#steal my heart‚ i promise i won't tell -- forgivenpunishment.

[angelictyphoon]

@forgivenpunishment from (x)

“Yeah!” 

Utterly, completely, and blithely unaware, Vash smiles as they look out over the flat rooftops of Little Monrovia and the rich, twilight purples that hide behind amber clouds. He rests his chin on his palms and studies Wolfwood’s expression form the corner of his eye. 

What an odd way to talk about someone he clearly cares so much about. 

“See, there’s the real clincher,” Vash reasons, and a wave of spiky blond hair moves with him as he bobs his head. “Even if you think you aren’t, you’re stronger for not having to hide your weaknesses from someone who cares about you.”

If only Wolfwood knew just how much of a hypocrite Vash the Stampede can be for ignoring his own advice.

Vash blinks.

Wolfwood appears to be looking back at him quite intently. The funny sort of look Vash swears he’s seen on Wolfwood’s face before, only it has always been diminished by the dark shades over his eyes.

WIth as brusque as their lines of dialogue (or insults) have been, it couldn’t be–

“Or, you know. Maybe don’t pick someone who’s such an idiot,” Vash laughs nervously.

[angelictyphoon]

He feels far from angelic, readily meeting every thrust of Wolfwood's fingers and establishing a heady rhythm between them. Vash acknowledges Nicholas’s need with the warmth of his flesh hand, gathering the beads of precome beneath his fingers and alternating his grip up and down from base to tip.

First times are the natural habitat of educated guesswork and shaping boundaries. Form and function he understands and might even be considered comparable in the case of Plant biology. 

“You…you're…Nnnnn–Please stop complimenting me, it's really distracting!” His plea emerges somewhere between shuddery and whimpering because the friction and heat of Wolfwood's hand as it slides up and down along his own arousal feels so much better than he has ever dared to imagine. 

Mistake, mistake, mistake. Repeating the word on his head doesn't make this feel any less right. How right it feels when he meets the silvery gleam of desire in Nicholas's eyes with his own, how right it feels when he finally coaxes the hand between his legs away so he can straddle Wolfwood all the way down to the hilt with a flash of bared teeth as he settles. 

Everything he could want right now is right here. 

His palm flattens flush over Wolfwood’s sternum as he rests his weight on his right hand, closing his eyes to heartbeat and resonance as they move together in the darkness. 

Vash... trusts him.

It's certainly a mistake, but he does not say so in favor of keeping the mood... like this. Steamy, sultry, tender—there's a word for it, he knows, but Wolfwood refuses to admit it. Refuses to subject such an angel to the burden of his sins, except for... Well, he can hang onto these ones. What does God know about lust anyway?

He'd never believed in any of the cultish religion instilled in him through his mentor and the Doctor. Even torture couldn't make him believe in God, or the Angels, or whatever higher powers that be, but—

There certainly is an angel in front of him. Above him, even.

"I trust you too," Wolfwood whispers with a hint of strain in his voice, "Wouldn't be doin' this if I didn't."

... Among other reasons. He's never really been one for sex until now; it's as if finding someone he wants to protect, someone he cares for, unlocked the craving entirely. He'll protect Vash, no matter what. He's never going to lose him—not ever again. If there's one less wound Vash has to bear because of him, or if he can take some of the pain away, it's all worth it.

He wraps his free hand around the back of Vash's head gently, and holds him to his neck carefully. With a sigh of want, of need, Wolfwood kisses the blond's jaw lightly. His hand is led down, down between slippery thighs—there's more to Vash's alien anatomy than Wolfwood had originally thought.

"I see," he purrs in his soothing baritone voice, "Lucky me." Wolfwood breathes a light chuckle against Vash's neck as two of his fingers part tender lips and dip into the source of the slick. His breath hitches at the nudge of his waistband, and he assists Vash with a tilt of his hips and a wiggle to get his underwear off.

It feels as though every nerve in his body is getting set off, even with just this. This is slower and softer than he's ever deserved; it must be a dream. It has to be.

