[ CLOSED ]

[evulsed]

characters: Vanitas, Castiel, Bruce, Riku — others TBA
location: the beach, the museum
date/time: between Feb 27 - March 1
content: Vanitas took a gamble that ended rather poorly
warnings: gore
other: will match format! will also use this as a bit of a catch all and update accordingly

Comments

castiel.

[evulsed]

He knew it was a gamble, trying to make this journey— and if he makes it back, he doesn't think it was entirely wasted.

If, being the operative word. His breath echoes back at him, rapidfire, in his helmet. Vanitas is one with the Darkness, but this biting cold isn't one he can contend with. It isn't one he's ever experienced while traveling this way before— and he can only assume it means there's an outside force acting on him. Is it the Darkness itself? Is it a World Eater? The screaming agony in his body makes it difficult to focus on anything but running. That incessant droning goes on and on and on, never louder, never quieter. Already he can't hear out of one side of his head, he can feel the warm trickle of blood sliding along his jaw and sticky in his hair.

He tumbles, narrowly dodging one lashing tentacle only to be buffeted into another. It rips through his armor, lashing the muscle of his leg open when the sharp end sinks into his flesh and ripping it open when it yanks back out like a fish hook violently removed.

Vanitas clutches his dimming lantern to his chest and flies as fast as he can, pushing every last bit of his reserve into trying to escape. Luring these things back to Beacon is the last thing he wants to do— so he's been altering his direction, splitting his corridor as he goes— a technique he's rarely, if ever, had to use. But he does it— against all odds with their relentless pursuit— whether it's his own skill or the fact they simply lose interest, when he finally tumbles out of the Darkness it's alone into the surf of Beacon.

The fear of the water doesn't even register as he staggers through the shallows, turning the frothing water red, painting the sand dark. His left leg doesn't hold him up, the muscle too destroyed, and he collapses into the sand on three points, flinging the cast-iron lamp ahead of him. It tumbles through the dirt, barely holding on to it's flame. He can't breathe— and he doesn't know enough about anatomy to know that one of those gripping tentacles pierced him right through the ribs, leaving him with one lung to work with. Fleeing, he'd avoided most of the damage to his chest, but his back has been flayed open like a pig. Huge chunks of armor missing, along with the skin underneath, leaving the pink muscle exposed to the cold winter air and the buffet of the lake water.

Gasping, he desperately pushes his helmet off just as he collapses completely onto his stomach, and it clatters away just to the end of his fingertips, arm outstretched like he's reaching after it. Every inhale brings with it the gritty taste of sand. This, at least, is familiar. And, he thinks, as the pain starts to recede behind the dusky veil of unconsciousness, at least she'll be able to find him here. The beach is a pretty obvious place, isn't it?

Maridel.

Fatigue takes him under, the silence of Beacon reigning, the surf lapping at his boots.

[freetobe]

Like a nail on chalkboard, Vanitas' arrival registers on Castiel's outstretched senses. It's not his mere presence that feels unpleasant - Castiel has grown used to the presence of a variety of monsters and demons alike, has housed thousands of them within his own vessel until they made a feast of his grace and ripped him to shreds. No, it's the sudenness of there being nothing unusual and then something very unusual between the seconds of reality passing from one to the other, like a dark room in which a light source snaps on without warning to cast a stark shadow.

Castiel doesn't sleep, and is prone to wandering, prone to observing what's around him.

For once, he's drawn to Vanitas much as Vanitas is so often drawn to him. Castiel sees the lantern first, collapsed on its side in the sand, and reaching it is a thankful matter of beating his wings once, materializing next to it. Slowly his gaze scans the sands, glides from the lantern to the helmet to the unconscious form nearby. Still alive, despite a gruesome extent of wounds.

Castiel doesn't feel the stab of panic he would were this Dean or Sam. He wonders, for a moment, why he even lingers rather than walk away. Whatever pains Vanitas has suffered aren't his to be concerned with. His grace is a precious resource, and he has too many peopel here, now, whom he'd rather keep it available for. Vanitas wants to take, wants to hurt Castiel.

And perhaps he will.

