Work Text:
The moment Vanitas lands his gaze on Noé, only then does he knows something is utterly wrong.
He doesn't have enough time to spare. His body is not quick enough. He wants to scream at how easily Noé slips through his fingers.
The sheer shock of it leaves Vanitas frustratingly speechless and only watch in helplessness as Noé is taken from him, is branded the label of an undesirable. The memory of his lilac eyes, a resolute and idiotic look on his face, prints itself into his memory. The only thing left for Vanitas to hold onto.
Noé, Noé, Noé, Noé—
Vincent Allard is a man of charms with his winning smiles and captivating lazuli eyes. It is the brightest and purest blue that all Aryans can only write propaganda about. It's a shame, really. German women and pro-Nazi Frenchmen will whisper among themselves with their flutes of bubbling champagnes. Monsieur Vincent has the porcelain skin and sky irises of an ideal Aryan but his hair is charcoal. Still, these same women dismiss such trait and sidles up to him with their plump lips and coy perfumes.
They can't help themselves. After all, Vincent Allard is the Vichy France's prized bachelor.
Oh, how Vanitas aches to kill him with his own hands but that would mean killing himself, no?
Vincent Allard is some distant, distant, distant relative of some far merchant down the south of countryside France—wrong, the non-occupied zone of France, specifically. Somewhere that's not too tarnished by the war because now here he is, mingling in the same manner the high society used to please Marie Antoinette while altogether ignorant to the state of the world.
"Monsieur Vincent!" An old voice calls from the other end of the parlor and Vanitas fixes a charming grin in place.
"Bonsoir, Monsieur Laval. Here I thought I will miss the opportunity of seeing your face," Vanitas greets. He focuses on the fine wrinkles of this man but his attention doesn't stray far from the chess game in the center.
"It's Pierre for you, young lad. How's your aunt? I don't see her here." This Pierre Laval looks around in search for an aunt that Vanitas knows nothing about.
"She's not here but in the countryside, Monsieur Pierre, complaining about how Vichy is too noisy for her," Vanitas chuckles, "Well, who am I to go against the wishes of my dearest aunt?"
"Tell her to worry not," the Minister guffaws, "Vichy will quiet soon as the war will soon be over."
"I'll let her know," Vanitas seamlessly replies. He hides his distaste underneath a sip of his champagne. His gaze lingers over the chess game and observes that the advantage favors the white pieces.
Now, small talk and basic curtesy done, Vanitas divulges on the topic.
"The war will soon be over, you say? Will the Germans finally be successful in landing on the British shores?"
Pierre Laval warmly smiles at him but his words are ice, "You talk as if the Germans are a failure."
"Désolé, sorry," Vanitas apologizes, "I'm simply both impatient and enthusiastic for Germany's absolute favor in the war. There is only so much that I can do to assuage aunt's worries."
"Such things shall be the least of your aunt's worry, I understand, Vincent," Pierre Laval amicably nods. He leans closer into Vanitas' personal space and murmurs, "The British will attack the Pas-de-Calais port and the Nazis are prepared to decimate the forces. Tell your aunt not to worry herself sick over it."
A smile stretches across Vanitas' lips.
"Astute, Monsieur Pierre. Though, my query concerns the manpower of the Nazis," whispers Vanitas.
"The undesirables will reconcile any shortage of staff. Normandy is brimming with such beasts anyway."
The mask remains frozen, solid, and secure on Vanitas' face. He is unfazed, he refuses to waver. He raises his flute to an offer.
"The war will finally conclude with Germany and France on the winning side. Travail, famille, patrie."
Pierre Laval, the Minister of State of the Vichy France, a willing puppet state for the growing empire under Hitler, grins. His smile is a disgusting, sleazy thing.
Their glasses clink. Behind them, the match concludes with the black piece seizing an unforeseen win.
"Well said. Travail, famille, patrie."
Work, family, fatherland—a cheap copy of liberty, fraternity, equality.
