Fic: Soliloquy of the inhuman
Tw: for some instances of graphic description of violence.
Or in other words, a strange story of found family between a non-human hybrid of a elderitch primordial being and the living embodiment of someone’s darkness, and the resurrected past life of someone who was probably the worst person who had ever graced their century.
Or in other other words, I write something short, indulgent; maybe full of crack. And it’s all brought to you by our two members from the personally victimised by Xehanort club😂! Lol imagine being so awful you even traumatise your resurrected past life tsk tsk Xeha, Tsk tsk.
Perhaps, somewhere along the line, he always knew that he was more than just Ventus’s Darkness. Writhing, squirming. Grow. Grow. Grow. Spread. Like living ink seeping even into the thinnest cracks of the worlds. He knew, almost fearfully- (which didn’t make sense, power was everything. HeTheyI? always said that. So why does this revelation terrify him so?) -that he was much more than just the living embodiment of single human’s half. Of their fears, of their imaginations, their regrets, Which was why immediately, he knew that this lady was just sprouting bullshit. People don’t just show up anywhere. Especially not dandelions like her.
“Woah, woah, hey. easy- you’re just waking up.”
“What the fuck!? Who are you!? What the fuck are you doing?!” Vanitas growls, eyes snapping open immediately. The ravenhead shoves the hand helping him up away. He sways, but he does not stumble. He doesn’t.
“Aw bud, Relax~! can’t someone just play the Good Samaritan?” The young woman yawns, both hands raised in ‘some universal I come in peace’ gesture. Unperturbed by the keyblade at her throat. It infuriates him. When all else fails, intimidation was supposed to be his strongest weapon.
“Bullshit.” Vanitas snaps, eager to leave but not quite willing to be in debt to someone. “ what’s your angle? What do you want?” He growls.
“Yeesh” The brunette whistles lightly, “You’re real energetic for someone who almost dissolved to death.”
He growls, digging the tip of his blade into her throat deeper. “Okay! Okay!” The older(?) woman yelps, gracefully taking a sidestep in one smooth, irritatingly long motion. “I just want a favour! Can’t think of anything yet but you’ll know. I’ll call you..? Or something?” She grins, head tilted to the side with an expression of jarringly friendly confusion.
Unsatisfied but unwilling to deal with this any longer, the younger(?) steps back. “Deal. Just say Vanitas and I’ll come. I don’t like being indebted to someone.” He states gruffly before quickly retreating into the darkness. Perhaps, in another time, he would have demanded a fight instead of giving thanks. But he’s exhausted,sore. Released from his life(?) long norting. Getting his memories back, Seeing ventus again and that brat who took his face.. Xehanort is finally gone. And with him; the destruction of a strange, twisted pillar in his life.
So, perhaps without even realising it, he spends his days drifting, wandering from world to world. Sometimes he lies down upon tall city skylines and listens to the hustle and bustle beneath. Soaking in the warmth that can only come from sun shining onto concrete. Occasionally he helps the local teens there too. Turns out him and his very specific set of skills work wonders for playing pranks and jump-scaring poor unsuspecting souls in alleyways. He crackles, jeering in glee as he makes a run from red-faced, puffy adults in their too perfect suits and straight laced skirts.
Other times, he wonders through grassy fields, giant forests comprised entirely of large glowing mushrooms. A bird lands on shoulder, chirping happily. Despite himself, he smiles softly. Stroking the small birds beak. It thrills contentedly, nuzzling at his finger, before flying away. He watches with some semblance of awe and respect as little white flowers push it’s way through ruined rock and ancient stone
Distantly he wonders if the ‘him’ before, would have ever noticed this? He shudders involuntarily, trickles of a different time dance at the very edge off his mind. Powerful, ancient, writhing, he could make anything, he could go anywhere. But it was cold,ever so cold. Grow. Spread. It was maddening, driven obsession and alien hiveminds. All shrieking desperation and colliding into one. He gags, suddenly feeling emptier than even his name suggests. Probably not. The teen(?) concludes, back then, there wasn’t even an ‘I’ to speak off.
He does not know when he began to fear losing the ‘I’ he had become. Certainly not when he was with that old man that was for sure.
Perhaps, like most things these days, it had come slowly, creeping up on him like a slow-moving cat. He’s different now. Something is changing, but strangely, the realisation doesn’t irk as much as he thought it would.
He does not expect her to call upon him two months later. And for Ventus no less.
