Chapter Text
Noe keeps himself quiet. It's okay. He's okay. He closes the door ever so quietly, stumbling across Vanitas’s bed in a record silence, hand against the wall as he nearly hops from door to window. It’s dark, the curtains are drawn, but at this point its muscle memory. His teachers voice parrots at the back of his mind, reminding him to get ready for bed properly. He needs to brush his teeth, change into his pajamas. Say his thanks. Noe’s hands search for his bed, flakes of blood getting caught onto the sheets. Right. He tugs off his coat and it tinkles softly as it falls to the floor. Noe breathes in once softly and then collapses onto the bed as softly as he can, as softly as his body will allow. His head hits the pillow and he thinks of owl eggs. The smell of them, when they’d fall, crack on the grass. Noe leans his head towards the floor as he throws up.
"Hmm, Noe?" A sleepy voice murmurs. Light hearted. "Did you try walking on the ceiling again?" A groan that is oh so familiar. Noe heaves, a mix of spit and blood. He must have bit his tongue, and forgotten about it. Maybe Ruthven broke something in him that will always leave him bleeding, his body trying to fix something that cannot be fixed. “I thought we talked about this, it's just not natural. Vampire or not.” Noe, eyes adjusted, can see the hand flay around for the light switch.
"Don't." He says immediately, voice more serious than he's ever been. An animal in pain, an animal gone feral. Something violent has happened.
"Are you okay?" Vanitas asks dumbly. Struck off course after a rare pleasant dream.
And that question makes Noe ache because he didn't have to think about that before being asked but now he has to think about it and that's not good because is he okay and he really needs to sleep and drink but it'll hurt and then he'll be forced to face that maybe he's not okay and-
"Yeah, I'm fine." Noe says, surprisingly stable. There’s a stagnant pause.
“Reallllly?” Vanitas drags his voice. It fills the room. “You don’t sound fine.”
"I," He struggles. "I tripped really badly. I wish you could've seen it." Noe lies, laughing a little bit as his nose starts running and he looks a right mess. He sniffs and wipes a hand across his nose. More flakes of blood fall like autumn leaves. What he would give to sleep in his own bed, listen as the pines bristle in the gentle wind of before winter. A promise. A clean end to a season of death.
“You’re serious.” Vanitas is unconvinced as he gets out of the bed, walking towards his bedside.
"Yes, it would be worthy of your laughter.” His voice is all wrong, it's rough and lacks any warmth. It's painful to speak.
Vanitas turns on Noe's bedside lamp before he can stop him.
"Noe." A shocked gasp of a name, Vanitas's eyes widen as he looks over Noe's body. Shirtless, with pants not even fully closed, a mess of marks.
Noe hisses at the hand reaching towards him, eyes flashing red, he stumbles backwards till he falls off his bed, a pained yelp as his ankle gets caught in the sheets.
"You need to tell me what happened right now." A serious expression on Vanitas's face never suited him, Noe hated it. How can he fix this? Can this be fixed? Forgotten? He thinks of the sudden wave of heat that meant death, that meant broken promises. He thinks about how he doesn’t think about that, ever. So why now?
"I fell." He repeats, dumbly.
"Who did this to you?" Vanitas asks instead.
“I did this!” Noe confesses, putting a hand over his eyes so he doesn't have to see Vanitas, his bedridden hair that sticks up round his ears, his sunken eyes and sleep that shouldn’t be broken. The shame is a fire and it starts and ends within him. “I fell!”
“I know you’re a player, Noe, but I didn’t take you for a liar.”
“I- what do you want from me?” Noe’s fingers dig into his scalp, pull at his white hair turned burgundy.
“The truth, idiot. The truth.”
"It was my first time, so it hurt a little. I don’t know how people are supposed to do…” He gestures at himself. “This.” His teacher never taught him this, never told him what to do when Louis played with his hair and tugged at his lips with his teeth. Oh how warm he felt. He just feels cold now. “But, I’m still okay. It just looks bad.” Vanitas steps closer. Noe lets him.