After the suffocating small gathering in the palor, Vanitas—no longer the Vincent Allard of a countryside's nephew—shuts himself in his flat in one of the buildings in the bustling city of Vichy. Two beds occupy the master room, one falling victim to Vanitas' coat and the other is starkly clean, unused and collecting dust. The sole window in the bedroom is closed, curtains drawn and the room dim. The daylight is draining its way to evening.
When Vanitas emerges into his living space, he doesn't spare the new person a glance. Instead, he goes straight to the kitchen separated by mere footsteps. Personal space has always been luxury for him for decades.
"Not even a hello? Really?"
"I don't have time to play games with you, Baldy."
Dante pops off the sweet from his mouth. "For over 50 years you've been cursing me yet here I am, no hairlines are receding."
"Ugh, go away."
"You wouldn't want me to," Dante shrugs, "I'm here to crosscheck my information anyway."
Vanitas pauses from his coffee making, takes him a while to think, and continues with the activity. All too deliberately.
His voice is thankfully even when he speaks, "What information?"
"The very information you risked your life to by going to that gathering today," Dante replies, "Most vampires are brought to Normandy for labor."
If it's scattered already in Dante's widespread network, then the off-handed comment the minister tattled earlier is true and not a red-herring to throw him off. Other than that, a new vampire surely has been caught again today.
Vanitas sighs.
"The Germans are concentrating their troops in the Pas-de-Calais region," Vanitas begins. His hand wraps over his own mug and turns to see the Dhampir lounging at his sofa, in the space provided by the resistance group. "In the event the Allies attack, they'll request manpower from nearby territories, Normandy included. Normandy, specfically, because of the vampires."
Silence befalls them.
Vanitas murmurs, "You should go over the border, Dante," and sips his coffee. It's bitter and Vanitas yearns for a slice of Tarte Tatin.
"Perhaps." The admission itself weighs heavy. Staying in the human world is too much of a risk for vampires and dhampirs alike. "I barely managed to convince Riche to leave with the others today."
"Then, you should follow soon."
"I will, after Johann ties up loose ends. He's complaining about hearing undesirables shit."
Undesirables. The term coined by the German to arrest and kidnap vampires in a veiled witch hunt. A devil tainting the lands of the Aryans. It annoys Vanitas to no end.
"And I got something entirely different from what you got."
"Different?"
"Other resistance groups are guessing the Allies will land at Normandy, not at Pas-de-Calais."
Vanitas' breath hitches.
"Whatever plan you have to get the fella out, do it now," Dante gravely reminds him. "You're running out of time." Lest you risk trapping yourselves in the crossfire.
Vincent Allard, the name bestowed on him by the resistance group, is no more the moment Vanitas leaves Vichy for Paris.
It's a simmering tension, a boiling point that's been left heated for too long. Before citizens have agreed on the Nazi propaganda, but its true effects are felt deeply by the workers and enjoyed by the employers. France, with its already struggling economy, has fallen deeper into an irredeemable ditch.
And Vanitas. Well, he's lived long enough to go with the flow of history unfolding before his eyes. The underground resistance offers more room than the stiffling pseudo-aristocrats of the high French state officials.
Unfortunately, society still runs its course. At the station (for he knows taking the La Baleine is a practice target for airstrikes, a fucking death sentence), Vanitas has whispered the collated intel to a comrade while the French milice parades the arrested resistance members under the guise of disturbing peace. Vanitas, in the year he lives in Vichy, sights some familiar faces and refuses to reward the pro-Nazi brigade his unease.
He bids the person goodbye and boards the train bound for Paris.
Privacy is hardly provided on the rattling train, even more so when one is riding with the Germans. The only sanctuary Vanitas can attain is the comfort room. Even staying here has a short time limit before catching the attention of the soldiers onboard.
It's fine. Vanitas can work with it.
Through the mirror, he stares at the blue cobwebs smattered all over his right limb, climbing at the base of his neck. It hardly spread after a past case with a cursebearer yet its side effect is crystal clear—he is still alive, hasn't aged a day, and remains human.
