[TEAM ONE] YOUR HEART ON YOUR SLEEVE

[oath_breaker]

 Kingdom Hearts — Vanitas, Sora, Rated T, 1.5k

“C’mon! Let’s go!”

Vanitas stared at the hand stretched out to him, lip curling. Instead of taking Sora’s hand, he brushed past it, careful not to let Sora actually touch him as he skirted the edge of the path. 

Normally he would’ve let Sora take the lead, just so that anything ahead in their path would hit him first before Vanitas, but as far as he could see was nothing but greedy darkness, encroaching on the edges of the rising platforms. A startling stair case made of the same stained glass descended in front of them, glittering like sea glass as it curved into the emptiness.

He stopped at the edge of the heart station, looking back for just a moment. It was Sora’s, his eyes closed as he curled along the perimeter of the station. He had been sheltered in this heart long enough to recognize, but sleeping there and actually walking through it were two very different things. He was aware of the warmth surrounding him, despite the cloaking, heavy darkness weighing down around them. It should’ve been cold. It should’ve felt empty.

It itched under his skin, made him skittish in a way he refused to show, and he turned his back on the platform and the sleeping boy it portrayed, testing the lower step lightly. It didn’t shake or give under his weight. Behind him, he felt a soft puff of air, Sora being so close to him that even a muffled laugh landed on Vanitas’ nape.

He stiffened. Was Sora laughing at him, at his uncertainty? Made he could be an idiot and lucky and just leap before he looked, never suffering the consequences, but Vanitas certainly wasn’t that blessed. At any given opportunity, he was humbled, and he wasn’t willing to bet the odds would be in his favor in even the tiniest of things.

He began down the staircase, Sora diligently behind him.

“I’ve never gone down before,” Sora began conversationally, the expectant wait at the end meant for Vanitas to fill. He kept quiet, though. The only experience he had with heart stations was fighting Ventus on one, and he’d thoroughly shattered both their hearts until they’d floated in a star-studded sky filled with its fragments. 

When Vanitas didn’t offer anything, Sora continued. His voice sounded too immediate, right behind him. There was nothing for it to bounce off, or be absorbed by, so when he spoke it felt like each word was stolen the moment it finished, so that he could doubt Sora had even spoken. 

“Normally the staircase starts to go up, to the other hearts,” Sora said. Vanitas looked out of the corner of his eye, his hair obscuring the movement so Sora wouldn’t notice, and found Sora looking straight ahead, arms folded behind his head. So comfortable, even in the midst of the unknown. “But now that I’m thinking of it, I wonder if that’s normal, either. None of the other stations had stairs.”

“Other?” Vanitas asked, question slipping out before he could stop it. Sora grinned, a quick, triumphant flash of a smile. Fuck.

“Yeah! Roxas’, and Ven’s. Or Terra’s or Aqua’s,” He added, like an afterthought. Quietly, Vanitas thought of how much leeway Sora had. If a dive to the heart was a brush with death, than Sora had been dancing with the devil for years now.

It would be impressive if Vanitas didn’t know how much of an idiot Sora was. He remained silent thought, determined not to give himself away again. As much as he sneered down at Sora, it was still better to have him there than to be here alone. Bracing his own heart station wasn’t an experience he’d ever anticipated, and if it wasn’t because he had to he certainly wouldn’t be here voluntarily.

He didn’t want to look at the fresh evidence of a decade long break. He didn’t want Sora’s prying eyes on it, either, but confronting it would be easier when he had an audience to hold him accountable.

Listening to Sora’s idle chatter, Vanitas continued down the spiraling steps, lower, deep, sinking so far the glistening light of Sora’s heart station faded entirely until there was only the faint illumination of the stained glass rainbow beneath his feet. It nearly gave him vertigo to constantly descend in gradual circles into nothingness, the abyss so deep and dark it frustrated him to peer into it, trying to make sense of emptiness. 