"Noe, fuck that. You’re still bleeding." A hand raises again, this time slower. It presses against the mess that is his neck, a flurry of bite marks and bruises from when Noe was about to come but he wasn't supposed to so- Vanitas breaks his thoughts. “That’s not, this isn’t okay.”
"No, you misunderstand. We both enjoyed it, I even, I even-“ Noe can’t say it. He has to say it, so Vanitas understands. “I felt good, too.”
Noe knows he doesn't make a lot of sense right now, but he doesn't really know what happened either. His head was still pounding and there were little remnants of pleasure stuck to his heart and hands. He doesn't want to think about it right now. Or ever. He doesn’t want to burden Vanitas with… This. It was a vampire thing. Besides, Vanitas would probably try to kill Ruthven, and that would be bad.
"Noe for pete's sake!" Anger, deep deep anger. A whisper. “Who did this?" He's loud and then he's so quiet Noe has to strain to hear him. That meant he was serious, that meant this was a no joking situation. That meant it was a ‘we don’t go there’ situation.
"Can we please talk about this tomorrow." Noe pleads, eyes too dry to cry. His stomach aches and his ankle doesn’t but it should. Tomorrow meant never, as far as Noe understands it. Vanitas works on a different wavelength than most, and Noe thought he understood him, but sometimes he was so, so wrong. Like now.
“It is tomorrow.” Vanitas says, and he flings the curtains open as if evidence. It’s faulty, because it’s still dark. But maybe that wasn’t the point, because Vanitas turns to him once more and his expression is all stiff, his lips, always up, are down. His brows meet his eyes and these eyes don’t shine at all. Deep black nothingness that Noe wants so badly to be a part of. He turns his head. He can’t face Vanitas. Not like this. He can’t be the Noe Vanitas needs right now.
Vanitas must know this too, because there are footsteps and they are fading, leaving, walking out the door like an issue for tomorrow. Noe bites his bitten lips and closes his eyes tightly.
He’s ruined everything. Oh, he’s ruined so many things. Hands clenching and unclenching, he pushes his back against the wall and tries very carefully not to cry. Maybe tomorrow, he hopes, tomorrow this will be forgotten. Noe doesn’t think for a second that this is a bad dream, a nightmare. It’s too cruel. His mind couldn’t conjure this. But tomorrow, tomorrow. Tomorrow he will clean himself up, shrug it off and laugh loud enough for Vanitas to hear him. Loud enough to cover all that broken skin and those broken syllables.
Tomorrow, Noe promises.
He breaks it. There are two thumps and what sounds like instruments, maybe bells, falling to the floor. Noe doesn’t stand up, doesn’t check to see if everything’s okay. What’s someone doing up at this time, anyways?
The door opens and there’s more clattering and shiny things before he can make out the blue of Vanitas’s earring.
“Vanitas?” He croaks, trying to get up, back against the wall.
“Sit, you heathen. Sit!” Vanitas stumbles forward to push him back down. Despite his anger, it was gentle. Noe nods. Vanitas on a mission was not someone to be messed with.
“What do you need?” Noe asks, crossing his arms like it’ll hide anything.
“What do I- What do I need?!” Vanitas chuckles and shuts the door with his foot, the bang echoing throughout the empty room. The hotel will charge extra for noise pollution, no doubt.
“I need, for you to sit down, and be very still. Think you can do that?”
“Well-“
“For me?”
“Fine.”
“‘Fine’, he says. ‘Fine’.” Vanitas shakes his head. “You know, maybe that’s what got you into this mess. You never say no!”
Noe blanches. So he knows. He doesn’t shake and that’s an accomplishment, isn’t it? Maybe his body is finished with him, his haywire emotions. “Yeah.” He says, and it’s a sigh and a sob and admittance and adoration.
“Er, okay. Well take your pants off, I need to assess the damage.”
