Chapter Text
The first call happened mere minutes before his first alarm was set to go off, meaning Ventus’ voice was already huffy as he yanked the phone from his nightstand and answered.
“What?”
“Good morning to you too, Ven!” came the cheery voice of Aqua from the other end. Too cheery, actually, and there was too much noise and other voices to be heard in the background, causing Ventus’ groggy brain to pay a little more attention despite himself. “What are you doing?”
The hint of previous curiosity threatened to flicker out at the (dumb) question.
“Sleeping, obviously. What’s so important?” Ven replied flatly.
“Oh great! It’s hard for you to be angry when you’re tired.”
“Angry? Why would I be—"
“What would you say if I asked you to come back to the theater?”
Laying flat on his bed, Ven stared up at the turning ceiling fan, filling the silence with its hushed whirring. He watched as it sluggishly turned as slow as his thoughts. Whrr, whrr, whrr, whrr…
“No.”
“What would you say if I said… please?”
“Still no.”
“Ven please!” The pretense cheer was suddenly gone, replaced with desperation and a hint of a whine, which would have amused Ventus if half of himself wasn’t still yearning to be unconscious. “It would just be one last show! You wouldn’t even have to audition, we’ve got your tapes from before, and everyone here already knows how talented you-“
“No,” he interrupted, voice dragging, limbs dragging as well as he finally pulled himself to a sitting position, the last shred of hope at getting a few more minute’s sleep long gone. “I said no. You know I quit, Aqua, why would you suddenly ask me this now?”
She fell silent for a bit, the sound of footsteps and distant voices filling through the phone in her place. Only now did Ventus connect those various voices to those that belonged to the theater staff. Of course, she was at the theatre. She always was.
“It…” she said, then sighed and tried again. “You know we’ve been struggling to stay afloat for a long time, but it… It’s finally happening, Ven. We have until November to get this place on its feet or else they’re shutting us down.”
Now it was Ventus’ turn to fall silent, his heart giving a small ache without his permission as he tried to process the news. The thought of losing that building, replaced with who knows what by that greedy, controlling…
“By ‘they’ you mean Xehanort, right?”
“…Yes. He finally sent the papers to Mr. Eraqus last week with the deadline. So now we’re planning a show, the biggest show yet, and to do that we need—"
“You need me,” Ven guessed with a heavy sigh. He pulled a hand to scrub at his eyes, seeing spots dance in front of them. He wished the dark spots would just swallow him whole.
“Correct. We’ll need all the help we can get for this, and you’re one of the only actors that are still—"
“Listen, you don’t need me. I’m sorry about the theater, I am, really, but this doesn’t involve me anymore. Good luck with finding someone else. Bye, Aqua.” And with that Ventus hung up, not caring to hear the protests she was already trying to interrupt him with.
He flopped himself back onto his sheets, feeling the white pillows curl around his mess of golden hair as if inviting him to stay forever. He was tempted, but after that conversation, he knew there was no hope of remaining in bed, no matter how tempting the offer. Besides, classes would be starting soon anyway.
Ventus closed his eyes with a final sigh, feeling the silk against his skin and the slight breeze of the fan hitting his cheeks.
His head spun as much as it could in his still sleepy state, trying to process Aqua’s words—the theater, being shut down. That little building downtown, wedged between a used bookstore and a dusty antique shop, that has stood for so long as the beacon of life in this small, stifling town, the place where most of his childhood was spent, in heat and snow and rain, the place he once considered a second home, the only place he ever felt free…Gone.
The thought sent hollow pain through his chest. Took out a bit of warmth and replaced it with a cold emptiness. To think that that beloved building would be left to that crooked businessman Xehanort…
One more show, huh… The thought was an interesting one, and Ven had to wonder if it would even work; even if they managed to pull off the miracle of tracking down every kid who used to spend their days and nights on that stage and beg them to come back, would it make a difference? Would it…what, save the theater like the ending to some sappy film?