Gradually, he felt Sora almost stepping on his heels, growing close enough that he warmed Vanitas’ back up, and after the third clip on his feet, Vanitas growled and whirled around, startling Sora to a stop.

“Back. Up,” He snarled, skin rippling with unease at the oppressive immediacy of Sora’s presence. He never turned his back on people but there was very little choice here.

“Oh,” Sora said, eyes skipping to the side and hands coming up to fidget with each other, fingers interlacing. “Sorry, sorry.”

For the next several steps Sora remained a foot or two behind, but soon enough he was skittering closer to Vanitas again, and this time when Vanitas stopped Sora bumped into him before leaping backwards, yelping when his heels nearly cleared the steps entirely, arms pinwheeling. If Vanitas wasn’t so tense, he would’ve found it comedic. 

“Sorry!” Sora squeaked, and with a scoff Vanitas faced forwards again, renewing his vow of silence. As if determined to be on his best behavior, Sora remained a steady distance for long enough that Vanitas got lost in his thoughts.

Time was a vague notion here, passing as if in a dreamlike world, but they’d been steadily going down for long enough that if it’d been in the real world, he would’ve felt the ensuing burn in his muscles. As it was, nothing like that existed here, just a steady, sense of placidity. Things were unchanging here, the timeless world of the soul, and Vanitas found himself tensing with unease…

And Sora was stepping on his heels again.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Vanitas demanded as he stopped short again. Sora managed to keep himself from running into him with a mild grunt. Vanitas pivoted around, looking up and blinking at the dizzying vertigo as the stairs rose continuously. It looked like the lights he’d seen in the sky once, long vertical strips of color that had stolen his breath. They’d disappeared sooner than he’d been prepared for, but for the rest of that night and the ones after, he’d continuously peeked out, waiting for them to reappear.

He blinked the minute dizziness away, focusing his glare on Sora’s flushed face. The rainbow lights made the blue of his eyes brighter, intensifying his expressions. Vanitas hated knowing that they shared the same face, that he could possibly look like that.

“I’m sorry!” Sora blurted, chewing on his lip and moving to fiddle with his jacket this time. He was more than used to Sora’s boisterous displays of confidence, so this constant backpedaling was both odd and discomforting. Vanitas narrowed his eyes and Sora’s nerves seemed to get the better of him. “It’s just really weird!”

“What is?” Vanitas asked, words clipped.

“I keep feeling like I’m about to fall over,” Sora admitted. “Normally I go up these a lot faster, going so slow makes it feel like I can slip off at any moment. I end up closer to you cause of that,” he said, quieter. He finally met Vanitas’ gaze, looking penitent. 

Vanitas scrutinized him. He didn’t know what Sora thought he was doing with his eyes, but it was making Vanitas squirm in discomfort. His gut flipped in a curious manner, not quite painfully as he would’ve expected. Finally, he exhaled forceful and faced forward again, deliberating his words before mumbling under his breath, “You can grab on if you want.” If Sora didn’t hear, than that was his problem. 

He took one step before he felt the tug on the dangling fabric of his suit, and cheeks heating up, he determinedly continued forward without looking backwards. Despite this, he could still feel the force of Sora’s smile directed at him, turning his insides into something closer to a kiln.

“When do you think we’ll get there?” Sora asked, and Vanitas sighed again. There was no point to keeping quiet in the face of the unknown, clearly, because Sora was determined to annoy him into speaking.

“You’re the only one here with any experience,” Vanitas pointed out, the usual acerbic nature of his words falling flat. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself the dredge up the rancor that was normally packed behind them.

Sora hummed thoughtfully, casually, and Vanitas wondered when this had happened, that they could even conversate. “Well, this is your heart, isn’t it? I’d say it’s up to you when we get there.”

Vanitas blinked, staring down into the long spiral. That… made a startlingly amount of sense. Despite knowing this, they continued, and Sora didn’t comment when no heart station came rising out of the darkness to meet them quite yet.

Opening his heart would take much longer than that.

I believe mousi is up next, right?