Chapter Text
It’s over.
The chaos of the fight was expected, but as they pick up the pieces and knit each other back together with tired healing spells, Ventus can't stop looking around. There’s plenty to look at, with people collapsed under hastily erected shelters and cushions summoned with magic. The Keyblade Graveyard is a mess in the distance - none of them wanted to relax while surrounded by the dead, both the old and the recent.
Half the people used as vessels are unconscious; Ienzo says they’ll need serious time to recover. The rest are either stubborn, lost for good, or missing. Terra seems to be present through almost unbelievable force of will and a need to keep holding Aqua’s hand. Ventus sat with them a while, but the itch to know was too great. He makes his excuses, recovered mana, checking to see if anyone needs help, and gets up to keep looking. They could use the privacy anyway.
Everyone is huddled in their groups, too tired to talk or really feel anymore. Ventus can see Donald and Goofy standing guard over a pile of limbs that must be Sora, Riku, and Kairi. Lea and Isa, another stubborn bastard, are talking stiltedly over Roxas and Xion, asleep and holding each other. Mickey and Yen Sid are conferring over an old book with a quill that seems to be magically directed. They look as tired as the rest.
Ventus is glad for them all, glad they’re okay and that they’ll get another chance.
He does a circle of everyone - the vessels all unconscious, nodding to Lea and Isa who nod back. But just as he thought, Vanitas is missing. He can’t ask Terra and Aqua if they've seen him, they don’t know Vanitas as anything but the dark. Roxas and Xion only just joined them as their physical selves, they wouldn’t know. So that leaves Sora as the only one with a connection to Vanitas that might, might know.
Loathe to wake him and his friends though he is, Ventus still walks over. He ignores Donald’s glare and Goofy’s disappointed sigh. He’s just asking and then they can go back to sleep. Ven reaches and shakes Sora’s shoulder, sitting back so he’s not right in his face.
Blue eyes snap open instantly, darting around for any sign of danger, and Ventus waits for Sora to focus on him. It only takes a minute and then battle hard muscles relax and Sora yawns. “Something wrong, Ven? You look bothered.”
Having been the one living inside Sora’s heart, Ventus thinks that he should be able to read Sora better than Sora reads him. He’s probably just off because of...everything else. The ache of a missing half that he never understood, the ache that always lingered in Vanitas's gaze.
The words to his question stick in his throat and Ventus sits down on the dusty ground to try and shake them loose. “It’s...a dumb question.”
“There are no dumb questions,” Sora and Goofy say at the same time. They smile at each other and then Sora tips his head, hair brushing against Riku’s who doesn’t twitch. “So, what’s up?”
“I know there was a lot going on, but…” Ventus stares down at his lap, at the marks of battle on his skin, and forces it out. “Did you...when did you last see Vanitas?” And he knows it must hurt Sora, to ask after the dark that has his face and tormented him with Ventus’s own name.
Sora is silent and Ventus doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t expect the softer tone when Sora speaks. “Ven, I’m sorry, but I didn’t see him at all. Not here. There was Xemnas and Xehanort…” He sounds so damn apologetic about not having the time to deal with yet another enemy when his hands were already so full.
“Yeah, it was a long shot,” Ventus says before guilt makes him stop. “I just want to...tie up loose ends.” His loose ends, unspooling now that the immediate and very dangerous threat is gone and he can think of more than just the next attack again. Can think of the empty feeling haunting his steps.
Gone. But shouldn’t he have felt it?
This never should have happened. He should have been stronger. Then they’d be whole or at least together and he wouldn’t feel the ache down to his bones, because his other half was gone and he didn’t even feel complete and-.
“-en. Ventus.” The voice breaks through the beginning of his spiral of self-doubt. He looks up, blinking like an owl and Sora giggles. Kairi hits him in the arm, suddenly there and awake, and Ventus realizes she was the one speaking to him. She looks back, eyes a couple shades lighter blue than Sora’s. “You’re looking for Vanitas?”
