Chapter Text
Wolfwood had been scared of Vash once.
Even now, after knowing him for what feels like years, his heart thunders as he moves too precisely, too knowingly in the nonsense of gunfire. When he sleeps, Wolfwood still tiptoes around him as if he were a slumbering dragon, hungry for its next feast. When Vash lays next to him in the night, he's scared to turn his back to him. He always pushes Vash in front of him, even if he was the only one who knew where they were going.
Vash had never hurt him before. The blonde had given him a few shiners here and there when tensions were high, but Wolfwood always found himself on the floor with a wet rag pressed into his eye with a prosthetic arm afterward.
Despite all the protecting Wolfwood does of his back, when he slips, Vash steps in to take over. Of course Wolfwood always found himself getting Vash out of sticky situations, so it was the least he could do in return. They never needed each other to get out of a shithole, but it was nice to know someone as strong as you— if not stronger— could cut down your time enduring torture.
However, today, when Wolfwood awoke, he knew Vash needed him. He didn't know how or why, but he needed to go back. Back to where he left him, back where he was told he could not follow.
Back where Vash had told him to stay safe and out of trouble.
Wolfwood shot Chapel for the second time this morning and booked it. He’d survived the retaliation of almost killing his mentor once, and he knows there will be no second chance.
He hadn't had a thought approaching the arc, nor in it. It was either finding Vash, or he was going to die. And he'd made peace with both those options.
Wolfwood wasn't scared to die. He wasn't living with a purpose anymore. With Vash gone, with the knowledge of Vash’s safety gone, he didn't feel anything at all.
Treason was a fool's errand, yet he couldn't bring himself to care. Pyrite or gold didn't matter to those with nothing anyway.
Logistically, he knew it'd been seven months. In his head, it could've been longer. Or shorter. The days and nights passed by fleetingly.
Vash’s family had found him three months earlier. They told him to be on time for their counter-attack, and he never dared to be tardy.
On the arc, he felt Vash before he saw him. He didn't reply to his calls, but his body knew he was there— knew he was in that specific holding cell.
It was a blur after he broke Legato’s hold on Vash. Either across the River of Styx or down to their godforsaken planet, he couldn't focus on anything more than getting out .
Then, there was Livio.
Then Chapel.
Wolfwood’s vision starts to fade.
He feels empty once more. His body gushes pint after pint of failure that his brother and father lap up like dogs.
Was it all for nothing?
Something soft tickles the back of his neck.
“I'm sorry.”
And he's falling.
Wolfwood wrenches awake as something shifts next to him. Pain stabs sharply into his shoulder. Unable to make a noise, he sands his teeth together, trying to force himself to grin and bear it.
The feeling fades and once more, the thing next to him shifts, and this time when it moves, the suns are revealed, burning through the thin skin of his eyelids. He squirms, trying to get away, and quickly the shade returns.
There's a gentle hand on his face now. A deep vibration flows through it as if someone was saying something, though as much as he strains, Wolfwood can't hear it.
Dying starts to feel like nothing once the brain realizes it's happening. Shock sets in and an all-encompassing numbness blocks the body’s pain receptors with concrete walls. In a way, a migraine can feel worse than dying. There is no concrete feeling nor foreboding, it's messy and wavering, getting better and worse as nonsensically as a storm.
A migraine isn't easy to take stock of. Missing tissues and pierced organs stuffed with lead bullets is absolute. There's only one grim answer. The brain can only make someone comfortable as it sits, waiting for help and praying.
Wolfwood has felt the emptiness of death before. He’s felt his body dying around him. He's felt his stomach tighten as blood gushes into his intestines; he's felt his heart murmur and lungs struggle to heave another breath. All his brain could register was the cold floor and the horror of toeing the line.
It was never a conscious decision to reach for a vial, but his body always did. Wolfwood felt more than heard the glass crunch between his teeth and could merely tilt his head up to swallow down the bitter medicine.
As the glass shards and liquid hit his throat, he'd gag around his swallow. Not yet , his mind would plead. I can't go yet.
