Ventus doesn’t need to take his hand for Vanitas to know he’s there. But when he slips his fingers between his, Vanitas clings to his hand all the same. The warmth of his other half breaks through the dark armor he always wears and surrounds his hand, crawling up his arm. He clings to the sensation because otherwise?
Vanitas feels like he may vomit.
He’d compared Ventus to the sun earlier, but that wasn’t right. He wasn’t the sun, he was thousands of shards of broken glass refracting rays of light in an incinerating kalaidescope. Beautiful and sharp and jagged and painful.
Vanitas feels so sick. He can handle one emotionally charged person, but two is pushing it. The negativity burning between all three of them is enough to feed Vanitas for the rest of his life, he thinks. Ventus’ rage, his pain, his sorrow that all of it bleeds from… as well as Aqua’s anxiety, her guilt, and the shame that acts as the bedrock of it all.
And the love they all share. Vanitas has been fighting against it tooth and nail his entire life, pushing and clawing at it. He told himself he didn’t want it while holding so much envy within himself that his fractured heart couldn’t contain it and it bled out of him.
The stray emotions he would feel from Ventus had been a balm and a curse all at once. But they had been the only moments in Vanitas’ life when he had ever understood what it meant to be loved.
Aqua surviving in spite of Master Xehanort’s order hadn’t been a mistake on Vanitas’ part. Vanitas staying by Terra’s side when his body was no longer his wasn’t by chance. No matter how much Vanitas might snarl and deny it. No matter how much he might lash out.
Vanitas loves Terra and Aqua just as much as Ventus does.
Vanitas parts his lips to try and speak, but he finds that he can’t. He doesn’t know what to say. He wants to run away, back to the graveyard. He wants to stay by Ventus forever. He hates him for stirring all these feelings inside of him, for only needing two words to do it.
He wants to say something, he wants to do more than be a passive stain on this conversation—if you could even call it that anymore.
“Ventus…” his voice is quieter than its ever been, more exhausted than its ever been. Where Ventus has wanted to scream and blaze his words out at her, Vanitas wants to slink away into the shadows.
Vanitas rips his hand from his, turning away and crossing his arms. “You’re the biggest fool in the World, you know that? I didn’t try to kill your friends just so you could say that you love me.” The word felt alien on his tongue. Vanitas digs his fingers into his arms hard. “Who cares if she hits me?”
“I don’t understand…” He says as sludge begins to form between the cords of his dark armor. He doesn’t even try to stop it. He could pull it in if he tried, but to what end? They would come out eventually anyway. Red eyes split open between them, spreading all over his body. Small forms pull themselves off him, beginning to spread around the area.
They’re familiar Unversed, ones that have always come in a variety of colors. The quiet Jellyshades are hard to get a read on, they might look sad, anxious, or thoughtful… all were close. But the way they clumped together as a group, the way their expressions were less extreme was a big hint.
The Jellyshades were Vanitas’ uncertainty.
They don’t attack, instead, they merely float around the three of them. One floats down to Vanitas and he embraces it. Holds the fledgling emotion tight in his arms. Another lands on Ventus’ shoulder, peeking up at his face in concern.
“I don’t…understand…” Vanitas says again. And now, unnatural leaves begin to sprout from the puddles where darkness has collected at his feet. Anxious, worried Mandrakes pull themselves out of his shadow, huddling close to his legs.
However, one from the plant-like Unversed steps closer to Aqua and lets out a small whine. It doesn’t dare touch her, but it looks up at her mournfully.