Overwritten. She said. That deceased doctor would've rejoiced when he finds out that Vanitas achieved immortality.
With renewed annoyance, Vanitas grabs for the new roll of bandages and busies hmself in wrapping the whole limb. It's not too long now before a German soldier knocks incessantly at the stall door.
A banging takes over the rattling noise of the train.
There it is.
Vanitas swings open the door and comes head on with a German. Tall and overwhelming build, blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin—the very definition of Aryan.
But Vanitas knows his trait. His own irises bear the uncanny, the magic, that their very leader advertises. He stares back at the soldier for an entire second, to pin him in place.
Vanitas can end this man's life.
Yet, he looks down. He tears his gaze away and acts like a wounded civilian caught by a stray bullet. When he passes by the soldier, he makes sure his bandages peek through his clothes. Let him be prejudiced as a poor French polluting the air an Aryan breathes.
He'd rather be labeled as an undesirable rather than being categorized as an Aryan.
Vanitas bumps into another person in his practiced hurry to get to his own cabin.
When he settles in his seat, his heart doesn't. It remains a trotting and anxious beating against his chest, because for all he knows that he can never catch a deadly disease anymore, one fatal gunshot can seal Noé's fate without him forever. Vanitas is intimately aware that the idiot vampire is waiting for him in Normandy.
For now—he assures himself—the imminent danger is gone. His lids flutter shut in a restless sleep and dreams of lavender eyes.
It doesn't last.
His battle-worn instincts wakes him alert and he hears the milisecond ring of a bomb going off. The train shakes and Vanitas is stumbled out of his seat before the whole long thing of the transportation derails sideways. With it, the world spins in a blur for a drawn painful moment.
The glass window splinters and breaks around him, Vanitas barely covers his face with his arms. His things clatter and leaps from its compartments.
Then, nothing for one blissful minute.
Consciousness fumbles to keep him steady. Distantly, he hears the wild shouts of the soldiers and the rapid fire of guns. It is in that moment when clarity and urgency slam back to Vanitas in clenching adrenaline.
Putain. He recovers the bare necessities of his baggage. I can't even get a nap. Merde—
An explosion dangerously rumbles the fragile decimated state of Vanitas' cabin. Fuck.
Vanitas gets out there immediately. The crash behind him serves as the small time he'd had.
What he emerges to is a total mess.
They're in the middle of the foliage. Somewhere deep in the occupied zone but far enough from Vichy to really go back to. Far from any cities the journey already paused for stations. This means one thing: Paris must be near.
The train lies sideways and the shouts of the soldiers overpower the cries of the minimal civilians inside. Fortunately, as Vanitas observes, most of them are lifting themselves from the damned steam train. And thankfully, it's not an astermite-powered one. He can spot the armed resistant groups in the shadows of the forest and the adversary party of Germans forms a shield around their train car (it must've contain supplies for the military).
Well, Vanitas has to applaud Dante. The dham is truly a seer of his own right because he's not even in Paris or Normandy yet and here he is, getting caught up in the crossfire already.
"Hände in die Luft!"
Vanitas has heard of the phrase too many times to know its translation.
There's the telltale click of a gun behind him. His things clanks to the harsh soil as he raises his hands up in surrender. The soldier yells at him, possibly to turn around so Vanitas does. The crosshair is still on him despite his appearance of a clueless civilian caught up in this.
Of course, the Germans generalizes everything. It happens when the tides of the war are against you, after all.
All it takes is one step. A pull of a trigger. The resounding gunshot. A zipping motion. Then, a corpse falling to the ground.
Leaves rustle and Vanitas grips the shotgun to aim at another enemy—this one not in uniform, with skin not pale and eyes dark with fury. Someone of the resistance but his outfit is familiar. It's—
The person he bumped to in the hallways earlier.
He pulls the trigger and a German soldier falls behind the man.