Then, there's a relief; the relief of an addict getting a fix. He doesn't register the agony of his muscles knitting back together or the bullets becoming one with his body. All he can muster is to swallow back his vomit, goaded by the fear of letting one drop of that cursed substance come out of his body.
This time facing death is no different. Still, the hand on his jaw tries to soothe it.
Wolfwood knows him before he can conjure his name. His body would recognize him even through the fuzz of decay.
“Wolfwood,” Vash heaves. “It's okay. You're okay. You're safe, I've got you.”
Wolfwood wants to tell him that “safe” and he do not go together. If anything, he should fear for his life more. Still, Vash’s hand runs through Wolfwood’s black hair, through the blood and grime caked to his scalp. His nails are far too sharp.
Wolfwood's consciousness starts to ebb. His head feels too heavy and his body too weak.
The warmth of the dusk suns swallow him whole. There's a creak of wooden paneling around him, free from little feet. He feels proud being the oldest, since he gets to stay up later with the Señora. Watching her read and rock in her old wooden chair always made him feel safe.
Her big callused hands clasp his tiny ones tight. She wraps a rosary around them both. Their knees scrape against the splintering floor as their backs go straight, heads bowed and eyes closed. He never dared to peek.
“ Ave Maria , gratia plena,” Señora starts in prayer, but the words are wrong.
Señora doesn't roll the “r” on María, nor does it sound light and sweet. He wants to remind her in case she'd forgotten. What she's supposed to say is: “Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia,” then, “el Señor es contigo.”
“Dominus tecum.” An unsteady breath follows the incorrect verse.
Wolfwood wants to peek this time. He wants to ask if she's okay, but he mustn't. Instead, he squeezes her hands, but there's only one now, much thinner than before, knobbly and odd.
“Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.” The imitation continues not with her voice, but with another's. The consonants sound stronger now, right where they ought to be.
He follows along how he knows it goes next. Quietly, whispering. His voice doesn't come to him easy. “ Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros, pecadores—”
The hand clasped in his digs too-long nails into the backs of his hands. Wolfwood feels something warm and wet against his cheek. He can hear Vash’s breathing go in and out of composure.
Then, Vash’s breath is on his face. Wolfwood can feel the warm, soft skin of his sharp features. He can feel as the man above him gets closer, and the suns farther away.
“Nunc,” The last verse is breathed across Wolfwood's lips. “Et in hora mortis nostrae.”
Wolfwood can see Saint Peter turn his back to him as he feels the heat of Vash’s chapped lips.
He whispers a silent “Amen” into his mouth, the golden gates closing behind him as death passes him by.
The second sun has finished its descent as Wolfwood is roused again. Shapes squash and stretch around him, shuffling and bathed only in the light of a few dim oil lamps and a candle or two. He blinks away the sleep from his eyes, not immediately recognizing the people around him.
Their heads are turned away from him, deep in hushed conversation. He doesn't immediately try to push himself off the dusty couch he'd been laid on, opting to take in the rich desert air as it cooled.
He hadn't had anything to long for these past few months, so he doesn't go checking his pockets or worrying. He’d had no wallet in months, surviving off intimidation and free rides. That wasn't his choice, but he'd be dead if he dared argue. He wasn't supposed to care. He wasn't even supposed to think dollars and change had value at all. As an Eye of Michael, he was righteous and therefore deserved whatever those under him gave.
Wolfwood had never thought he was anything other than ordinary. What made him exemplary wasn't wound into his bones from the day he was born, it was put there. And he let it happen, and he used it however others wanted him to.
When he was younger, he wanted a family to raise and to pass down what he knew. He’d hemmed and hawed about settling down somewhere peaceful and making an honest living. Now when he thought about that fantasy, he could only stick his nose up at how naive he dared to be.
Nothing peaceful ever came to anyone on this planet. There was nothing honest in how they bartered, stole, and murdered for their meals. Wolfwood knew that better than anyone. He’d been victim to the cycle of violence far too young, and now he was only a cog that spun it around.
