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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Maybe, if things had been allowed to run their course, Bruce might have begun the slow and careful process of opening. Every memory Bruce has of his parents is also tied to their murder; he can't think of one without also remembering the other. The rumble of his father's laugh becomes the sound of wet, shallow breathing. His mother's perfume becomes gunsmoke.

And though their loss has defined him in ways that are impossible to explain, they are not the only deaths he mourns. They were not the only murders he was witness to. It's the first time he's spoken about them at all since arriving in Beacon and even here, now- with no one but Riku to listen and nothing but sheets and steady snowfall- Bruce still handles them carefully. As if the subject alone were made of spun glass.

Maybe the trouble comes in the way it's framed.

Bruce is not the only child in Gotham to lose a parent, to end up orphaned, to seethe with rage for justice that would never come. He'd had the benefit of a home and a legacy in their absence. He'd had a huge manor and more money than he could ever need- he still had a safety net his father's name provided. He still had Alfred. Something moves out of sight within him, rows of shutters drawn closed. The book in his lap withdraws from Riku's hand, then closes. He doesn't consider himself exceptionable because of his pain, and the sentiment feels too near to the way Ra's al Ghul and Jeremiah Valeska lifted him up. They wanted read into him.

But at every turn Bruce had met more and more people that had been willing to help. That had no reason to. That had plenty to lose and nothing to gain.]

I think people can surprise you. If you let them.

[ He severely underestimated what Bruce meant by his warmth being leeched from his body. Vanitas' inexperience and hubris makes a dangerous cocktail, putting him in positions like this— shivering violently as he trots quickly back from the bathroom. Bare legged and bare foot, the storm outside has dropped the ambient temperature of the museum. He should have listened to Bruce.

When he comes back into the makeshift bedroom its to this snapshot: Riku facing away, turned in to Bruce with one hand lifted in an incomplete gesture that Vanitas recognizes. The soft down turn of Bruce's eyes, looking back at him.

A surge if powerful jealousy goes through him, and if he'd been uncertain about his next move before, spite drives him forward. ]

Move over.

[ He barks, though they've hardly moved at all, and he marches directly to the bedside to all but dive back under the blankets. The radical change from cold to warm makes his skin prickle, and his over exuberance means he takes away the dividing barrier Riku had erected before. His cold feet find the other boy's calves as a result as Vanitas yanks the covers up to his throat. ]

[ Loss isn't unique. Where the loss of a parent might be a curse to one for another person it might be a blessing. The circumstances are too different to judge on its face that way. Riku, for all the worlds he's seen and the hearts that have been hurt or helped by his mistakes and deeds, is still limited by his own experiences. Bruce and Vanitas, too. Like in this moment, Bruce withdraws and Vanitas jealously advances. Riku curls his open hand into a fist and swallows down whatever he meant to say.

With Vanitas taking a dive into the bed to escape the cold, that's plenty distracting. Not only does his arrival bring cool air snaking into the shell of warmth he was in, but Vanitas's skin is chilly. His feet? Feel like ice. He lets out a throaty protest, immediately feeling goosebumps pebble up his legs and arms. It's a deliberate choice to push past his faux pas when Riku drops the full weight of one arm over the other boy's shoulders and upper back.

Someone else, and he might have seized Vanitas in a head lock, but he's mindful of how he was "raised", so other than to fold his arm over one shoulder, he doesn't try to grapple him. He does pull the pillow off the mattress and shove it at his head, however, in lieu of grinding his fist into his hair. It's boyish, companionable rough-housing, though he feels like Vanitas's feet have painted a cold stripe down his calves. ]

Revenge, is it? Like that's fair, you just had to walk down the hall.

[ He isn't expecting retaliation; maybe expecting that because Riku is still freshly healed that he doesn't have it in him to fight back. It was especially hard to foresee when just seconds ago he'd been in repose with Bruce.

But Riku grabs him and the breath gusts out of Vanitas in subtle surprise. Immediately, he starts to tense— only to have the pillow dunked over his head. Where Vanitas might have reflexively started to fight back, he's reminded of something else— of the snow, of the beanie that was stolen, of the way he threw his arm around Vanitas' shoulder.

