pearlstrings

[ He glances down only long enough to see the Flood succeed in handing its package over. Its flattens a little under the touch on it's head, which looks fairly comical, but when Bruce stands up it doesn't immediately dart off, instead lingering, twitchy, in the space between them.

When his gaze goes back to Bruce's face, its to be hit with the full effect of that expression. Vanitas freezes, like he's been pinned. Heat prickles all the way up his spine and up his throat. ]

It's whatever.

[ The flush creeps into his face and he glances away, shoving his hands into his pockets. ]

You're hopeless without magic, so.

[He doesn't think about it in a concrete way- when he extends one hand to gently pat its head. Bruce understands that they aren't really animals and aren't really people, that they're something in between; the touch is meant to serve as a wordless signal of gratitude. It isn't unlike those he'd doled out a few weeks ago, when everyone in the museum had been on a kind of bedrest. He wonders what Alfred might have made of his interpretation of: many hands make light work.

The AED remains held carefully between his hands- not an expression of its fragility so much as one of his appreciation. Of how meaningful it is to him. Bruce is aware of the few inches that separate them, and of the color rising in Vanitas's face, and of how strangely familiar it feels- to be unsure of the right thing to say. To know there are wrong things but not how to avoid doing them.]

It's for the heart.

If it stops, this machine can pass a current through it, and make the heart beat again.

[ Vanitas remembers seeing something that could vaguely resemble that explanation on the manual he'd been looking at before he was interrupted. It hadn't made any sense to him, though. What Vanitas knows of hearts is nothing at all about how they physically, scientifically work. His reality is one where a heart can be torn and half and keep on living as two separate entities.

He looks back at Bruce, first sideways, and then with his chin dipped and peering slightly up at him. It's a curiously tentative expression, for the pinch in the corners of his mouth, like he's trying to retain his cloudy expression. ]

Is that how hearts work where you're from?

Yes. Without a heartbeat a person won't survive.

[It occurs to him that this is the first time they've really compared their experiences- life to life, world to world. He supposes that it must sound strange when the frame of reference is so different- when hearts have all kinds of symbolic powers. When they can connect to other people and places, become doorways. But instead of rejecting it outright or meeting him with skepticism, Vanitas watches. Asks.]

If the beat is interrupted, by being hit very hard in just the right place, or by an electrical current, it can forget its own rhythm and stop.

[Bruce's gaze lowers to the machine in his hands, contemplative. Too readily the memory of his father comes back to him- taking turns listening through a stethoscope, listening carefully to the drum inside his chest. The memory is one half of a terrible whole, because with it too is the wet gurgle of breath. Blood bubbling up through his shirt.]

Sometimes they just get too tired.

[ Vanitas watches him as he explains instead of looking at the AED. It makes some manner of sense. If you hit a person hard enough, in the right way, they stop too. So why shouldn't a heart?

Sometimes they just get too tired.

It seems familiar. For a moment, Vanitas wonders after that. Too tired to keep beating. He'd felt like that in the desert sometimes. He's felt like that here. ]

Why don't they just go to sleep?

[ It would seem naive, if Vanitas' expression didn't make it a serious question. Ventus slept in Sora, and so did he, even if that hadn't been quite the same. ]

Why don't they just rest inside someone else?

[They've been standing here all this time, not a center of attention, but near enough to the largest point of light in town that eventually a pair of eyes will slide over them. Bruce doesn't have anything to disguise the AED with, but he anticipates that he'll be able to find something in the general store. It's a good time to gather supplies anyway.

His weight shifts, a bodily invitation to continue even with this new trajectory.

It never occurs to Bruce to treat these questions as childish or naive. There's evidence all around them of varying realities and timelines- people who are capable of impossible things. If anything, the idea that there's a place out there where a damaged heart can be healed by someone else's, where it can find a place to rest and recover- is a poetic and comforting thing.]

We use a similar phrase, gone to sleep when someone has died.

But that isn't something we're capable of in my world. We're born alone, and we die alone.

[ Bruce cants his head and it's more than enough to draw Vanitas forward, following after Bruce like his own personal shadow. He looms up next to him, filling the empty space opposite his lantern with his own dark cut out.

The Unversed behind him disperse, rushing off into the night, all but the one holding his lantern that dutifully trots after him.

He's quiet for a moment, considering this way of thinking, staring forward instead of looking at Bruce. ]

So if someone's heart was broken in two. What happens?

Physically? I suppose if it's possible to save someone, they're given a new heart from someone else that's died.