Wolfwood startles as a man breaks away from the group, dressed in crinkly clean scrubs with oxymoronic muddy boots clunking under him. His gaze is fixed on Wolfwood, who closes his eyes quickly, hoping he hadn't seen him rouse.
The thick steps of his boots clamber over. When he stops in front of him, he doesn't say anything. He leans over Wolfwood, checking his pulse with two fingers under his jaw, then after a minute moves to check an IV sunk into his arm.
“Jen,” he calls out. “What are you giving him?”
“In the IV?” A woman, Jen, responds, similar booted footsteps coming to stand beside the man. “Just fluids. When he came here he was pretty beat up, but after giving him a wash and an antihistamine, he didn't seem like he needed anything more.”
The man hums and Jen continues, “Vash said he took a vial of something but he didn't know what it was. I wouldn't want to give him anything else without knowing what that drug was, anyway.”
Vash . Wolfwood warms at the familiar name. Then, worry trickles down his back. Where was he? Was he safe? Was this all for nothing?
If he'd died, why—
“Vash! Can I see you for a sec?”
Here. He's here. And apparently still not wearing shoes, if the sound of his bare feet slapping against the wooden floor was anything to go by.
“What's up?” His voice didn't even sound dry.
“Your friend here, have you ever noticed anything abnormal about his vitals?” The man questions.
“Why?”
“Well,” A paper flips. “His heart rate is unusually high. It's been getting lower by a few ticks for the last few hours, but definitely isn't near resting.” Another paper flip. “Did he complain of any chest pain?”
“I don’t think a little chest pain and shortness of breath would've been the first thing he was worried about before he fell unconscious.” Vash laughs bluntly.
Jen pipes back in, “You mentioned an incredible metabolic rate. That may be why it's so high and is getting steadily lower. It might right itself, Reid. You never know.”
Wolfwood starts to feel like a rat spread eagle on a lab table, ready to be examined. He wants to shrink away, go outside or hide under the blanket— be alone for a moment. These people have other things to worry about.
Reid doesn't take to Jen’s hypothesis. “If that drug jump started his system, it could easily crash all the same. I don't want him to have a heart attack or a brain bleed and ignore warning signs.”
Vash starts to worry. Wolfwood can taste it. He wants to get up and smack him.
“You and I are monitoring him closely,” Jen soothes. “If anything happens, we will know and be there to stop it.”
Vash isn't satisfied, but his simple tone doesn't reveal that. “Is there something more you want to do?”
“Yes,” Reid sighs. “But I don't have the equipment. Back on the ship we’d be able to help him better.”
“Then you can take him there. You two update Brad.”
No. No— He can't go there. Not again. Not after what happened last time—
A set of boots clambers away, though instead of following after, Jen whips around to Vash, indignant. “Are you not going with him?”
He doesn't answer.
“Vash—”
“I haven't made a decision yet.” He cuts her off tersely.
It's meant to placate her. Wolfwood knows it, and he's sure Jen can smell his bullshit, too. But she doesn't fight him. She simply stomps away, exasperated.
It's quiet again. There's still a mumble of planning across the abandoned bar, but Wolfwood isn't able to hear it. It's white noise as the night begins to bloom, stirring up a chill through the roughly boarded windows.
Wolfwood wants to get up. He needs to slink away from all of them and disappear before anything happens. Livio and his master are surely hot on his heels, mouths stained crimson and bloodthirsty. He needs to keep pushing.
He needs to get away from Vash.
But Vash hasn't moved. He can still feel his heavy presence and those sharp eyes rake up and down the mound of Wolfwood underneath the scratchy blanket.
He doesn't move or say anything for a long while. Wolfwood doesn't know what he could say that wouldn't end up in an argument. As much as Vash doesn't want him to, Wolfwood knows him. He understands that Vash knows he's awake. He knows that Vash is going to ask him where he's going next. He knows that Vash is going to follow him there.
