pearlstrings

[ Bruce, of course, gives him a straight answer. He's been direct with Vanitas as long as he's known him, and while maybe it's only been a few months, it's been long enough to fundamentally alter his perspective of the world. Maybe if had been someone from his own universe, the effects wouldn't have been the same. His violent rejection of any kind of pity, of the desire of the light to make him change his ways, has permanently skewed his vision of what they want from him.

Bruce never did that to him.

Vanitas looks a few steps away from throwing a fist into his face. It's in the bunching of muscle in his shoulder, even under his black shirt. It's in the clenching of his fists at his sides. He's so angry— and he's used to that feeling of rage— but he can't recall ever being this cross with this person. Someone, that to his eyes, had never lied to him. ]

I didn't ask for your help sleeping, Bruce! You knocked me out!

[It's the first time he's been subject to this particular shift of Vanitas's demeanor. His moods have always been tumultuous but that wasn't foreign or strange- not when he sheds his emotions like leaves from a tree. The unversed take different shapes in different moments, their behavior varies; they are physical manifestations of the things he can't put words to. But anger is easy to recognize in a body.

Vanitas carries his now in the baring of his teeth, the tension that coils in his arms and presents a very real threat of violence. It's in the widening of his stance and the narrowing of his eyes.

Bruce turns to face him entirely, sweat damp and ruffled and flushed with exertion, but he doesn't lift his own hands in turn. He watches, remains as still as he always had.] You wouldn't have asked. It doesn't change that you needed it.

I know what I need.

[ He snarls, taking a half step closer, like just by presence alone he might be able to make Bruce move. It's certainly an intimidating tactic, one he's used in the past and normally effectively. Even if his opponent doesn't back down, they'll tense up. Bruce goes still, but not in the way a deer does when it spots danger. ]

Then why didn't you?

[There's no accusation in the reply, and it's hard to know if it's deliberate. Bruce has learned to be very aware of his surroundings, to keep one finger on the pulse of the people around him. Vanitas is a small hurricane in and of himself and the rage rolls off of him, a single lean, wordless threat.

Bruce's gaze tracks back and forth across his face.]

Why didn't you sleep, Vanitas?

That doesn't matter!

[ And it doesn't, not to him. Vanitas doesn't sleep on the same schedule as everyone else. Maybe he doesn't need it the same way the others do, even though he's just as susceptible as anyone else. Darkness is close to sleep, is close to death. There are days Vanitas doesn't even sleep so much as sit, his eyes heavy and staring off into space for hours in a dissociative, meditative sort of state.

He knows he couldn't sleep because he was hyper vigilant. Because the idea of being caught unawares, of being snuck up on and attacked, permeated into every lesson he'd ever been taught about being a weapon. He didn't pace like a trapped tiger like Riku did. He didn't even jump at shadows— but the vibrating intensity in him just wouldn't let him close his eyes to rest.

Bruce is probably right. Especially as he got sick— he did need the sleep. But that was besides the point. ]

You don't get to decide for me!

It does matter.

[This is the line Bruce draws. He's well aware of the double standard he creates for himself, of the permission he gives to others and not to himself. To the inverse. He's able to accept shortcomings in everyone but himself, of whom he demands perfection. He expects honesty from the people around him but admits that he's taught himself how to lie. But this much, he thinks, he's been forthcoming about from the start. He's never hidden his darkness from Vanitas. Bruce knows that he's a selfish man and he knows that this thing inside of him, the person he really is, isn't something he can outrun. It isn't something he wants to outrun.

It's the force that compels Vanitas to bear his teeth and make two fists at his sides.
And it's what compelled Bruce to drug his chocolates and tamper with Riku's food.

They've had this conversation before, in quiet spaces.
Seeing you hurt. It's painful for me.]

You wouldn't have recovered without it.
And I accept your anger as a consequence of that.