[They're reached a point of divergence, because there is no one like Vanitas in his world. The pair of them move off from bonfire square and are swallowed up, two shadows in a larger, endless darkness. Bruce's brows come together thoughtfully, a small crease in the middle that comes with the tilt of his chin.]

Metaphorically... it depends on the resiliency of the person. Some people have support and love, and are able to find a way to heal. The absence isn't filled, but it scars and life goes on.

[The general store looms ahead of them. Bruce watches it come closer and looks no where else. He doesn't need to say anything else. But he does.]

Some people become like me.

[ What would that be like, to have a different heart? To take one that belonged to someone else. Vanitas' mind races with questions, unable to comprehend it. Would that vessel just become that other person? Would the first be lost forever, like a replica?

He understands the metaphor better, and his expression twists as Bruce explains. It makes sense, doesn't it. Ventus had all those things, so he didn't suffer the way Vanitas did—

Some people become like me.

A heartbeat passes, and Vanitas looks at him sideways, under his eyelashes. Like he's maybe trying to hide that he's looking. It makes sense— it explains why they're similar in all these strange ways. ]

How did your heart get broken?

Edited (Rewording ) 2020-02-12 00:32 (UTC)

[Later he will think that perhaps it's only natural that Vanitas would ask- there are many points of similarity between them, but the edges have been left vague and undefined. Bruce keeps his secrets even when there is no one here to know their worth.

But in this moment, where the voices of other residents are far away, where they are alone climbing the steps to the general store and alone when they go inside- Bruce thinks of the smell of wet asphalt. The steam rising up from far away potholes, the reflection of city lights in the puddles- the way his father had looked from behind, the crack of the gunshot. The way his mother's hand spasmed on his shoulder in the instant that she fell- that her body hit the ground before the rest of her broken pearls did. He thinks of the blood under his fingernails and in the creases of his knuckles, that they had no last words for him, that their eyes were glassy and fixed somewhere far away. That he'd thought he would be shot too and didn't know if he was afraid.

Bruce's heart has been broken many times, but perhaps the first break was the one that mattered most. It left so little behind.]

My parents were murdered.

[The door creaks closed behind them.]

I watched.

[ Bruce leads them in to the General Store, and Vanitas trails him like a shadow. He can't fully comprehend what that must be like. Vanitas never had a parent, he has no frame of reference for what that might look like. Even the fractured senses he have from Sora don't tell him anything. Vanitas was buried too deep to see it. ]

Hn.

[ It's a vaguely thoughtful sound, and it doesn't sound very sympathetic. Maybe because Vanitas can't comprehend that kind of loss. He's always been alone. But he wonders: would this be what happened to Ventus, if he'd succeeded in killing Aqua and Terra?

It's hard to imagine. Bruce isn't anything like Ventus. ]

That explains it.

[ He says this conversationally as he wanders after Bruce, ambiently moving around him like a moth circles a lamp. ]

I never had anyone. Just the desert. And them.

[ He doesn't gesture at the Unversed because he's pulling a jar off the shelf. But it seems to respond anyone, the Flood jerking and cocking its head, casting the dim glow of Vanitas' lantern all over their ankles. ]

Did you get revenge?

No. I was too afraid to move.

[Vanitas is talking about an action, not a window of time- but the nature of the event and the mystery surrounding it mean that Bruce was only ever afforded two opportunities to see the man responsible. What point is there in addressing one but not the other. Perhaps the story would have been different if he'd been older- if he'd seen more, known more. There were a few years when revenge wasn't simply all he'd thought of, but that he truly considered himself capable of the act. He'd considered himself capable of it all the way up to that apartment door, up to the dining room table, up to the cocking of the gun.

He makes his way silently through the aisles, picking up a nondescript bag and slipping the AED inside. Adding a few canned goods, then moving to the first aid supplies. He's aware of Vanitas at his back, drifting through the darkness behind him. I never had anyone is painfully conversational, especially paired with an act as mundane as pretending to examine a jar. Bruce meets his gaze instead of saying I know. Maybe his eyes say it anyway.]

And once I wasn't afraid anymore it didn't matter. He wasn't the monster I imagined.

He was just a broken man, who made another broken man.

[ He sets the jar down as they move on, but picks at other things along the way, like his hands won't stay still. Most of them he puts back down, losing interest as they walk. ]

If you say so.

