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kicktwine · 1 year

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idk how it would happen but I imagine ven meeting his younger selves and they’re both so different. But the same. But different

he meets the one stuck in the desert with no memories and immediately almost gets his head cut off, just because — for ease of reading, he’ll refer to himself as Ven and the younger one as Ventus and the youngest one… Little Ven. Look, he never said he was that creative, and they like their name — because he startled him. He doesn’t remember the badlands that well, but he does remember how jumpy it made him. That’s still… there.

anyways he almost gets his head cut off because Ventus hears someone’s big metal shoes behind him and whips around, keyblade in hand, and Ven backs out of the way with his hands up and an eep! and puts a lid on the instinct to summon his own keyblade. Ventus’ face gives away his emotions pretty much instantly, which it doesn’t do so much anymore, but it goes fear-anger-confusion-VERYconfusion-fearagain-curiosity-confusion-bigshowyhuffyface. Like a kitten making itself look bigger. Ven tries to make himself look smaller, or at least non threatening. Or at least not like an evil future version of himself come to end his bloodline here and now. Would you believe he had that irrational fear every once in a while he’d make some kind of dumb mistake and go ah, I hope this doesn’t have universal consequences i feel the repercussions of via someone smarter than me coming to tell me off! which, I mean it’s not The Most irrational. Time travel exists. He’s doing… it(???). Ventus seems to settle somewhere between genuine curiosity and cornered kitten.

“Who are you?”

Wow his voice is higher! It dropped pretty late. Mostly while he was training here, so he never really had the embarrassed-by-voice-cracking thing Aqua told him about with Terra, he was worried about other things. And his hair is so much scruffier, and his skin is dry-looking, he doesn’t remember taking care of himself very well out here. There’s nothing here, really. Has Ventus eaten? Today? Should he have brought the conchas from the kitchen. Is that an open cut on his arm? That’s blood. That’s bad. Ven’s been forgetting to speak and just looking at his younger self which is not helping his nerves, he doesn’t think. “Uh… you? Older you! We’re in a dream, sort of, I think.”

probably not the right thing to say, even though ven’s not sure what WOULD be the right thing to say. That was about the most succinct he could make it. Ventus’ eyes narrow, and he drops the curiosity, and Ven knows what just happened, he thinks this is a test now. It’s absurd enough to not be real, and it must be illusion magic. Ventus spins his keyblade behind him and lowers his stance (still kinda sloppy, the Master was always— Xehanort was always on him about it even though apparently holding a keyblade backwards was fine). “Bullcrap,” he spits.

“Language!” Ven scolds, feeling the spirit of Aqua fill him. Ventus is too nervous to say anything more than “crap” though, which is kind of cute but weird to think about now that he’s still nervous around adults but swears like a sailor around, like, Roxas.

“Either leave me alone or fight!”

“I don’t wanna—“ And then Ventus jabs at him, his patience for the test spent. The faster he passes, the faster he can go sit down and the less of a chance he gets hurt. Ven dodge rolls out of the way once, twice, threefourtimes, getting ten pounds of dust down his shirt. He never liked this feeling. Dust stuck to his skin. Ventus gets more and more frustrated with every miss, starting to make angry growls when he does, and snaps out a strike raid, which misses, and it misses on the way back, but Ven is busy righting himself from where it missed and Ventus gets a heavy slash in right on his knuckles, which stings.

Ven recoils, and Ventus sees the real actual blood on his knuckles and the teeth of Wayward Wind and his eyes blow wide. Almost immediately, he drops his keyblade and backs away, hugging his arms to his chest and turtling in his jacket. “Oh— sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry! I messed up.”

“it’s okay! It’s okay, it’s fine,” Ven reassures him, really really wanting to stop hearing himself over-apologize. He quickly, telegraphing his moves because he knows how bad this could look, summons his keyblade and casts a quick Cure. The wound vanishes, even though it’s gonna leave a bruise anyways. Ven shows his arm. “See? Totally fine.”

Ventus doesn’t move towards him, but un-turtles slightly. His eyes linger on Ven’s hand — fine. Like he said — to the space his, their keyblade was just summoned, the one he’s holding his version of. To his face, which is pretty similar, though Ventus hasn’t looked at himself in a mirror in a while. To his outstretched arm, and the thin scars over it, and his own scrawny arm, dried blood still shiny over a thin but deep cut.

Ven follows his gaze. “Can I see that?” he asks, gently.

