Chapter Text
The rain in Paris always had a way of making the walls of the Hotel Chouette feel like they were closing in. Inside their shared room, the air was thick with the scent of old paper, damp wool, and the faint, bitter tang of the various chemical compounds Vanitas left cluttering the desk.
Noé Archiviste sat on the edge of his bed, his long legs drawn up slightly as he polished a brass button on his coat. His purple eyes occasionally drifted across the room, tracking the frantic, erratic movements of the human man currently pacing by the window.
Vanitas was, as usual, being entirely impossible.
"If you pace any harder, you are going to wear a hole straight through the floorboards," Noé said, his voice mild, though there was a familiar, rhythmic warmth to his tone. "And Madame Gagne will certainly charge us extra for property damage."
Vanitas paused, spinning on his heel with a theatrical flair of his blue coat.
His dark hair was a messy nest, several strands sticking out wildly from where he had been aggressively running his fingers through it. He glared at Noé, his bright blue eyes flashing with an irritation that looked entirely manufactured for his own amusement.
"Oh, listen to you! The great, noble vampire, so deeply concerned with the financial well-being of a Parisian landlord," Vanitas scoffed, crossing his arms and leaning back against the windowsill. He tilted his chin up, casting a patronising look down his nose. "If the floor breaks, Noé, I will simply tell her you fell out of bed. With your massive frame, she would believe it in an instant."
Noé didn't rise to the bait.
Instead, he simply puffed out his cheeks in a small, quiet pout, setting the brass button down. "I am not massive. I am perfectly average for a vampire. And besides, I am a very quiet sleeper."
"You breathe like a dying furnace," Vanitas fired back instantly, a sharp, smug smirk cutting across his face. He walked over to the desk, tossing a small leather pouch onto the cluttered wood with a heavy thud. "And you complain far too much for someone who spends half his day staring out the window like a tragic heroine in a cheap novel."
"I don’t look like a tragic heroine," Noé muttered, though a faint tint of pink dusted his cheeks.
He didn't want to admit that Vanitas was entirely right about the staring.
For the past hour, Noé’s eyes had been glued to the human. It wasn’t a choice, not really. It was a magnetic pull that Noé had long since stopped trying to fight, even if he refused to name what it actually was.
Watching Vanitas was an exhausting exercise. The man was a whirlwind of sharp edges, loud declarations, and a profound, terrifying emptiness that he covered up with grand gestures. He was a puzzle with half the pieces intentionally thrown into the Seine. Yet, Noé found himself constantly trying to piece him together anyway.
"You do," Vanitas insisted, leaning his hands on the desk and peering over his shoulder at Noé. His smirk softened into something a bit more mocking, but his eyes remained sharp, calculating. "You have that ridiculous, dreamy look on your face. The one that says you’re either thinking about tarte tatin or wondering why the world is so cruel. It’s sickening, Noé. Truly."
"I was actually thinking about the rain," Noé lied, casting his gaze toward the window where the water streaked down the glass in long, distorted lines.
"Hah! A distinction without a difference," Vanitas turned back to his desk, shuffling through a stack of loose papers. "The rain is miserable, you are miserable, and if you don't find something to occupy your tiny vampire brain soon, I am going to throw you out into the street to catch a cold. Do vampires catch colds? I should test that. For science."
"Please, under no circumstances, test that," Noé sighed, a small smile finally breaking through his stoic expression.
This was their rhythm.
It was a constant, dizzying dance of barbs and banter, a shield that Vanitas threw up to keep everyone—especially Noé—at an arm's length. And Noé played along because he had to. Because the alternative was acknowledging the heavy, suffocating weight in his chest every time Vanitas smiled a genuine smile, or every time Vanitas looked at him with something resembling actual trust before immediately snatching it away.
Noé watched as Vanitas picked up a small glass vial, swirling a murky green liquid inside it before setting it back down with a dissatisfied grunt. The human’s hands were scarred, wrapped in tight white bandages that Noé knew covered a multitude of sins and secrets. Every movement Vanitas made was precise, full of an underlying tension, like a spring coiled too tightly, waiting for the exact moment to snap.
"You look tired, Vanitas," Noé said softly, the banter dropping away for a brief second, exposing the raw, earnest care underneath.