The stranger is startled and it's enough to lower his guard, enough to throw Vanitas off-guard, enough for Vanitas to be grabbed deep into the greenery, and out of sight by the Nazi.
They keep running like that. To hell with his medical bag. Even Noé has given up counting the instances Vanitas lost it since the first war started.
A minute of full sprinting passes by. The battle still echoes not too far from them. This man—who possibly infiltrated the train and ruined Vanitas' timeframe—turns to introduce himself.
"Marcel, monsieur," he huffs. "Merci, for earlier."
French. Vanitas notes. His accent differs slightly. This person must've come from the countryside. His skin is tanned and has a strong built yet stands small in height, twice an inch shorter than Vanitas. A man of outside, brute work.
A railway worker?
"Vanitas," he introduces. Vanitas notices the odd bruising on the fighter's hand. "Get that checked out before it burns your whole arm inside."
"You're a doctor?"
"I suppose you can say that," Vanitas shrugs. "Now, give me directions to Paris as compensation for destroying my ride."
"It's for the people."
"I know."
"You're one of those people, aren't you?" Marcel queries. The phrasing is usually partnered with a gun pointed at him, but there isn't. "What they call undesirables."
Ah. Perhaps, Vanitas relates to Johann with his complaining.
"Not really, but you can take a guess," Vanitas says, "You can even think that I'm one of those and I'm here to free my fellow kin to deliver justice."
"Then, join our cause," Marcel declares resolutely. This man's audacity stutters his mind to a halt.
This is not good. Vanitas and Noé, as a rule, have dutifully committed themselves in the laylow of the society, roots never burying too deep. Paris is a city they have long departed from in search of more curse-bearers. For Vanitas, it's a farewell because he's the type of person to never call one place a home. For Noé, however, it's a tour around France personally escorted by Vanitas.
Deep down, for them, Paris is a well-cradled, precious memory now.
Affiliations are fleeting to their self-proclaimed status as nomads. It means imprinting an identity, an impression, to let yourself be known to others and be recalled in return. For Paris, Vanitas and Noé have been figures of the old century, not of this new battle-infested century.
But still. Vanitas hates to admit. Desperation can break your self-imposed rules.
He meets the resolute gaze of the freedom fighter.
"Tell me your terms."
Marcel associates himself with the Resistance-Fer, the Iron Resistance of the railway workers from the SNCF. Marcel himself has been affiliated with the anti-government group for months now.
"It's a miracle that you haven't been arrested yet," Vanitas has remarked after Marcel explains the recent events in Paris. The SNCF is the state-owned railway company of the country. Acommondating traitors and covering their tracks are dangerous works, dodging while submitting oneself to the scrutiny of Nazi-dominated government.
The worker merely smiles, a heavy one that carries the weight and loneliness of their advocacy.
"At the sacrifice of many more brothers," Marcel replies, "Although, recently, we have been more successful in the sabotages, but not so much in hiding. Paris is in an uproar right now."
When Vanitas steps onto the cobblestone walks of Paris for the first time in years, it's an entirely different world from he previously lived in.
No arguing merchants in street markets. No children running around the Tuileries Garden. No men or women strolling through the Notre Dame or admiring the artworks at Louvre. It's deserted, robbed of people, only hobbling individuals and intimidating Germans. Vanitas walks and walks the long streets of Paris like a ghost until the night falls. Curfew starts at 21:00, similar to Vichy, and civilians in a rush to get inside the safety of their homes.
He sees two women, trembling with repressed fear, hastily working to close up a café. His gaze latches on the sign on its door: No Jews allowed.
Antisemitism is even worse in the occupied zone. The discrimination leaves a bad taste on Vanitas' tongue.
There's a shuffling on the other street, then a crackling sound that is too extraordinary for the human world. Vanitas immediately magnets himself to the trouble. The cloak, as advised by Marcel, is pulled tight over his face to to veil his appearance to the public.
