pearlstrings

inbox

bruce wayne
@ᴡᴀʏɴᴇ
@ʙʀᴜᴄᴇ

PLEASE NOTE: Bruce has two inboxes.

His official user id for the network is Bruce and if you meet in person, in the unlikely event he gave you his contact details, this is the ID he would give you.

That said, his conversations on the network have largely been under the id of Wayne, as a way to keep his two identities separated.
This is the username he uses most often and he will answer replies to that handle- there just seems to be no physical person on the registry to link it to.

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[Vanitas has been asking for days now. Not in so many words, but Bruce knows that it isn't just a matter of discomfort- because he can tolerate all kinds of pain and annoyance. He's sure the lion's share of the trouble is that Vanitas is bored, and perhaps struggling with the limitations of a healing body. Has there been anyone in his life before not to encourage him to rest while he recovered? For the variety and severity of the scars that make up a patchwork on his skin- it's doubtful.

Riku's been worried, a quiet thing largely telegraphed by the line of his gaze and the way his eyes linger. And Vanitas has, perhaps against all odds, allowed them to worry. Allowed them to avoid touching and picking at them, listened to their advice to slow down and decrease his activity level. It's a strange new element to their dynamic and it extends even to the way Vanitas loiters just inside the door now. A different level of comfort between them.

Bruce looks back over his shoulder and finishes setting his supplies out, sets to rolling one sleeve and then the other carefully up to his elbow.]

That would be helpful. It might be too soon for all of them, but we can look.

[The chair eases back.]

How have you been feeling? Itchy?

[ His eyes flick down to the gesture instead of staying on Bruce's face, the reveal of his wrists and then his forearms as he folds the fabric up into the hinges of his elbows. Bruce, despite his lean appearance, is strong. Though they've never had an all out brawl, they've play-battled enough for Vanitas to understand just how sharp-minded and powerful Bruce is without a lick of magic in him. He can see some of that in the flex of muscle in his arm as he turns his hand over to fold up his other sleeve.

Belatedly, his attention comes back up, and for a moment it seems like Vanitas needs to mentally catch up to the conversation, despite having been the one to initiate the discussion. ]

I said it was, didn't I?

[ Not today, before, but being contrary is second nature. It's still annoying to him that he had to wait it out instead of leaning in to Curaga or his own dark magic. Bruce had warned against it, because sealing the stitches into his body was a very real possibility.

He crosses over to the work bench regardless, but puts his hand under the hem of his shirt, pulling the soft black fabric up over his head, revealing swathes of pale, rugged skin on his way. Instead of folding the fabric, he tosses it at Bruce's chair before climbing one knee, then the other, up to lay down. There's a practiced motion to it, despite the fact before these last couple of weeks he'd never been tended to this way in his life. ]

It's a good sign, because it means the skin is mending.

[Vanitas has been this way for as long as Bruce has known him- he seems to take a confrontational angle by nature. Experience has taught him to listen for nuance. Here and now, despite the irritation that rolls off of him, there's no venom in Vanitas's voice. He peels his shirt off instead, revealing more of the mangled, scarred skin underneath and not for the first time, Bruce looks at him and wonders how similar his own body will look once he's finished. How hard he's willing to push. The difference between a person who chooses this destiny and a person who has no choice.

Without any self-consciousness at all, Vanitas climbs up onto the bench, where Bruce had laid out a blanket sometimes earlier, and he waits until the other is settled. Until he's become still. He doesn't reach immediately for the small scissors and instead reaches for antiseptic; like everything else Bruce does, his intention is to look first and then decide. He draws the chair forward and sits, so near Vanitas's side that he can feel the warmth of his body, that when he speaks, his breath ghosts over him.

His voice is very quiet.]

You scared me.

[ At the start of all of this, Vanitas' skittishness at being prone and vulnerable hadn't been something he could act on. His body had been so wrecked, so exhausted, that trying to protect himself had been all but out of the question and it forced him to tremble through the terror and let these boys look after him.

Now, it doesn't frighten him even half as much. As he stretches out on the blanket, a little flicker of anticipation runs up his spine, but it's more easily controlled and it doesn't show in his movements, in his face. He folds his hands under his cheek, and his face is turned away when Bruce addresses him quietly.