[ Someone else might recoil, disgusted by the steady way that Bruce refutes the claim. Revulsed that he'd so readily admit to doing this thing, taking away the choice for his own good. That Vanitas had done this selfsame act upon Riku not a week ago isn't exactly lost on Vanitas, but it also isn't the point of this discussion. Vanitas isn't Riku. Vanitas won't waste himself recklessly for the people around him. He knows Riku will do this— Vanitas has had his finger on that artery since he discovered it, prepared to exploit it to it's fullest extent.

That his intention, over time, has changed course hasn't quite caught up with him yet. And it certainly doesn't know.

So Vanitas doesn't step back. He crowds closer, even though he needs to tip his head back to keep looking Bruce in the eye. His height doesn't seem to make a shred of difference. ]

You accept it? [ He breathes, and though he's abruptly no longer shouting, he almost sounds more dangerous. ] You think because you've known me for a few months, you know everything about me? Do you have any idea how long I've been alone?

[Anger changes temperatures. That kind of volatility is mutable and Bruce, who has channeled the spectrum just as readily as Vanitas, recognizes when it's happening in front of him. He is no less dangerous because he's become quiet, and while it's clear that Bruce isn't afraid in the face of it, what's harder to know is why. If he's filled with the conviction that Vanitas won't hurt him, or if he's simply prepared for the inevitability of it.

They come very close to each other. Toe to toe.
It's the reason Bruce's voice too is quiet.]

But you aren't alone anymore, Vanitas.

[ This is the sort of statement that before, has settled him. Like a warm blanket, wrapped around a person that's been freezing cold for days, months, years. Maybe it's his fury, maybe it's the betrayal singing like metal on metal through his veins. It makes him cruel, a naked razor handled by a person not knowing just how sharp it is. ]

And that means I need your protection? Do you think I'm so pathetic, like Riku? Like Jason? Like I need you to take care of me, because I don't know any better?

[ He's never had the impression Bruce has treated him like a child, though he knows that's the way other people view him. It was as hilarious as it was explosive in the beginning, because to Vanitas, it doesn't matter what ridiculous lines people would draw on the perception of age. Factually, it's never mattered to him until right now, and maybe it's because of Vanitas' perception of what a man with power will do. How they will treat him. Because he's attached to this person in front of him— and it had never crossed his mind they weren't on equal footing. ]

No. It means that I want to protect you.

[These nuances are important because of what they mean for the way they interact with one another. He's known people who can say something as simple and naked as 'I'll take care of you' or 'You mean everything to me.' And these concepts terrify him for how huge they are- because he knows intimately that wanting isn't enough. That anyone can be hurt and that anyone can be killed. He doesn't know how to give his heart to someone who isn't also capable of protecting themselves, not when he knows the kind of danger that's out there. Not when he knows the consequences of loving him.]

I've never thought of you as pathetic. You know that.

[ Vanitas shoves him again, and it would be easy, like so much else he does, to assume it's the start of a fight— but really, it's because he keeps crowding closer, and Bruce won't give up the space. Bruce has grown stronger since the time they've known one another, and shoving him now is akin to pushing up against a wall, despite how easily he'd swung back when Vanitas came at him just moments ago. That had been purposeful, just like so much of what Bruce does. ]

That isn't protection!

[ He still isn't shouting. It's more like a snarl, a sound that makes his voice sound deep and rough as gravel. It's a voice that doesn't maybe suit how youthful his face is. ]

That's control.

[It's the first time that the accusation has come close enough to land. Bruce doesn't feel shaken by it so much as he feels suddenly and profoundly seen. It is control. Bruce isn't shattered by this revelation because he knows that he's always trying to control what's happening around. He's trying to maneuver around people and as necessary, to maneuver people themselves in their own best interests. It's not the first time he's done this with Vanitas, and he knows it isn't the first time Vanitas has been guided beneath someone else's eye.

Is that it, then? That he wasn't given the opportunity not to consent, but to know? To knowingly walk into it?

Bruce's expression begins to shift- not anger or shame, but a strange smoothing of the lines in his face. True understanding. Because it's a fair assessment, given the facts. The circumstances between them. His gaze tracks back and forth over Vanitas's face and for a very, very long moment- silence reigns. The answer that comes isn't kind of gentle or even apologetic. It's as ugly and misshapen as the man it belongs to.]