Wolfwood feels hot anger rise up his back. He needs to push him away and go back to being alone. They shouldn't be together right now.
This is all Wolfwood’s fault. Vash is fine on his own, he didn't need him to stir anything up. Now he's in a further mess.
Knives isn't going to stop at anything until Vash is dead. He's enraged now and any inhibitions or restraints he'd had earlier do not matter anymore. And if it's not Knives who comes for him, it will be Legato. Nothing is more dangerous than a cornered rabid animal.
Wolfwood should have left him there. He would've gotten out on his own. Vash is in far more danger now than he'd ever been and it's his fault .
They shouldn't be iles near each other, let alone in the same room. Livio, Chapel and the whole of the Eye are after Wolfwood. If Vash and Wolfwood stay near each other, the Eye and Knives will be fully united and they don't stand a chance. They'd be two lambs in a lions’ den.
Vash must know that. Why, why is he still staring at him?
After what feels like hours, Vash sits on the floor next to him, his back turned. Wolfwood opens his eyes for the first time. Vash doesn't look at him.
“I'm not going onto that ship again.” Wolfwood’s voice is raspy and cracked like an out of range radio.
Vash’s eyebrow twitches, yet he says nothing.
Wolfwood takes the moment to take stock of the man above him. He doesn't look any different than he did hours ago. His blonde hair is still a mess and inky black still stains the hair at his nape, now not so stark a contrast mussed with the grassy wheat fields flopped on his crown. His sharp face is still caked in dirt and blood, his wounds not tended to. The only difference is that he's wearing a weathered and ratty shirt now. It's so torn up there's buttons missing, exposing his chest and stomach. He's emaciated and gaunt, and he smells rotten.
Through the splits in his shirt, Wolfwood can see his scarred body and his bare breast on his left side. Vash had always been one to cover himself, save for that time when after being goaded, he'd stripped naked and barked like a dog. It felt strange now to see him so disoriented. He's been beat up before, but Vash always kept his cool. He didn't look it, but he has the best poker face known to man.
Wolfwood knows Vash as the man who gets up before him in the morning; the man who styles his hair in that same stupid, spikey updo everyday. Vash was always freshly shaven and groomed, and he cared for each item of clothing he had to his name with a good wash and press every time he could.
Now there's patchy stubble lining his jaw, unable to cover his sunken eyes and cheeks. What's the worst about looking over Vash as he is now is that he has no open wounds. Bruises litter his body in sickening shades of blue, green, purple and yellow. He doesn't have the same posture, and he'd been fighting a recurring nosebleed for hours. He's as dirty and hurt as an abandoned stray dog.
Wolfwood can imagine how Vash would've refused the wet rags and alcohol swabs his family had tried to help clean him with, his simple mind only focused on if they were okay. Months he’d spent at the whims of Hell’s henchman, yet Vash can only care outwardly as he always has.
He needs a meal. How he's still alive with all of his ribs showing and belly caved in is a miracle in and of itself.
Wolfwood notices more of the patches of peach skin showing through the thick dry mud and clay on his sides. There’s pinpricks of blood within each spot, replacing where there once had been feathers, both downy and sharp. Now where they once grew, the skin was irritated, as if they’d been meticulously plucked from his body one by one.
Vash brings his knees to his chest. Wolfwood had never seen such a haunted look in his eye.
“You are going home with me.”
Wolfwood bristles, but Vash doesn't look his way. His voice is low and dark.
“You are going there. And you are going to stay there until you're healthy. Then you can go fuck off wherever you want to go. And I won't stop you.”
“I am not —”
Vash’s arm whips back and his elbow jabs into Wolfwood’s stomach like a bullet. Hot, excruciating pain roils in his gut and up his throat like vomit forced from his stomach, but nothing comes out when Wolfwood opens his mouth to release it. Only a deep groan grates his dry esophagus as he curls around the visceral agony of fire ants spreading inside his stomach.
Wolfwood can't move his body to apply any pressure or to find some relief. He can just sit there in a ball as his voice scrapes his exposed fleshy insides, never quite making a sound.