Vanitas stiffened for a fraction of a heartbeat. It was so fast that anyone else would have missed it, but Noé noticed the way the human's shoulders locked. Then, just as quickly, the tension dissolved into a dramatic, exaggerated groan.
"Tired? Me? Never!" Vanitas threw his arms out, spinning around to face Noé once more with a manic grin. "I am a man of science, Noé! A man on a mission! Sleep is for the weak, and clearly, since you do nothing but sleep and eat, you are the weakest of them all!"
Noé shook his head, a fond, helpless expression settling over his features. "You are impossible."
"I am a genius," Vanitas corrected, tapping his temple with a smirk. "There is a difference. Now, cease your whining. I have very important matters to attend to, and I cannot have you distracting me with your existential dread."
He turned back to the desk, his coat billowing behind him. Noé watched him go, the comfortable silence settling back over the room, punctuated only by the steady drumming of the rain against the roof. Noé rested his chin in his hand, his eyes tracking the line of Vanitas's back.
He was right here. They were in the same room, separated by only a few feet of wooden flooring, yet Noé had never felt anyone feel so entirely out of reach. The yearning was a dull, constant ache, an old friend that Noé had learned to live with. He adjusted his position on the bed, his gaze shifting slightly toward the desk, where a small, unassuming packet sat tucked right beside the leather pouch Vanitas had brought in.
Noé tilted his head, his curiosity piqued by the sudden presence of the neatly wrapped parcel, entirely unaware of the storm it was about to bring into their quiet hotel room.
The steady, rhythmic drumming of the rain against the glass became the only sound in the room, filling the quiet space left behind by their fading banter. Vanitas had already tuned Noé out, completely absorbed in his work. He muttered under his breath, his fingers flying through a messy stack of research notes, occasionally pausing to violently cross out a line of text with a scratch of his fountain pen.
Noé, left to his own devices, slid off the edge of his bed. His steps were entirely silent as he padded across the worn wooden floorboards, drawn by a mixture of boredom and a natural, cat-like curiosity.
He stopped just a few feet away from the desk. From this angle, he could see the sharp profile of Vanitas’s face, illuminated by the dreary grey light filtering through the window. Vanitas’s brow was furrowed, his lower lip tucked slightly between his teeth in deep concentration.
Noé’s chest tightened with that familiar, heavy ache.
It was always like this. When Vanitas wasn't looking, when the walls of his theatrical persona crumbled just a fraction, Noé could see the sheer weight the human carried. He wanted to reach out. He wanted to place a hand on those tense, rigid shoulders and tell him that it was alright to rest.
But he knew exactly what would happen if he tried. Vanitas would swat his hand away, slap on a cruel, mocking smile, and spit out words designed to cut Noé to the quick. Vanitas despised vulnerability, especially his own.
With a quiet, inward sigh, Noé forced his eyes away from the man and let them wander over the cluttered desk.
Right there, tucked precariously between a stack of heavy medical journals and a leaked map of the Paris underground, was the small, neatly wrapped parcel. It looked entirely out of place amidst the chaos of Vanitas's tools. While everything else was covered in dust, ink stains, or dried chemical residue, this packet was pristine. It was wrapped in delicate, glossy paper, tied off with a perfectly twisted string.
Noé tilted his head, his purple eyes blinking in confusion. Vanitas was many things, but "neat" and "delicate" were never adjectives used to describe his working habits.
Curiosity piqued, Noé reached out, his hands shaking eagerly above the sachet.
He carefully picked up the packet, making sure not to disturb the surrounding papers. It was surprisingly heavy for its size, and as he lifted it closer to his face, a faint, incredibly sweet aroma drifted through the paper.
It smelled of rich cocoa, spun sugar, and a hint of dark, macerated berries. Noé’s mouth instantly watered.
Sweets? Noé thought, his eyes widening slightly.
He glanced over at Vanitas, expecting the human to bark a reprimand at him for touching his things. But Vanitas was currently leaning entirely out of the window, his upper body hanging dangerously over the sill as he tried to look at something on the roofline of the building opposite them. He was muttering aggressively to himself about drainage pipes and Chasseur surveillance paths, completely oblivious to his roommate's actions.
