"Just nine?" That's naked incredulity, and Vanitas doesn't look away from the stars up above. The window makes a cut out of them, like a cookie stamp. The stars like a scattering of sugar from a spoon. He can see the comparison— only he'd never been so naive enough to believe it. Or at least, if he had, he doesn't remember it.
Vanitas reaches down to pull the blanket up under his chin. The seasons are turning, but he gets cold easily.
"That's not right," He decides, as though whatever Bruce's lived experience might be is inconsequential. "The hearts of your worlds are probably just locked."
Vanitas pulls the blanket up, all the way under his chin and there's something very small about the sight. It's easy to picture him as a child, arguing with a bedtime story as he tucks himself in. Bruce stretches his fingers without moving the arm behind Vanitas's neck, and he takes hold of the edge of the blanket, draws it around him on the far edge as if he's helping stitch up a seam. To keep the warmth trapped beneath.
"How many worlds have you seen?" It isn't a heavy, overly serious question so much as it is a quiet piece of conversation. "If there are so many, maybe there are worlds out there where the stars are just sugar."
The cadence of Bruce's voice stays so remarkably even. He almost always sounds like this; and it isn't that he doesn't feel anything. Vanitas has proof of it, not just in what he can feel intrinsically off him, but also in the misshapen figures of the funny looking bats in the rafters. Bruce feels just as deeply as Vanitas himself does— but it stays under the surface.
It's soothing, which is kind of nice. He feels so tired and heavy all over. Vanitas' eyes are starting to droop as he gazes up through the window.
"Way more than you have," His voice comes out a murmur, just this side of a sleepily slurring. It's warm here. Vanitas doesn't often feel safe, especially not for the last week, but this rings familiar. Like an echo of laying down in a hammock near the shore. "I know wh-wh-" He yawns, so big that it pops his jaw. "What I'm talking about."
Vanitas's weight is something that increases by degrees, as his body starts to surrender to the warmth, and the physical presence- to the stillness and the quiet and the drug. He can feel it, not just in the press of his head falling back into the crook of his elbow, but in the downward pull on the mattress beside him. Each limb gradually growing still, the sound of his voice dampened.
He yawns huge and wide and unembarrassed, like a cat. And Bruce smiles through the dark, this room barely lit by the combination of both of their lanterns. "They're definitely sugar," he says quietly, instead of promising that he'll stay right here all night. Instead of saying he won't go anywhere. "And the moon is made of milk."
Vanitas hears it, but at a distance. Like listening to the sound of the wind through leaves, or chasing up the tiny grains of sand, the soft noise they make moving against one another. Sugar and milk loiter around in his thoughts, idle like fat fireflies, and he doesn't even notice when his eyes have closed.
Anything else Bruce might say is utterly lost on him, because it takes seconds from there for the drug in the chocolate to work it's magic. Vanitas doesn't even roll over to his customary position, curled up in a tight comma on his side. His body just sinks into sleep and the onset of fever hurries him on his way.
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Vanitas reaches down to pull the blanket up under his chin. The seasons are turning, but he gets cold easily.
"That's not right," He decides, as though whatever Bruce's lived experience might be is inconsequential. "The hearts of your worlds are probably just locked."
no subject
"How many worlds have you seen?" It isn't a heavy, overly serious question so much as it is a quiet piece of conversation. "If there are so many, maybe there are worlds out there where the stars are just sugar."
no subject
It's soothing, which is kind of nice. He feels so tired and heavy all over. Vanitas' eyes are starting to droop as he gazes up through the window.
"Way more than you have," His voice comes out a murmur, just this side of a sleepily slurring. It's warm here. Vanitas doesn't often feel safe, especially not for the last week, but this rings familiar. Like an echo of laying down in a hammock near the shore. "I know wh-wh-" He yawns, so big that it pops his jaw. "What I'm talking about."
no subject
He yawns huge and wide and unembarrassed, like a cat. And Bruce smiles through the dark, this room barely lit by the combination of both of their lanterns. "They're definitely sugar," he says quietly, instead of promising that he'll stay right here all night. Instead of saying he won't go anywhere. "And the moon is made of milk."
no subject
Anything else Bruce might say is utterly lost on him, because it takes seconds from there for the drug in the chocolate to work it's magic. Vanitas doesn't even roll over to his customary position, curled up in a tight comma on his side. His body just sinks into sleep and the onset of fever hurries him on his way.