Vash still doesn't look at him. His splintering stare is aimed dead ahead and his jaw is set.
Torturous minutes drag on, yet Vash doesn't offer his belly for Wolfwood to sink his teeth into. He doesn't waver nor wane.
Something’s wrong.
He feels lightheaded.
It’s easy to make Vash surrender to him. Every time they fight, Wolfwood overpowers him and lumbers over him, sinking his teeth into Vash’s ever-present soft, warm underbelly until he submits.
Vash has never used his full strength on Wolfwood. The same is not true vice versa.
Wolfwood feels himself go lax under his bite.
There's a long stretch of silence. Vash opens his mouth to speak, but snaps it shut. His brow creases and he shuts his eyes.
“I'll go with you.”
Wolfwood rears. “You'll be putting a target on those people's backs. Knives knows you'll go back there.” He doesn't fear another elbow as Vash's face screws into angry frustration. So, he continues, “Surely he knows where it is. The Puppet Master and Ninelives knew where it was and how to get in. Knives can easily do the same and when he barges in, there won't be survivors .”
Vash looks over at him for the first time. When their eyes meet, Wolfwood begs himself to look away. He doesn't. “You never reported back to Legato anything about me.”
He blinks. “It's not like he has a mailbox.”
That makes Vash crack a smile. Immediately, the air in the room is light and easy. “The Gung-Ho Guns only ever speak to each other. Their findings or leads I’m sure never get back to Legato or Knives. Whether that's because they're selfish or by design I'm unsure.”
Wolfwood huffs indignantly. Vash does have the decency to look a little sorry and give him a “not you” look, even though it's definitely misguided.
“It's a lot of faith to put into a theory.”
“Says the man of God.” Vash rolls his eyes. “Besides, Emilio only knew how to get on board because he was once one of them. Brad says since then, no one else has tried to come into the ship.”
Wolfwood remembers overhearing that the Puppet Master was born on the ship, and that he was mourned beside his victims, if only by the few who'd remembered him. He knows Vash had.
“And now, with who is left on Knives’s side, Knives has little reason to go after the ship. Legato would be the one to try, but Knives knows I will come to him. He doesn't need to go to me.” He looks away, his gaze hardening. Vash postures like he has something else to add, but he falls silent.
He knows something Wolfwood doesn't. Still, Wolfwood kills his curiosity. It's better he doesn't know.
“You're going to put faith in your brother that he won't try to kill you? Even after all those years of nonsensical bloodshed, you have faith in that?”
Vash meets his eyes, then looks away. Wolfwood sees him wilt. He doesn't sag, nor do his shoulders slump, but his expression goes unguarded for the first time in their conversation.
He’s not sure. But there's nothing else he can do.
A sigh.
“Three days.” Wolfwood says. “I'll stay for three days. Do not follow me when I leave.”
Vash’s smile is gooey. He can't bear to look at him anymore.
This is stupid. He knows it's stupid. He's putting Vash and everyone on board in danger. If Livio and Chapel find out where he is, he will not die alone.
Wolfwood has lived his whole life without trying to expose any soft spots. He’d kept each one close to his chest and secret, yet now, it's easy to see the worst one, festering and engorged as a boil on his face.
Vash.
“Thank you.”
A knobbly hand squeezes Wolfwood’s arm. All of a sudden, he feels too close. Heat prickles the back of Wolfwood’s neck. He shouldn't be here.
His eyes dart down to his lips. Then to his chest, then his lap, then to the floor. His bare feet are sunburnt and there's dirt under his toenails; a few have turned purple underneath the keratin. He must be in agony trying to stand on those things.
Vash’s hand stays on Wolfwood’s arm for too long. It irritates his skin like rat poison and sulfur. There’s something heavy on Vash’s tongue; so thick it can be felt in the air, foreboding and stagnant like a frightened buck.
