Chapter Text
Ventus is losing his mind.
Not to say that he’s the only one, but after a second keyblade war and being reunited, hearts and bodies and families all, most people are healing.
He spent ten years healing in Sora’s heart, so really he should be winning what is definitely not a race here. There are no trauma olympics and Terra and Aqua would never want to measure their troubles against one another to see who suffered more. But if they did, Ven knows that he would be the best off.
Yet, he’s the one who keeps jumping at every shadow.
It’s not because they’re there, that he spent unknowable time walking through the Realm of Darkness like Aqua and can’t stand any shadows licking at his heels anymore. It’s not because he’s scared of them descending over his vision, that he won’t be able to see anything but the dark like Terra did, blind and mute and suffering as his body did unspeakable things to the worlds.
Ventus can’t exactly put his finger on why he jumps at the shadows, the way they shift and move with the sun.
Except he thinks they might be whispering to him.
So, again, he’s losing his mind.
The worlds are safe, Xehanort is gone, the darkness back in its place in the balance of all things. Everything is good. Ven repeats these things to himself as he lies in uninterrupted sunlight and refuses to let even the dappled light through the leaves of a tree touch him. Whatever he’s definitely not hearing isn’t real. It’s just...nightmares that won’t leave him alone.
He can avoid the shadows until he feels better and then, he’ll know for certain that it’s nothing. Ven inhales and closes his eyes, the sun warming his face. He’s going to end up almost as dark as Roxas at this rate, despite liberal application of sunscreen. Aqua’s noticed, her cool fingers cupping his chin as she studies him. He’s made excuses, loving the beach now and not wanting to spend too much time indoors.
They all have their scars and changes and his seem minor. She smiles and tells him to consider getting a sunhat before she lets him go.
At least the dark behind his eyes is safe. Ventus starts to doze, the wind in the branches and leaves the only noise in his ears.
The light shifts, a cloud drifts by, but Ven doesn’t take notice.
‘Ventus!’ hisses directly into his ear and he jumps, flinging himself up to sitting, Wayward Wind gripped tightly in his hand.
His heart is pounding wildly and he whips his head back and forth. There’s no one nearby, not even the flash of color of a bird winging through the air.
He’s losing his fucking mind .
Ventus dismisses Wayward Wind and covers his face. It stings a little, sunburn, but he rubs his eyes until he’s seeing spots. He looks up, blinking them away, and still nothing appears. A dream.
He falls backward, landing on the grass again and groans. “It’s nothing, just the wind, or a dream.”
‘Your obvious brain damage,’ someone hisses in his ear again.
Ven slams his keyblade into the ground beside him without thought. Gripping its handle and staring at the grass, he realizes exactly how stupid this is. There’s nothing there, nothing but his shadow.
His shadow, which has twin spots of sunlight that could be eyes, looks like its glaring at him. I am the shadow that you cast. How much closer could I be?
He’s losing his mind.
Ven reaches out and puts a hand to his shadow, the ground cooler where the sunlight hasn’t hit in a while. He breathes in slowly and whispers, “Vanitas?”
There’s absolutely no answer, no hissing whisper, and the sunlight dancing over the head of his shadow is just that, falling between the pieces of his hair. Ventus breaks into laughter and bends forward. Stupid, so stupid. Vanitas wasn’t being literal. He’s gone, taking what used to be Ven’s darkness with him.
At least he doesn’t hurt anymore.
Ventus sighs and puts his forehead against the ground. “I’m stupid.”
‘No argument.’ The whisper is less hissed this time, more flat, and Ven freezes in place.
He keeps his eyes shut and his head to the ground. “I’m an idiot,” he says.
‘Yes, you are. ’
“My heart’s weak, I’m incomplete.”
‘Yes, exactly. I’ve been telling you for years .’
“My dark half is an asshole who’s been fucking with me.”
‘You weren’t listening! I was practically screaming at you. I can’t believe you’ve added deafness on top of your other failings. The list is longer than you can count.’
“Fuck you!” Ven fires back and opens his eyes. Now that he’s listening and hearing more than a word, he can tell it is Vanitas’s voice. It’s a little hoarser, quieter than he ever was before, but it’s him.
