inbox

[pearlstrings]

bruce wayne @ᴡᴀʏɴᴇ @ʙʀᴜᴄᴇ audio & text

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.

Comments

[pearlstrings]

[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.

[evulsed]

[ 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. ]

[pearlstrings]

[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.

[evulsed]

[ How many times have they had this conversation, now? It circles around in the margins, though Bruce has never sounded so much scolding as informative. Save for now— there's something else in his tone. Vanitas thinks it has something to do with I didn't want to see you hurt. He watches Bruce with narrowed eyes, and tries to place the tone; maybe a memory that isn't his own. A parent, or an older sibling. ]

I can't just lay around all day, Bruce.

[ He finally returns, exasperated. That isn't wholly true. In the desert, he could spend hours, or days, laying or sitting and doing absolutely nothing— but that sort of stillness feels very far away from him right now. Restlessness sits under his skin like bees buzzing in a hive. ]

[pearlstrings]

Making an effort to go to sleep at night isn't the same as laying around all day.

[This too is worth pointing out, because he knows that there are times when Vanitas is given an inch and then takes a mile. The wrappings come off and he drapes them over a low mounted board- a place to air dry. Despite the work, his skin is a patchwork of bruises in various stages. Some pale and yellowing, others a deep, unforgiving purple. His knuckles are worst, three are bleeding.

He loops a foot around one leg of a stool and drags it over, slowly sinking down.]

Will you grab the kit? Shelf behind you, on the right.