Noé looked back down at the parcel in his hands. The string was slightly loose on one side, making the paper bunch up awkwardly. Noé, who possessed a deeply ingrained, almost fastidious need for order when it came to small objects, frowned slightly. It bothered him to see something so neatly made looking so dishevelled.
Slowly, meticulously, Noé sat down at the very edge of the desk, far enough not to crowd Vanitas but close enough to use the clear space on the wood. He set the packet down and began to rearrange it. With gentle, precise movements of his large fingers, he smoothed out the wrinkles in the glossy paper. He untied the loose knot, straightened the string, and began to wrap it back around the parcel, ensuring every fold was perfectly symmetrical.
As he worked, his mind drifted back to the human currently muttering at the rain.
Why did Vanitas have sweets? Vanitas didn't care for confectionery. He preferred bitter coffee, stale bread eaten on the run, and whatever cheap rations he could find to keep his body moving. Noé was the one with the legendary sweet tooth, a fact that Vanitas regularly used to mock him, calling him a childish glutton.
Then, a sudden, sharp realization hit Noé like a splash of cold water.
Jeanne.
The bastardly Hellfire Witch.
The last time Noé had seen Vanitas this frantic about a specific purchase, it had been a ridiculous, oversized bouquet of flowers that he had brandished like a weapon. Vanitas had been talking about her a lot lately—boasting about his "charms," planning his next absurd, unwanted rendezvous, and insisting that he would make her fall madly in love with him.
These sweets weren't for the room. They were a gift. A calculated, deliberate gesture for Jeanne.
A heavy, suffocating weight dropped into the pit of Noé’s stomach. The sweet scent of the chocolate suddenly felt sickeningly cloying. He tied the final knot of the string with a bit more force than necessary, his fingers trembling slightly.
He looked up, staring blankly at Vanitas's back. The human had pulled himself back inside, his coat soaked with rainwater, and was now aggressively shaking his head like a dog to get the droplets out of his hair, entirely unbothered by how ridiculous he looked.
Noé felt a profound, exhausting wave of yearning wash over him. It was a physical ache in his ribs. He wanted to be the object of that frantic energy. He wanted Vanitas to look at him with that hyper-fixated intensity, even if it was born out of a bizarre, manufactured game of romance. He wanted to be the one Vanitas brought gifts for. He wanted to be the one allowed inside that heavily fortified heart.
But Noé was just the partner.
The observer.
The vampire bound to a tragic promise.
He looked down at the perfectly arranged packet of sweets sitting on the desk. They looked so innocent, glittering faintly under the dim gaslight of the room. Noé’s heart felt hollow, a vast, empty cavern filled with a lifetime of unspoken words and repressed desires. He stared at the pastry wrapper, his sweet tooth aching, but his heart aching infinitely more.
He had no idea what those sweets really held, or the terrifying hidden purpose Vanitas had bought them for. He only knew that they represented a door he was entirely locked out of.
The hollow ache in Noé’s chest only grew more pronounced the longer he stared at the pristine parcel.
Vanitas was still entirely distracted, now furiously scrubbing his wet hair with a rough towel, his back turned, completely lost in his own chaotic world.
Noé looked down at his own hands.
They felt empty.
His whole life felt strangely empty in moments like this, trapped in the quiet margins of Vanitas’s grand, loud existence. The sweet, rich scent of cocoa and dark berries seemed to mock him, filling his senses until he could think of nothing else.
Just one, Noé thought, a sudden, reckless wave of impulse washing over his usually polite demeanor. Vanitas calls me a glutton anyway. He won't notice if a single piece is missing.
With careful, quiet movements, Noé slid his fingers under the neatly tied string he had just perfected. He pulled the glossy paper back, revealing a row of beautifully crafted, dark chocolate confections. The aroma intensified instantly, thick and intoxicating. Without giving himself another second to hesitate, Noé picked up a chocolate and popped it into his mouth.
It was exquisite. The rich, dark cocoa melted instantly on his tongue, giving way to a warm, sweet, fruit-infused center that sent a shiver of pure delight down his spine.
But as soon as he swallowed, a strange sensation bloomed in the back of his throat. It wasn't the typical lingering sweetness of sugar. It was a sudden, localized heat, spreading rapidly from his chest down into his stomach, radiating outward through his veins like liquid fire.
Noé blinked, his vision blurring slightly for a fraction of a second. His heart gave a sudden, violent thud against his ribs.
