What Dreams May Come

“To sleep--perchance to dream:  ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.”

                --Hamlet, Act III, scene 1

The darkness was absolute.  There was no earth, though he could feel something solid beneath his feet.  There was no sky.  There was no light, no Light, whatsoever, or else his cat’s eyes would have caught it and refracted it twentyfold.

Darkness didn’t work that way.  It flashed through Van’s mind that he might be dreaming, but the notion flew from his mind the moment he heard that voice behind him.

“Van?”

Pale and stricken, mouth open and trembling, Vanitas turned.  He could see him lit up as if by slanted rays of the afternoon sun--though only his figure was lit, not the air around him.

Van’s mouth opened and closed, like a dying fish’s.  Opened.  Closed.

“Zack.”

Zack Fair stood there, bright against the black backdrop, looking kind and concerned just as Van remembered him—and sad.  A sadness Vanitas couldn’t bear shot from those blue eyes and pierced through Vanitas. 

He was crying before Zack had gone two steps, before Zack’s embrace wrapped around him.

“Vanitas…I love you.”

“I know.”  His words choked in a swollen throat, tears smearing into Zack’s hair.  “I know…”  His face screwed up into an agonized grimace, his eyes squinting shut.

“Zack, I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry…”

Zack broke off the hug and stepped away from Vanitas.  He looked betrayed.  He looked paler.  He stepped back once, twice, and was swallowed by the Darkness.

“I’m sorry,” Van continued, imploring.  “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—I know I broke your Heart; I never should’ve…I never should’ve even tried; I wasn’t ready, and you loved me, and I didn’t know how to return it, couldn’t…”

And now he was gone.

“I wasn’t ready.”

“What have you ever been ready for?”

That voice.  That familiar, aged, deep gravel.  That voice sent shivers through his soul; it was the voice of his tormentor—

But when Van turned, looking for the man he meant to kill, he didn’t see him.  Another figure appeared instead, lit up as brightly as by a noonday sun, in spite of the Darkness.  His back was to Van, but he would know that silhouette, that plaid shirt, that scent, anywhere.

“Kid.”

Van’s Alternate—the ageless teenager he had thought of as his little brother—didn’t say a word.  He simply walked away, and was swallowed by the Darkness.

“Kid,” Vanitas sobbed.  “I know you’re off somewhere with Tate, living life as a mortal.  Probably Australia,” he tried to joke, wiping at his face.  No mirth could reach his voice.  “You deserve your happy ending…after everything you’ve been through…after everything he put you through.  I miss you…but it’s okay.”  His fist had clenched at mention of him, but slowly, it relaxed again.  “It’s okay that you’re gone…you deserve your happy ending, and I would never keep you from it.”

“No, because that would be selfish.”

A different voice this time.  Van whirled, eyes bulging as another sunlit form emerged from the blackness.  Their heights and hair were identical, down to the most minute fronds of their spiky silhouette.  He wore plain fitted jeans and a black V-neck.  An overwhelming aura exuded from his every pore, compounded by that infuriating half smirk.

“You!”  Vanitas lurched at the god version of himself, wrath clenching his fists, peeling back his lips into a grimace.  “You don’t get to come anywhere near me!  Not after what you’ve done!  What you did to Kid!  What you did to both of us!  What you did to me…!”

“Yes,” Godi’s sardonic drawl came out through that smirk.  “Because it’s always about you.”

“You killed us, you fucking bastard!” Van bellowed, fresh tears coursing from his eyes.  “You murdered us to take part in your stupid fucking game!  I have every fucking right to be angry!  But what you did to Kid, and killing him and I, that wasn’t enough for you, was it?!  You had to go and—“  He choked on his words.  “—abandon me in the middle of the Game!  Fuck your Moderator duties; you could have taken me with you, you know!  And after  the Game, when I—I—You cut me off!  Just like that!  No attempts to deal with anything; you just chucked me out of your life!  After everything…!”

“You hated me,” Godi pointed out.  His smirk had died; he folded his arms across his chest, a bored, mildly irritated expression on his face.  “Besides, that was pretty fucked up, wasn’t it?  Telling me that you loved me after what I did to Kitten?  Some loyal brother you are.”