When he rounds off the corner, he stumbles upon a figure freezing German soldiers, their guns stuck frozen and pointed at the vampire.
"Are you an idiot?" Vanitas hisses.
"Look who's back in Paris." Dominique de Sade swivels to face him, her ebony hair billows as she does so. The woman doesn't even attempt to hide her aristocratic apperance. The stark, glittering clothes she dons is an aggravating contrast to the rationed poorly-made clothes of the human Parisians.
Behind her, three vampires—no, two, for the other one flashes her eyes gold—trembles in fear.
Dominique's golden eyes narrow to a glare. "And you're alone."
Vanitas is certain by now that she's aware of Noé's predicament and perhaps has been waiting for his arrival, judging how she's risking herself with her display out here in German-infested Paris.
"I know."
Vanitas is so tired of being alone.
It's uncharacteristic of him to admit such a fact, yet it's the change spending so much time with Noé does to him. The vampire is, in all sense of the word, imprinted on him.
"I'm doing what I can to get him," his gaze shifts again to the beings behind her, "and for the others too."
"Do you need help?"
The abrupt offer startles him that his attention snaps back to her. Dominique de Sade now acts with swift and determined decisions to help someone. Gone is the woman who once lacked confidence in her behavior, who would unknowingly spat discrimination. Here, she stands before Vanitas, with a change in her eyes and a reminder that the Paris from his memories is not truly gone.
"No," he answers. His gaze shifts to the creatures behind her. "You should probably help them cross the border."
"I will." Dominque turns to address the vampires and dhampir out of their scared stupor. Vanitas is about to leave the alley when she tells him, "Come to Altus right away, you hear? I'll be waiting."
"I… yes, we will."
Interestingly, the resistance functions on a complex yet somewhat sustainable hierarchy. Marcel orients him on the various plans that the Allies have already laid out to them. Mostly, their already infrequent and meticulously planned sabotages focus on the railways. In some cases, Vanitas proves himself to be better in subterfuge and infiltrations.
Weeks pass and there is still no sign of breakthrough to reaching Noé. Normandy is so close yet there is always a wall to crash into—his false identity is unathorized to enter, the facility's security is too tight. One wrong move and Vanitas will have a bullet in his chest.
The best date is the day the British lands on the French shores.
Vanitas works painstakingly close with the SNCF. He destroys the mechanical workings of the railways in the day and laughs with the dining German soldiers through the night. Vanitas weaves lies as easy as the air that circulates in his lungs. He smiles despite the anxiety threatening to kill him in lulled moments.
He thinks of Noé until the day of reckoning arrives.
"You've seen me handle a rifle. How is it going to change now?" Vanitas hisses.
This morning, Marcel bears the news of their role in the long-awaited battle. Vanitas can almost inhale the fear-stricken anticipation in the countdown of days. The vampire doctor has been aiming to be sorted in the plans involving directly going into the port of Normandy.
Although, Marcel announces that Vanitas himself won't be joining the operation altogether.
"When we first met, you told me to take a guess and I did," Marcel begins, "You're not really a nationalist sort, Vanitas."
"What?"
"You see this as a means to an end," Marcel accuses him, "And I do not like that in the slightest. In fact, I resent it. I will not let my brothers and sisters lay down their lives for the country while you are like this."
So, this is how Marcel interprets his motivations. Vanitas finds him amusing. His intentions have been clear right in the beginning yet the Marcel has still invited him into their ranks. Then again, Vanitas needs to be into their group, thus deception he gives them.
He's about to jab at the irony of their first meeting when Marcel cuts him off, "But freedom must be achieved by all French, whether they're human or not." The railway worker says this with quiet resolution familiar only who have witnessed the dark shadows of the world. At this juncture, every single being has seen it.
Marcel claps Vanitas in the shoulders. "I got intel on their exact location within the port."
Vanitas does not and refuses to believe in hope, but it rises within his chest like a hopeless man he's always been.