I was afraid you wouldn't do it if I asked.

[ If he were the sort of person to land a hit and escape, this would be the moment to do it. Bruce doesn't shut down, but something in him smooths out, goes still. Vanitas has struck something, and he knows he's right in his guess. Vanitas is no mind reader, no matter how intense his empathy can be; how he can pick out a negative emotion yards away, the specific weight of guilt, the taste of shame, the shiver of anger. Bruce doesn't reflect any of that back at him. It's just that same calm sheet of darkness, the same unwavering flicker of his light like a candle in a window.

Vanitas waits through the silence, aware of his own pulse, of his own shallow breathing, both arms back at his sides, loose and ready. He stares at Bruce, unblinking, and it's hard to say what might have happened if Bruce didn't finally speak.

Even with the capitulation, it doesn't seem to have doused his ire. Instead, his voice is ragged for how raw it becomes, the slight turn of his jaw. ]

I've always [ His voice cracks, but instead of breaking under the weight of it, he doubles down on the anger. Anger is so much easier to use then sorrow. Than betrayal. Maybe that's the reason he can admit it at all, though his voice has a naked quality to it that reveals all those other things, regardless. Vanitas has never tried to hide his vitriol— but he has up to now, actively tried to disguise the depth of his attachment. ] done what you have asked of me.

Edited (didn't feel quite right) 2020-04-04 12:23 (UTC)

It was never about obedience.

[It's difficult to describe the thoughts that surface. After all, this isn't the first time Bruce has been accused of manipulating the field and the people closest to him. It isn't the first time it's been true. He'd reasoned to himself at the time that what he'd been doing was a kindness, that he was encouraging the body to do what it needed when the mind couldn't make space. Vanitas clearly views it as a betrayal of trust and Bruce can understand it academically- if he takes himself out of his own perspective and reverses their position, they would be in exactly the same place now. He has never enjoyed being under the control of another. But in that same hand Vanitas is standing before him now, well rested for the first time in days. There's a flush and a fullness to his skin, to his frame that hadn't been there before. There's an awareness, an alertness in his eyes.

Bruce understood that this anger might be a consequence of his actions and so he isn't shocked by it. But he'd accepted the possibility if it would mean an improvement. If it meant he might finally get some rest.]

Can you really say you wouldn't do the same?

[ Maybe that, too, is where the line had become smudged. Control and obedience are tenants Vanitas has lived this life under. Directed as Xehanort had pointed him, not knowing any other way. He'd had no concept of why he existed, so why wouldn't he have taken at face value everything Xehanort told him? Not all of it was wrong, after all. Even if, it seems, the x-Blade really hadn't been the answer to it all. Nobody else would have wanted so much Darkness, and while his Master only needed it for his own ends, Vanitas had nothing else. Did it matter, the reason for being wanted, so long as he was?

Had he unconsciously filled that role with this person? Had he been trying to act as a perfect soldier so that Bruce would find a use in him, keep him around? It had never occurred to him. This had happened so slowly, like a room flooding, and now that it's up to his ears it's too late to do anything to change it. Worse, Vanitas isn't sure he wants to. What he wants is...

Vanitas hisses, the sound animal, and around the room in dark corners the Unversed flinch and shudder. He paces away from Bruce, it almost looks like he's going to walk back out of the room entirely, but he turns around to face him again, clearly unfinished but unable to stand still. ]

Then what is it you want of me?

[ He raises his hand, it's a gesture Bruce has seen before: grabbing his shirt, taking the fabric in front of his heart into a fist. There's something subconscious about it. Like in doing so, he can control the twisting sensation in his heart, too many emotions to understand or control. ]

You want control, but do not want to control me? You want to protect, when there is nothing to protect me from?