Castiel is a soldier. He's explained to Dean, in the past, that sometimes he just doesn't have the luxury to care. He's still telling himself it's not his problem, not his friend or ally to care about, when he pulls the tablet from his coat, and writes a message:

To: @ bruce
From: @ thursday

This is Castiel. If you're at the museum, I need you to pray to me. It's urgent. I will explain after.

And then he grabs the lantern, the helmet, and keeps his fingers on them as his free hand hovers above Vanitas' gruesome wounds, assessing the damage present and formulating a plan on what needs fixing. He won't be able to restore him fully, Castiel knows as much. But the moment he can transport Vanitas, he'll do what he can. He just hopes Bruce will not prove half as frustrating to deal with as many humans, because Vanitas is in little condition to be moved physically.

[pearlstrings]

Bruce has no supernatural abilities. He has no hyper-acute sense of the forces of the universe stirring around them, he doesn't register a fluctuation in the primordial darkness or light that the people closest to him seem innately attuned to. He doesn't feel Vanitas's departure or arrival, he doesn't feel whatever threads Castiel is pulling in Beacon.

He wakes early and begins a rigid training regimen, he makes breakfast, he combs the network and reads, takes notes. He trains again, then makes his way to the workbench to continue progress on his latest project. Through it all his tablet remains as close as his lantern; usually it is just as silent.

That changes when a message appears, a username he hasn't messaged before. Bruce reads it once, twice. He doesn't have a skeptical nature, just an investigative one. He wants to understand the how and why, he wants answers and has from a very young age- where experience dictated that with those questions satisfied, he might avoid being hurt again. He might be able to control the uncontrollable. He and Castiel have spoken very briefly and while it's been polite, they don't have nearly enough history between them for this request to fill in the blanks.

Further, the moment Bruce's thoughts bring him up to that precipice, he hesitates. He doesn't pray. He doesn't believe that a place like Gotham can exist if God does. But his personal beliefs don't change that there are angels and demons in Beacon. That these things exist with or without him. Bruce's hands lower and the tablet settles in his lap. How does anyone pray?

He closes his eyes.

"I'm praying to Castiel." It feels wrong, like a jacket that doesn't fit but that he's putting on anyway. "I don't know what a prayer looks like, but I'm here, if you're listening."

[freetobe]

It doesn't take long for Castiel to hear the words, a prayer directed to him. It's awkward and stilted, but it's not half as vulgar and lacking decorum as Dean's prayers usually are, so Castiel only blinks heavenwards in exasperation for a very short moment. He can't fault Bruce for doing what's asked of him with a lack of grace.

Besides, it's enough. The words resonate like a tuning fork within the caverns of constellations that make up what Castiel truly is. A prayer spoken to him, a prayer heard.

A prayer answered.

In the space between a second and the next, there's a rustle of feathers just beside the work bench, the strange feeling of displaced air, the faint scent of ozone and petrichor and wild honey, and where there was empty space, Castiel lands with Vanitas. From his shoulders, shadows stretch and fold outwards, large black wings that stretch up and out, until it seems they were only just a trick of the lantern light, and were always just shadows up against the walls and ceiling, and then they're gone, no longer visible between one breath and the next.

Castiel is still crouched over Vanitas, bleeding and bloodied, and Castiel unceremoniously shoves helmet and lantern aside as he puts a hand on Vanitas' head and lets the other hover over where the wounds are the worst. His eyes, usually a stunning blue, now become almost electric, light gathering under his skin that somehow remains without a glow. And he pours it into Vanitas, grace struggling to mend organs and flayed flesh alike. The lung, first, the rest after.

His grace is light, and not as compatible with Vanitas' darkness as it would be with another angel, or a human, or most other creatures, and it's obvious in the furrow of concentration between Castiel's usually so stoic brows. The light of his own lantern dims. He won't drain it quite as badly as it was the first time he met Bruce, but he has no qualms about giving as much as it takes to stabilize Vanitas.

"I always hear the ones directed at me," he says, almost conversationally. "Other prayers only if I'm listening for them. This place has restricted the use of my wings, but I can still tether myself to a prayer and follow it to its source. I deemed him in no condition to be moved otherwise."

[pearlstrings]

There's no reasonable way for him to predict what will happen next or how the situation will unfold. Castiel says it's an emergency and in the back of his head he's anticipating that the man might be in danger, that it's possible he's hurt. It's the reason that even as he starts to say the prayer aloud, Bruce is climbing to his feet and moving through the halls- walking at a quick clip towards the staircase and pulling the false top loose. He's withdrawing a black bag from the cavern beneath when the atmosphere changes.