June 6th of 1944 finds Vanitas in one of the telecommunication rooms. The room is dead silent except the incessant radio requests for troops. Any one authorized to respond is splayed on the floor as Vanitas fiddles with its wires.
"I suppose this will buy them some time," Vanitas whispers, "Consider my debt paid, brother."
"Control, the Allies ar—"
Vanitas cuts off the power.
"Quiet." Vanitas stands in tandem with the siren blaring outside. His fingers expertly reloads his ammo. "Time to fetch a princess."
The port of Normandy is in absolute chaos. There's barely anything to see amidst the midnight mess, yet it's noisy. A raging tempest of bombs shaking the ground and rattling the buildings, the alarmed shouts in varying languages and tone, and the most overpowering of them all is a single repetitive roar of the siren signalling for an invasion. Vanitas knows right then and there that the Germans will look like bodies running without a head with most of their telecommunications cut off. He skillfully navigates through the turmoil and arrives at a secluded building.
The lights are still on in this one. No can do. Vanitas fires the overhead lights, his bullet zooming past through the silencer and dousing the entryway in black.
Shouts erupt again. Orders are barked while feet shuffle along the concrete. Vanitas conceals himself in the shadows. His breaths slow as his focus sharpens to analyze the hurried conversations.
"Dummkopf!" He hears, "Holen Sie sich die Frauen—"
Another voice sounds much closer. "Sie sind im Keller! Schnell, schnell!"
Vanitas rounds off a corner and silences them. He proceeds deeper into the establishment.
There's barely any troops stationed here, but that's not unnatural as it's dead of the night. Originally, they're in small talks and slow hours before the shitshow has happened. This works in Vanitas' favor anyway. The main force will be too occupied repelling the Allied forces in a futile struggle while reinforcements will be delayed with the resistance's sabotages.
Vanitas is not a man of faith but he prays that Noé hangs on a little longer.
The cold nuzzle of a rifle is pressed on the back of his head.
He doesn't waste a milisecond to evade the gunpoint. He swivels to the soldier, slaps away the nuzzle away from his face, and meticulously breaks the joints of the German. A gunshot resounds in the isolated building. Vanitas seals the fight with a strike to the head.
In his periphery, another enemy shifts and Vanitas deduces there's more than two with him in the room right now.
His gunpoint targets man's thigh. Vanitas delivers a kick at the temple.
An arm grapples at his neck from behind. Air saps out of him in a panicked gasp. As Vanitas aims for the soldier on his back, a gunshot cracks through the cordite-filled air. The man's tight hold loosens and Vanitas seizes the moment to face another intruder—
—And come eye to eye with a pair of purple irises glinting in the dark.
"Noé."
"Vanitas?"
Lights from explosives flash outside and into the room when Vanitas sights Noé, wardrobe rough and hair disheveled. His eyes are a feverish pair of amethyst and sheds evidence of nights lost to insomnia.
Vanitas closes the distance with determined footsteps and abruptly pulls Noé into his arms.
"You idiot!" A lot of effort is taken into not beating the vampire, "You scared me."
"I, uhm, forgive me," Noé mumbles. It's a grounding sound among the chaos outside. "I'm sorry I made you worry."
In normal circumstances, Vanitas is going to deny such allegations. Verbalizing such vulnerability is a violation of his masked personality.
However, this is Noé. No slices of Tarte Tatin can ever sweeten the bitter loneliness of the past months.
"Again, I'm sorry, Vanitas, but we—" Noé reluctantly breaks free, but he regards Vanitas with his notable steadfast gaze, "—need to go. There are other vampires in the basement where they keep most of us. I know someone who shows symptoms of a curse-bearer."
A malnomen in this horrible environment. Vanitas imagines, rather vividly, the catastrophe if it manifests right now.
"Right, lead me to them—" The earth trembles with another explosion. "It's only a matter of time before this building blows up."