[ Vanitas takes a jar of jam as they pass through the aisle, twisting the lid to pop it off. It's a loud sound in the silence of the store. ]

Everyone has the potential to let their monsters out. When the Darkness takes over, there's nothing left.

[ There aren't really utensils, but as they make their through Vanitas finds a blunted knife and takes it to dig it in to the jelly confection in his hand. ]

All the Light wants to do then is put it down.

I'm not so sure.

[There's something quietly contemplative in it- not because he's arguing this point with Vanitas, or because he's attempting to convince him one way or the other. But because this is the first time Bruce himself has really talked about it. That he's shared even a fraction of the events of that night with someone else. That he's unboxed his thoughts on it and taken them out to look.

Vanitas searches for something to do with his hands, settling on a jar of jelly that Bruce doesn't see- he smells it, strawberry, when the lid comes away.

Bruce looks at his own hands, fingers bare and pale on the fabric of the bag. They're bigger now than they were then. All of him is bigger. But he doesn't know if he would have always made that same decision- if he would have walked away when he was younger. If he would walk away now. Maybe that's the part that will stay with him the most: how different were they, really? How different is anyone?]

He invited me to kill him.

When I didn't, he did it himself.

[The bag closes.]

Even the Darkness gets tired.

You don't have to tell me.

[ It's still conversational, as if Vanitas maybe doesn't have the emotional vocabulary to understand the gravity of the moment. But that isn't true. What is true is that this is all his life has been. Fighting to the point of exhaustion.

How many times did he want to give up? How many times did he find that hatred, that envy and rage, and use it to get back up?

He watches Bruce with his bag, his profile, sucking the red jam off the knife. The dark of his lashes, half cast, make his eyes like half lit lamps in their lantern light. ]

I know.

[He's gathered everything he needs- more food supplies, restocks on first aid equipment, a length of rope. And then, because Vanitas seems fond of it, he reaches for a second jar of jam and adds that to the bag as well. The memory has run its course and Bruce finds that, somewhat unexpectedly- he doesn't feel diminished for it. He doesn't feel that he's given too much away, given it unwillingly. Vanitas isn't fishing for details or pouring empathy- he only meets him with understanding.

There isn't anyone else around to see or hear them. By the time they leave and head back towards the museum no one will know that they'd lingered in the square or come into the store. This liminial space won't last forever, they should make their exit now before the new arrivals come searching for supplies. But.

Bruce reaches out and catches Vanitas's hand, rests his own atop the fingers curled around a jam jar. He doesn't need to do this, but what other way is there to fill the gap? To say what he can't.]

Thank you, Vanitas.

[ Whatever he's expecting, it isn't this. Bruce comes toward him and that isn't unusual, it's the touch that makes him freeze like a rabbit. He stops, one hand on the knife in his mouth, his eyes finding Bruce's like there's no where else to look.

It's earnest, the way he says it. Like he really means it, like there's actually something Vanitas had done to warrant that sort of gratitude. Confusion wins out over any other feeling he has about it, and after a beat, he takes the knife out of his mouth. ]

For what?

[ He asks archly, almost suspiciously. ]

[His head shakes. It's a small thing and not the dismissal it might easily be read as- but instead an acknowledgment that some things can't be communicated. He doesn't know how to explain to Vanitas that it's for everything. For the AED, and for the careful unfolding of this conversation, for the absence of reaction. For the quiet understanding and lack of judgement.

His hand slips away and Bruce moves towards the door, a short nod in the direction of their exit.]

Lets go. New arrivals will be coming soon.

[ Bruce let's him go, but the warmth remains. It lingers, a real sensation that tingles under his skin, dances on his knuckles. Vanitas keeps watching him as he starts to step away, inviting Vanitas along like he's always done.

When his back is turned, Vanitas switches the jar of jam to his other hand and clenches his fist.

The outside is chillier than the inside of the General Store. Vanitas feels winter's breath creep down his neck and make his skin prickle. The AED is invisible in Bruce's bag. They don't look like anything special as they walk out, like nothing significant has happened at all.

Vanitas glances toward Beacon proper, the slow grow of lanterns appearing like incoming stars. He looks back at Bruce's iron owl, the light swinging across the snow. ]

Hearts are more than what you're talking about. A heart can be taken, or broken, or corrupted. You can put it in another body, if it's an empty vessel. A heart doesn't need a vessel to exist.

I was whole once.

I even remember some of it.