Ven nods slowly, surprised at the familiarity she says the name with. “Yeah. You’ve met him?”
Kairi snorts. “Yes, he’s an asshole. But if you’re looking for him…” Her gaze is entirely too piercing and Ventus can feel himself going red. She smirks. “Point is, I can feel something like him nearby.” Her brow wrinkles, which Ventus easily relates to being around Vanitas, and Sora takes her hand. “He’s a little to the south.”
“Thanks, Kairi,” Ventus says with feeling. “I’ll be right back.”
“Do you want backup? Must be pulsing with the dark for Kairi to be able to track him.” That’s Riku, also awake and ready to go. Ven can see Terra all over him sometimes.
Ven smiles and waves a hand. “I got it, trust me. Thanks, guys.” He pushes himself to his feet and can practically feel their silent conversation behind him. He looks over his shoulder. “Really, I got it. Ten years and you get to know somebody.”
Riku snorts, Sora splutters, and Kairi hums. “I’ll keep an eye open...just in case.” Her gaze is firm. “He’s not a nice person, Ven, not like you.”
Now Ven’s smile turns hard. “Yeah, we can’t both be something. That’s just not how it works.” He starts walking and is glad that they stay and talk to each other instead of trying to follow. If things are as they should be, things will go better if it's him alone.
The air stirs little streams of dust around his legs as he walks away from their camp. It grows quiet so quickly, only the air whistling around the spires to accompany him. It's as if he's gone miles into the distance in a matter of feet. His friends could be in another place entirely for how barren the wasteland feels around him. It’s so unnerving that it takes him a minute to realize the writhing of his gut and the heavy feeling on his chest isn’t just from his nerves.
He stops and lets the feelings wash over him. He’s nervous about what he’ll find, but the undercurrent of fear and nausea isn’t his. It’s muted now, as if his notice alerted the source of the feelings to their escape. Ven mentally prods the wall. Under a bit of pressure, he can feel the whirling, unending storm on the other side, the feeling of being sucked down to the depths of the dark with no end in sight.
Fuck walking, he runs.
The horrible welling feelings build as he goes further south - they taste like poison sliding thickly down his throat and the air chokes from his lungs. He can’t stop now, but it’s so overwhelming that he has to do something. So, he does.
He grabs the horrible feelings and yanks, dragging them to his side of the wall. He stumbles under the force, the wave of them crashing over him and trying to slam him into the dirt. But he’s stronger than them. He keeps a firm hold on writhing fear and forces himself onward.
The storm is slightly quieter and he dares to grab another thread of it and yank it to him. Tears spring to his eyes and he wants to curl up on the ground, but-!
But there’s a small gasp just ahead of someone coming up for air.
Ven runs those last few feet, skidding around a spire that’s shorter than the rest. There’s someone crumpled behind it, surrounded by little twitching creatures and spools of darkness. The darkness spikes outward, stabbing through an Unversed and then gets dragged back as the person groans in pain.
“Vanitas,” Ven says, voice quiet and shaking.
His head snaps up and around and Vanitas’s golden eyes are wild, an animal in a human’s face. Memories make Ventus’s hand tighten, ready to summon his keyblade, but he forces it down. Vanitas, masked and distant, before Ven knew him. Vanitas standing over Aqua, his keyblade ready to come down in a killing blow. Vanitas screaming and laughing wildly as they clash.
Vanitas, in a stupid black coat, not even reacting as Ven reaches out to grab him, desperate to understand why-.
Ventus’s knees hit the hard-packed ground with another wave of negativity threatening to choke him. He can feel it starting to pull back and he grabs it and heaves it away from Vanitas who chokes. The Unversed around them waver and then disappear, pulled back under Vanitas’s skin without enough negativity to be. Vanitas shoves himself upright, setting his back against the spire and trying to glare at Ventus.
He looks exhausted and sick - Ven ignores the growling and the snapped words he knows are coming. He leans forward and wraps his arms tightly around Vanitas. “Fuck you for vanishing.”