What... is this? he wondered, his mind growing strangely foggy.
Instead of stopping him, the intense, blooming heat created a sudden, insatiable craving. His logic, usually so steady and restrained, dissolved in an instant.
His hand moved entirely on its own, picking up another chocolate.
Then another.
Within the span of a single minute, driven by an overwhelming, primal urge he couldn't comprehend, Noé devoured the entire packet, licking a stray bit of dark chocolate from his thumb.
The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.
The heat in his veins turned into a roaring bonfire. Noé’s breath hitched, his chest heaving as a wave of intense, dizzying warmth crashed over him. His core temperature skyrocketed. The room, previously chilly from the Parisian rain, suddenly felt like a suffocating furnace.
But it wasn't just physical heat, it was more like an emotion. A deeply buried, long-repressed dam inside his soul suddenly cracked wide open, unleashed by the potent aphrodisiacs Vanitas had covertly sourced.
Every single ounce of Noé’s years of quiet pining, his desperate yearning, and his unspoken love for the human man across the room amplified a thousandfold. The emotional restraint he practiced every single day vanished, entirely burned away by the chemical fire in his blood.
He felt a sudden, desperate, and terrifyingly intense need to be close to Vanitas. Not just close—he needed to touch him, to hold him, to ensure that Vanitas could not slip away from him ever again.
Noé slid off the edge of the desk, his legs slightly shaky as he stood up. His purple eyes, usually soft and curious, were now wide, dilated, and entirely fixed on the human.
Vanitas had finally tossed the towel onto a chair. "Right! Now that my hair isn't a swamp, I can finally get back to—"
He didn't even get to finish his sentence.
Before Vanitas could even turn around completely, Noé closed the distance between them with impossible, vampire speed.
"Woah—Noé?!" Vanitas gasped, his eyes widening in sheer shock as a massive, warm weight suddenly crashed into his back.
Noé didn't say a word. He simply threw his long arms around Vanitas’s waist, locking them tight, and buried his face directly into the crook of Vanitas's neck. He let out a soft, pathetic whine, his entire body trembling as he pressed himself flush against the human's spine.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Vanitas shrieked, instantly tensing up like a startled cat. He began to violently writhe and squirm, his hands clawing at Noé's forearms to break the grip. "Let go of me! Did a curse-bearer bite you? Have you lost your mind?!"
"Vanitas..." Noé whined, the sound incredibly small, desperate, and entirely uncharacteristic of the proud vampire.
Instead of letting go, Noé only tightened his grip, pulling Vanitas so close that there was absolutely no space left between them. He nuzzled his face deeper into the damp strands of Vanitas's dark hair, inhaling deeply.
The scent of Vanitas—rainwater, bitter ink, and the unique, intoxicating warmth of his humanity—flooded Noé’s senses, sending a massive jolt of pleasure straight through his hazy mind.
"Hey! I said unhand me, you oversized leech!" Vanitas yelled, his face flushing a bright, furious crimson as he struggled. But Noé was a vampire, and with the aphrodisiac completely overriding his inhibitions, his strength was absolute. Vanitas couldn't budge an inch. "Noé! I swear to God, if you don't release me this instant, I will—"
Vanitas’s voice died in his throat as Noé turned his head, pressing his warm cheek directly against the soft skin of Vanitas’s neck, letting out another low, content whine. The quiet, desperate vulnerability of the gesture caught Vanitas entirely off guard, his threats freezing on his lips.
Noé didn't care about the shouting. He didn't care about the rules, or the tragic future, or Jeanne, or the wall Vanitas kept between them. The sweets had unlocked the prison of his heart, and all Noé knew, with absolute, terrifying certainty, was that he was never, ever letting go.
"Noé, stop! This isn't funny!" Vanitas barked, his voice cracking slightly as he renewed his frantic struggle.
The human was a flurry of sharp elbows and frantic twisting, but Noé remained entirely unmovable.
The aphrodisiac had turned Noé's muscles to iron, anchoring him firmly to Vanitas’s back. He wrapped his long legs around one of Vanitas’s to completely trip up his balance, sending them both tumbling heavily onto the nearby mattress.