They immediately proceed to where the other vampires are contained. Noé marches the path with unfazed clarity. A familiar routine that Vanitas is certain that's forcely embedded into their living. The mere ideas of what brutality have unfolded here triggers a long-simmering anger in Vanitas.
Noé has explained that he's fortunately outside when the attack have started and has taken the confusion to his advantage.
"Vanitas, are you in the resistance?" Noé queries as they descend the stairs.
"Was," Vanitas corrects, "I've been in contact until they decided I wasn't vocal enough about their mission."
Noé's hand squeezes Vanitas' own. "You know that's not true."
"I don't really care." Noé knows Vanitas has long stopped caring to people who are too tethered in worldly matters, like how vampires withdraws from the eventful earth. Between the two of them, Vanitas behaves like a vampire more than Noé ever will.
They halt at a bolted door—Vanitas is absolutely disgusted—and Noé unlocks the lock mechanism stiffly. A sure sign of how unpleasant this is. Evidently, their accomodations is less than a room but a containment bunker.
This is what fear incites humans to do and Vanitas' perpetual hate deepens even more.
The vampires inside looks at Noé in varying degrees of anxiety. There are even children hidden benath the arms of a older vampires. Vanitas is again reminded of the harsh reality that the society deems they deserve all because of a label created by a single madman.
"Noé, what's going on upstairs?"
Here, Noé speaks to them with no waver in his voice. "The Allies have started the invasion. We must seize this chance to escape."
The Archiviste gestures to Vanitas, "This is Vanitas. I'm sure you are all familiar to him. To all who thinks they are a curse-bearer, please step forward and Vanitas will treat you."
No one does. The group turns to each other in silent conversations. Time is of essence. They can't afford to stay here any longer. He explains, "If you're concern is the publicity of your state, then you have my word that I will not speak to anyone about this. Borreaus are concerned on keeping the Altus borders secure. Right now, a curse-bearer is a ticking time bomb as we leave."
A boy, not older than fifteen Vanitas assumes, approaches them and looks at Vanitas as if he's a savior descended to free them from this hell. Vanitas is far from one.
"I-I think I'm cursed," the child stutters.
Vanitas kneels before him and gives him the most comforting smile he can muster. "You'll be fine."
At that, the others hesitantly follows suit. At the end of it, Vanitas treats five curse-bearers out of the the eleven present. The numbers are too high in this one group alone, yet it's no wonder with their dire situation. It's always easy to fall into the sweet arms of delusions.
Noé eases the group into believing Vanitas. The vampire doctor understands this. It is no surprise for anyone to be distrustful in a world like this.
Moreover, Vanitas has always known Noé and has already devised a plan to get a group of vampires rather than just two of them out of this godforsaken place. It's become a necessity now. Cohabitation has perfected their awareness of the other—the mannerisms, line of thinking, and predictions over their behavior. This is no different even with months separating them from each other.
When Noé finishes the briefing and the group starts to file out of the bunker, Vanitas attempts to follow but a grip clutches his wrist. Noé, in an emotional fit, brings Vanitas into his chest with a firm hold on his body.
"Noé, what is it?"
"Nothing," he assures yet his tightening grasp says otherwise, "Please let me hold you for a while."
A while is a moment too short. It doesn't even last a few seconds, just enough to let this reality—perhaps of Vanitas finally before him—sink into him. Vanitas swears he'll bring rightful retribution to all who brought this upon his vampire.
"I'll get you of here, you hear? Along with everyone else."
"Of course, I believe you, Vanitas."
When they're finally sequestered into the safety of Altus Paris, Noé speaks to him in such an earnest tone that will surely shave years from Vanitas' years.
"Vanitas, I don't want to go back to Altus," he admits this, "Not yet, at least."
"What do you want to do then?"
"I want to help vampires—and dhampirs too—cross over the border. I can't bear to sit here and wait for the war to be over when others are subjected to such cruelty."
Oh, his dear Noé, ever the savior. His kind heart that will one day bring both of them to ruin. Vanitas will gladly follow.
"Then, we shall, mon ange."