Noe doesn’t know what to say, exactly. Vanitas knows, but does he really want to see… all that? Well, why else would he ask? But maybe -
“What, you a prude now, all of a sudden? Think I can’t handle some hairy legs? God forbid I see your ankle! Scandalous!”
“Vanitas,” He says, exasperated, unsure. “I’m, there’s nothing-”
“Well, hurry up.” Vanitas has a tendency to interrupt when nervous. That helps, a little. Vanitas doesn’t want to do this, either. Noe nods, and hesitantly starts to pull his pants down. His shoulders ache and so does his spine and a lot of other things, so he tries to do it quickly.
“Noe.” Vanitas says, his body leans back like he might catch whatever Noe’s infected with. Noe can’t meet his eyes, ashamed.
“I know, okay. I tried to- Well, you know, but I just- couldn’t- and-“
“Noe, I need you to be quiet for a second.”
Okay, he can do that. It’s much better than whatever he was trying to do, stumbling over an explanation, an excuse. Like Vanitas is his teacher, frowning when he cries for no good reason. For dead grasshoppers and big gold eyes that look at their forgotten young in the shape of an omelet. He needs a reason. He has to have a reason.
“You were raped.” Vanitas says, sudden and sure.
“What?! Vanitas-“
“Do not!” Vanitas yells, and he pounds a fist against the wooden floor. “Do not, you hear me?” It sounds painful.
“Okay.” He just wanted this night to be over with. He was tired, and hungry, but also decidedly not hungry. His eyes ached.
“Oh my fucking god.” Vanitas stands up, and Noe is worried he might leave again, but then he starts to pace. His legs make big strides in a small room. The window is still open. Maybe someone will hear. “Oh my fucking god. Who?”
“I- Vanitas, listen-“
“No, Noe!”
It sounds like a double no, which basically cancels each other out, so maybe, “I can’t, right now.” Noe says instead. Hoping for tomorrow. Hoping for a ‘not right now’ which will become a ‘never’ in due time.
“Oh.” Vanitas says in an exhale, his whole body collapsing in on itself. He looks tired, exhausted. “Of course.”
Noe tries to smile in appreciation, but it slips easily, brief. Vanitas comes closer again, one of many silver boxes in his hand. There’s a green cross on it and Noe thinks he understands.
“You left to get this?” He asks, perhaps too honest. It reeks of desperation, of his child-like fear.
“Yeah, dummy. Why else? What you think I’d just zoom outta here at the first sight of blood? Do you, perhaps, know what my profession is?”
It’s a little biting, a little raw. But then, they both were out of sorts. It soothes Noe, a little, too, because this is what Vanitas does. He helps vampires. He hates them, but he helps them. He wouldn’t help Ruthven. Not likely.
“Yes.” Noe says, exhaling sharply when his ankle is lifted and it hangs. The hand that encircles it is smaller. More calloused. Noe has to look, or he might remember.
“You’ve really done it now, Noe.” Vanitas says, and he laughs. It sounds hollow. His lips don’t lift even a smidge. Focus on his eyes, Noe tells himself, when it starts to become too real. Focus on that.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. And you shouldn’t be. This isn’t- God, what school did you go to. This isn’t your fault.” It’s not a real question, it’s a rhetorical question. Noe learned of those recently, and so, with pride, he doesn’t answer. And Vanitas is right. He isn’t sorry. He’s parched, he’s furious. He’s hungry.
“Okay, honest minute here, we’ll need a real doctor to check this out tomorrow. For now, maybe a shower? Then I’ll deal with the wounds. That sound okay?”
“I think I’d like that.” Tomorrow. Tomorrow he will deal with everything. But for now he can go limp as his foot and have Vanitas wash him clean. Fix what he can. Tomorrow, tomorrow they will look at the parts that cannot be fixed. Now. Now they’ll try to deal with things the way they know best - a glance at a watch, a ‘I really got to go’, and a kiss goodbye for the effort.
Noe tries to smile and Vanitas looks at him fondly for the effort.