“I was telling you the truth!” Van shouted, voice thick.  “I couldn’t just sit on that!”

“And did you consider how I might feel?  Or did you just not care?”

“I…”  Van looked down at his hands, gaze stricken.  “I couldn’t just keep it in.”

“Sure.  Tell yourself that.”

The wrath came back in Vanitas full force.  His strength returned, banishing the thickness of tears from his tone.  “Fuck you!” he said, stepping up to put himself right in Godi’s face.  “You think I’m fucking afraid of you?!  Go fuck yourself!  After everything you put me through, I don’t ever want to see you again!  Do you hear me?!”  He stepped back, breathing hard.  “I told you the truth.  It’s off my chest.  You rejected me.  You tossed me aside just like you did in the Game.  It’s over.  Everything between us is over, forever, and that’s on you.  And fucking trust me,” he added, hissing through his teeth as he pointed a baleful finger at the god, “if I ever find out you’ve gone within a thousand miles of Kid, I’ll rip out your fucking throat.”

Godi said nothing.  He merely unfolded his arms and stepped back, the light on him dying, the darkness enveloping him.

Van was panting.  He felt dizzy.  He patted his face with his hands; he felt flushed, feverish.  His rage had gotten the best of him.  He needed to sit.

He stumbled back a few steps, and his leg caught on something.  Something soft that shifted with the sliding of sheets behind him.  He dropped his weight down and plopped onto the bed.  Van sat forward, half-hunched, his elbows on his knees, his eyes staring into the abyss between his feet.

Something—someone—pressed against his back.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Vani.”

Riku.  Or rather, Nortyku.  The Vessel Riku whom Van had had that roller coaster romance with.  Van’s form stiffened, locking up as Riku’s lithe arms snaked around his torso.  He could feel the warmth of the man’s bare body against his back, could see his naked legs from the corner of his eye.  He closed his eyes, as if the act would banish this spectre.

“Riku.”  The thickness had returned to Van’s tone, even though the tears had stopped.  “I…I told you.  I’m with Rainy now.”

One pale, slender finger began drawing patterns on Van’s chest, sending shivers into him even through his shirt.  “I know.  You dumped me.”

“I…I did.”  Van admitted it with the heaviest of sighs.  “I’m sorry, Riku.  Rainy’s not Poly like you and me.  I can’t just be casual friends with you now that I’m with her; it doesn’t work that way.  You know it doesn’t; we both know what you want.  And you and me…you know we never worked.  We never would have worked.”

“You were afraid of me.”  Van hated that tone—that soft, vulnerable tone.  That wounded side of Riku was what had made Van love him.

“I was afraid…that the Master would force you to turn against me.”  The admission came easier than he expected.  They had both known it all along, after all.

“You were afraid of the Darkness in me, I know.”  Those pale hands suddenly gripped onto Van’s chest, fingertips clutching possessively over where his Heart was located.  “But were you really afraid of the Darkness in yourself?”

Van’s breath flew from his body.  Riku’s hold grew tighter, stronger, impossibly strong.  Those fingers were reaching, clawing for his Heart; he was going to get it, he was going to—

Van cried out, a wordless, feral sound of panic tearing from his throat.  He struggled against Riku, kicking forward against the bed and trying to lurch out of his grip.  The hands wrapped around his torso loosened for a moment, then surged forward, seizing Van, turning him, and throwing him down onto the ground.  What air remained in Van’s lungs blew out of them as his back hit the ground.

Looking up, Van could see that the bed had vanished.  Riku had vanished.  Standing over him was an entirely different Darkness.  Long coat, bare head, silver beard, sadistic smile.  The Master.

“Hello, son.  Did you miss me?”

Vanitas screamed.  He scrambled to get out from between Xehanort’s legs, turning over so he could run away, only to halt as Xehanort’s knee came crashing down onto his back.  For the third time, the wind blew out of him, and this time, he slumped to the ground, stunned.

