#amoirsetpacis 39

[punisheye]

"Sorry?" Wolfwood echoes, because he can't even begin to guess what Vash would be sorry about here. They've been over this so many times: Wolfwood's end was not his fault, what Chapel did was not his fault. Even if everything led back to that one single moment in time where ships fell from the skies like stars, how would anyone ever know what it would lead to? "You got nothin' to be sorry for."

Vash had been there, had saved him. He's got mud caked onto his face and in his hair, he looks a damn mess and wants to find his way back home and clean the muck off, but Vash is shaking and there's tears rolling slowly down his cheeks — Wolfwood can see them even if Vash won't turn completely to look at him.

"Thank you," he says. "For savin' my skin there."

It'd been so quick. In a flash Vash had made himself a barrier between Wolfwood and the old man. He's… so strong, the strongest person Wolfwood's ever known. The bravest, too.

"We should g—" He's cut off by hazy movement in the mist. His head jerks in the direction of it, just a little ways in front of them both.

"Spikey," a voice, his voice calls, but it's not from his mouth. Two figures materialize in the mist, dirty and blood-stained but alive. The mist turns into colorful confetti, raining down on them like snow. "Spikey, you—"

He watches himself, clothes torn from bullet holes and collar stained red and shoes tracking blood, reach out to grab the phantom of Vash by the shoulders.

"You didn't haveta come all the way out here, idiot, yer brother's still out there, you—"

"And leave you to fight all on your own? Not a chance!"

They did it together.

They're going to make it.

No tragic end, no wailing of grief, no dirt under nails from digging a crude grave. No, it's a what if. What if Wolfwood hadn't run off alone, what if Vash had gotten there earlier. What if. What if.

"Vash," he says, voice quiet as their echoes bicker and then stumble into each other in a tight embrace, as the phantom Wolfwood (alive, heart still beating strong, not dying; in love, happy, warm) laughs, tears streaking down his cheeks. "Vash, let's get out of here."

★ --;; The hand on Vash's shoulder can definitely feel how he's shaking all over as soon as it lands, adrenaline and horror that had already been rising as he'd stood there between master and pupil now crashing into him like a wall. The hand that had remained steady regardless now joins the rest of him with it's trembling, sights falling as it lowers and his finger pulling back off the trigger.

The sunglasses he's been wearing in replacement of his own, the ones Wolfwood had given him, don't serve to be as much of a shield as his old ones. When the mist clears, even just the bit, it's easy to see how wet they are Each word out of that corpse had been just as piercing as one of his own bullets, acid dripping through his ears and burning all the way through him.

And even though the body had been blown away, crumbled like the sand it had been left to rot upon, whatever had taken the place of its blood still remains there, an oozing, stark black mess on the concrete, an unignorable neon sign of what he'd done.

Staring down at it, the damn cracks, a spiderweb under the pressure of it all. A hiccup of a breath, a hard sniff, mouth in a crumpled line and the first stubborn tear rolling down his cheek, past the dark circles beneath his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he croaks, audibly trying to keep himself together through the wobble in his voice. He shouldn't cry. Shouldn't be crying. It's not his place to; that man hadn't hurt him like he'd hurt Wolfwood, his family. And Vash had failed him, too; had been too slow when he'd been needed most, when Wolfwood had gone on without him, all because of what Vash had done.

It had been what he wanted, hadn't it? For Wolfwood to understand that love. And then Vash had gone and been late. Had nearly been so here, too, hadn't he?

If he speaks any more, he'll break completely-- not able to even explain himself. All the anger has drained out of him entirely; he just feels string out, even if he can't be right now. Can't even get himself to turn.

[punisheye]

It's not the first time he's had his face in the mud with a weapon pointed down at him. It's cold and wet and clings to him uncomfortably, weighing down his limbs as he tries to move in a way to get the old man off of him.

Gunshots. One after the other. He feels Chapel's body jerk above him on impact, something splattering over his back and staining his clothes. Vash is a red blur in the mist, moving so fast that Wolfwood can barely process what's happening until Chapel is suddenly off of him and Vash is right between them.

The old man is on the ground, coughing up some sort of substance black as tar. Wolfwood slowly pushes himself up, hazily locating where his gun was kicked aside through the mist. He looks up at Vash standing there, tall and unwavering, gun steady as it points directly towards Chapel's chest.

And Chapel barks out a laugh in response to Vash's words.

"Do you think it was all to make myself feel big? Ah, Master Knives was right about you after all..."

There is no elaboration on that. The old man's eyes shine dangerously.

"Your love could never save this hopeless boy. He's no more alive than I... you know that, don't you?"

Wolfwood is creeping slowly over to where his gun is, fingers closing around it. He switches the safety on. His hands are shaking, just a little bit. Scared, maybe. He doesn't want to listen to what the ghost of Chapel is saying.

"Your time together is finite. And when it is over, he will always,

always,

always,

be nothing more than a corpse in the sand."

Another rattling laugh, followed by wet hacking sounds as Chapel spits up sludge, and a wind passes through the mist, making it swirl, blocking Wolfwood's vision for a few moments.