[There's still something powerful and wild in his countenance, the way that a storm can be seen miles away, darkening the horizon and threatening thunder. Lightning. Vanitas pinwheels under his own momentum and Bruce doesn't think that he's the thing Vanitas is drawn to so much as it is the potential for a fight. It's hard to imagine that he's ever walked away from one before, but why would he? Who willingly abandons the familiar?

Bruce remains where he's standing despite all the distance. Despite the way Vanitas pivots on his heel and rounds on him again. This close it's a strange reminder, to have the fabric of his shirt twisted up inside his fist.

There was a time Bruce had made him an offer.

He hits very near the mark on all of it. Bruce does want control, but not in the way Vanitas is used to. He does want to protect, because there is everything in the world to protect against.] I told you. [He says quietly, because it's the truth- which is neither perfect or kind.] I didn't want to see you hurt.

[ The fight doesn't go out of him. Vanitas is far too wound up for it to be washed out of him so cleanly as that— even though Bruce stays on course with his reasoning. I didn't want to see you hurt. He remembers his voice being this same cadence, and the gentle of his palm splayed out on his ribs. Vanitas' shoulders hike near his ears, his grip on his shirt tightens; maybe some kind of steadfast defiance to fight the blossom of warmth that threatens to diffuse the caustic darkness swirling in his heart. The same thing Bruce has been doing to him for months now. ]

You can't stop it.

[ It isn't just about just the sleep, anymore. Not with everything else, tumultuous around them. Everything that has lead up to this point. Vanitas drops his chin, but his eyes stay on Bruce. ]

If you wanted that, then you should have given me enough that I would never wake up again.

[That's true, no life is without pain. But they come in two types- the preventable and the unpreventable. Some hurts can be healed only with time, some hurts never heal at all, but others just need to be seen. To be acknowledged before they can ever be treated and tended. But that isn't something Vanitas can see right now. Perhaps it's something he'll never be able to see.

Their eyes meet, hold, and Bruce's voice is so quiet it might be a whisper.]
I'm too selfish for that.

[ It has the nature of a confession. Or, it would, if Vanitas hadn't heard him say something to this effect before. It reminds him, underneath wave over wave of fury, of betrayal, of other conversations they've had. Standing in the snowy woods, with nothing but trees surrounding them. Watching Bruce tend to him, asking him not to be reckless.

Vanitas may be naive to a great many things because of his sheltered life, but he isn't an idiot. Bruce isn't lying, he doesn't think, about his motivation.

He scoffs as he exhales sharply and unclenches his hand from his shirt, dropping it to his side. What would you have done? Bruce had asked him, and Vanitas knows he would have done the same. He has done the same. He would do it again— and Bruce, with all his darkness, will do this again, too. ]

So you stand by that, do you?

I offered a place for your heart to go. To let you join it with mine.

[Vanitas's take on it will always be skewed because he'll always think of death as a release from pain. And yes, perhaps there's an argument to be made in that. But relinquishing life is also relinquishing choice. It's abandoning any agency he might have, any desire for something else. Something different. If asked, would Vanitas say he regrets coming to Beacon too? Would he rather have died than to try chocolate for the first time, to hold someone's hand, to have dinner with people who wanted his company, to wake up next to another person, to do the things he wanted whenever he wanted to.

Would he say he regrets all of that?]

My feelings haven't changed.

[ Something else slides through him, then, cutting through the inferno of rage like a bitterly cold wind, interrupting the flow all at once. Surprise flits across his expression, making his eyes go wide for a moment before they narrow again. Vanitas is no stranger to how to successfully invoke the tenderness in someone, how to make them hurt by finding the soft spots under their armor — but it's never been successfully exploited by another person.

This, he realizes, is what it's like to really be vulnerable. He's given this young man ammunition that he isn't sure others have on him, and if they do, they would never know how to use it.

But Bruce isn't using it with cruelty, though he very well could. He's too selfish, he says, and is this why? Because he wants Vanitas to go on existing? He exhales hard and something in his shoulders unwinds, a visible tell of his coming down just a bit. ]

[It's Bruce who closes the distance this time. Who advances one step after the other without predatory intent, without the desire to intimidate- who does it because it illustrates the point and because Vanitas is asking him to be direct. And this is what that means.]

