#anyway . ogoguh oof ouch

[amoirsetpacis]

★ --;; "Talk like what?"

It comes out bitter, mean. An angry old dog protecting the wound in its side. "Like I don't have all the answers?" He still sounds just as tired and wrung out as he feels, as though the nervous energy had all at once seeped through the soles of his feet down into the freezing pavement. All that's been left in its wake is the simmering pain that's been there for years, the anger that lies draped across it. " 'Cause I don't know how or when you got that in your head, but I've never had them."

Even without the denial of space, Vash wouldn't have gone to sit back down. There's a wall there, now; maybe one that had always been there. Had definitely always been there in some capacity, its corporeality shifting in and out of existence. Playing pretend that it hadn't helped either of them.

"And now you're here puttin' words in my mouth 'cause it's what you wanna hear again. That's never what I meant!" The more he talks the more that misplaced resentment and shame sits hot at the back of his neck, behind his ears, burns in his chest. At come point his fists had clenched at his sides.

"I'm mad 'cause you keep doin' stupid shit on my behalf and brushin' it off, 'cause god forbid I try and care about your wellbeing! You told me you don't wanna die, but you sure as hell don't know how ta' show it!"

"And then every time I try an' get it through your head it's either like talkin' to a brick wall or you gettin' mad at me for tryin' ta' help you in the first place! Mad at me for not carin' and then mad at me when I do! And I know I messed up by not talkin' about it! I know!"

The words coming out his mouth, the accusations being thrown— they don't make Vash feel any better. All they do is make that horrible feeling churning through him feel that much worse. But it's like a dam's burst open, the flow impossible to stop.

"No, I didn't want you to resent me for not talkin' about it— but even if I had, what would you have said? That I shouldn't have done it? I *know* that! I live with that every day! But he wouldn't listen, I couldn't just let him go and kill Liv after Nick had just—"

The words catch in his throat. At some point his entire body had tensed back up, muscles held in place so tightly even though the one who had made them that way wasn't physically there to keep then locked and frozen. It takes a good few moments of silence, steam rising up from heavy breaths, before his jaw and throat finally loosen enough to start croaking again.

" ... You still wanna call yourself the worst now?" he asks quietly. " 'Cause I'm tired of pretendin' to go along with it."

"You, of all people, should know how the both of us have lived!"

"I should?! You've nev—"

Even riled up into raising his own voice, the younger Stampede forces himself to stop his interruption, to bare clenched teeth barely showing out from scarf and hood. The tension feels like it snaps when his predecessor finally admits he's just as lost.

Ever a mirror, his own eyes sting with building tears. But he's the one who keeps his gaze steady onto the other during his rant, refusing to look away. When did they get so different...? He glances at his predecessor's hair, observes how pronounced his eyebags have become. Maybe things were like this from the start.

Without anyone sitting beside him, Vash turns and hugs his knees, denying the space for the other man to return to.

"Never thought I'd hear you talk like this." They'd had their disagreements before, frequently at that, but this might be the worst he's heard. The bitterness and sobering disappointment is clear in his voice. It's hard to reach for more compassion when everything is at stake. Even harder when it's Vash—this alternate self he's idealized for all the while he's known him. Reality couldn't be further from that.

"So what?" Now it's his turn to scoff, to speak with bitter derision. "You're leaving it there? Givin' up on him? 'S that what you meant, 'how we've lived'?

"I don't get it. You were scared of me resenting you if we didn't talk about him, but you never stepped up. You're tellin' me you 'thought too much about it', 'tried not t'think about it'; but no, you didn't do anything about it. You never talked with me, even just t'warn me of what we're up against, n'now you're mad at me for…"

For caring? For trying to do what he thought was right?

"We're outta time. We don't have the luxury of bein' afraid t'make choices." Fingers tighten against himself. "You wanna run again, go. But I can't just leave anyone caught in a tight spot. Includes him. …Includes you."