Vanitas hit the sheets with a breathless oomph, but before he could even think of rolling away, Noé shifted. He pinned Vanitas beneath his massive frame, heavy and warm, like a giant, affectionate hound refusing to let its owner move.
"Ah, Vanitas... you are so beautiful," Noé murmured, his voice incredibly deep, thick with an uncharacteristic, syrupy haze. He didn't just stay still; he began to rhythmically nuzzle his face against Vanitas's jawline, his silver hair brushing softly against the human’s flushed cheeks. "So small. So wonderfully soft..."
"I am not small, and I am certainly not soft!" Vanitas hissed, his face burning a furious, vibrant red. He planted both of his bandaged hands firmly against Noé’s broad chest, shoving with all his might, but Noé barely even budged. "Get off me! Your weight is going to fracture my ribs, you ridiculous glutton!"
"But you smell so sweet," Noé whined, a low, pathetic sound vibrating deep within his throat. He shifted his head, pressing his nose right against the sensitive skin beneath Vanitas's ear, inhaling sharply. He let out a long, shuddering sigh that blew hot air straight across Vanitas’s neck, making the human violently shudder. "You always smell like ink and rain. It drives me crazy, Vanitas. It makes me want to... swallow you whole."
Vanitas choked on his own breath, his blue eyes widening to the size of saucers. "What did you just say?!"
"I want to see what you taste like under all these heavy clothes," Noé whispered, entirely unbothered by his own lack of filter. The aphrodisiac had stripped away every single layer of his polite, gentlemanly restraint. He began to drag his cheek along Vanitas's collarbone, scenting him deliberately, marking the human with his own warmth. "You hide yourself away so much. It isn't fair. I want to touch every single part of you until you can't think about anyone else."
"Shut up! Shut up, shut up!" Vanitas shouted, a distinct note of sheer panic finally creeping into his theatrical bravado.
This was a complete, overwhelming sensory overload. Vanitas was a creature who despised being touched without his explicit control.
He used his body as a weapon, a tool, or a shield, but right now, he was completely trapped. Noé’s body was a heavy, suffocating blanket of pure, radiating heat. Every time Noé shifted, the fabric of their clothes frictioned together, sending sparks of static anxiety straight down Vanitas's spine.
Worse than the physical weight was the sheer auditory and tactile barrage.
Noé was whining—seriously whining—like a needy, starved creature, his large, pale hands blindly reaching under the edges of Vanitas's blue coat to grip at his waist through his vest. The grip was tight, possessive, and entirely terrifying.
"Vanitas... look at me," Noé pleaded softly, his purple eyes heavily dilated, glittering with a dangerous, raw hunger that was entirely separate from a vampire's thirst for blood. This was a hunger of the soul. "Please. Just let me stay like this. You feel so good. So incredibly good against me..."
"Noé, I am going to murder you," Vanitas gasped, his breathing turning shallow and ragged.
His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. The sensory input was simply too much to process.
The intense heat of Noé's skin, the deep, rumbling vibration of his voice speaking words that Vanitas’s traumatized brain couldn't possibly comprehend, the scent of Noé’s own sweet, vampire pheromones swirling in the tight space—it was dizzying. Vanitas felt like he was drowning in a sea of pure, unadulterated affection, and it terrified him to his very core.
"Go ahead and kill me later," Noé mumbled into his neck, his lips brushing against the skin as he spoke, sending a massive jolt of electricity straight through Vanitas’s body. Noé let out another content, needy whine, his fingers tightening in the fabric of Vanitas's shirt. "But right now... just let me love you a little bit. You're so loud, Vanitas, but your waist is so easy to hold..."
"Shut up! Stop talking! Stop using that voice!" Vanitas yelled, his fingers clawing uselessly at the mattress sheets. "Just S, T, O, P, STOP THIS MADNESS!"
He was entirely flustered, his mind spinning out of control as he tried to find a logical escape route from the absolute, crushing weight of Noé’s unconditional, drug-induced clinginess.
With a desperate, undignified screech, Vanitas used the absolute last of his human strength to dig his heel into Noé’s shin.
It wasn't enough to hurt the vampire, but the sudden, sharp impact caught Noé off guard just long enough for his iron grip to slacken by a fraction of an inch.
That fraction was all Vanitas needed.