It's the most benign thing he could do, to wedge his hand up underneath Riku's arm and duck, squirming out and snatching the pillow to smack it back in Riku's face. ]

You're the moron that went out into it!

[ That he's still sore and in need of recuperation probably has something to do with why his grin has a little too much teeth to it; Riku aches and throwing an arm over Vanitas to smack him with the pillow hurts, not the good kind from training hard, but the kind that tells him he's overdone it.

But what's the harm, really? There are so few reasons to mess around anymore. Stealing a moment to act his age is maybe not owed to him, but he wants it anyway. Vanitas squirms out from under it and retaliates; Riku's bangs float back off his brow on the puff of breeze as his face catches the pillow. ]

Oh, that does it.

[ It isn't just an arm this time, it's an arm and a leg hooking around Vanitas's shoulders and still-chilly calves. Given even an inch and he'll take the whole mile, seeking to roll right over for the superior advantage of not being the one pinned. In the flare up of competitiveness, seems he's forgotten his earlier mortification, which is for the best, honestly. ]

Go ahead, try that again, I dare you!

[ Riku doubles down and for a moment, Vanitas' heart slams into his throat, rabbit quick. It comes when Riku folds around him, tucking one too-hot leg around his icy calf. His body, on reflex, tells him he's being attacked— and when Vanitas' hand snatches out to grab a fistful of fabric he only just catches himself from doing something drastic and upsetting the whole bed.

He twists at the last moment, turning like he's going to get off the bed— but Riku has him in a way that means he might actually have go hurt him to get away.

Vanitas, with a start, realizes that isn't something he wants to do. His body physically startles, and he disguises it by whapping at Riku over his shoulder repeatedly with the pillow, trying to smack him in the face with it. Riku has him half crushed under his broader torso, and Vanitas kicks him with the heel of one foot— or tries to. The whole process is pulling the blankets all over. ]

What are you going to do? Huh?!

[The bed erupts with activity beside him and Bruce is initially so started that his response is entirely unlike him. He freezes. The notebook stays clasped between his hands, lifted off of his lap but hovering in the air just above it, with no discernible destination. He thinks- as Vanitas pivots and Riku turns, as their voices jump and the mattress dips suddenly- that he's anticipating a fight.

It wouldn't be the first time, and these two have a history where even now there are gaps in the explanation. But where the first punch might land or where the nightstand might be upended- instead a pillow gets thrown and blankets are tossed up all around him. Bruce's eyes widen in the moment before his brows come together. Sleepovers had never taken place inside Wayne Manor in his youth, and while he'd been a relatively well received child at schools and public functions, he'd never really had friends. Certainly not ones his own age.

He has no frame of reference for the playful wrestling that starts up beside him. But there's no need for him to intervene either. Bruce watches one leg go up. Watches a pillow get launched, someone kicks out and his calf is collateral damage. Their banter escalates and before he knows it, Bruce's expression has softened. He laughs, a quiet thing.]

Ow, ow-

[ He uses one of his forearms as a shield between them, bearing down against Vanitas's hands, though the struggle hitches for a moment when the playful strain proves a little too much for the condition of his body. In the brief pause as Riku tries to ease up on the bow of his spine with a hiss, he hears it.

Riku turns to stare through the disheveled cascade of his silver hair at Bruce, his mouth caught somewhere between a thin grimace and a lopsided smile.

He's laughing.

After a moment, Riku hazards a glance at Vanitas, some unspoken comment of muted surprise. He doesn't think he's ever heard Bruce actually laugh. The rarity makes it powerful, unique. ]

Hey, what's so funny?

[ As if there isn't plenty to laugh about here. ]

[There isn't anything else like it, that feeling. The strange swoop in the pit of his stomach that is so very much like weightlessness. Bruce has missed landings before, has leaped from one ledge to another and lost his footing- he's well acquainted with the mimicry. But that's all it is. Mimicry. Because it hasn't always happened when he'd been prowling on rooftops or running from pursuers. He'd felt it when Silver St Cloud first lifted her chin and smiled at him. He'd felt it when Selina kissed him, and every time after that when she was near enough to suggest it.