A heartbeat passes, and then Vanitas turns his cheek the other direction, so he can put both golden eyes on Bruce. The sentiment isn't exactly foreign to him, but the way Bruce says it... ]

I would've come back.

[ He says quietly, instead of I'm sorry, because those two words still feel foreign and wrong in his mouth. ]

You know that isn't always the case.

[Bruce isn't scolding him. It's unfortunate, but he's had time to learn that the anger that so often surfaces after a close call like this is always born out of fear. It comes from affection, friendship- love. There will come a time when no matter what happens for Beacon, they will all be separated. Bruce hasn't made his peace with it yet, but he recognizes the looming inevitability for what it is. He tries to make his time here something meaningful- he tries to spend it by being kind, by being helpful, by doing the right thing. He isn't always successful.

Despite the careful turn of Vanitas's head and the weight of his inhuman, yellow eyes, Bruce doesn't look back at him. He looks instead at a largely healed line of skin, pink and pale.]

Cold.

[The nonsequitor is a word of warning, before he touches damp gauze to the row of stitches, sanitizing the area.] When I remove them you'll feel a strange tug, but it won't hurt.

[ There are rules, and rules — no matter how chaotic Vanitas acts — are something he almost needs. A structure that dictates how he is meant to operate in the world, because he otherwise would have no idea how to conduct himself. When would he have had time to learn otherwise before this, when his only example had been a man leading him with an iron fist? ]

I made it back with my lantern. Maridel would have brought me back.

[ There is a quiet conviction in his voice as he carries on the conversation, ignoring the warning, verbally at least. When Bruce touches the gauze to his body it is cold, and his muscle twitch faintly under the contact, goosebumps shooting all up his spine. Bruce isn't watching him, but Vanitas still has his gaze trained on Bruce. ]

[It's hard to know whether or not it's an argument, to know if either one of them would consider that this word fits the circumstances. Neither of them meet with corded tension or accusation. Perhaps that's worse. Vanitas says Maridel would have brought me back as if this is an unwritten rule of the universe, as if it's a child's understanding of the guidelines this world has to obey. He suspects that isn't far from the case.

Vanitas has spent the entirety of his life before now doing as he's been told. He'd been given duties to perform and expectations to meet.

Bruce's hands move and he reaches for the short scissors, cutting carefully through the stitches before setting them aside, reaching for the tweezers. He can feel Vanitas's gaze on him, and his own eyes slide to meet them.]

You didn't know you would make it back with your lantern.

[ That, finally, makes Vanitas look away. His eyes cut to the side, a brief flicker over Bruce's shoulder. The express target of that statement makes him feel strange, a little squirm in his stomach that he can't really say he's experienced before, not even after being admonished by his Master in the past. Anytime he's been caught out doing something he's never felt guilty about it. Of all the negativity he's ever experienced, this emotion is a new one.

His eyes flick back to Bruce's face. ]

Fine.

[ That's true. It was a gamble, going out there, though he has already told Bruce why he'd done it. What he was trying to find, and why he felt it was important: that they're wasting time, tending to all this frivolous mysteries when the real trouble is somewhere out there. Albeit, when that information was unloaded Vanitas was mostly in and out of delirious sleep. ]

Someone had to do something.

I know you did what you thought was right. [Bruce has steady hands. This was not innate, whatever might be said about the son of a doctor, Bruce had been an ordinary and quiet child- sensitive to the world around him. Sensitive to the people. There was a time that fear and anxiety, that memory and adrenaline would make him tremble everywhere. He's practiced, to be able to do this now.] I know you were trying to help.

[His gaze comes back around to the pale expanse of Vanitas's skin and the tweezers lift, sliding each thread through and leaving a small pile on the table beside him. Bruce's fingertips travel, touch the edge of another seam, gentle and exploratory.]

But it would be painful to me to lose you.

[ His lashes go heavy over his gold eyes, made molten by the flicker of the flame lighting up Bruce's workstation and the task at hand. It's strange to hear it said in those words. When has Vanitas ever done something to try and help, when he hasn't been told directly to do so? But it had felt important. Not because he wanted to save Beacon itself, but because...

Well, because of Bruce. And Riku. Maybe they'll all die when this is over, whether at the maw of the World Eater or by the sun coming back, but— there's a possibility. That Riku could go out and find the Sora he's looking for, and Kairi. And Bruce had offered him his heart as a place to return to, if it was possible, and something in that offer had shifted something irreparably inside of him.