Wolfwood has an urge to fawn. He knows what Vash is going to ask. He knows what Vash might do . The problem is Wolfwood doesn't know what he should say in return. If he placates him, smiles and agrees to what he wants, that feeling deep in his gut will go away.
The last memories Vash will have of him will be good ones, ones he's smiling in. His regret will fade quicker if he believed Wolfwood was happy how things were.
He looks up into Vash’s blue eyes and can't muster the strength to lie. Not to him. Not about this.
Vash gets up, glancing at the IV bag. “You should sleep. Brad is taking everyone back at sun-up.” He tightens the drip chamber. “The girls are on board. I'm sure they'll be excited to see you.”
Wolfwood sits up abruptly, instantly regretting it as his head spins and stomach lurches. He keels over like he’s going to vomit, but swallows it back with an acrid gulp. Vash just stands there awkwardly, unsure of whether to help or flee. His gaze darts to-and-fro like a trapped rat across the room as Wolfwood fights his digestive system. When Wolfwood finally regains his composure, he glares daggers at Vash.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“What? Did you miss me all those months?” Vash tuts. “Nowhere. I’m staying here.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well I don’t believe you when you say you’re staying, either.” He stuffs his one hand in his pocket, his signature pouty lip on full display. Paired with his patronizing tone, Wolfwood mentally names a million and one ways to have him dead on the floor within moments.
“I am a man of my word.”
“Yeah right.” Vash’s harsh tone is sobering. Though, instantly, he’s back to his light and airy tenor, merely that one phrase out of tune. “You’re preaching to the choir, minister. I don’t need your lame excuses and platitudes. I’ve heard them all before, Mr. Cynical.”
Sitting properly on the worn couch now, Wolfwood bores holes into the side of Vash’s turned cheek. “What stunt are you trying to pull? If I’m all hooked up and ‘resting’, you should be too. Lord only knows which organs Legato tied into knots inside you.”
Vash doesn’t turn his head. “I didn’t almost die. I’m not like you.”
Something is… off about Vash. His canter seems the same, his wit never dulled within the months he’d spent on the Arc. Besides the obvious state of his body, there’s something about him that now seems foreign; something darker and stomach churning.
Wolfwood stews in his last words. What is he trying to say? Is he trying to say he wanted to tough it out? That Wolfwood shouldn’t have come to his aid? Vash boasts his vitality yet stands before him a ghost— a man sunken in on himself.
Wolfwood realizes Vash is separating their humanity for the first time.
Wolfwood had taken low blows at Vash’s inhumanity before, but never had he repeated what Wolfwood said was true. Simply, Vash grinned and bore it, neither owning or refuting him. Earlier in their travels, Wolfwood had found his alien strength and agility unnerving, even terrifying at moments. His mannerisms always had the priest on edge around him, spitting at him to quit playing house with humans. However, within the first few months of knowing him, Wolfwood had thought of him as an equal— as human . He trusted him with his life.
Vash doesn’t like being an Independent. He wants to live quietly among the baying herds of the people he’d sworn to protect at their level. He hates not having control over his body.
He’s sorry to be dangerous.
Hearing Vash admit that he and Wolfwood are not the same, Wolfwood knows he’s equating himself to his brother. What’s changed about him is that he sees himself— all of him— as Knives, more than a human.
That sickly curious feeling returns. He saw something.
Wolfwood doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to do or feel. He can’t ask. Not like Vash would tell him the truth anyway. After the silence stretches on, Vash turns his body completely to leave. Wolfwood kicks him in the backs of his knees.
Vash staggers forward, and finally— finally — looks back at him, irritated. His clear blue eyes have turned muddy and gray. Wolfwood sees nothing of the galavanting, bodacious outlaw in the beaten-down starving man before him. All they share is the name.
“Stop.” Deadpans Vash coldly. “I’m not leaving.”
“I don’t care. Sit down.”
He gestures to the cushion next to him. It’s filled with holes and more than likely a few mice, but it’s still holding onto its downy stuffing. Vash moves to refuse, but Wolfwood kicks him in his leg again, this time his left knee— his bad knee. The blonde winces and loses his balance, instinctually bracing on the nearest object to him. It just so happens to be Wolfwood’s IV pole that clatters and sways dangerously braced against his size.