Bruce's head lifts as if he can taste the ozone, something cosmic or chemical in the air around him. What he knows is this: one minute he's alone, the next he isn't. Castiel is there, near the workbench in a rustling of feathers- a presence he's aware of not just by sound, but by sense.

He is not alone.

The strap of the bag bites down on Bruce's shoulder and he pushes to his feet quickly, comes running across the floor with the lump bouncing against his back. Vanitas sinks to the floor, streaked with blood. His eyes are close but his lantern is still burning. Castiel puts his hands over him and Bruce drops to his knees, slides across the distance that remains. His fingers go to Vanitas's shirt, and unable to find clasps, he reaches for the knife in his boot and slices a line through the material right handed; feels for a pulse with the left.

His gaze goes to Castiel's face. "What happened?"

[freetobe]

"I don't know."

It's an admission that Castiel doesn't make easily. There's very little a being like him doesn't know or cannot find out through a variety of means. He can hazard a guess based on Vanitas' position when he'd discovered him - yet this is Beacon. There's little way of knowing for sure with Vanitas out cold and unable to tell.

"I found him at the beach, half in the water. No signs of a fight or what did this to him."

Something in the water would be the easiest guess - Castiel doesn't know about Vanitas' aversion to it. The beach was untouched, however, safe for the body and the blood being lapped away into the dark waters.

With the shirt cut away, Castiel sees the extent of the wound in the chest more clearly. Through the ribs.

"We can't put him on his back."

Flayed open. Castiel tries to put together what could have done this, but knows the attempt is near futile - the spirits come in many spaces. He thinks of Sarissa mentioning tentacles in the water.

"I can restore the lung and much of the surrounding tissue." Something went clean through the ribs there, tore a hole into his torso. The biggest concern out of these wounds, as far as Castiel is concerned. Not that the rest isn't gruesome, but... with the rate at which he's depleting his grace here, he has to prioritize it. The rest... much of the rest he can only encourage Vanitas' body to heal a little faster than it naturally would. Being the process, stop the bleeding. It's strangely irksome - the fact that he can't just pour himself into these wounds and knit it all back together the way he could with others. For all that Vanitas covets the light, his body fights it.

[pearlstrings]

It's incredible how easily the memories surface- how one prone body with red pooling beneath them becomes another, and another. His parents, Alfred, Selina.

"Just the lungs. I can stitch the rest, we can stop the bleeding together but I'll need both of your hands." Bruce pauses only to push both of his own sleeves up, and then his fingers are back at work. The bag is left open between them and he peels fabric from Vanitas's arms, cuts material away where he has to in order to bare the skin he requires. "You'll have to help apply pressure." It could be called a warning for his tone. He knows very well what Castiel is capable of, how readily and willingly he'd deplete his own light.

But he's more than just his grace. There are other ways to save a life, and he needs Castiel hale and whole for that.

Bruce reaches into the bag and withdraws a needle, affixing one to either end of a narrow tube- pushing one tip into the pale valley at Vanitas's elbow, and the other into his own. Donating his own blood. He doesn't wince and instead uses his opposite hand to reach for a roll of tape- clumsily pulling a few strips loose and using them to anchor each side of this new tether. It leaves smears of blood behind.

"He wouldn't have been at the lake. He's too afraid to go near the water alone."

[evulsed]

His lantern gutters, the black flame of it so dim compared to the strong glow of Bruce and Castiel's. It isn't until Castiel is pressing his grace into him that it flickers, jarring like an electric current has gone through it. Vanitas is too far gone to show the effect on the surface, at least at first. He's a still, bloody mess on the table as the armor is stripped away, as they make quick, short work of saving his life.

But that Light is a powerful thing, and for all it works it's magic, stitching pieces of Vanitas back together— it scores him from the inside out, like a sun blooming inside the cloud of all his Darkness.

When it settles in his lungs, pulling the raw edges of it back together, sewing together the fibres and closing up the hole that collapsed it entirely— his eyes fly open. For a moment, maybe a trick of the lantern light, it seems like Vanitas' yellow eyes are a reflection of that grace shining out of him. He inhales deeply, the sound a wet gurgle around all the blood still in his mouth and his throat. It burns, all that Light poured inside, and panic grips him.

