dream: i need the rest of me

[darkcharge]

Sender: Vanitas
To: Everyone
Subject: Passive dream recording | CW: choking, vomiting, drowning


It all starts at a Heart Station. Or, rather, what should be one. What should be a great structure rising from the very darkness itself, covered in stained glass is... Blank. There's nothing. No colors. No shapes or depictions of things that the heart would hold dear. Instead it's all broken. A web of shattered glass that is beyond repair - though it most certainly looks like someone has tried. Great fissures mar the surface while large pieces seem to be broken away or even missing. A coupled even seem to be floating above the station proper.

Most would be bright and shimmering to some degree, but this one doesn't. Whatever light had once been has faded. Stare long enough and there are flickers, as if there would be a short in the wiring, if this place had anything like electricity flowing through it.

At the center, of course, stands Vanitas. Whether or not this is a true depiction of his heart doesn't matter. This is how he views it. How he sees it. Longing. Anguish. Pain. So much pain. Hate. Hate hate hate.

Whole... I want to be whole. I need it. I need my -

Light. There it is. A soft ball of warmth coming from above. He looks up, of course. Because it's right there and within reach. When Vanitas moves, it's jumping from broken piece to broken piece and ready with his hand out to obtain what he desires most. What will make him complete. Whole.

Almost -

Monster

A pause. Frozen. Something like ice begins to move through his veins. No. Not here. Not now. The shadows around the Station seem to shift. Take the form of red, glowing eyes watching his every move. He knows this feeling. Knows this emotion. Terror. It's bubbling in his chest. Gipping it like a vice. Vision spins as Vanitas missteps and falls. Crashes against the glass. Tight too tight. Air. No air. Can't breathe. Terror. Horror. Fear. Anxiety. Everything hitting hard. Fast. Too much at once. Spinning. Spinning. Dizzy. Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Can't hold it in. Can't contain it. They're going to come out. They're going to break free. Then it will start all over again. And break free they do with Vanitas on his knees. Coughing and hacking. Covering his mouth because he needs to keep it all in. Emotions can't be allowed to break free of him again. Yet out it comes, Vanitas heaving and a black substance like tar splatters against the glass. Rolls down his face. And again. And again. Over and over, fire taking the place of ice. The glowing red stares all the more intense as they take shape and form. Unversed. Hundreds of them. All his own emotions grabbing and reaching.

Pulling. Tugging. Dragging further and further away from that Light. Not until they swallow Vanitas up completely. His lung burn. Fear. Terror. Pain. It's an endless cycle that he can't break free of. For the more intensely he feels those emotions, the more that he chokes and more spawn. What good did it to? To keep trying? This is the result. This is always the result. To live and to suffer. To strive and to always have it out of reach? To have hope. All of these thoughts cycle, out of control. Emotions spiraling until it's thing but a sea of black and those faces staring at him. Limbs growing tired and weak. Everything is fading. No Light. No Darkness. Just-

"V a n i t a s!"

Nothing.

Comments

[darkcharge]

Maybe a little less pure than what he used to be. Hopefully.

[oathkeeper]

Still, it doesn't hurt to help to get that out too, you know.

[Sora pulls back slightly so he can see Vanitas' face after the coughing subsides. Almost nose to nose while he looks slightly downward at the other boy. His feet tangled up with the other.]

But... Stop talking for a second.

[He moves his hand down to touch the spot where Vanitas' heart would metaphorically be and physically is. Searching for the warmth of a heartbeat there. Now Sora doesn't have the odd and still very unexplained power of waking with him anymore and yet he...]

Hold on, I'm checking something.

[darkcharge]

[ They are often tangled up in one another. Sometimes they really don't know where one ends and the other begins. It doesn't even really register anymore.

What does, though, is the fact that Sora is telling him to stop talking. Vanitas looks at him. Perplexed. Isn't he... Supposed to be talking? As in, Sora wants him to talk about feelings? ]

...Sora?

[ What are you doing? ]

[twilightskey]

[Roxas can't help but chuckle at that reply.]

Fair enough. I'm on my way.

[It won't take too long before Roxas comes to Vanitas's door, chocolate offering in hand.]

[lethechained]

[ Granted, Vanitas is not necessarily an easy person to comfort - but neither is Naminé confident in her own ability to provide the same to any kind of person, really. Truth might serve a purpose but has such an unpleasant taste, and she's too honest to lie despite how much sweeter it might seem at the time. Having not known kindness for so much of her life, she's far behind in learning how to be soothed, much less soothe another. She's been too blunt in the attempt before, assumed too much, so her past failings are fresh in her memory and lead her to caution now.

In any case, she's grateful not to have upset him, based on the tone of his message. Yet leaving the drawing unfinished doesn't suit her; without the prerequisite knowledge, the most she's able to offer is a promise. ]

I can fill it in later, if I ever meet them.

[ But if he's satisfied for now, then so be it. She holds her breath a moment at the last part of his response; though she second-guesses herself, the truth really is the truth. So after a beat, she'll write her dissenting, ]

Yes, I did.

[ She'd have regretted it if she didn't - regretted not trying to help him, no matter how it might turn out. This is only one nightmare, but it's part of a life that was so long full of loneliness that a formerly isolated creature like herself can't keep from reaching out when she can, out of solidarity if for no other reason. There was no opportunity for her to before, but now... ]

No one should have to see themselves only like that.

[ Broken into pieces, so full of frustration and despair. Even if she can't put him back together with her own hands, at least she can give him the idea of what the same mess he imagines within himself would look like whole.