Panicked, Vash tries to right everything back to how it was, only to remember Wolfwood’s assault. He pauses to hit him upside the head and growl. “What’s the matter with you?!”
“Sit.”
Vash lets out all the air in his lungs with a heaving breath. He inhales it back three times as slow. His shoulders slump and he sits. What’s left of the springs under him squeal loudly as he braces his back against the back cushions of the couch, relaxing into it. He glares at Wolfwood.
“Don’t look so smug. You were just going to follow me if I left.”
“So you were going to leave?”
“ No. ”
After the silence stretches out for long enough, Vash lays his head on the top of the couch, pillowing the nape of his neck against the back. He closes his eyes, his eyelashes dusting across his high cheekbones. He sighs.
Slowly, Wolfwood adjusts himself to lay back down. Every movement feels like hell, and the newly sweltering bruise on his stomach isn’t helping. He tries to curl up into himself to give Vash space, but his long legs make it awkward. After hearing him struggle and groan, Vash picks one of his ankles up with his hand and lays it across his lap. The other leg joins it after a beat of uncertainty.
“I’m going to be able to tell if you leave,” Wolfwood jokes.
Vash starts to find the bit funny. “I’m not going to.”
The outlaw runs his thumb across a brace on Wolfwood’s left ankle. Wolfwood’s mood immediately dims.
He left Vash. Isn’t he angry at him ? Shouldn’t he be angry at him instead of himself?
Vash must know what Wolfwood’s been doing these past months. He knows what Wolfwood’s job is. He knows what his duty to the Eye of Michael is. How can he sit next to a trained assassin like this, knowing he’s been blindly killing those who Vash had promised to protect for months?
Can Vash tell that he didn’t feel anything while doing it?
The murmur of planning voices slows to a stutter as the “Rescue Vash” team disperses, tittering about, laying out sleeping bags they’d brought. They start to shuffle inside them, laid out on the dusty wood floor as nonsensically and randomly as maggots. Oil lamps and old candles are snuffed out, the scent of smoke wafting about the abandoned bar.
Two people keep watch at the front entrance silently while three others— Jen, Brad, and another woman— stand by a round bar table in quiet conversation. They are all smiles as meandering jokes pass through the group like a breeze Wolfwood can’t feel.
He thinks Vash is asleep, only to look over and see him staring at the ceiling, his expression unreadable. Wolfwood begins to reason that he should sleep now and ignore him, until Vash turns his head. As his eyes meet Wolfwood’s, he smiles gently. Wolfwood doesn’t feel his own expression lighten.
“Are you scared?”
Wolfwood frowns. “Of?”
Vash looks back to the ceiling. He pouts again, seemingly not expecting to be asked a follow-up question. After a moment, he says, “Of what’s happening right now.”
“Everyone is,” he thinks aloud. “But I like to think I have insider information and that makes everything feel a little less like the rapture.”
Vash doesn’t reply, so Wolfwood adds, “I don’t really want to die.” He says it airly like it’s another joke, but he knows it isn’t one. Vash probably can tell, too. If he does, he doesn’t pry.
Minutes tick by. Sleep begs for Wolfwood like a needy whore, yet just as he’s about to relent, he feels Vash’s chest rumble, and hears his question like a gossamer in the wind.
“Are you scared of me?”
His hand burns on his ankle. “I wouldn’t’ve agreed to come along with you if I was.”
There’s something else on the tip of Vash’s tongue. Quite a few things climb from his throat and threaten to spill out, but Vash keeps his composure and swallows it all back. His eyes close again.
After this, he knows everything else will be left unsaid. It’s how they’ve always been. Come dawn, this will all be merely a memory. There’s so much to say, so much to ask— it’s too much to verbalize. So, neither of them do. And they move on.
Wolfwood doesn’t know if Vash finds sleep. He does easily.