Xehanort’s arms wrapped around Vanitas’s head, one hand resting on Van’s chin so he could direct the Construct’s gaze.  Van tried to struggle, but those arms held a monstrous strength, a strength that sapped the life from Van’s limbs.  Soon he could do nothing but breathe.  Breathe hard, air wheezing in and out of lungs that almost didn’t function out of sheer terror.

“Look.”

Compelled by that voice, and by the death grip steering his head around, Vanitas looked.  Standing a few feet away were four figures standing in a line.  Zack stared at him steadily, sadly.  Godi looked down at him, indifferent.  Kid didn’t look at him at all; his back was turned.  And Riku, his naked body gleaming in the queer light, looked at him with heartbroken sorrow.

“I was so looking forward to stripping away everything you loved, making you pure again,” Xehanort’s voice purred in his ear.  “But look.  You’re already so adept at pushing away the people you love, I didn’t have to lift a finger.  I wonder who you’ll break next?”

Xehanort steered Van’s head to the left.  Eight people stood in a line, all of them staring at him.  Staring down at him gasping on the ground, writhing beneath the iron deathgrip of the monster who had created him.

“No…”

A boy took a step forward, a boy on the cusp of being a man, a boy with silver hair and tears in his crystalline eyes.  His neck was wrapped with a knitted scarf in bright gold.

At the sight of those tears, Van’s Heart clenched.  “Ku…”

“You left,” the Replica sobbed, accusing.  “Where the hell did you go?!  You just left!  You left!”

“I know—I told you, remember?  I didn’t mean to abandon you; I can’t be everywhere in the Multiverse at once, and I was sick—“

But Ku didn’t heed his words.  He stepped back, and faded into the Darkness.  The next in line stepped forward—another Riku Replica.  This one was older, the lines on his face harder.

“Ikki…”

“I never want to see you again.”  The text of his letters spilled from his lips, level tone laced with accusation and disappointment.  “Any of you.  Ever.”

“Ikki, you can’t mean that—I don’t know what was up with those letters, but it can’t be for good; I know you don’t mean that…You have a life with us; you don’t need to run away!”

But he too stepped back, yielding to the Darkness.

Four figures stepped forward as one, the silhouettes of their spiky hair matching exactly.  Black, black, white, black; there were three versions of Vanitas, with a Remnant between them.  Their four identical judging stares hammered on Van.  He couldn’t move, and he couldn’t look away.

“You’re never around.  Especially when I need you.”  Blackbird.

“You’re a shitty friend.  You don’t know me; how can you help me?”  Stitches.

“It doesn’t matter that you mean well.  You still screw up.”  Cerin.

“You’re never around.  You’re never there.”  Demoni.

The tears returned.  Van’s body shook; he was sobbing again.  “I’m sorry,” he choked.  “I try—I try—but I just can’t be everywhere at once.  I can move around so easily but it’s so hard to be everywhere; I wish I could.  Please; please, you have to know that!  I never meant to neglect any of you—I never meant to leave you behind—“

Their remorseless looks stayed in place.  One by one, the four wearing Van’s same face took each others’ hands, making a chain.  And as one, they stepped back, into Darkness.

Van’s sobbing halted as the next in line took a step forward.  His tears continued to fall—silent, stricken.  He couldn’t handle the judging look on this youth’s face.  He had a feeling he knew what he was about to say.

“You weren’t there.”  Ienzo’s voice was low and grave, his judgment giving no quarter.  “Sora needed you, and you weren’t there.”

If Xehanort hadn’t been holding him up, Van would have collapsed face first onto the ground below him.  Sobs wracked his body and scraped his throat raw.  “I’m sorry,” he garbled.  “I’m sorry; I’m sorry; I’m sorry I’m sorry, sorry, sorry…”

“Enough of your whining.”

When Vanitas looked up, Ienzo was gone.  Only one person from the line remained, her eyes boring into him.  Her gaze was Fire and Light, piercing through his defenses and stabbing straight into his Heart.

“You make all these promises but never deliver,” Rainy accused, her words hissing.  “You ditch out on your friends, then you ditch out on the family you claim to love, then you ditch out on me.  You said you loved me, Van.  If you love me, why aren’t you there for me?  You know how much I’m going through with my family!  You said you’d help!”