Vanitas slaps one hand out, luckily not the one Bruce has put a needle in, grabbing for the nearest thing— Castiel's jacket, directly in front of him, eyes huge. He can't scream, the sound is locked somewhere in his ribcage, maybe still stuck in his healing lungs. With teeth grit, the only noise he makes is a keening sort of wail, and what he wants is impossible to tell.

He would never ask for help, after all.

But awake, and in brutal agony, he jolts against the table, like he might try to get up. With the wreck of his back and his legs, it would probably be impossible— but wilder things have happened.

[freetobe]

Castiel grits his teeth to keep the current of his grace steady against the bucking of Vanitas' darkness even before the boy wakes. It requires effort, though his eyes snap to Bruce for a moment, and stare. He's not reaching for a read of Bruce's soul, feels something skitter along the forefront of his thoughts, like a phantom of a memory, and keeps his grace tightly tucked inside.

"I can do that. I remade a human body once, so my knowledge of anatomy should be sufficient to assist you."

The words come calmly. An accusation of detachment could be levelled at Castiel, truth be told. But really, he's merely calm in most things that do not involve the Winchesters.

When Vanitas comes to and thrashes and grabs for him, Castiel lets himself be grabbed. He can feel it, the anguish radiating through Vanitas' body. It's not quite pity he feels, but something does curl tight behind Castiel's ribs.

Not all dark things are bad things, he knows. And despite threats to the opposite, Vanitas has yet to inflict actual harm upon Castiel. Perhaps he will regret his efforts later... but for now, Castiel curls one hand around Vanitas' grip on his jacket carefully; near gently.

"I know," he says, as if Vanitas had voiced the intent behind his agonized wail. "Your presence is not required. Rest now." His other hand pushes wet, blood crusted hair away from Vanitas' forehead before it settles there, firm but not unkind.

And with a significant dip in light from his lantern, he sends a pulse through the boy, takes his awareness and sends him into blissfull unconsciousness. Castiel sends Vanitas' hand down once the grip on his coat goes slack.

He unclips his lantern from where he usually carries it on his belt, and makes sure Bruce looks at him, and his very visible reserves. "This is all I'll expend. I will replenish what you give as well." He hears Bruce's warning. This is his counter offer. He won't be tapped, he'll have reserves left - he'll give as much as he can spare, but no more. "Consider me at your disposal."

[pearlstrings]

If he's honest, (and he tries to be, internally if nothing else) there's something genuinely terrifying about reminders like this. Seeing Castiel's hand find Vanitas's forehead, watching his body go slack with nothing more than a rest now. It isn't the first show of power he's seen while here, and Bruce has seen so many demonstrations. He knows, intellectually, that residents of Beacon exist on a spectrum in which 'human' is only a small fraction. He's seen people teleport, fly, conjure something from nothing. But it's something else entirely to see it first hand. To see the ease with which one person has control over another.

I remade a human body once, he says, and if the circumstances were different, if there wasn't a needle in his arm and blood on both hands, he might stop and wonder at the thought. Instead all he can do is see it for the experience it is. Not for the first time, Bruce wishes his father was here. He's not sure if it's something that can be inherited- a doctor's cool head and steady hands.

"The human body has between 5 and 6 liters of blood. The average transfusion is 3 pints, you can donate up to 2 without adverse effects." His gaze flicks back up to Castiel as he works, keeping track of the sudden surge of Vanitas's pulse as his body jerks, and drop when he goes slack. "I won't do anything reckless."

When his hand comes away from Vanitas's throat it's to reach for his tablet, to fire off a message to Riku and tell him to come right away, before he drops it to the side and starts digging through the bag- withdrawing packages of sterile gauze and antibiotic solutions. "We'll need to turn him over to get a look at the extent of his injuries. Hold his neck steady and we'll rotate on three."

[equinoctials]

The electric bikes don't make the roar of an approaching combustion engine or the hum of a gummiship, it's just the crunch of tires rolling over the dead leaves and twigs exposed during the gradual melt of all the ice and snow, of branches brought down by high winds. Riku scarcely has the patience to use the kick stand before his heavy booted stride is taking the short steps up to the door two at a time.