You've seen the darkness inside me. This is who I am.
It won't change. I'll do whatever I think is necessary to protect the people I care about.

[It should sound like a promise or a vow, and maybe in any other mouth it would. But there's something about the shape of these syllables that suggests it's also a threat. Both apology and warning. Bruce is very sure about who and what he is. He wants to be kind, and generous, and honest- but the way he goes about it is- different. It's twisted up and misshapen because he is twisted up and misshapen. Their eyes meet.]

You're right, I should have tried trusting you first.
But I can't promise that I'll always ask.

[ Vanitas doesn't back off as Bruce closes in on him. He raises his chin with defiance, as though the approach is a precursor to attack. It has everything to do with Vanitas himself, instead of any learned behaviour around this young man. Bruce has never hurt him. Even this— he hadn't done Vanitas any true harm.

Some part of him wants to cruelly demand he make that promise. He wants to draw the line, force Bruce to choose between making this sort of vow or losing Vanitas all together— but maybe that's where they align too cleanly. Vanitas wouldn't, of his own volition, abandon Bruce— and it has everything to do with Vanitas' own vicious greed surrounding him. (You're mine, now. Mine!)

Maybe what Bruce says is near enough. Riku would utter these selfsame words, but with the sort of conviction rooted firmly in the side of the Light. They would be a promise to the person he's talking to, I'll do whatever I think is necessary. But there are lines Riku won't cross. Lines that Vanitas isn't convinced Bruce would avoid so steadfastly.]

You'll lose a lot of friends that way, Bruce Wayne.

[ He says it looking the taller guy dead in the eye, but it isn't an ultimatum. It's just a statement. Vanitas doesn't have friends, but he knows enough about this sort of negative emotion to understand it's consequences. People don't take kindly to finding out they've been manipulated. ]

[It's possible that Vanitas hasn't noticed, hasn't accepted that there are other people that find their footing in a place like this. Who are so certain about who they are that the threat of loss, the knowledge of the bad and the ugly isn't enough to force a change. There are other people that can make the generous choices. There are other people to play the role of a knight in shining armor, to perform clean acts of heroism and who have limits around what they're willing to do. How dirty they're willing to get. Bruce has his rules, but there are remarkably few of them. Yes, he wants to help. But his help is what had Alfred stabbed and shot, had his back broken. It killed his uncle, it put Jim Gordon's life in danger time and time again, it was the reason he was murdered. It's the reason Selina has been hurt and betrayed, the reason she was paralyzed, the reason she's something else now.]

I'm used to being alone.

[There's no sense of martyrdom in it either. Why would there be? These things happened because of the choices he's made. And maybe he didn't pull the trigger for his parents, but his inaction is part of the reason they're in the ground and all of the reason that he's not there with them.]

If you want to run, this is your chance.
But you'll never really get away.

[ There it is again; the similarity. I'm used to being alone. Whether Bruce does it on purpose or not, Vanitas would never be able to tell— but he feels that statement intrinsically, because it's his lived reality. Mercurial as ever, the swell of his fury ebbs out into something more manageable, a settled thing that rolls around under his skin but isn't threatening to burst violently out anymore.

He hasn't forgiven Bruce. It's likely that he never will, just because he's the sort of person to carry these things like an albatross, but it's in his expression— that he isn't going to lay in to the young man across from him anymore with the intent he'd approached just minutes before.

Vanitas' gaze carves over Bruce's face as he speaks. It falls from his eyes to follow the shape his mouth makes as he forms the words. His gaze stays stuck there, like he's memorizing it visually as much as absorbing it by hearing alone. With abrupt clarity, he remembers what happened with Riku, when they'd had their last explosive fight; he remembers what he'd seen in Quentin's memory.

Love and hate skirt the same sharp edges. ]

You can't get rid of me that easily.

[ He says, and his eyes flick back to Bruce's own, and despite his word choice, it's clear he knows that had never been Bruce's intention. ]

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