#no i need wolfwood focus. i need to process things. i think i need to write vash burying him.

[orcelito]

now im just listening to 'If I Get High - II' on repeat while browsing the wolfwood tag and feeling #Pain instead of working on my project or presentation

i am fuckin going thru it y'all i am goin THRU IT

[full-of-mercy]

"—God, I."

Friends are waiting. That is—

That is terrifying in its own way. Stomach-flip in a manner he hasn't experienced in what feels like forever. There are so many variables, so many what-ifs.

"God."

For a moment, that is all he has the capacity to say aloud, tongue thick and breath shaking. The tears keep streaming. Ugly, prickling, reddening at the eyes and the nose, wet inhales, wet exhales, a blur of everything all around. No uglier than the black horror of serum overuse, if not overdose, perhaps.

And in it he is not alone.

Nicholas had always perceived Vash's extreme empathy as a weakness, a handicap that left him open to injury, to manipulation, to far worse. The innocence, or near-innocence, beggared belief—choosing to remain soft in a world that bit and cut and shot and sheared away all things good and gentle in the name of Survival, and reality remained short, sharp, painted with blood and gunsmoke. The way he would insist on burying the fallen every time was maddening. The way he would step in front of bullets for those who would sooner see his hide served up to whatever organization offering the most money. Forever willing to risk life and limb, to give himself up, rarely emerging unscathed, was gut-wrenching.

Maybe it remains.

But it is anything but weak. Nicholas learned that too late. Far too late, but he learned. And he is here, now, to remember that lesson, to begin to pick at understanding.

That love can survive. That hope can survive. It is not some delicate thing; it is a fighter, dirty-faced, bloody-handed, spitting teeth while rising for another go.

And it can be soft, too, in the right moments. It takes courage to be soft in a world that wants nothing more than to gore an exposed underbelly.

Lips press to lips, round and full and plush. Wolfwood reaches up to cradle the sides of Vash's neck, thumbs skirting his jaw, tears for tears and brow pinched. His sunglasses are elsewhere; there is no hiding the glint in his eyes, even amid the fading afterglow of markings he does not know he possesses. All that matters is leaning up, touching his brow to Vash's. All that matters is trying to work through the overwhelm, make sure that—

That it's okay. That they are as alright as they can be, interconnected, intertwined. It is all so new, so shockingly unique, that he cannot fully process. His heart eventually catches up, slowing as he steadies his breathing, still thunderstruck.

"—Yeah. Yeah. We— fuck. Yeah."

A deeper breath is a snotty sniffle, replete with hard blinks. Two. Three.

They have things to do. They need to get out of here.

Wolfwood drops an arm down around Vash's middle, bracing and counter-bracing to walk back over to the computer terminal. Meanwhile, in want of a cigarette or something, anything in his mouth, he fishes out one of the pocketed carob pods and shoves half of it into his teeth. The other half he twists off once he has a grip of it, offering to Vash without a second thought.

They can raid the stores for everything that will fit into Angelina's panniers and sidecar. Preserved food, clothing, serum, medicine. Data banks if Vash wants. They can do that on the way out. That will give him something to do with his hands while his mind pinwheels.

"You, uh."

Sniffle. Exhale. Inhale. It's a little mangled with the way he pushes stone-hard seeds out between his cheek and molars, but it's intelligible enough.

"You think. You think they'll be alright? The girls. Livio."

Will you be alright? Have I somehow fucked this up?

Unvoiced. Resonant. Nicholas cannot focus on the screen, attention straying and tumbling, questing for reassurance, for he knows not what else. 

Harmonizing is a connection. Imperfect if either party steels themselves to it; clinging to introspection instead of attuning to collective song. To see and be seen, to see through the eyes of another and for them to see through yours. 

That is a Plant’s existence. That is why loneliness cuts so deeply. A Plant that might live to suffer through terrible abuse could still call it living and ease that pain by sharing it with another. 

Vash has never fully, truly resonated with a human before. He has never tried. Matters of consent, of fear, of snuffing out the fragile flames of life he fought so hard to keep burning strong were reason enough to withhold his blessing and his curse from the human psyche.

Feeling with every fiber of your being takes its toll. Vash has had his moments; grief, rage, fear seeping from his body in a monstrous torrent capable of overwhelming the strongest of wills. Like when invisible strings animated macabre puppetry about their heads, or the seething power that lanced up towards the heavens, striking his brother for daring to bring the ark so close in those last fading moments after Wolfwood gave everything to protect Hopeland…

Or when he curled up alone on a cold, cold slab of stone, catching his fingers along the rigid grooves carved into its face in the shape of a cross beneath the shadow of the Punisher.

Despite his sorrow, the depths of which ripple through multiple lifetimes, Nicholas’s love eclipses all of that. Vash feels love as Nicholas feels it, an unstoppable force in of itself driving forward into whatever unknowns might lie beyond tomorrow.

The human capacity for love and the empathic resonance of a Plant. 

“Y-you’re one to talk,” Vash croaks. Like Wolfwood, tears stream freely down his face. They leave hot streaks over his cheeks, joined by runny-nosed sniffles and hiccups as he smooths the pads of his thumbs along equally wet cheekbones, equally sniffly breaths puffing against his nose.

He sucks in a breath through his mouth, tastes the salt that sneaks onto his tongue and the halting laugh that rises between them. 

There are no doubts left. They were washed away with the conceits of a coward who dared to think love might be overpowered by fear or disgust or that it would not be enough.

It was.

It is.

Vash feels certain he'll be ugly crying all the way back to Hopeland. He's already doing it now. Tears and mucous dribbling down his chin, leaving glistening spots that pitter patter to the metal floor below. His hands are still occupied, still tenderly brushing against Nicholas's cheeks, sweeping back tears and gently touching the vestiges of light wreathing his face. 

Vash knows he ought to make some effort to wipe away his own tears, just like they ought to get moving again. 

“Let's finish up h-here." His prosthetic finally falls away, but his flesh hand remains, trailing down to catch Wolfwood's chin and tip his lips up for a kiss tinged with salt and blood. He can copy and transfer any other useful data from the console into the onboard storage unit in his arm for them to analyze later if need be.

"We have a few friends who don't know they're waiting for you."