It's a little closer to reality that way, isn't it? ]

[tailsneverfails]

Guess someone full of darkness would find one full of purity a little hard to deal with at first though it seems you two have found a way.

[piromare]

Eh? You sure about that?

It's the nicest people that can find a way to wear you down until you give in.

But... I think I'd prefer that than actually getting knocked around.

( most sane people would, tbh )

[spirialink]

Why? I don't care what people think about me, and even if I did, I'm not gonna change who I am to make them happy.

[darkcharge]

[ Tch! ]

You don't even care what I think about you? Yet you've been trying pretty hard with me, haven't you?

[spirialink]

Nope.

[blunt and to the point. ]

It's not going to break my Spiria if someone doesn't like me, I'll keep doing what I like.


[ and that includes aggressively friending people. ]

And that makes us the same then, doesn't it? You don't care what others think about you, right?

[noblegarnet]

[Ferran lets out a hum to acknowledge the reply. All the better he doesn't try to go too far down that path, when all it leads to is... problems that are worse. The source of them, though, he doesn't quite understand.]

They're that much of a problem?

[He sounds genuinely surprised, but he doesn't disbelieve it; obviously Vanitas knows about his issues more than anyone, and Ferran would be an idiot to dismiss his words. Still, he'd just thought they were something like a familiar, since he hadn't had any bad encounters with them, personally.]

So... what even is light for you?

[indolentaxe]

I've had some practice with friends who aren't very good at loving themselves back home.

[Looking at you, Marianne.]

[darkcharge]

So I'm going to think that you bully them like this too?

[darkcharge]

Those are two completely different things, Kor. My not caring about what people think of me and yours are not the same.

You're trying to get in my good graces so you should care a little?

[oathkeeper]

[They'll talk about feelings in a second! Right now Sora looks like he's concentrating. His eyebrows slightly furrowed and lips parted.]

Hmm. Uh-huh. It's exactly what I thought.

[...???]

I can feel a heartbeat, it's pretty strong in there.

[What a thing to say. Especially when everyone from their world knows that the concept of "having a heart" doesn't mean your beating one in your chest. Of course, Vanitas has a beating heart pumping the blood in his body. It's the other heart that's supposed to be missing. Right? The strength of a heart, the embodiment of a soul. But don't look too perplexed yet, Vanitas.]

If you can have a heartbeat as strong as yours I know that someday your heart is going to be just as strong.

[darkcharge]

When people bottle up their emotions, what happens? It's the same concept, only mine just take shape.

[ People have emotional breakdowns all the time. It's just Vantias' result in a sea of monsters. That is the easiest way to explain how much of a "problem" it really is.

When Ferran FINALLY gets around to asking the question, Vanitas huffs. ]

Light and Darkness are what make up someone's heart, or soul maybe. Most of the time people that hear this think that we're talking about something more metaphysical. We're speaking literally. These are very tangible elements. Darkness being the less pleasant aspects of who we are and Light being the more virtuous.

[darkcharge]

[ Sometimes Sora is entirely too weird. Even for Vanitas at times. This is one of those moments where he can't really tell what the brat is thinking to do.

He just feels his cheeks grow hot. Embarrassment and being flustered, mostly. Sora knows that a strong heartbeat doesn't really mean anything. Someone can have that and not necessarily have a strong heart. ]

Sora... Are you listening to yourself? Wh.. What's that got to do with anything?

[spirialink]

Don't get me wrong, Vani. I want to be your friend. It just doesn't bother me if you think I'm stupid or annoying or reckless or whatever.

[darkcharge]

A lot of you have managed to do that to me, I'll have you know.

There's just no talking sense into some of you.

[darkcharge]

Oh don't get it wrong. I can't stand my other half.

But I don't care about being rejoined to him anymore

[darkcharge]

You are reckless. Sometimes stupid.

I'd say the same of anyone who actually happens to be those things. Sora. Roxas. Lio.

There might have been a moment where I called Mira that too.

[darkcharge]

One you might and the other? Probably not. She'd have to arrive here first.

[ No one should have to see themselves only like that. That's what she says. Really, there are a lot of people that would agree with her - especially for Vanitas. For him. On his behalf. They've all done what they can to make it so that Vanitas doesn't feel that way all the time. So many have done their part to try to get him to see beyond what he's always thought of themselves. ]

It's not a matter of how I see myself. This is just my reality. Everything is just out of reach.

[darkcharge]

[ Yeah yeah. He hears Roxas at the door. Van's head picks up, but he's not moving. ]

Just come in. I'm not getting up.

[oathkeeper]

It's got everything to do with it!

[Sora looks up but keeps his hand over the spot on Vanitas' chest where he can feel the heartbeat.]

I know it might seem really far away. But your heartbeat is proof that someday you'll have your own heart that's all yours someday. It proves that you can have it. Just like anyone else.

[He leans forward to nuzzle the other boy.]

I know you've heard stuff like that before. But it still means a lot to me to know that too. Even if someday we've gotta fight for it to happen.

[darkcharge]

Sora...

[ This seems silly. Ridiculous. That just because his heart beats means that his essence will be complete.

Vanitas sighs. Leans into the nuzzling. The encouraging words don't really reach. Not right now. Holds onto Sora so tightly. ]

I'm tired of fighting right now. We can say these things like "someday." Someday this and someday that. What we don't have is any plan for that. No solutions. Just hope.