He lifts his head just enough that grass isn’t poking him in the eye. His shadow ripples slightly underneath him, a glare and a scowl, and then steadies. Ven presses his hand to its center. “Hold on a second, I’m not pressing my face into the dirt for this.”
Ventus has no idea what’s going on, but his heart is pounding again. Not in fear, not this time.
He stands, brushing grass off his knees, and walks over to sit under one of the trees. The shadow is instantly cooler and he sighs as he pokes one of his cheeks. Definitely pink, Aqua’s going to slather him with aloe again tonight, lecturing him all the while. Oh well.
He drops into a tailor’s seat on the more shadowed side of the tree and leans against the trunk. His shadow is indistinguishable from that of the tree, but the whispers have been louder the closer to darkness he’s in. Ven runs his fingers over one of the roots. “Vanitas?”
‘What.’
“Making sure I could hear you. You’re surly.” A smile breaks across Ven’s face, a lightness in his stomach that he refuses to name practically breaking out of him. “How long have you been yelling at me?”
‘Since you got back here. I thought you knew since you were getting all wide-eyed every time you looked at the dark. Pathetic.’
Ven draws a knee up and hooks his arm around it. “I thought I was losing my mind. I could barely hear it and there wasn’t anything to see.”
‘Blind and deaf, incredible combination . I’m right here.’
Ventus squints at the ground and beside him, but nothing’s there, not a hint of something more than regular shadows. “...Not to me.”
There’s what could be a sigh and then, ‘Of course.’
Vanitas sounds tired, softer, and Ventus is struck by the sudden feeling that this could all be a sun-dazed dream. He could wake up in a moment, alone, Vanitas having well and truly faded away. It’s unnerving how quickly the bottom drops out of his stomach at the thought. He swallows and smiles, only forcing it a little.
“But like you said, I’m blind and stupid, so it’s probably me.”
‘Don’t lie to me, Ventus. I don’t like liars.’ The hiss is back and Ven bites back a much realer smile.
“I’m not! I don’t have night vision, so give me some time for my eyes to adjust.” Ven squeezes his knee. “Did you wake up like this?”
A bird trills overhead and Ven looks up, trying to spot the distinctive black and white wings. It covers the silence from Vanitas. The bird is nowhere in sight and Ven rubs at his eyes, almost expecting Vanitas to ignore the question.
‘More or less,’ comes the slow answer, right when Ven was about to ask something else. ‘I told you .’
“I’m the shadow that you cast,” Ven repeats. “I know. I didn’t think you were actually being literal about it.”
‘I wasn’t. The universe is tormenting me. ’ Vanitas sounds unsurprised and equally unamused.
Ven snorts and closes his eyes. He can almost imagine Vanitas seated beside him, slumped back against the tree, the distance between their shoulders just wide enough that they won’t brush accidentally. Vanitas’s mask is broken, like in his last moments, and Ven can’t even mentally will it away.
He keeps his eyes closed and imagines the breeze that blows at him is tugging the spikes of both of their hair. “Well...let me know if you need anything.”
Silence again and then another sigh.
‘You really are an idiot.’
And then Vanitas is gone, the very slight pulse at the edge of Ventus’s senses going dead.
Ven opens his eyes and looks up through the branches of the tree. “Yeah,” he agrees. “But Sora wasn’t the only one who thought you deserved another chance.”
Ventus is not losing his mind.
He can’t always tell when Vanitas is more present, watching him or trying to get his attention. But when the prickling feeling, the hissing whispers do catch his attention, he knows what they are and can give it his attention instead of deliberately blocking it out.
Vanitas won’t ever say it, but Ven can tell that his shadow is appreciative of the attention.
Even if he mostly uses it to call Ven an idiot for almost every action. Training, of course, draws Vanitas’s criticism, but he’s also taken the time to tell Ventus exactly how much his taste in food sucks. It doesn’t get under Ven’s skin like it used to, more making him smile because he knows Vanitas’s real frustration is from being in a limbo where he’s not whole but unable to do things himself either. Sometimes Vanitas’s frustration is so strong Ven would swear he can feel it burning against his feet.