There’s no way. Besides, Ventus didn’t have the time nor the desire to return and star in some show—he was way too busy with his studies and part time job, not to mention he decided years ago he would never step foot there again. There was nothing there for him any more.
No, he wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t even consider it. No matter how much Aqua’s pleading voice echoed in his head, no matter how crushed he imagined Eraqus’ face to be, the man who poured his love and life into that theater just as he did to Ventus when he made the decision to take him in…
Nope.
Out of the question.
They would have to drag Ventus kicking and screaming back to that place.
Unfortunately for Ven, that’s exactly what they planned to do.
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The second call came just when Ventus was thinking that drowning in his coffee was a pretty valid option to get him out of reading these essays.
He answered it without much thought, staring down at the foreign black words on white pages that he knew somehow must be English, but his brain didn’t agree. “Hello.”
“Hey there, Ven! What are you up to?”
It was Aqua, again, and Ventus could instantly pick up on her usual cheery tone of voice that didn't fool him for a second.
“…Studying?” he drew out, a little suspicious. It wasn’t rare for Aqua to call and chat for a while, but she knew he went to the library to study at this time as a matter of routine, and after the other call just earlier that morning…
“Oh, really! Interesting, what are you studying?”
Ventus blinked at nothing. “…Keplerian Rotations.”
“Wow, cool!...”
He waited for her to continue.
She didn’t.
“What do you want, Aqua?”
“Since you asked,” she burst out, “I was wondering if you thought any more about what we talked about this morning?”
Ventus deflated. He should’ve known better. “I already said no.”
“Well, yes, you did, but if you just think about it a little more and—"
Ventus’ gaze slid over to his cup of coffee once again. The idea of drowning was looking more and more tempting by the minute.
“—it would be just like old times, all of us together again!” she was still saying.
“Find someone else Aqua, I mean it.” Ventus was trying to stay quiet, he really was, but a nearby student still glanced up from their own books at his blunt tone.
“You know there’s no one else that can pull this off! You’re talented, Ven, and everyone here knows it—if we could advertise you coming back, then maybe more people would come.”
“That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ and a lot of ‘maybes’. Not worth it. I’m not doing it.”
“But the theater, Ven, it would be—"
“I don’t care. Maybe it’s better if it’s gone,” but even as Ventus said it, he knew it wasn’t true. He couldn’t put meaning behind the words, and Aqua knew that.
Aqua was pulling out her pitiful voice now--the one that, under normal circumstances, would make Ventus drop everything to get her to stop using it. These weren’t normal circumstances, though, and Ventus clenched his teeth to resist. “Do it for me, Ven! Me, Terra, Sora…Do it for Eraqus.”
Ventus now had his head resting against the books on the table in front of him, the hollow, pathetic thunk thunk thunks as he banged his forehead against the thick volumes loud in his own ears and, yep, other students were sure to be staring now.
“I can’t,” Ventus drug out from between his teeth, struggling to deny her. Pulling out the Eraqus card, huh. low blow.
“We need you, we all need—"
“Look, it’s not gonna work on me, alright? Try a different tactic or stop calling me!” Ventus hissed out and clicked the phone off, slumping back into his chair with more force than necessary, ignoring the few eyes stuck on him by the surrounding students, too lost in his own mind to care.
How dare she try and guilt him like that! To think she’d stoop so low as to make him feel an obligation to that place, to any of them, that he would go out of his own way to please them! Admittedly, normally he would, bend over backwards for them in fact, but this… It was too much to ask. First guilt trips, what’s next? Bribery?
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Ventus was exactly right.
The next afternoon, as he sat on a park bench eating his lunch, is when the third call arrived, and Ventus had half a mind to not answer. But what if it was an emergency this time? He could never forgive him if something actually happened to Aqua because he was being petty, so he answered it, prepared for the worst but hoping for better.
“Hello?”
“Ven! Hey, listen, we don’t have a lot of money, obviously, but I’ll pay you more than the others as long as you stay quiet about it.”
“Aqua-“
“I’ll make you lunch! Every single day! Complete with my vanilla cake, your favorite!”
“—Aqua, sto—"
“I can have Riku clean out the back closet so you can even have your own dressing room?”
“Aqua!”
A pigeon nearby took to the air frantically at his shout, but it shut her up, finally. “For the love of god, stop calling me!” Ventus continued, exasperated and seething at once. “Find. Someone. Else!”
Hanging up and slamming the phone down so violently he had half a mind to be worried he’d break it; he released a breath that did little to loosen the tension in his shoulders. He blinked down and realized he had crushed the sub sandwich that had been in his hand, tomato and ranch now leaking down his fist.
Great.
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There were a few more calls over the course of a few days, but none of them allowed Aqua to get out more than a few words after the word ‘theater’ or 'please' before Ventus was hanging up without a single word.
He felt a little bad, he couldn’t deny it—knowing that Aqua, one of the only people he considered family, needed him, and he was abandoning her when she needed him most…
But he wasn’t an actor. Not anymore. He had a life, was busy building a stable future, was satisfied with his daily routine. He wasn’t interested in…
But was he?
Was he happy, really?
Pouring over books thick enough to kill a man with little effort, writing essays that featured words that often included over 20 characters, setting 12 alarms every morning just to drag himself out into the simmering summer heat to yet another class that went by before he can even take a single breath?
…Yeah, sure he was, right?
This was his choice. And what’s the alternative? Go back to silly shows that he volunteered for without pay? Build a career out of his sky and landscape photography that he only managed to make 30 bucks off of on a good day?
No, it wasn’t worth it.
Risking a dip in his grades and money earned for his bills at his job all for 3 months of hard work for something silly he shouldn’t still care about with people he hasn’t seen in years was unacceptable. There was no changing his mind about it.
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The last call came just after Ven had pulled on his lounge clothes after a shower. He shook a hand through his hair to get the rest of the water out as he saw who it was and debated answering at all. But maybe this was the time she was finally calling to apologize for bothering him? Not likely, knowing Aqua was just as stubborn as him, but he was already answering it anyway.
He didn’t bother saying hello anymore, just waited for Aqua to start whatever new annoying-but-admittedly-mildly-amusing sales pitch she came up with his time.
“You’re so going to say yes this time.”
Well, that was new. Some kind of mind trick, maybe? “Excuse me?”
“There’s been a new development, and you’re absolutely going to say yes now.”
Ventus absently pulled out a glass from his cabinet and went to pour the lemon tea from the kettle with one hand. He would brush this off as another tactic, but something in her voice was threatening to burst at the seams, a secret she had that was buzzing in the notes of her voice.
“And what makes you so sure?” Ventus asked warily, pouring the tea carefully, the steam wafting up in a sweet smelling cloud upwards.
“Because we got Vanitas.”
The teapot slipped in his grip, causing Ventus to scramble to catch it before more than a few sloshing drips spilled onto the table, nearly burning his fingertips in the process as he tried to not drop the phone either.
“You…What? Vanitas?!”
“The one and only!” Aqua squealed, her phone almost too loud this close to Ventus’ ear, but with the phone tucked between his cheek and shoulder and his hands frozen in their place steadying the teapot, there was nothing he could do about it. “After no answer this whole time, his manager just sent us back an email. He agreed to be in the show!”
“Vanitas is… coming back?” Ventus’ voice was strange, even to his own ears.
Was it hopeful? Doubtful? Fearful? He barely registered the sound of his hands setting the kettle on the now messy counter, unaware of how gently he set it down. He didn’t see much, his brain churning, lost in flashes of memories far away, struggling to keep up.
“Seems like it. So, what do you say?” she sounded smug, knew she had him at checkmate. “Gonna join us for one more show?”
Vanitas.
Vanitas seriously agreed to come back? No way... There’s no way!
The same Vanitas that ditched this place at 12 to live in the big city, that went on to tour across the world and was now probably too rich to even walk on his own 2 feet, was coming… Back here?
“…No.” And Ventus hung up, hearing the shout of protest bubbling up through the speaker before being cut off.
Ventus slid the phone onto the counter, staring down at the mess he’d made and the tea that was no doubt going to grow cold soon. He gripped the counter, trying to ground himself in the feeling of wood digging into his fingertips. It didn’t help much.
Vanitas…
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The house was dark and silent, from room to room the lights dimmed, the bedroom lit only by the occasional flash of headlights driving past the hills, but even those were few and far between, giving the illusion that nothing but the dark night existed outside the curtained windows. It was nearly oppressive, the silence and the darkness a tangible thing, but there Ventus sat, huddled at his desk pushed against a wall in the cramped bedroom, the light from his laptop like a beacon cutting through the suffocating ink in the air.
The blanket wrapped securely around his shoulders turned him into more of a mound than a man, only his mess of light blonde hair poking above the blankets along with a set of stark blue eyes, which were currently transfixed on the screen sat before him, lighting his skin to a ghostly shade and the video playing reflecting in his wide, blank eyes.
On the screen, dozens of tabs lay open, many already clicked through by this late hour.
It started with a simple search: ‘Vanitas’.
And since has spiraled into hours of footage, millions of photo-shoots, flashing across the screen at a blinding speed as Ventus frantically sought for something even he himself couldn’t name.
This was the first time since his last flick of a wave goodbye that Ventus has seen him, never purposefully seeking Vanitas out and in fact avoiding him, but he’d tell you he just ‘never had a reason to’.
Ventus watched, unblinking like an owl, as the video taken sneakily by a fan in the audience of one of many performances provided the only movement in the room.
Even through the low quality of the cellphone camera, shaking of the hand, and occasional block of someone else’s head as the owner filmed through the theater seats, the figure of Vanitas could be made out, center stage as he performed a scene from Sweeney Todd. The mess of black hair could be seen, nearly blue under all the stage lights, the confident movements in his limber arms as he flourished his hands towards his co-star who stood with him on the stage, but they may as well have been invisible for all the difference they made to most people in the audience, for all the difference they made to Ventus, who had yet to remove his eyes trained firmly and only on the black haired man in the video, eyes beginning to burn.
The volume fizzled quietly through the old speakers of Ventus’ laptop, but even through the noise his voice could be heard—Vanitas, singing in a voice that, even with the crackling of faulty technology, could be compared to that of a siren, a blue jay, perhaps a mother singing so sweetly to the tune of a lullaby they knew by heart to their scared child. And, quite right, as the emotion was the same. He sang with everything he had, you could easily forget that he was only acting, forget the stage he stood on or the hundred something others in the audience with you. Through his graceful movements, the downward turn of his steady eyebrows, the melodic lilt to his smooth voice, he drew you only into a story as his prisoner, and at this point Ventus didn’t want to escape. He never really did.
Vanitas on the screen opened his arms wide towards the audience with his final note, eyes trained upwards past the spotlights, past the audience, to a place that only he could see. What he found there no one could say, his expression a mix of such crushing despair and pain that it was hard to tell if he was simply in character. Even from the audience, the smoldering gold of his eyes seemed to glow, burning like burning embers. Ventus clenched his hands around his legs tighter, pulling his knees closer to his chin until the fabric of the blanket tickled his nose.
Ventus remembered those same eyes from long ago, the eyes that held the capability to look so cruel or so kind, sometimes from one minute to the next. He remembered those eyes fixed on himself, and the sort of feeling that often sprung up when they did—like a spell or a basilisk, freezing you to the spot but warming you up inside when he decided you were worth setting his eyes upon.
It was hard to compare the boy he once knew to the man who stood on the stage, and not just because of the period costume or stage makeup he wore that dug dark circles under his eyes or redness smudged across his eyelids. It was so long ago, his limbs lankier and his shoulders thinner, cheeks rounder. Now with broad shoulders, powerful legs, sharp cheekbones and a certain grace to him it was like watching a panther ready to leap, it was nearly impossible for Ventus to compare the two, to rationalize in his mind who exactly he was looking at.
The boy who ate honey and peanut butter sandwiches alone at lunch, poring over his script while the other kids ran to the swings. The boy who corrected the directors, only to be praised instead of disciplined when it inevitably turned out his ideas were better. The boy who only ever spared Ventus a few glances despite playing his costar a number of times, eyes too busy trained ahead, always ahead, to see those around him and below him. The boy with the same eyes that Ventus could swear he saw melting with tears as he climbed into his grandfather's car, the final time he left the theater…
Ventus finally blinked, eyes bloodshot as they came back into focus to find that the video had ended.
A pale hand snuck out from underneath the folds of his blanket to reach towards the mouse set on the old, scuffed up desk to click the next opened tab, scrolling through the page like he was trying not to see anything on it, but unable to look away.
Photographs of Vanitas filled the page from a fan-site, some depicting him sitting behind a table at a signing, leaning forward a little as the exhilarated fan took a photo with him, a small grin on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes, while other images were artistic photoshoots taken by professionals who knew just how to style his dark hair so that it brushed over his arched brows in a strategically disheveled manner and tangled with his long eyelashes, how to tilt his head so that his seamless skin caught the highlights of the dimmed red lights across his high cheekbones and sharp jaw, accentuating the long narrow bridge of his nose.
It was impossible for Ventus to look at that face with recognition. To see this model, the graceful yet haughty expression in his features, and compare it to the one filled with fire from so long ago.
Dragging his eyes finally away, his chest calmed just a little at the picture below it, but his heart picked right up again for a different reason.
There he was. There was the Vanitas he knew.
A paparazzi photo, taken from a little café in New York or California or London or some other place Ventus could never dream of being, that showed Vanitas sitting alone, attempting to block the lower half of his face from the camera but through his hands you could see the giant mouthful of what appeared to be a donut, if the other half in his other hand and the spot of powder on his nose was any indication. His hair was a tangled mess, free of hairspray or the work of a paid stylist, spiked up in ways that told the story of someone who had recently rolled out of bed and didn’t bother to look in a mirror. His face, absent of photoshop or stage makeup or expensive lights, looked like he wanted to laugh but didn’t know how to without choking on the absurdly large bite of donut in his mouth, even as he tried to turn away from the cameras. Those powerful eyes were rimmed in dark circles, bags underneath that looked like smudges of charcoal smeared with careless hands. He wore a tattered grey scarf, the very same scarf that gave Ventus yet one more reason to compare this particular photo to the unmanageable young boy he once knew.
Vanitas used to wear that scarf constantly to rehearsals—you’d be hard pressed to see him without it wound loosely around his scrawny neck with pride, and god have mercy on the soul of whoever was around when he accidentally spilled some of his lunch on it. The care he took to hang it up by the dressing room door was a fresh memory in Ventus’ mind as if it happened only yesterday.
He looked so human.
Real.
Like a normal person, the same Vanitas that Ventus used to stare after longingly or follow around backstage like a puppy, hoping that being near him by proximity would somehow give Ventus some of whatever brilliance it was he had. The same Vanitas that could snatch the attention of a whole audience just by placing a single one of his polished combat-boot covered feet on the stage, could make the spotlights seem dim in comparison to him with a single twirl of his hand. The same Vanitas that Ventus first saw up on stage after having been adopted by this tiny town’s theater owner, Eraqus. Too young to fully understand the way the air stood still as he watched the other boy before him, to understand how his breath fled him and his heart pounded as he watched. All he knew is that he wanted to do that to.
The same Vanitas that Ventus could just maybe see again…
Strained eyes unmoving from the photo open in front of him to give him strength, Ventus’ hand reached for his phone and managed to tap the last call, forcing his mind to remain blank as it rang, lest he talk some sense into himself and change his mind.
“Yeah? Ven? Are you okay, it’s late—"
“I’ll do it.”
“…huh?”
“I’ll do the show,” Ventus heard himself saying, his pride screaming at him to shut up, but he didn’t. “Text me when to be at the theater. See you then.”
With that he hung up, sealing his fate.