“ The kid’s gone. Find him, please.” The brunette pleads. Ah, what a small world they live in. He expects the guardians to come knocking on his door soon.
So he goes to at least one of them(?), instead.
“You know the lights are looking for me.” He starts.
“Well, hello to you too kiddo.” Persona huffs. “you could have come through the front door.” The brunette hums, with a slight tilt of her head. Her back is turned to him. But it cannot obscure the little dream portal floating over her outstretched hand and casting the room in soft pink light.
“Why didn’t you tell them?” He demands, ignoring her.
“Didn’t know I had a stalker.” She counters back, amused.
“Don’t fuck with me.” Vanitas snarls. “Aren’t you and the rest of those idiots just a bunch of light- obsessed maniacs?” He questions, slamming his fist against the wall of her apartment. “Why didn’t you tell them you saw me?” The dark haired boy growls.
“Do you wanna meet them?” Sona asks instead, infuriatingly calm.
“Stop dodging the question.” He scoffs.
“So that’s a no then.” She hums, nodding.
“why are you doing this?” He grumbles, folding his arms.
At first, Persona doesn’t answer, choosing only to hum noncommittally. The sound punctuated only by glittering stones that swirl around the portal. Before at last, the fragments merge, and with a poof! A small newborn meowow appears.
It purrs, sniffing at her gloved, but outstretched hand. The brunette murmurs something quick and low. Something his ears can’t catch. The meowow nods as if confirming its assent to something, before it vanishes. Sona then snaps her fingers, allowing the portal to disappear along with it.
Sona then stands, dusting off her shorts and turning away from her now nonexistent portal. “Eh.. who knows really.” The brunette shrugs, tinted eyes almost seeming to appear wholly red in the dim room. “guess you can say I’m just repaying a debt.” Sona smirks, smile crooked.
“A debt? What debt? That favour from me was to settle a score on my end. We’re even.” Vanitas scoffs, leaning back against a wall.
“You’ll see.” She crackles loudly, but the bags under her eyes only seem to grow ever more pronounced. “Feel free to come beat the shit out of me if you ever figure it out.”
“You’re so fucking weird.” The ravenette rolls his eyes. But curious nevertheless, he can’t help taking a quick once over of the interior of her flat in radiant garden. It’s messy. Boxes of takeout and what suspiciously looks like used cigarette packs strewn across the floor. “And your home looks like shit.” He adds, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
“Eh, it’s not like I’m expecting guests” the brunette shrugs again.
Vanitas narrows his eyes. “You should be.”
“What, like you’re actually gonna visit?” Persona jokes.
“In your dreams!” Vanitas snarks, rolling his eyes.
But somehow, he finds himself crashing onto her couch the next week. And the week after that. It’s strange, a part of him always unable to resist this gravitation towards her side.
He tries not to think too much on why that is. And instead, tries to focus on comfortable pillows and pleasantly cool blankets of her couch which had somehow turned into a bed and then his own room.His own room can you believe that? It was his. Vanitas couldn’t remember the last time he ever had a space to call his own.
Eventually it seems, that even the fixture of an extra toothbrush and extra plates had become a permeant resident on her sink and dining table too. Perhaps, Somewhere along the line they had learned to be a part of each other. Secrets and all.
Like the way he doesn’t ask why her darkness tinges of something dreadfully familiar. Nor does he prod when distant, duller than usual eyes would stare out into the distance for hours on end. Body quiet, and numb to hunger, pain or joy.
Or the way she doesn’t question the times he wakes up shaking, having torn multiple pillows to shreds in his terrified slumber. Just a low hum on her part and a cup of hot tea. It’s bitter, very unlike the memory of hot chocolate he remembers Ventus receiving from Aqua during the early days of their separation and one sided connection. It’s different. But he prefers it that way. Neither does she ask, when a mysterious helper starts to clear the dishes that soak in the sink. Or fills her pantry with more than just take out and cigarettes.
Eventually though, he does find out what she meant. And entirely by accident too, just two weeks shy of a year into their strange little arrangement. He meets a nameless little boy, whose smile stretched a little too wide and eyes that seem to have seen just a little too much.
Vanitas sees red. For a brief moment, he contemplates sneaking into that flat of hers and driving a stake through her chest. Broken Ribs, and flagging heart and all. Blood splattering the floor and walls. It would be so easy. The unguarded way she always seemed to doze off around Vanitas. It would be so easy.
(“Feel free to come beat the shit out of me. if you ever figure it out.”)