[The comment seems to come from nowhere at first blush- because Bruce hasn't dug despite how long they've known one another. Despite the things he's seen and the history that's been left in small footnotes, in the margin of a moment. They step outside and the still-winter air washes over them. Their breaths cloud and the glow of far off lanterns begin to make their way ever nearer.

Bruce turns and begins moving in the opposite direction, starting the long, solitary walk back to the museum. He prefers to stay off the path just in case, and begins to pick his way through the trees instead; the forest swallows them up.

What Vanitas answers with is confirmation of a sort. Bruce is acutely aware of the differences between their worlds- of what is possible and impossible. If he were younger, if he were different, perhaps he'd describe it as a fairy tale. There are moral lessons and symbolic losses, heroes and villains. Princesses and swordfights. The reality is not nearly as tidy. Vanitas follows after him and Bruce turns his face, looks back over his shoulder when he asks.]

What do you remember?

Pieces.

[ Bruce leads them into the woods and Vanitas follows easily, reaching one hand out to brace against a tree as they go. The snow is still deep, because there's no real warmth in a perpetually dark place to melt it. There's no daylight to warm the earth and have the dunes sink into something more manageable— but the boughs of the trees create natural pockets to slip through.

Vanitas prefers this, too. It keeps the water out of sight for longer. ]

It was a long time ago. I don't remember it clearly. Just...

[ He trails off. Just the feeling of being whole. Sometimes, he remembers what it must have been like to be without pain. Sometimes, he dreams about being dedicated to a goal without the simmer of rage underneath it all. ]

Pieces.

[It isn't impossible to wrap his head around. Trauma effects all people differently, a response owed to a number of variables. How many of them did Vanitas have to begin with? How many of them has he been given in the years that followed? Bruce doesn't need to search his soul for empathy- that has always been close to the surface. He doesn't give his heart easily and he doesn't wear it on his sleeve, but that does nothing to change its size. Bruce means well even if he doesn't always do well. The suffering of others bothers him on more than a surface level. He wants to believe that change is possible and he's willing to act, to create that change with his own hands if necessary.

Vanitas is a person that's been hurt very badly, for a very long time.
It's people like him that Bruce wanted to fight for.]

You said that you're incomplete.

[The forest is quiet and unnaturally still around them, a timeless quality broken only by the movement of their lanterns, the occasional crunch of snow underfoot.]

What will happen to you when you leave Beacon?

Beats me.

[ He says before laying the knife with jam on his tongue, sealing the lid of the jar so he can shove it into his pocket. The terrain is too uneven to juggle this many things at once. It leaves one hand free for him to brace against a trunk, stepping over foliage. ]

Ventus shattered our heart, but Sora made him whole again. He doesn't need me.

[ There's bitterness there, and jealously. Vanitas chose his side, but that didn't mean the sacrifice didn't still sting. ]

Maybe I'll just go back to being a prisoner. Maybe I'll just fade into nothing.

Whatever.

It doesn't matter, it's not like I have anything to return to.

[ The not like you guys lingers in the air, unspoken. ]

But it would be different if you had a heart to return to.

[This isn't really a statement or a question. The powers and limitations of a heart in Vanitas's world are the stuff of fairy tales for a place like Gotham, and coming to understand the intricacies involved has been a lengthy process. Even now Bruce still pauses before the idea that darkness and light aren't concepts, but real and tangible.

And of course all of this hinges on the idea that there is something after Beacon in the first place. That death isn't just silence and nothingness. It's an optimistic assumption he thinks- that any of them can just 'go back.' The time they've spent here has always been borrowed. Once, when he was smaller, when he'd been locked in a cell to contemplate his eventual murder at the hands of an insane uncle, Bruce had said he wasn't afraid. That he was going to see his parents.

He's not sure if he fears death so much as he fears helplessness.
To be able to do nothing.

Perhaps is the most anyone could ever hope to get.]

Could you join it with mine?

[ Vanitas stops walking. It isn't a slow thing, he halts all at once, like he's stepped into a wall. It's so sudden that probably Bruce doesn't even notice it right away, which leaves Vanitas staring at his back for a few long seconds, caught in a place where he can't really feel his own body.

Could you join it with mine?

He's sure he can't have heard that correctly. Vanitas is positive Bruce is talking about something else, changed the topic maybe.

Because that can't be right. Nobody wants this much Darkness in their heart. Even Bruce couldn't want that, even with his deep well of it, that single burning star in him is too steadfast and powerful.

Still, when Bruce looks back at him, Vanitas has an expression on his face like he's been slapped. ]

What did you say?

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