Vanitas and Riku are a tangle of naked limbs. The blankets are half tented around them but are pooling fast on the floor, where they'd been kicked off of the mattress. They're grappling with one another perhaps without knowing that that's what they're doing- without knowing why.

Bruce watches them as their movements slow, as the scuffle loses momentum, and he's still watching as the laughter winds out of him, runs itself out. Riku's eyes are very, very green beneath the curtain of his hair- and without explanation Bruce reaches out, and gently moves a stray strand away. Tucks it carefully behind one ear.]

Bedrest, remember?

[ Somehow, they seem to freeze in almost tandem. Though whether that's because Vanitas responds to Riku's stillness first or the unfamiliar sound from the other side of the bed, a place he can barely see for the position he's in, since Riku is bigger than him. Either way, it still happens— Riku twists back around to look, and Vanitas lifts himself up on one elbow to look over the bunching of blankets and sweaters to see Bruce.

He's— laughing. And not the way Vanitas laughs, or even the way Riku can— but a contained, honest thing, soft around the edges. Confused, Vanitas' eyes dart to Riku, where their gazes meet briefly, before going back.

And then Bruce reaches out, pressing his fingers through the tangle of Riku's hair gone wild from sleep, from the tussle. From this angle, Vanitas can't see Riku's expression. Maybe he doesn't really have to. He might not have the personal experience, but Vanitas has been to other worlds. He's seen princes and princesses. He knows what he's looking at, even if he doesn't have the vocabulary to pare it down to what it means in it's truest sense.

Everything inside him goes still— a stretched out, static silence, that grows until he can't really think around it. Until he can't really even feel his own hands, or his own body. It translates in his expression: neutral and unreadable. ]

[ Riku sees Bruce's hand drawing close but the gesture still manages to surprise him - a slow crawl in his skin when it feels like his scalp shrinks when a pale finger catches at a stray bit of silver, the way it kicks off a rush of warmth all over when he feels it tucked with care behind the shell of one ear.

Riku blinks slowly at Bruce, his mouth in some strange halfway space that can't quite commit to a smile around the way a softer surprise has left his lips parted. He cuts his eyes away.

In that moment, he becomes aware of two things, or perhaps his awareness of these things returns at full force.

That sweep of warmth has only made him more aware than ever of the chill in the room; the Museum is full of large spaces through which air moves freely, and the storm still blows, freezing, outside of its walls and windows.

And all three of them are in varying stages of undress. He's straddling Vanitas with his knees near that soft space between his hips and his ribs, fingers gone loose when before he'd been grappling, gripping arm or wrist or fist or pillow, each trying to wrest the only "weapon" from each other.

Riku's own white v-neck shirt is hiked almost up to the pits of Vanitas's arms in the struggle, and the chill has started to make Riku shiver again. In spite of that, his face begins to color. First, he reaches for the blankets that slipped, hyper aware of all the places where they touch, but to dismount at this moment would be to expose the other boy. He grits his teeth against the sound that wants to peel itself from his lungs when his lean pulls at every aching muscle. It makes his reply thin: ]

Right. Right. It's cold...

[The moment distends. Riku watches his approach, watches up until the moment that his hair is tucked gently behind the shell of his ear and Bruce becomes not just self-aware, but also self-conscious. He realizes that he has an audience and by extension that that he's tipped his hand just enough to be seen. To have given something away. Riku looks away and Bruce's fingers curl into his palm, as if he's trying to rewind the moment, to take it out of the air when it's far too late.

He straightens, carefully sets the notebook aside, and climbs out of bed. The mattress doesn't groan when he stands and it barely dips as the weight distribution changes. This is not because Bruce is light as a feather but is instead a testament to how much time he's spent learning how to minimize his presence- to be unobtrusive and to leave very little of himself behind.

Naked from the waist, Bruce stands barefoot in a pair of low slung sweatpants. He is, simply by virtue of being the only member of their group not to fall asleep and then not to get into a spontaneous wrestling match- the least disheveled of them all. In glimpses a number of pale scars can be seen, along the inside of one arm (staples) in the shallow dip of his throat (a knife) along his back and shoulders (more of the same.) But they're difficult things to observe around the omnipresent bruising. None of which seems particularly out of the norm, at least not for the way Bruce moves through them. He bends down and reaches for a discarded shirt- like everything else he seems to own it's black and long sleeved. Bruce pulls it over his head.]