Ventus slowly, very deliberately shuffles his way over and gives up his arm to be looked at. Ven takes it — Ventus almost flinches when he touches him, totally real and corporeal and warm and stuff — and once again casts Cure, this time a Curaga just to cover anything he might not be showing him. Ven used to do that, before he knew what he was doing but after he was too floaty to know what he was doing at all, he’d just not tell anyone he was uncomfortable. It felt shaky and bad to verbalize, and it took Terra specifically a long time to teach him that no was a good word and I made a mistake was not the end of the world. Ven’s not gonna be able to teach the younger version of himself that whole thing in a few hours. But y’know — at least he can be nice.

Ventus studies the spot on his arm that he cured. It’s going to scar because he didn’t get to it on time, but he knew that, and Ventus figures that out, his stare moving to the same scar on Ven’s forearm. And the rest of them. Some the same, some came later. He is not, pointedly, removing his arm from Ven’s hands.

Ventus’ voice is tentative and scratchy. “Why’re you here?”

“Um,” Ven says, elegantly. “I’m not sure.”

”That’s dumb,” Ventus huffs.

“Hey.”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ven says, gesturing for his other hand. Ventus hesitates — fear-worry-want, his face is like an open book — and gives it to him, finally desummoning his keyblade. “Do you not know Cure yet?”

Ventus scowls again. “Shouldn’t you remember? No.”

Ven shakes his head. “I don’t remember when we learned it. I thought it was before this.”

“I don’t remember anything before this.” Ventus, despite curling forwards into the touch he’s being given, somehow scowls even deeper.

Ven kneels. “And I don’t remember being so angry,” he says, softly. “We don’t get much better at the memory thing in the future.”

“Oh.” Ventus keeps standing. “Do—“ he bites his lip.

“Do what?”

“Do we… do we get better at — you’re … I’m… mad. I don’t like— You don’t look— Do we— nevermind, sorry. It’s nothing.”

“We get happier,” Ven says, something inside him crumbling. “We do, we get friends, even.”

Ventus’ eyes widen, not looking at him. “Here?”

“No, not here. It… it’s a long story. But I promise it gets better.” Ven doesn’t like looking at this. He spent so long not thinking about it — on purpose, not thinking about it, ever since he woke up in the Land of Departure “thinking about it” was more of a phrase that meant shaky, scattered flashes of memory and sharp copper smells and waking up with his heart in his throat and his muscles trying to scatter out of existence or hearing a metal fixture drop to the floor with a loud clang! and suddenly he couldn’t hear anything except ringing and it was all, an abstract cocktail of not good that he never untangled and avoided like the plague — that… making it real, seeing himself just exist in a terrible place while nothing happens to him like those flashes of memory, it makes it real. And it breaks something inside him, something really small but gummed up because before this he had a layer of detachment from the whole thing, and he almost wants to cry. Ven knows now that he didn’t deserve this and it was stupid and horrible and he should have just had friends who loved him this whole time because it’s possible and he’s a likeable person and he has good to give and love to receive. But Ventus doesn’t know that yet, and he sure won’t believe it until it happens. He remembers not believing it. He remembers thinking it wouldn’t ever get better, and how much better it feels now that it has, and — oh, okay he is crying cool. Ventus looks at him like he’s grown a second head, all confusion and worry and tentative digging inside himself to see what he should do.

“Do… um. Do you want a hug?” Ventus asks nervously.

Ven nods. Ventus’ arms curl around Ven’s back, all thin shaky noodles and no muscles and fewer scars and not used to doing this. Not too hard — he doesn’t want to weird him out — Ven hugs back as best he can. He learned how to give pretty stellar hugs from his friends. He hopes Ventus can feel it.

#accidentally writes a mini fic after thinking about ven and apprentice ven finding ux ven and startling him #and ux ven goes AAH! And apprentice ven slowly hides behind big ven because he’s the Explainer Guy. Who Explains #and then they go get ice cream together.#my writing #I guess #hi! every day I make myself cry about ventus kingdomhearts #kh #ventus kh #it’s 11:33 at night #I did not edit anything or have a plan going in #I simply. Hey apprentice Ven’s life was upsetting #they go get ice cream all three of them and ux ven chooses ROCKY ROAD SWIRL SPECIAL and ventus chooses what ven chooses which is honeybunny #or at least the closest they can get to it. He likes his flavor.#Maybe I Have A Favorite Guy You’ll Never Know #also in my soul — hey welcome to the tag zone - in my soul. Ven still has a hard time saying he messed up #so either he admits he messed up bad and offers to fix it or tries to shift the blame onto anything else even smth small #it’s a defense against being blamed or being seen as the weak link but he is trying to get better at taking responsibility

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