The roaring in his heart gets louder and then softer. He can hear the skitter of Unversed behind him, but more importantly, he feels arms wrap around him and pull him closer. Vanitas is shaking and Ventus squeezes him.
Vanitas shudders and there are tears on Ventus’s shoulder, but he doesn’t say anything, just holds him here, close, and refuses to let go.
He has no idea how long they’re there, how long Vanitas shakes in his arms. Ventus just breathes, feeling the way Vanitas’s emotions roll through them both, the way it makes his stomach twist and his eyes sting. If he’s only feeling a portion of it…
Ventus sits back with a frown, putting his hands to Vanitas’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Vanitas immediately bursts into hysterical laughter. “Am I okay?” He throws his arms out to his sides. “Can’t you feel how fantastic I am?”
He refuses to take the bait into an argument. “It’s over, Vanitas. Now...nobody’s going to hurt you.” Ventus doesn’t think he needs to add that he won’t let them; Vanitas should be able to feel it.
Vanitas’s face, already pale, looks vaguely like glue tinted slightly wrong, and the darkness around him writhes as he looks at Ventus, still laughing in broken waves. “Great,” he spits out. “Great, Ventus. I’m just fucking, ha, overjoyed.” Even saying it seems to be too much as Vanitas curls forward holding his stomach and several Unversed come crawling from the shadows.
Ventus watches, eyes wide. Vanitas hasn’t lost control, hasn’t acted like this since…
He grabs Vanitas’s shoulders, pressing him back against the stone spire. Ventus studies him carefully as Vanitas glares at him. Eyes gold, but exhausted and slightly watery. His skin, paler than normal and he’s sheened with sweat. His hair is sticking to the back of his neck and he looks ever so much like someone who's sick with a fever.
Sick and shooting off Unversed and rolling with negativity that makes both their stomachs twist. It’s just like how Vanitas told him it was in the beginning. There’s no reason for Vanitas’s loss of control, unless he’s...out of practice? Even when they clashed so many years ago, Vanitas's control over the Unversed, over his emotions had been ironclad.
Something happened to him, broke his control. The only one who could would be him. “Did he...Vanitas, did he do something else to you?”
Vanitas breaks eye contact, looking away. He’s dead silent, lips pressed together. Ventus squeezes his shoulders. “Please, tell me.”
The leather of Vanitas’s gloves creaks as he tightens his hands into fists. More curls of darkness roll off of him, but Ventus ignores the cold feeling of it around his arms, waiting. Vanitas's darkness is not a thing that would hurt him, not anymore.
“I don’t know what he did.” Vanitas’s voice is quiet, rough. “For a while I could feel the negativity...when that kid was around, I could summon the Unversed and I swear everything felt so close.”
“But after, everything was...cold.”
Vanitas curls forward again, his head to Ventus’s shoulder, hands tight fists in his lap.
Close to Sora...of course, Ventus was still with him then. After that, after Ventus was back in his own body, he didn’t see Vanitas until later. And by then, Vanitas was so empty.
And now, without Xehanort puppeting them all, after a fight against the light which has always cut through Vanitas’s being like a sword, now that every emotion between them has flooded back… He needs help.
Ventus inhales. “Okay, you’re going to hate me and this is going to suck, but I’m dragging you back to the others.”
Vanitas tips his head slightly to glare - it’s a poor example of his usual. “Too much of a coward to execute me yourself?”
“No, idiot, too stupid to know how to help.” Ventus wraps his arms around Vanitas and gets them both standing.
Normally, Vanitas could shove him off easily, but now he sways and clings for support, not even taking the excuse to add to the insults. He’s so fucking splintered that it hurts.
Ventus shoves the extra feelings away; Vanitas has enough to deal with as it is. He wraps an arm around Vanitas’s back and starts them walking. Floods dart past their feet and Ventus can’t help a grin. “They’re still cute.”
“Fuck you.” But it lacks the sharp bite or even the warmth it grew to have.
Ventus squeezes him, Vanitas slumps against him, and they walk.