#also sorry for forcing my aesthetic upon this - 'pivotal and important vanoé relationship moments happening on high places/rooftops'

[gdmonster]

@chironitas​ | “sometimes i try to make it look like i’m comfortable in the skin i’m in ” [for noé!] MISC ANGST SENTENCES ( LYRICS ).

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And sometimes the sheer universe-sized distance in similarities between the life Noé has led and the one of Vanitas’ he’s only caught an outsiders glimpses of, slams into Noé’s chest heavily enough to leave him staggering mentally.

And other times, it merely washes over him, as if injected directly into his heart, intent on freezing him over on the inside. Cool and uncomfortable, like a dead hand whose grip is a little too tight and at the same time a little too loose.

Much like his own grip on Vanitas, he sometimes muses.

An outsider, on the other hand, one who might have watched moments like these unfold on other occasions, might wonder why they always happen a-top roofs.

The air seems warm and clear enough, Paris sparkles beneath them, indecisive between the flowers it claims as part of its moniker and the much stronger glistening of the sun caressing la Seine’s surface as if trying to brush over and mend open wounds.

And Vanitas is making a new face.

Noé sits and watches, as he always does, eyes kept wide enough as if fearing he might slip out of his gaze, lips kept closed as if waiting his turn or too preoccupied to utter anything.

And Vanitas looks, for the first time perhaps, or perhaps the nth time and Noé had only known been allowed to see it, as if he was much smaller than the strutting vampire doctor he’d first encountered on La Baleine.

Vanitas is fast and stronger than he’d claim most other humans to be. He spits and grins as if he’s putting on a show for no one but the devil himself, as if every time he gains a split lip or every time he pushes through a fight to get to a vampire to save, he’s winning some sort of race against... against whom?

Against Luna?

Their voice chills in the back of his mind, Mikhail’s memories faint but with a mark left behind.

Against vampires?

Against Dr Moreau?

Against himself?

The breeze musses his hair. Noé’s always wondered why he chooses to keep it this long. Lack of interest? Preference?

His hourglass earring glistens briefly and Noé thinks of Luna again.

Thinks of the Mikhail’s memory of a crying, feverish Vanitas, no older than Noé had been when he’d collapsed in a similar fashion after... after.

Crying, feverish Vanitas and the tales of his father’s turned back and his mother’s death, life as it had started and life as it had ended to turn into years of continuous torture - tries not to think of Mikhail’s memories in this context, tries not to hurl.

Does Vanitas even feel his skin to be his own still? Altered eyes and a vampire’s blood within him, cut up and rearranged for the mission of a madman.

I’m glad you are the person you are now.

He feels like vomiting for that line, considering all he had to go through to become who he is.

Still... He wouldn’t take it back.

“Why?” A frown, somewhere between confusion and the frustration of someone who just wants to understand better and understand easier.

He leans forward, doesn’t notice his shifting closer until his shoulder is pressed against Vanitas’, only tries to sneak into the human’s peripheral.

“I know you think lying and dishonesty in general is a valid strategy,” a jab he barely even registers as such, his already lacking filter completely thrown off this roof-top. “But you don’t have to pretend. If you’re honest, we can stand by you better. We can help you... until you’re actually comfortable in your own skin.”