I'll be back. I'm going to the kitchen.

[With his head and arms through, Bruce's gaze lands on Vanitas- on his back across the bed.]

Would you like a fresh hot chocolate?

[ Vanitas comes back into himself when Riku starts to move, when the fabric on his leg, hiked up to his knee for the struggle, scrubs against his stomach, bunching over scars. The sensation is strange enough that it shocks him back into the moment, out of the white static, bringing focus back into his yellow eyes where for a moment they'd gone blank and unseeing— despite the way they seemed locked on Riku's now exposed ear.

In another time he might feel caught up, for wrestling around in a way that surely had nothing to do with training or battle, and instead more in line with half-memories Vanitas has of Terra and Ventus.

Even though he's just come back to the bed, something in him wants to get back out and run away, where neither of them can see or be around him.

Instead, he pulls his shirt back down from where it's been hiked up to his collar, tugging it back down until it coasts around his thighs, covering himself back up in tandem with the blanket returning to their necks and shoulders. He doesn't actually realize at first that Bruce is even addressing him; it only happens when he does a double-take, feeling eyes on him.

His expression abruptly takes shape again, his brow furrowing, surly. ]

Don't dawdle.

[ It's as much a yes as he's going to get. ]

[ Bruce moves like a ghost and often that keeps Riku on his figurative toes. Questions like how he has the skills he does, what drives him, these secrets entice; there's a hunger in Riku to know and understand since he was very young, both a strength and a weakness that the Seeker of Darkness once exploited.

Riku can't help but glance past his shoulder as he pulls up the fallen end of a dark quilt when he leaves the bed. It's not a mistake, so much as it makes him feel put on the spot, with few places to hide when sources of personal conflict exist on every side. Swallowing, Riku pitches to the side, pulling the quilt up with him as he rolls onto his back, and then his stomach. A noncommittal: ]

We'll keep it warm for you.

[ It's a suspiciously nonchalant way of promising to save him a place.

This time, Riku doesn't try to hem them in on either side with lengths of quilted cloth, he slides onto his belly on the mattress, pushing his arms up under one of the abused and toppled pillows. Draws it under his cheek to cool the heat of it, until he thoughtfully extracts a hand to comb back his hair to push it behind the opposite ear. ]

...Vanitas.

[ Bruce's steps have receded, his voice has dropped to a low rumble, muffled a little by the pillow. By the way his eyes have lidded most of the way, it might seem he's lost the second wind that had him grappling moments before, rather than the uncertainty and self-doubt it is.

He wonders, often, if it isn't wrong to feel these momentary sparks of happiness and warmth when he's survived both of his best friends, when he still feels responsible for the loss. ]

Next time, let's go at it like we mean it.

[ His eyes slide over to fix on him under the pale veil of his lashes, the corner of his mouth curving up in a smile. ]

I won't lose.

[ Silence falls in the wake of Bruce's departure. Riku nestles himself back into the blankets as Vanitas levers himself into sitting up, almost a mirror of the position Bruce had been in before. He's not anywhere near as cold as he was before, not with all that wrestling pushing blood back into his limbs— but he feels strange and offkilter.

The bubble of warmth he'd experienced seems to be at war with some other, indefined feeling he can't quite put his finger on, but feels a little like jealousy. His hands are in his lap, and his eyes are down on them when Riku shifts around, when Riku says his name.

Something about the shape of them in his mouth, different from what he's used to, draws Vanitas' eye. Riku is watching him from under the pale of his silver eyelashes, his long hair pressed back over his ear, his cheeks pink with color. Vanitas looks at him for a long moment, and thinks, he doesn't look anything like Dawn despite all their similarities.

Vanitas' eyes flick back up to meet deep teal. The challenge, if nothing else, is enough to bring some animation back into his expression, having him raise an eyebrow. ]

Keep telling yourself that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject