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“Vanitas! Um… Are you alright?”
Noé's voice, as was growing more common, was what snapped Vanitas out of his spiral. Vanitas let out one final groan hoping it’d release the confusing feelings he was suddenly inflicted with.
There was still more to do here, he couldn’t get distracted now.
Though the first had been dealt with, there was still another curse bearer to confront.
“Vanitas?”
“I’m…I’m fine.” Vanitas scrubbed his hand over his face and sighed.
“Good… Good…” He could practically see Noé’s nod though he hadn’t glanced up yet. “Uh, Vanitas?”
“Yes?”
“Can…can you fix this?”
Vanitas frowned at how watery Noé’s voice sounded. It almost sounded like he was crying.
He finally looked at his partner. “Can I fix wha— What?!” Vanitas’s jaw dropped as he took in the sight of Noé.
His left hand was being held in his right but not in the usual way someone held their own hand.
“I’m sorry, Vanitas…” Noé had tears in his eyes, clearly just barely holding them back. His breath hitched. “My arm got cut off. Could you sew it back on for me?”
For a moment, all Vanitas could do was stare incredulously at Noé before he sprang into action.
“Get over here!” Vanitas roughly patted the ground in front of him. As Noé settled before him, he extended a hand to take Noé’s injured limb. “How did this even happen? I thought you said you could handle Astolfo?!”
Noé sniffed as he passed his hand to Vanitas. “It was either my arm or my neck.” He admitted.
Vanitas paused in slipping what was left of Noé’s sleeves off the severed arm as he took in that information. Noé wasn’t wrong. He’d take this over Noé being dead any day.
He still scowled as he stuffed the cloth into his pocket and examined the detached end.
“Dante thought you might be able to reattach it?” Noé didn’t try to hide the hope in his voice.
Vanitas hummed. The cut was fairly clean if slightly jagged on one side, no burns or anything else that might interfere with reattachment, and it should be a straight-forward procedure. Though this wasn’t exactly the right setting for the surgery such an injury required.
“Let me see the other half.” He reached out to help Noé shrug off his coat and rolled his sleeve up to inspect the injury.
Vanitas mentally went over the supplies he currently had in his pouches and pockets. He wished he had his full gear with him, but most of his things were still in his bag at the inn and it would be better to deal with this sooner rather than later. With the sudden lack of snow and ice, trying to preserve the injured sites would be difficult, and the longer they delayed treatment the harder it would be to fix it.
He would just have to make do with what he had.
“Noé.” Vanitas sat back and pulled out his suture kit, gauze, bandages, disinfectant, water, painkillers, and some short splints. “I know you can rewrite your own formula to heal faster, but how much control do you have over it for minute details?”
Noé tilted his head. “Why do you need to know?”
“Because normally to reattach limbs, it requires a long and difficult surgery where I’d need to reconnect your arteries and veins as well as other parts of your arm using a series of microsurgical techniques.” As he spoke, Vanitas cleaned both ends of the wound and the surrounding areas with the water and disinfectant, ignoring Noé’s hiss at the disinfectant. “Even with what I have at the inn, that would be hard to fix and there really aren’t any facilities near that could provide better care in time.
“However, I’m hoping to circumvent that through your ability to rewrite your own formula.” Vanitas fixed his gaze on Noé, who startled at the sudden attention. “I’m planning on lining up your arm as it should be, and I’ll place stitches along the seam to keep it in place and sealed up. I’ll also bandage and splint the area around it to keep your arm steady until the bone has healed. So can you handle the rest if I do that?”
Noé stared at him. “You…sound like a real doctor.”
Vanitas gave him a flat look. “Noé.”
“I…I should be able to control the accelerated healing as long as I keep in mind what to heal first.” Noé slowly said. “It’s how I can prioritize which injuries to heal when I’m in a pinch. Is there a specific order I need to do things, or…?”
“Arteries and veins need to come first to keep the blood flow going through the limb.” Vanitas tucked Noé’s hand under his arm as he prepared the needle and thread for the sutures. “Without those, the limb will either swell with blood going in but not out or it’ll simply die without a sufficient amount of blood to keep it living, and we’ll have to remove it anyway.”
Noé’s expression tightened at that and an unhealthy pallor fell over his skin. Vanitas didn’t want to frighten Noé but it was better to be upfront about this.
“After that, you should focus on the tendons and muscles so you’ll still be able to move it. Then the bone so the limb will actually stay in place, though as long as you get it started, we can let it heal like any other broken bone. And finally, this may seem strange, but the nerves. As long as everything else is in place, we can work with the nerves a bit longer than the others and do exercises to help improve it.” With the final preparation in place, Vanitas met Noé’s eyes once more. “So can you do this?”
Vanitas watched Noé’s resolve solidify as he clenched his jaw. “Yes.” Noé nodded.