He wriggled out from under Noé’s heavy frame like a panicked eel, tumbling off the side of the bed and scrambling to his feet. He didn't even stop to grab his coat or the Book of Vanitas. Driven by pure, unadulterated sensory panic, Vanitas threw open the heavy oak door of their hotel room and bolted out into the hallway.
His boots clattered loudly against the worn floorboards of the Hotel Chouette. His chest heaved as he sucked in the cooler air of the corridor, his mind a chaotic whirl of static.
Too hot, too close, too much.
Wait what? Too hot?
He needed distance, anything to get rid of those impudent thoughts. He needed to put a wall, a floor, an entire building between himself and the terrifying warmth of Noé Archiviste.
"Vanitas...?"
The voice echoed from the doorway he had just vacated. It didn't sound angry. It sounded deeply wounded, like a child whose favourite toy had been cruelly snatched away.
Vanitas glanced over his shoulder and nearly choked. Noé was already coming after him. The vampire’s silver hair was completely dishevelled, his eyes dark and entirely hyper-focused on the human. He was moving with a slow, predatory deliberate pace that sent a shiver of genuine dread down Vanitas’s spine.
"Stay back!" Vanitas yelled, backing away down the dimly lit hallway, his hands raised defensively. "I am warning you, Noé! Do not step any closer!"
Noé didn't listen. In the blink of an eye, the vampire closed the distance. He didn't use violence; he simply threw his weight forward, tackling Vanitas into the floral-patterned wallpaper of the hallway.
"Ah! Damn it!" Vanitas grunted as his back hit the wall, but before he could slide down, Noé’s arms were around him again.
Noé sank to his knees, dragging Vanitas down with him onto the carpeted floor of the corridor. He wrapped himself around the human’s torso like a vine, burying his face directly back into the crook of Vanitas's neck.
"Why did you run away?" Noé whined, his voice muffled against Vanitas’s shirt. He let out a long, trembling sigh, his large hands anchoring firmly into the fabric of Vanitas’s trousers, refusing to let him budge. "It’s cold out here. You’re warm. Don’t leave me."
"Noé, we are in the middle of a public hallway!" Vanitas hissed, his face burning a spectacular shade of crimson as he looked left and right, praying Madame Gagne wouldn't walk out with a broom. He tried to shove Noé’s head away, but Noé simply nuzzled harder against his palm, planting soft, hazy kisses against his bandaged fingers.
"I don't care about the hallway," Noé murmured, his tone dripping with an intoxicating, shameless affection. He shifted, tilting his head up to look at Vanitas. His purple eyes were incredibly beautiful, heavy lidded and soft, entirely devoid of the sharp intellect that usually guarded them. "You're so pretty when you're angry, Vanitas. Your heart is beating so fast. Is it because of me? Tell me it's because of me."
Vanitas stared down at him, completely frozen. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. The sheer, unshielded honesty of Noé's drug-addled state was a weapon Vanitas had absolutely no defense against. His brain was short-circuiting from the absolute overload of tactile stimuli—the heavy weight of Noé’s chest pressing against his, the heat radiating through their clothes, and the terrifying realization that Noé was entirely at his mercy, yet completely dominating his space.
"Ah... fuck this," Vanitas finally whispered, his shoulders slumping in absolute, defeated exhaustion. He let his head thud back against the hallway wall, his hands dropping uselessly to his sides. "Do whatever you want. I give up. You are an absolute idiot."
An expression of pure, radiant joy washed over Noé’s face. "Really?"
"Yes, really, you giant leech. Just... stop talking," Vanitas grumbled, turning his face away to hide the deep flush crawling up his ears.
Noé didn't need to be told twice. With a soft, content purr vibrating in his chest, he leaned all his weight back onto Vanitas, effectively pinning the human to the floor. He began to lazily nibble on the soft skin of Vanitas’s jawline, his teeth scraping gently, not to draw blood, but simply to taste, to feel, and to possess. He scented Vanitas’s neck with rhythmic, dragging motions of his cheek, marking him over and over again in the dim light of the hotel hallway.
Vanitas lay there, stiff as a board, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. He was entirely flustered, thoroughly annoyed, and completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of love being forced upon him.
Yet, as Noé let out another needy, satisfied whine and tightened his embrace, Vanitas found he couldn't even bring himself to lift a hand to push him away.