When it clears enough to see, the old man is gone.

Wolfwood swallows. Slowly, he pushes himself up from the muck and reaches over to put his hand on Vash's shoulder.

★ --;; The brief moment of disbelief is all that's needed for the old man to stitch himself back together, to have his tattered corpse upright even after being confined to that chair at the end of his true life. Vash spends just long enough frozen in place to see as Wolfwood is pinned to the ground, curses that moment of hesitation as that same white hot anger flares through his nerves. Even though it may not be entirely the same it's close enough, too similar to that day, and Wolfwood struggling and making eye contact is finally enough to break the spell.

Vash had already been too late for him once before. He refuses to ever be so again.

The Colt is in Vash's hand faster than could have been recognizable, eyes wide and bright and furious beneath furrowed brows. All he can think as the sound of another bullet rings clearly through the mist is 'Off'. It plants itself firmly into the man's shoulder; only the caliber of the bullet and the proximity are enough to cause the muscle to twitch on impact-- as sturdy as he is despite the appearance-- as Vash circles him, slow footsteps heavy. Speed isn't needed, not here. Off. Again. Off. Again.

Off. Off.

Each one is enough. They're not fatal, never are [liar], but each one is enough to lodge itself into what should still be a shambling corpse, into what should have stayed a putrid heap on the ground, unmoving. Enough to get him to look ( those red-rimmed eyes don't mean anything-- mourning something that never once was, never could be, that never once was truly there, only what they wanted to be ) enough to get the grip on Woflwood's arm to loosen just the bit as they tear into flesh still cold save for the heat of the unseen suns.

Off.

Instead of yet another bullet, this time Vash's knee rams itself into decrepit collarbone, feels what should have been a sickening crunch beneath the cover as the man is finally pushed back and up and off. A twist-- this time the back of the opposite heel, the sole of his boot making contact without restraint.

The rest of him is shaky, breath rattling too-loud in his lungs and shoulders heaving and heart beating too fast and the angry buzzing between his ears aa drowning sea; but his gun hand remains steady, pointed right in the center of the monster's chest as Vash looms. Wolfwood is behind him, now, Vash standing firmly between the two figures cloaked in black. Sludge paints the obscured pavement where blood should be, oozing out of wounds trying in vain to sew themselves back together. There's still one more bullet in the chamber.

"You think it's easy?" he asks, voice low and even. "Choosing the right thing, instead of mindless killing? Instead of hurting so many children?" His thumb cocks the hammer back. "Did it make you feel big?"

"Because it just shows how weak you are."

[punisheye]

"Vash," Wolfwood cuts in, voice sharp, eyes hard and jaw tense. "Yer really gonna let a ghost tell ya it's yer fault? You didn't make me go n'do what I did."

The ghost of Chapel lets out another rattling cackle. He's moving again, and it's with surprising coordination for a dead man. Like he's not dead at all. Like he could just stand up right now.

"Stronger than me? He couldn't even land a killing blow on the phantom that killed his friends—tried to kill you."

And he is standing then, tears and lacerations sealing themselves, broken and shattered bones settling back into place, skin reforming. The blood remains, as does the smell. The smell of death always followed Chapel, anyway. He's an imposing, dark figure there, like Wolfwood always saw him in his memories. In his nightmares.

"He won't even pull the trigger now!"

The movement is fast, so fast that Wolfwood has no time to react. That black cloak whips around with it. The ghoul twists the gun out of his hand and kicks it out of arm's reach, yanks Wolfwood's arm behind his back and knocks him to his knees.

Wolfwood, winded, can only let out a breathless yelp as he goes down.

And it's like Chapel's forgotten that Vash is even there now. Wolfwood thrashes and it only makes Chapel drive into his back harder, effectively pinning him down on the ground. "You... worthless child! You failure! You took everything we gave you and spat on it! All I did for you, for nothing! All you ever did was embarrass me!"

Wolfwood's squirming, still. Cold mud ruins his clothes and sticks to one side of his face, cakes into his hair. He's not injured here, he should be able to get up, but something about this Mist...

Chapel, old as he is, is still a formidable opponent. He's his teacher. He survived death countless times, and now he's here as some sort of horrible phantom to mock Wolfwood one last time. Wolfwood can hazily see the form of Chapel's Punisher materializing in the mist, and he does not want that biting into him at all.

Wolfwood doesn't say anything, he just stares at Vash like he's saying, What are you waitin' for? He's distracted! Help me out here!

★ -- ;; I didn't want to be worshiped, bites at the back of Vash's throat, sharp and harsh. Wouldn't even have deserved it. Neither of them had, false angels as they were, blips in time that Vash had so often believed had no place on that planet.

But the words cant find traction when the air gets squeezed from his lungs, when claws dig themselves so deeply into a wound poorly patched over, like so many before it. He may have claimed as much, all those months ago, that there had bee no change; that Nicholas D. Wolfwood had always been full of love, no matter how hard this man had tried to bury it.