He tries to listen closer at that point and do what Vanitas is not-so-subtly demanding. Half the time, Vanitas snaps something about pity and vanishes. The other half, Vanitas radiates smugness for being right . It’s tiring, but tolerable.
Terra and Aqua have no idea. They’re both glad that he’s not cooking himself in the sun anymore, but he can tell they wonder at the change, that they might have heard him talking to himself in his room as they pass by in the hall. He’ll tell them...soon. When he’s figured out what to do about this.
Because this is untenable. Vanitas cannot stay his shadow forever.
But is there enough of him to be whole again? Is it safe to let Vanitas be whole and free to roam the worlds again?
Ventus doesn’t know. So, he’s stuck with Vanitas hissing from his shadow, half there, half gone, and always leaving Ventus’s heart aching when he disappears from his awareness. He doesn’t know why it aches.
He lies in bed one night, considering the feeling, and can’t trace it back to its source. Is it sympathy? He can’t imagine being so insubstantial, reduced to almost nonexistence. He can’t imagine most of what Vanitas has suffered through. His vague memories of his training under Master Xehanort bring terrible things to mind.
And then there are his memories of the Unversed. They are what I feel - a hoard of fledgling emotions under my control. Vanitas’s own emotions had been used to attack him and his friends, ripping and tearing with glowing red eyes.
Ven still remembers watching in horror as they grew out of Vanitas’s shadow, all the monsters they’d been facing. The Floods wrapped around him and Vanitas taunted him; Ventus had been too angry to consider it all then.
Now, in the dark, when he can feel Vanitas watching him or just being, Ven finds he has a great many questions. “Vanitas,” he calls softly.
Two spots of light on the wall, moonlight reflected off of something, twist toward him. ‘What? ’
“Was there...ever an Unversed that was happy?” Were you ever happy?
‘That’s a stupid question. ’ Vanitas’s voice is harsh in the dark and Ven squeezes his eyes shut. Vanitas is against his wall, arms crossed, and glaring at him. His eye is a glowing gold spot, the other half of his mask hides the second.
“You say that about every question.”
‘You never have a smart question.’ The Vanitas in his mind’s eye shifts against the wall and looks out the window instead. ‘What are the Unversed made of, Ventus? I know a master told you .’
“Negativity,” Ven says softly.
‘Exactly. Has anyone ever felt happiness and had it be negativity? Glee at causing trouble for others, for causing them pain? That’s negative. Happiness is not.’
Ven opens his eyes and rolls over to stare up at the ceiling. It’s easier than looking at the Vanitas in his head, who looks smaller in the moonlight as his voice goes flatter and flatter. The stars he stuck up there with Terra and Aqua glow dimly. His voice feels as distant as the real stars when he speaks. “But you’re not just negativity.”
‘If you think that’s true, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.’ Vanitas sighs. ‘How do you think the master brought me back? ’
He never thought about it. There was so much time travel to wrap his head around that he just assumed that Vanitas had been snatched out of time as well. Ven frowns. “Negativity?”
‘Ding, ding, ding. That world of monsters was the perfect place for me to collect all the negativity needed to make me stronger than anyone else . I am negativity, just like I am the darkness to your light. ’
“But I feel negative emotions all the time. That has nothing to do with light or darkness.” Ven rolls onto his side and stares at the wall where he can almost see Vanitas. “If you’ve never felt happiness than it’s...because of what you’ve lived through, not because you can’t .”
The moonlight spots stare back at them and then noticeably dart away. ‘ My master- .’
“And you can quit calling him that. He’s not your master, Vanitas, not anymore. He never acted like a master should. Fuck him.” Ven sits up, suddenly furious with the world and everything in it. “Call him what he is: a fucking jackass!”
‘Ventus... ’ Vanitas sounds surprised and then furious too. ‘What would you know?! You with your perfect life and your perfect friends! He was all I had after he separated us. You never needed me! Not like I need you! Fuck you! ’
The light bulb in the small star-shaped light he got for the nights, for Vanitas to have something to appear from , shatters. The dark feels empty and cold, a vacuum left after Vanitas disappears and takes his rage with him.
Ven exhales and puts his face on his knees. “Stupid. If I didn’t need you…”
If he didn’t need Vanitas, the thought of him being truly gone wouldn’t leave him aching.