he could possibly be. If he wasn't darkness, a constant threat, then what did he have left?

Gene is warm. Vanitas can feel it through the doctor's shirt, and in the friction that smooths up and down his back. Somehow, it reminds Vanitas of the peace he'd felt in Sora's death memory. It makes him want to crack open the doctor's ribs and climb into his chest. Instead, Vanitas curls his hands into fists in his lap and puts his cheek down on Gene's shoulder.

Doing this is a weakness. Xehanort would beat him for it and leave him to pick up the pieces, scar tissue meant to make him stronger. But his Master isn't here, and nobody is around to see it. ]

( so he lets it sit an' settle. doesn't do much else, or offer anymore words than that. it's a rarefied thing, doin' this when there's time. when the world around them ain't bound up in blood an' gunfire. a damn luxury to be able to offer comfort where it's needed an' due without a caveat or somethin' else more pressin' that needs his attention.

a shell-shocked soldier is only less critical than a man with a suckin' chest wound by dint of impending mortality. but it ain't any less a wound.

so he's here. long as he's needed. the occasional murmur of some soft sentiment just to ease the boy's mind on his lips. )

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