The truth is, though, really, that it had been his fault all the way down, hadn't it? For so long, the thought has plagued the back of his mind, a familiar friend at the bottom of a bottle or hovering over his head on sleepless nights. That maybe if he hadn't dug tup that heart, then maybe he wouldn't have had to dig up a grave. And even further than that, that maybe if he hadn't been born in the first place, then the Eye never would have existed. Maybe some day in the distant future, Wolfwood could have had anormal life, like so many others that had been affected by Vash and Knives' existence.

Even as the mangled mass of bone and muscle jerks and shifts, Vash stays in place, doesn't reach for his Colt or move from where he's found himself rooted in place. What could he do? Any strength, any of what was barely holding this corpse together at the seams, could only have been a fraction of what Chapel had had in life, even confined as he had been, crippled by his own pupil. And even if he could, Vash would have taken it unflinchingly, willingly.

As much as Vash had blamed himself for the end, though, it doesn't replace the hurt that had been etched there before him, beaten into a boy far too young to have seen the horrors he had. It hadn't so much been taught to him as engraved in his skin, chisel and all. That hate for himself might run deeper, but anger burns brighter, and there's still plenty of it left over to cauterize the punctures this old man clearly wanted to put into him so badly.

Even when they don't get caught in Vash's chest, the words don't have time to take shape, Wolfwood's frame looming out of the swirling mist with all the rigidity and swiftness that such fury carries. By the time the muzzle of the gun is jammed against Chapel's skull, Vash still hasn't moved an inch.

Bright blue meets clouded brown, and the hard line of Vash's shoulders droops.

"You're right," he says, far more quietly than before. The same stiffness has sagged away from his tone as well; any of that cold evenness from before now simply sounds almost-- almost tired. "I've known that for a long time."

As he speaks, Vash's eyes steadily slide back down. Despite the exhaustion, his gaze is firm. "But being soft doesn't make you weak. He's stronger than you ever would have been."

[punisheye]

"You should be grateful."

That voice is low, cold. It speaks slowly, as if talking to a particularly incompetent child. And in the speaker's opinion, that's exactly what he's doing.

"Plucked from that slum of an orphanage and given purpose, and yet you continue to spurn it."

As Vash breaks through the mist, he'll see them: there is a young boy there before the towering figure in white. That boy can be no more than fourteen, but looks particularly small for his age. He's shivering, eyes wide, skin clammy. There is a gun in his shaking hands. Even with a face so round and soft with youth, his identity is unmistakable.

The man looming over him is unmistakable himself. Younger than Vash would remember, but not by much. There are less lines on his face, but his hair is already white. Instead of a beard there's a thin layer of stubble.

Neither of them seem to be aware of their audience.

The mist swirls then. A heap appears between the two. Looking closer, one would see that it's a body. No, not just a body. Whoever it is is still alive, just barely.

The boy tries to speak: "I'm so—"

"Enough. You are not sorry. If you were, you would do as you are told. But it seems that I, once more, have to do it for you."

And then the man brandishes a gun and points it right at the heap on the ground. One shot, two, three, four, more—overkill. His stone-faced expression and the way each shot illuminates him is almost hauntingly similar to the sight of a man in black shooting a samurai dead.

Blood splatters across the boy's face. He lets out a weak little whimper.

"This man was a traitor. He sought to destroy the Eye of Michael from the inside. And where would that leave your home? Without food, without money; no way to keep that hovel afloat. If you cannot kill anyone, how can you expect to keep your family safe?

"Do as I say, Nicholas, and all will be well."

The mist thickens around the three, obscuring them from sight. What's left is silence that seems to last forever.

And then it thins, and there is still a man there. Sitting, now, in a wheelchair. Older, clothes dark, torn from bullets. Blood is caked onto his face, in his hair. His skin is pale as death. He looks like he could be a corpse sat upright.

Until his head jerks up, eyes staring straight towards where Vash stands. The voice that comes from the bloody form of Chapel's throat is rough, creaking:

"Ah... it's you."

★ --;; This isn't.... it's not new, but that doesn't stop the rapid descent of mist and fog from striking a chill through the entirety of Vash's body. If anything, after the few moments it takes for the recognition to settle in, that same recognition is exactly what makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The sudden flood of it, roiling and descending as though in a dream, is familiar in a way he so much wish it wasn't.

"Just once," Vash huffs quietly to himself, as if trying to distract himself from the buzzing of his nerves beneath his skin, "Just once, could I catch a break?"

So much pain, blinding light. A memory like his is both a blessing and a curse, so many things so crystal clear-- it had only been a short time ago, at least sin comparison to the rest of his life, but the memory of the last time this mist had cut through bone and sense still sits so vividly behind his eyelids.

He doesn't know where anyone else is. Doesn't know what they might see. What might see them.

Moving. He's got to move. If he keeps standing here as he is, he won't find anyone. He's good at moving, he reminds himself. Good at channeling movement into his feet, quickly, instead of the spiraling of so many thoughts.

But as he does, it doesn't take long for voices to be heard. Or-- a voice, rather. Stern and harsh and biting. The sound of a bullet ricocheting off the pavement.

Vash's feet choose the direction to carry him in, without second thought.

@punisheye