“Good.” As one last thing, Vanitas shook out a couple of painkillers and handed first them and then the water over to him. “This should take the edge off. I have stronger pills at the inn as well as some things that should help prevent infection if we need them.”
After ensuring Noé had swallowed the pills, Vanitas waited for Noé to relax as much as possible before he lined up where Noé’s arm should reconnect back. The initial somewhat jagged line from where Astolfo originally cut until he hit bone actually made it clear where everything was supposed to go. Vanitas cradled the area of connection in his left hand as he finally began to stitch the flesh together.
“Did you at least punch him in the face for me?” Vanitas asked, hoping to distract Noé from the pain while he finished this part.
Noé jolted slightly at his words, clearly not expecting them, but he quickly settled. He thought it over for a few seconds, and then he chuckled. “I did, actually.”
Vanitas snickered. “Serves him right for what he put me through.” His eyes didn’t leave the row of stitches he was making, but he sensed Noé’s smile. “And you won?”
Noé paused. “Technically, yes, he did go down for a while after I punched him, but…”
“But?”
“I wonder if it was more due to what he did to himself.” At Vanitas’s raised eyebrow, Noé continued. “Before his final attack, he started bleeding from his eyes, nose, mouth… Marco, his assistant, said he’d taken too much tonic.”
“Ah.” Vanitas realized what had gone wrong. “Yes, those tonics are fairly potent. Even taking a second additional dose too soon after the first can have disastrous side effects. And when you also factor in his age…”
“I see.” Noé thought that over. “Do you think he…”
“I’m sure he knew exactly what he was doing.” Vanitas told him, even as his skin prickled at the reminder of his past. Luckily, he would be done with this soon enough. “We were taught exactly how much and how soon to take the tonics. You have to be stupid, desperate, or a combination of both to take such a risk.”
He glanced up for a second and took note of Noé’s dour expression. Vanitas sighed. “He made his own decision, Noé. You can’t take responsibility for things outside of your control.”
Noé was slow in his response. “He got back up after…everything was over. I’m sure he would’ve kept fighting if Roland hadn’t shown up.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s good for something.” Vanitas grumbled, irked at the mention of the chasseur. “I guess Astolfo must be at least somewhat attached to Roland despite his reputation then.” He filed the fact away for later.
Vanitas just knew Noé was giving him his disappointed look. “Vanitas…”
“And done!” Vanitas loudly declared as he tied off the last stitch and snipped the remaining thread. He shot Noé a grin as he picked up the bandages to wrap around the wound.
Noé looked down at his arm in surprise and then up at Vanitas. “Already?”
“Oui!” Vanitas placed gauze over the stitches before he wrapped the first layer of bandages. “Now it’s your turn, so concentrate.”
“Right.” Noé shut his eyes so he could focus. “Give me the order again?”
“Arteries and veins, then tendons, bone, and nerves.” Vanitas lowered his voice, hoping the calm tone would help guide Noé. “Prioritize blood flow and the tendons, we can do the nerves and bone at a more natural pace if need be.”
He could tell the moment Noé began manipulating his own formula as the vampire’s fangs descended when he took a steadying breath. Vanitas ignored it to tie off the first bandage, and he grabbed the splints to stabilize Noé’s arm.
The truth was Vanitas could probably assist in this step of the process as well, but it would require him to manipulate Noé’s personal formula. Which would mean that he’d have to learn Noé’s true name.
Vanitas did a lot of things that toed or even went over the line of what was moral and good, but he refused to learn someone’s true name outside of the context of healing a malnomen and restoring their name.
More than anyone, he knew what it felt like to be rewritten from the inside out when you didn’t want to be. It was a small part of why he’d chosen this path in the aftermath of Luna’s death. He didn’t want that sort of power over anyone or to facilitate it.
Vanitas really hoped he would never have to learn Noé’s true name.
Noé let out a big sigh as Vanitas finished tying the splint in place with another wrap of bandages. “Alright.” Noé said as he opened his eyes, red fading back to violet. “I think — I think I have the arteries and veins fully reattached. Tendons too, I think? The bone and nerves I’m fairly sure have started healing but —”
“That’s fine; we can go from there.” Vanitas reassured him. He thought it over for a moment before he let his fingers trail down from the bandage to squeeze Noé’s hand. “Can you feel this?”
Noé’s eyes widened and Vanitas watched as a slight blush darkened his cheeks. “Uh, yes?”
“Then even if you’re having problems moving your hand and fingers for now, you’ve probably got the nerves mostly reattached.” Vanitas looked back down and moved his hand up to Noé’s wrist, waiting a minute to check that he could feel his pulse as blood flowed through the veins there. “And it seems you have a healthy blood flow, so at least we don’t have to worry about that.”