He tells himself it would be boring, to hit someone who was already down. That he wasn’t going to give that old coot, or more accurately, that old hag. The satisfaction of escaping from hisher sins.
But perhaps, deep down, it’s because he knows what it’s like, to be Burdened with the memory of being something else, someone else. Of experiencing something so intimately yet still so.. off, so unlike you. Of being so Alien, disgusting. But detestably, not something you can say is entirely not you. Of looking in the surface of a river just to check that it won’t be another face (or a lack thereof in his case) looking back.
Or perhaps, it’s because he too knows more than anyone, that you cannot choose the lifetime you are imparted with. For all his gripes with having a face copied over, he’s secretly thankful too. It was a second chance.
Free from the shackles of being someone’s other half and whatever limitations a shapeless being of Darkness had. Who would have thought? Ventus had a point. Maybe he was more than just the darkness after all. And All it took was becoming the black haired, red eyed version of someone else’s face and some time away from everything to see that. Not that he’d ever admit it aloud.
And it wasn’t as if him and the escapades of his former brethren were saintly either. Xehanort aside, he was fairly certain taking over someone’s body and aspiring to and having actually devour worlds did not fall under the category of ‘good’ or ‘altruistic’
He does not know when he started to feel the slight sting of remorse over their actions either. Morbidly curious, a part of him wonders how others may react to it. How would that Pinky feel? Knowing that an alternate not quite the same but similar iteration of his sister’s killer was alive and in the flesh? Would he kill Vanitas? Stab him? Strangle the humanoid boy with that plant magic he loved so much? Huh. Maybe he should take up Sona’s offer to meet them all again.
Although, as with all things, he suspects a certain brunette may already know. That makes him feel warm.The kind of fuzzy he never thought he’d ever be the personal recipient off. It was.. nice. Knowing somewhere, out there, he was accepted and understood too. Even if that somewhere was practically in the same boat as him.
But like all this simple and clean, he’d much rather eat that disgusting takeout Sona seemed to fancy so much, than verbally admit to any of those sentiments out loud. Suck it old man. That weird incarnation-reincarnation-past life- of yours is way cooler. You’re not.
So life Carries on, and he has better things to do that ruminate on that pitiful old man. And so, Wandering, wandering, he travels from world to world very much akin to an alley cat that roams streets only to always, without fail, return back to its nest.
“Why don’t you hang out with the others?” He questions, one day on a lazy afternoon.
“Hm?” She pauses, setting her watering can to the side. Her plants can wait.
“All you do is work, sleep, shit and smoke. I bet you won’t even clean this place, much less cook proper fucking food, if it weren’t for me” Vanitas frowns, arms crossed. “You need to touch more grass”
“Aw~ so you do care.” Persona coos .
“Fuck off.” He snaps, grabbing a nearby book off the coffee table and launching it towards her general direction
She laughs, quiet but bright.
“Dammit Neo!” The boy groans, trying in vain to shake the insistent meowwow off. They yip in protest, nibbling insistently at his ankles. “What do you want boy?”Vanitas sighs in resignation, bending down to pat the dream eater tugging at the cuffs of his pants. “You want me to follow you? just say that next time” he says, despite knowing full well, Neo wouldn’t be able to communicate back.
Before the spirit darts off, gesturing for him to follow.
He huffs, trotting after the spirit. Vanitas rounds a bend, Only to be greeted with the sight of a very familiar, very bloody, poncho wearing brunette, lying smack in an alleyway beside a flickering dream portal.
He rushes forward, nonexistent blood roaring. “Oy! Can you hear me? Don’t you dare fucking die on me!” Vanitas snaps, shaking the small (shit, fuck- was she always this small?) woman by the shoulders. Much to his relief, she stirs. “Vani, kid, dude please, keep it down.” The brunette sways, clumisly trying to push him away. Funny how the tables turn this time. If it weren’t for the circumstances he would be laughing in her face. “Shut the fuck up! What even happened?” He shoots back.
Much to his irritation, Sona shrugs noncommittally. “Eh, don’t worry bout it. not as bad as it looks.” She spouts off as quickly as usual.
“Ugh- Fine. Be like that. C’mon Get up.” Vanitas grumbles, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he pulls her to her feet and leads them both back home. While Neo whined, pacing anxious circles around them both.
Distantly he wonders, as he hoists the young woman up, opens the door to her, no their flat. And helps wash the blood from her hair. Aided by her more-dog-than-dreameater, If this was what a family was supposed to be.