When he pushes inside, the square first aid kit under one arm raps clumsily against the door, the light of his lantern shivers from his hip as a heel kicks the door shut behind him. By the time he arrives, they've probably already maneuvered Vanitas around.

Between Castiel's Light, the twilight that is Bruce as long as he's known him, and the powerful scent of Vanitas's Darkness, he could find them blindfolded. To his credit, Riku pauses only a second to breathe a name at the sight of all that blood, then he moves, finding somewhere convenient to deposit and open the first aid kit.

Though it might be distressing that the first thing he does with his now empty hand is summon his Keyblade.

[freetobe]

Castiel was a soldier for billions of years. It makes him an excellent follower when attached to the right leader. Taking orders comes naturally to a being like him, and while he can be headstrong and push back now that he's learned not to blindly follow, this is a situation in which he can let someone else hold the reins and direct him.

Quite frankly, he's not inherently gentle enough with most people to make for a good bedside attendant. His grasp on anatomy and willingness to follow Bruce's lead certainly work in his favour here.

They turn Vanitas over on Bruce's count of three - it bears noting perhaps that this appears to cause Castiel no particular effort, hinting at that celestial strength - and Castiel glances up when Riku joins them, acknowledging his presence with a nod - and a puzzled frown at the blade.

"How is that going to help?"

His tone makes it clear: He's not questioning the validity of the action or Riku's intent with the blade. It's genuine curiosity.

[equinoctials]

It might not work. All that blood only reminds him of that night when Five succumbed to his injuries no matter how many times Riku cast it, that night when so many of their number disappeared or were slain that it forever skewed the calculated odds of one's return if one died here.

This isn't as much as the time he bled out in Riku's arms, either. He can't help thinking of it, and shakes his head firmly. His grip on the handle of Braveheart tightens, the creak of his gloves and his sharp inhale the only sound before he holds it aloft.

"Heal!"

Once, Vanitas had confided that he didn't know what it was like to receive a Curaga spell, he isn't even conscious enough to remember, when the spell takes the shape of a great blossom faintly shimmering overhead, dropping a bead of condensed, restorative magic down over the group of them.

As much as he wants to advance, to look at what effect, if any, the spell had, he doesn't want to crowd them when they're trying to help save Vanitas's life, but the restraint is clear in the half-start of a step forward, the stiff set of his shoulders.

"How is he?"

[pearlstrings]

Castiel takes the brunt of Vanitas's weight and Bruce surrenders it, uses his own good hand as a guide and allows the other man to do the heavy lifting even as Riku closes the distance. As the question hits the air and the sword materializes.

He doesn't know what to expect really, when Riku casts the spell. He knows it will be something because the fact that the keyblade appears at all isn't meaningless. But apart from the few shows of power he'd seen during combat with Vanitas, when he'd broken into Quentin's home- magic is still a mystery to him. He doesn't know how it works. He doesn't know its smell, its sound its signals. A shape appears in the space over their heads, so pale and thin that it's nearly invisible, and if he hadn't had Riku's 'heal!' announced to the room, if he didn't feel the magic working on him too- closing his skin around the needle in his arm, the understanding might not have landed as profoundly as it does.

There's enough blood around them, beneath them, that it soaks into the fabric of his slacks. There's a copper taste to the air.

Bruce reaches for the place where the needle has been pushed out of his arm, where the skin has healed over not just for him, but for the little dip at Vanitas's elbow as well. "Keep him still," he says, pulling the rest of the material down Vanitas's back, revealing the slashed skin beneath. Some of the gashes look like wounds in fast-forward. Like they've been healing for several days and have begun to knit themselves back together. But many continue to ooze, not quite black, but worryingly dark. "There. We'll need to move him onto his stomach. Castiel keep an eye on his respirations, the number needs to stay between twelve and twenty per minute. And start unpacking the gauze. We sterilize these first, there's solution in the bag."

He's lost enough blood to feel the effect of it, but no so much as to dull his awareness. Bruce waves Riku over with a jerk of his head and starts carefully guiding Vanitas's body onto his stomach. "Give me your jacket," he says, because how is he is an answer that's in flux. He doesn't tell Riku to come over, to stay, because the shape of his voice suggests he doesn't need to. He expects Riku to help. To stay close.