“Um, Vanitas…”
“Hmm?” Vanitas gazed up at Noé and frowned at the strange mix of emotions on his face that he couldn’t decipher. “What?”
“I…” Noé trailed off for a second before he pulled himself together. “I can’t really move my hand and since the bone’s still healing…”
Vanitas got the feeling that that wasn’t what Noé originally wanted to say, but he dropped it as Noé had a fair point. Luckily, he had a solution on hand. “I think I have something for that. Hold this for a second.”
He waited until Noé gingerly cradled his injured arm before he got up and looked around. Vanitas had been wearing it when he restored Chloé’s true name, so it couldn’t have gotten far…
“Here we go.” Vanitas picked up his missing scarf and walked back to Noé. “This will make a decent sling until we can get back to town.”
“Ah, thank you.” Noé said as Vanitas tied his scarf around him to keep his arm in place.
Vanitas frowned at Noé’s shoulder wound as he sat back. “Do you need me to take a look at this too or do you want to wait until we’re back at the inn?” He offered.
Noé waved him off. “Actually, it’s not as bad as it originally was. I didn’t want to seal off the wound on my hand, so I focused more on healing that while I was looking for you.” He struggled to slip his coat back on, so Vanitas helped him drape it over his shoulders instead.
“If you say so.” Vanitas said while he put away all the supplies he’d gotten out. “Just let me know if it starts bothering you later.”
“I will.” Noé smiled as he rose to his feet. “After all, I’ve seen how good you really are now, ‘doctor.’”
Vanitas bristled slightly at his tone. He knew he shouldn’t be offended at Noé’s surprise that Vanitas didn’t merely use the title doctor on a whim. Normally, his partner could rewrite his formula easily enough for most injuries that all Vanitas had to do after a fight was treat whatever was left with some disinfectant and bandages. He’d never had to go all out like this for Noé and he always treated his own injuries by himself in their bathroom.
“Maybe you should stop getting into so much trouble so I won’t have to do this again.” Vanitas sighed and straightened before he started walking in the direction Jeanne had come from earlier. That’s probably where Chloé and Jean-Jacques were, and while Chloé’s name had been restored, he should probably see what the titular Beast wanted to do now.
“What? You all were the ones who got separated when we got here.” Noé increased his pace until he walked beside Vanitas. “It’s not like I went looking for trouble. Like you do.”
“Excuse me?!” Vanitas quickly fell into their usual bickering.
He couldn’t believe this. Did Noé have any idea of all the trouble he’d caused? How his absence had been a nuisance when the Beast first appeared and even more so when they’d all been blown away by the Book when it had been severed from Vanitas? Did Noé know how worried Vanitas had been —
Vanitas cut that thought off as well as the complaint he’d been about to throw at Noé. Noé shot him a worried look at his sudden silence, but he ignored it and growled, walking faster so he’d assume that he was just anxious to get this over with.
The thing was that Vanitas liked Noé. He had from the very start. Noé was interesting, surprisingly straight-forward about what he did and didn’t like, and Vanitas could appreciate that when compared to the usual company he kept. Noé was as kind as he was naïve, which frustrated Vanitas as much as it fascinated him. Vanitas constantly found himself drawn to Noé, who kept trying to see the good side of things that even the most hopeful would brush aside.
There were many reasons why he’d made Noé his partner.
But he couldn’t — really shouldn’t — care about him. Caring about others had never worked out well for Vanitas before. Either he ended up getting hurt in a bid to protect them or he failed to protect them and he lost them. It was nothing but pain in either case.
Trying to protect others was nothing more than a weakness and Vanitas had seen too many be chewed up and spit out by the world in their attempts to do so. He refused to be a part of that anymore.
Things were already strange with Jeanne for some reason, he didn’t need to complicate his partnership with Noé by adding such feelings into the mix. He reminded himself that they were partnered through necessity, each with their own goals and morals to strive towards.
Vanitas simply couldn’t let himself get attached when Noé would just leave once he was done studying the Book on his teacher’s behalf.
He shouldn’t let himself get attached as it would leave Vanitas vulnerable in a way he couldn’t afford. Already, there’d been opportunities for someone to take advantage of their connection as it currently existed.
Therefore, from this point forward, he would work to ensure that he and Noé grew no closer than they already were. He would never get too attached to Noé that he’d have a hard time letting him go when the time came.
Yet, as Noé turned to him, pointing out where he’d spotted Chloé, Jeanne, and Jean-Jacques, Vanitas caught a glimpse of Noé’s wounded arm and hand that he’d painstakingly worked to reattach. The sight made something in Vanitas’s chest flutter, similar to how Jeanne had made him feel in that field of flowers but also distinctly different.
And to his horror, Vanitas wondered if it was already too late.