He had no words.  Vanitas had no more excuses left, not even good ones.  All he could do was stare into the face of his lover, stricken by her wrathful gaze, stricken by her venomous words.  He had never seen Rainy like this before, and for a fleeting moment, wondered if this was real.  The moment passed as quickly as it had come, because another thought crashed into his mind:  he deserved this.  He deserved every moment of this.  He’d been expecting this.

And she, too, stepped back, fading into the Darkness.

“No…”  The word choked out of him, mangled in his despair.  “No, please…”

“Yes,” Xehanort said with triumph, tightening the strangle-hold on his former pupil.  “Everyone you love leaves you, because you’re weak.  You’re an abomination gone soft.  You’re not worthy of happiness.  You’re not fit to live.  One day, you’ll see that I was right—the day that you end up completely alone.”

The choke-hold subsided.  The Master’s monstrous limbs released him.  And then even Xehanort was gone, back to the blackness that had conjured him.

The Master left Vanitas lying face-down on the hard, cold nothingness, weak sobs rolling out of him.  In one last meager, defiant act, Van pulled himself upright—but he couldn’t make it any farther than his knees.  He slumped back onto his hams, his head hanging down into his chest.

He was alone, now.  Well and truly alone.

Three hands, one by one.  One by one, they settled on his shoulders, on his back.  One feeble hand, one strong hand, one petite hand.

“Van.”

“Van.”

“Vani.”

“You’re not alone.”

That’s right…they were still there.  He could feel them there, deep within, still connected to his Heart.  Ventus, Roxas, and Xion. 

“Van.  Look up.”  The feeble hand gave Van’s shoulder a squeeze.  Ven’s gentle voice reverberated in his empty being, wrapping his soul in comforting warmth.  Slowly, Van dragged his head up, his wandering gaze searching the Darkness before him.

He looked up, and his eyes widened.

There was Light.  A faint, white light, a single pinpoint shining through the infinite Dark.  Questions slammed against his brain—what was Light doing here?  Where could it have come from?

An answer seemed to present itself as another figure approached them.  The tiny, frail form was backlit by the feeble Light, drawing closer and closer. 

“Sora.”  Vanitas sighed, understanding flowing through him.  “He’s my Light.”  He was the source.

The strong hand gave a gentle pap on the back of Van’s head.  “You dumbass.”  Roxas’s voice, deeper and infinitely more exhausted than Ven’s, issued from behind him.  “Remember what Sora said?”

“…What…?”  Sora said a lot of things, all of them truthful.

The petite hand gave Van’s other shoulder a little squeeze.  With a sigh, Xion’s voice, more patient than he’d ever heard it before, issued from beside Roxas.  “He’s not your Light.  He's told you this before, doofas.  You have a Light of your own.  Just because you were born from Darkness doesn't mean it can't exist.  It's there, deep within.”

“Look again,” Ven’s voice bade him, gentle and caring.

He looked again.  He watched the Light, its quiet pulsing, and the Darkness around it.  The Darkness didn’t desire to swallow the Light, nor was the Darkness driven away by the Light.  The Darkness folded comfortably around it.  Protected it.

As Sora drew closer, Van could see that he was not the source of the Light.  He could see as well as feel his eyes, a deep, clear blue, focus on his kneeling brother as he stopped before him.

“You’re not alone.”  Sora’s voice was soft and matter-of-fact; his face was understanding, unjudging.  “You know that, right?”

“…Right.”

“You’re not an abomination.  You know that, right?”

“Right.  You told me so.”

“You’re not perfect.  Nobody is.  But you need to forgive yourself for your mistakes.  People forgive you--and the ones that don't, you don't need.  You’ll make new mistakes, too.  You have to move on so that you can make new mistakes.  So that you can live.”

“…Sora, I…”

“You can do it, ‘Ni.  Promise me you will?”

“…I’ll try.”

That was good enough, as good as a promise.  Sora’s grave little face lit up in a quiet, genuine smile.  He reached out one tiny hand.

“Alright, ‘Ni.  It’s time to wake up.”

Van didn’t hesitate.  He reached up and took that hand.