"I don't suppose you know your blood type."

[equinoctials]

Riku moves automatically, shrugging immediately out of his jacket. It's to keep him warm, he assumes, the way they're taught to blanket someone in shock during their first aid lessons.

The scent - of blood, of Vanitas's cloying Darkness, Bruce's twilight - it overwhelms. He can feel the light of Castiel's grace, too, and Riku knows that the numb, buzzy sensation that makes his blood thunder in his ears is fear. He doesn't have room for it, there's a clarity here that Riku welcomes, a directness to the task: they need to help Vanitas survive his injuries, and heal them.

He's so grateful he had that conversation with Rosalind months and months ago about blood types, they made an appointment to meet later at the lab and since then has known the results of her inspection.

"O positive," supposedly it was rather common on some worlds, Riku wouldn't know, "Will it work?"

museum.

[evulsed]

He isn't wholly compatible with Castiel's brand of magic. His grace runs parallel to the Light, and just like the time Eldin healed him, the burning sun of his power wars with all of Vanitas' Darkness. But it does the job— at least enough to bring him back from the brink— no matter how much it hurt him to experience. What was a little agony, anyway? Pain only made a person stronger.

Healing the old fashioned way takes time, and it leaves Vanitas sleeping on his belly in the bed Bruce made for him in the museum. How many times has Vanitas been laid low by injury and forced to heal through it on his own? His whole time in the desert was exactly that— but this isn't the same. Even in and out of consciousness, he's aware of other people. Aware of hands on his body, changing bandages, though he isn't alert to the fact this is what they're doing. The time between the beach and now is foggy, but their voices float around in his head.

It's enough that when his brow creases, when he stirs, the murmur of conversation still rattles around in his head. He isn't alone. Or rather, he doesn't think he's alone. Maybe he's just imagining the voices. It wouldn't be the first time. Everything feels so heavy that he struggles to drag his mind out of the lethargy of sleep, drawing an involuntary little sound up from his throat. His fingers twitch against the bedspread, where his hand is laid up near his face.

[equinoctials]

Riku doesn't sleep.

He makes up for it by eating more, but for the most part, the only thing he cooks in the kitchen is liquid and warm, savory and full of proteins, whatever dark and leafy greens they still have on hand. Riku knows that these things are a home remedy for anemia back on the islands, though the version he remembers is a watery porridge of flaked fish, stewed dark greens, medicinal herbs and wild rice.

Canned chicken soup fortified with barley and canned spinach is a tastier, if less authentic variation, the source of a savory scent wafting from a covered dish on the shelf jutting from the bed's headboard.

Healing this way takes time, more importantly it demands rest. Riku has considered, on more than a few occasions, whether the Darkness in his heart could be utilized the way Vanitas had healed him once, but what tempers the temptation is the knowledge of how greater Darkness tended to liven Vanitas up, made him reckless and overconfident in the illusion of invincibility.

He tells himself he'll try when Vanitas regains more of his strength. Currently, his weight sinks the edge of the mattress, one hand shutting the lid on one of his makeshift first aid boxes. A small sound keens in his throat, and Riku's other palm pushes back the dark hair from the other boy's brow.

"Easy," warns Riku, "You're badly hurt."

The box is pushed away towards the foot of the bed, his hand pushes again through his hair, this time, it escapes him that it would've been strange to find him comforting Vanitas in a situation like this, over half a year ago.

"You're safe. Try not to move."

[evulsed]

The press of that hand soothes Vanitas on an animal level, something much deeper and instinctual than anything he may have learned to combat this sort of comfort. It's warm, and gentle, but heavy enough that Vanitas can feel the weight of his palm and the way Riku's callouses catch in the baby strands of his black hair, smoothing it away from his face. It's almost enough to lull him back under, the tension climbing in his body as he claws toward wakefulness easing out of his shoulders in one long exhale, contracting his ribcage.

