pearlstrings

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. ]

Then you'll need to come to terms with this too.

[What could be a word of defiance anywhere else is a statement of fact here. Some people are mutable and while Bruce understands that he too is undergoing a kind of change, this isn't one of the qualities in chrysalis. This won't lock itself up tight and emerge as something softer and more beautiful and he knows that. But there's no protecting Vanitas from the truth of it the same way there'd been no protecting Selina.

They'd had a conversation like this once, about compromise. About choices. About the overlap that happens when an emotion isn't all light any more than it's all dark. Even now he can remember the precise weight of that opal in his hands and there's a kind of irony to be found there too. The way Vanitas had leveled the accusation at him back then: She didn't act like it.]

I'm not a prince from a story.
Like I said. Sacrifice.

[ Vanitas flickers; something about his stance, or maybe his expression. It would almost be a flinch, if there were more to it, if it lasted longer. Instead, it's the sort of thing that would be missed by a blink.

I think you feel other things, first.
Everything is a risk.
It does always require sacrifice.

It's difficult to remain furious, when this other emotion starts to shoulder it's way into his heart. Vanitas isn't finished being angry, he still wants to be cross with Bruce— but it's clear in the pinch in the corner of his mouth that the shape and taste of it has changed.

Very abruptly, he punches Bruce in the stomach. It isn't a hard punch, so much as his closed fist connecting with his solar plexus like a reprimand. The same way someone would swat the back of another's head. ]

I'm still mad at you.

[There's a small shift in his expression, in the shape of Vanitas's body which is more honest than the rest of him. Is honest in a different way. And though Bruce doesn't anticipate the punch until the very last moment, he doesn't defend against it. Vanitas's sense of normality is skewed, and that doesn't work for everyone- but it's a language that's become familiar to Riku and to Bruce. His body tenses, a beat of preparation. It isn't enough to keep the blow from hurting or landing, but it is enough to keep him from doubling over- rasping with pain and gasping for air.

His body curls forward just a little, compensating. And there's a few moments before he answers. Vanitas might not have intended to cripple with the blow, but his irritation's been well documented.]

I'm still worried about you.
You can't stay up all night tonight.

[ This is when he would say something contrary. Make me or You can't stop me. But this whole conversation has happened because somewhere, in something, Bruce had laced his food to knock him out and force him under. Making him, and stopping him from staying awake as long as he wants.

Between this and the hospital, the things those spirits forced him to eat, it might be enough to put him off food entirely. You don't actually need to eat in order to stay alive in this place. It isn't like being truly alive, where you need all of those things. But he remembers well what it had been like, those first few weeks. The headache, his stomach cramping, like something was trying to eat him from the inside out. When Gene had given him water and he'd thrown it all back up right away.

Besides that, he likes food, and sweets. He's more irritated than anything else that circumstances have warped his comfort with one of the few things that brought him some sort of primal pleasure. ]

You're worried for nothing. I'm not sick anymore.

[ But he narrows his eyes.
Sacrifice. ]

Promise you won't put anything in my food and I'll sleep on my own.

[His head shakes. This too is something that Bruce has had time to grow used to- that Vanitas sees things only in the present, that he recognizes a problem for the severity and immediacy of it. He says I'm not sick anymore and means: he's functional, he's able to walk and stand, he could fight if he had to. He has yet to see the nuance because he's never been allowed to. Bruce suspects that he's not a matter of priority so much as deliberate training. A quality and behavior that's been encouraged and nourished and validate to the detriment of all else.]

I know you aren't sick anymore.
But your body is still recovering.

From the prison and the abduction and the illness and the portal.

[ His frown deepens, because he doesn't understand what Bruce could possibly be referencing. This isn't something he understands, and how could he, when his whole life has been pushed into a box with set parameters? How could he possibly thing what he's feeling is outside the norm when to him, it has always been this way? ]

What are you talking about?

[ He arches back, cocking his head and raising an eyebrow, gesturing with one hand. There's a dubious tilt to his tone, making it clear he doesn't see sense in Bruce's train of thought. ]

Do you want to check them again? You said they were healing fine.

[They've circled this conversation before, but it took a great deal of reinforcement for Vanitas's assessment of 'okay' and 'fine' to be what they are. The beliefs passed onto him here, the questions asked by Riku and Bruce- they're just a drop in the bucket.]

Recovery is more than the closing of a wound.

[He's patient, not condescending. Bruce reaches for the wrapping around his wrists and begins to work it loose with two fingers- pushing the fabric down, then unwinding it.]

Are you as fast as you normally are? Could you recover from a blow or redirect it the same way? What about your reflexes, and your stamina?

You're more than scarred skin, Vanitas. These things take time.

[ This redirect helps to steer Vanitas out of the fury that'd been sitting in his bones for hours, that had sent him marching in here with aggressive, violent intent. He frowns deeply. ]

I'll get that back.

[ He sounds reproachful, like Bruce has suggested he no longer has those capabilities, even though that isn't at all what he's said. His gaze drops, following the movement of Bruce unwrapping his hands from training. ]

This is no different from any time before. Once these are gone I'll be the same as before.

[ Vanitas doesn't understand that fundamentally, maybe some part of him has shifted. Like his fear of the water. Like his obsession with Bruce, like Riku. His gaze flicks back up, defiant. ]

Edited 2020-04-11 23:33 (UTC)

[The bindings come off one hand first, loosely hooked in one palm, before he starts on the other. It isn't ideal, perhaps, that he finds a kind of... comfort in this one of Vanitas's qualities; in how easily he wears his intentions, on how easy he is to read. A kinder person, a less manipulative person, wouldn't. And Bruce can remember a time when that was a skill he'd never considered much less honed. Yes it had been necessary to achieve his goals, yet it had kept him alive. But the cost was always there in the margins.

In some ways it feels like a scale of unknown weight. He doesn't know when he'll do something and the balance will be forever altered. When it will be too much.]

Yes. But they'll return faster with rest.
With food.

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