Still, none of that prepares him for what Bruce says next.

Vanitas, possibly, stops breathing for a moment, and his lashes raise as his eyes go wide. Shock is the only thing that stops him from moving, even more than the subtle pin-prick tug of every stitch being gently pulled from his body. Bruce's fingers are so light on his recently-healed wound that he would barely feel it, if Vanitas was keenly aware of that sort of contact. ]

It... would?

Yes.

[Honesty doesn't come naturally to him. There was a time that it did, there was a time that he'd worn his heart too eagerly on his sleeve, that he hadn't thought about protecting any part of himself from the world because he'd never considered that the world was a place that could hurt him. But he isn't the same person any more. He knows all too well how his identity, how the feelings he has for someone, could cost them their lives. It isn't fair. No part of it is fair.

But he's trying to do things a little differently here. If all the time they have here is borrowed, if this is really all there is-

Vanitas becomes very still beneath him, enough so that Bruce doesn't start on the next set of stitches right away. His reply is quiet and calm, much calmer than he feels.]

It was painful just to see you hurt.

[His fingertips spread out across the skin beneath, an unconscious desire perhaps to brace himself. To find a touchstone.]

I respect your autonomy and I know this is selfish. Please don't treat yourself recklessly.

[ Vanitas can feel the full spread of Bruce's hand on his back like a brand, the shape of his palm and every digit, where his fingertips end. He's had more physical touch in the last two weeks outside of a fight than he's probably had in his life, but still, this moment feels significant. Huge, like that moment in the woods.

But this revelation is like a continent shifting under his feet. Bruce isn't someone from his own universe; he isn't Ventus or Sora, who maybe would quite literally feel it if he died. He's just someone Vanitas met here, divorced of the war and all their rules of black and white. Even Solis, arguably the only other person that Vanitas feels some bond toward, is not a person Vanitas would expect to be special to.

He's only one of many. He's only Darkness, the unwanted parts of every heart with Light in it. Nobody would want him and it's just another drop in the bucket of why Vanitas hates everything so steadfastly as he does.

Suddenly, his teeth click as he closes his mouth. He hadn't even noticed it had fallen open in his shock. Vanitas swallows, his mouth and throat dry. It takes him a long moment to be able to formulate a response. ]

I...

[ He has to start twice, exhaling a little sharply. ]

... am selfish about you, too.

[It doesn't surprise him to hear Vanitas describe it this way. He doesn't think of Vanitas as a child, but the limits of his lived experience fall better under this category than any other. Empathy and the spectrum of emotions- Bruce believes that those are things that can grow- that can be nurtured and in time, with care, begin to flourish. Vanitas has changed immeasurably in his time here, and while Bruce doesn't consider himself a cornerstone of that change, he does believe that it's only happened because there has been a small net of people willing to catch him when he stumbles. To redirect, to remain consistent.

Perhaps it's the only natural next step, to see the people he's grown to care about as objects that belong to him. As things he wants to protect or things keep to himself. But that Vanitas recognizes this quality within himself, that he articulates it in the first place- is profoundly meaningful.

His breath comes in a start-stop, and even that Bruce can understand. There's terror in knowledge like this. To know that there is suddenly leverage that can be used against you- to become aware of a vulnerability. One hand lifts, and comes to rest gently on the crown of Vanitas's head; it's the kind of reassuring touch he hasn't known in a very long time.]

[ Bruce doesn't answer with words, and that's probably a good thing, because Vanitas thinks for once he's actually run out of them. The revelation is much too overwhelming— everything about the moment. That Bruce is invested in him, not because of what he can do but because it causes him pain to see him hurt. That it stacks on to this stepping stone of actualization that Vanitas might matter to someone beyond what he represents as a being of Darkness.

That what's been growing inside of him is some kind of bond, maybe even something that could be called friend. He's spent a lot of time telling people how stupid it is to sacrifice yourself for others, but when he thinks of Ventus' conviction to fight him and stop him— Vanitas thinks he understands that, now. Just what vicious lengths he would go to in order to keep Bruce safe.

The thoughts shiver out of him when Bruce reaches for him, threading his fingers through the uneven scatter of his black hair. Vanitas closes his eyes, visibly soothed, and exhales over a little tremor. ]

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