He murmurs: Riku. Or at least tries to, a verbal acknowledgement that he recognizes the voice. Then everything catches up to him all at once, the journey crashing all over him, the droning that had gone on and on and on. The spirits that lashed him alive, chasing him back into Beacon, the fear he'd felt that he might lead them back. Not everyone here would be able to contend with that sort of thing—

Vanitas inhales sharply and his eyes pop open, adrenaline pounding abruptly through his whole body. "Bruce—" He moves as if he's about to put his hands underneath him and get up, when screaming agony floors him before he can even fully flex any muscle. Involuntarily, he cries out and freezes, trembling from head to foot and breathing hard.

[equinoctials]

When Riku sees the relief implicit in that long sigh, there's a different feeling that blooms in his chest that exists alongside his worry and concern despite it being so apparently out of place. Does he really have a right to feel... a little happy to have brought him a little comfort? It's a question that, once formed, scatters; Vanitas is trying to move and, reminded of his horrific injuries, cries out.

"Damn it," he mutters, moving without a thought, to lean over him and press him by the wrists down and hem him in, pushing at the back of his skull with his brow. It's the only way - everywhere else is too recently stitched up and bandaged.

"He's fine! Everyone's fine," Riku speaks right against the back of his dark hair, "...We're worried about you," Riku confesses, after a stretch of silence, feeling him tremble all over underneath him, hearing him breathe, damning himself for not having some other way he could ease his agony.

"I don't know what happened," he says, "But your injuries are severe. You have to stay still, please."

[evulsed]

Panic surges through him at first. Not only is his body wrecked, but now he's being physically held down. A brief flash of a memory tears through him, sending him right back to the desert and the sand and the feel of a boot on the back of his head. Reflex, then, makes him go as still as he can— every muscle he can access locked in place in some animal effort to prevent any further pain from occurring.

It happens quickly, and ends just as fast with the punctuation of Riku's voice breaking through to him. Gasping for breath, Vanitas' wide eyes cut sidelong from where his cheek is pressed against the pillow, an attempt to look up and see. All that's in his vision is the dark color of Riku's clothing, his torso casting a shadow over him and blocking the lantern light— but as Vanitas' lungs remember to work, familiarity settles over him. The copper of blood lingers, but around that is a scent that's uniquely Riku. Not Darkness or Light, but something that always clings to his skin and his hair and his clothing.

Vanitas inhales and fights the urge to wince when it expands his ribs and pulls on his wounds. "Riku," He breathes, but there's urgency in the exhale. "Nothing followed me?"

[equinoctials]

He can smell the blood, the disinfectant, the scent of his Darkness, can feel the restrained swell of his chest as he inhales, thinks he can hear that silent hitch when Vanitas resists a wince. That's how close they are, but Riku doesn't re-establish distance when he isn't sure yet if Vanitas won't try to get up again.

"Nothing," promises Riku, "Nothing followed."

He's sure Castiel would have said something if there had been some impending danger, some circumstances that he could attribute to Vanitas's grievous injuries when he arrived in the museum. No- when Riku barged in, medical kit in tow, it was to see Bruce and Castiel manhandling Vanitas's unconscious form, drenched in his blood.

He hated it. Seeing Vanitas like that, insensate and bone-chillingly pliant, his pale skin streaked with blood. Well after the fact, Riku knows he was afraid he wouldn't make it, that maybe this would be the time he doesn't come back.

Finally, he eases back, cautiously.

"We're as safe as we usually are," he says truthfully, "...There's time enough later to gloat about you worrying about us." Such as when he's not critically wounded.

[evulsed]

Slowly, his heart rate starts to even out, and Vanitas closes his eyes with the unfamiliar sensation of relief washes over him. Those things... there was no easy way to fight them. All those blade-like arms, and they'd been so quick, and he'd been fading so quickly in the Darkness. Maybe he should have known, because if they appeared behind him they definitely would have ripped him to shred and he wouldn't be waking up to Riku at his back, but instead to the broad glow of a candle-lit altar.

"Shut up," His voice is rough as sand paper, and there's no bite in his retort; he's too tired, the adrenaline and the ache in all of him too intense. Riku is right— he was worried. It isn't the first time it's happened, but it is strange to hear it so plainly and know that it's correct.

He stays still, though some of the initial tension starts to ease from his body. It's clear he isn't going to try and leap to his feet, at the very least. His eyes cut back up to try and find Riku. It's— alarmingly vulnerable, to be like this. Vanitas can recognize that it's fear sizzling under his skin, despite the fact he knows Riku won't hurt him.