Without the restrictive fabric in the way, Wolfwood sits hard and heavy underneath Vash, smooth mauve skin akin to blush with a slight glimmer of precome layering the tip. Also flustered, the undertaker buries his hot face into the Plant's neck, trying desperately not to turn this whole thing around. He wants this, he really wants it, so why is it just so... embarrassing?

Breathe in, breathe out. He's got this.

Setting teeth to neck instead, Wolfwood crooks his wrist into Vash and presses forward, using his precise digits to try to hit the perfect angle within. As he moves, he focuses on preparing Vash for more—all Wolfwood wants is for Vash to feel comfortable the further they go so he can feel good and have fun. His thumb manages to stroke the underside of Vash's length as his hand pumps into him and—God—he wants this man so bad and he doesn't care one bit how.

"Oh, Vash, you're like a real-life angel, you know that?"

[angelictyphoon]

❝  healing isn’t always about putting yourself back together the way you were.  it’s about making something new out of the pieces that are left.  ❞

@forgivenpunishment (7 to Grace)

Vash has no remark to make in response, not right away, but that has been the common pattern of conversation for him since he found himself in their misfit group. He has had nothing but time to remain inside his own head, and so, remembering that he must place his words outside of it is a habit he must break. 

Such habits are not unmade over the course of a few hours or even a few days. 

What if there isn't enough of him left? What if what he has still isn't enough? 

The problem with wanting to remain close but not too close, within sight but not within view, is that they need only look up to find him perched at some altitude at any given moment. Vash strums his fingers along the top of his knee as he looks out to the smoldering embers of their campfire. 

Not every wound becomes a scar, but every scar is by nature indelible. 

Healing meant living, not just existing, not just drawing breath and playing phantom on a dying world. The thought of moving on terrifies him. Moving on feels like letting go, and he has never been terribly good at that. 

But they did it. Each of them, in their own way. Even if it is still a process. 

“How did you do it?” He asks, turning his gaze back to Nick. The intervening years have aged his stare far more than his face will ever show. “How did you forgive yourself for failing them?”

[angelictyphoon]

❛ working together again, it’s just like old times. ❜ -@forgivenpunishment

How can you say that so easily? 

The question bobs up and down in his throat along with his Adam’s apple as he swallows and tries to convince himself to say anything actually worth saying. This, this, this, and that. Every reason to give up and expect him dead and gone, yet Wolfwood found him anyway. Found him with that look on his face, like Wolfwood has never seen anyone so wonderful, like Vash is anything but the monster he knows he is. 

A monster– that is what Wolfwood spent two years looking for. The kind people whisper about when the pale faces of the moons are full, the kind they think of when new obituaries for a disaster continue to find their way into the newspaper after all this time.

Wolfwood came to him with rumors. Just rumors, but even rumors have power. 

Are they truly the hunters this time, or is it merely another trap for Vash the Stampede? Maybe, maybe not. It would have changed nothing, because it was Wolfwood standing in the doorway that morning, and that was reason enough.

 “Yeah. Just like old times.” The response is accompanied by a smile. A smile that is strained, stretched thin across his lips like it shouldn’t be there in the first place. He shields his eyes with the edge of his hand as he looks out towards the endless sea of sand, all the better to look away from Wolfwood and the unchanged warmth in his expression. 

Not a single charge station or town in sight.

His toma warbles and adjusts its footing in the sand to keep from slipping down the face of the dune that has granted them some respite from the twin suns’ scorching heat. 

Time for a change of subject.

“Should call it a day soon. If we set up for camp now the birds should have enough time for rest and water by the time we find a place to resupply.”

[angelictyphoon]

Trading the lone cigarette back and forth is strangely soothing. With a little time, the smoke is less irritating. He doesn’t know whether he can say he finds as much enjoyment out of the whole activity as Wolfwood does, but…Having company is good. Being near Wolfwood is good. The math is surprisingly simple. 

“That's a lot of words to use if you're trying to say that I'm rubbing off on you.” The people who can knowingly call Vash the Stampede their friend are few and far inbetween. For good reason. Better for him, better for them. Despite the title, the contract that drove him to do what he had to do; the leash that kept him compliant…The good had never left. “I’m not that vain,” he sniffs, sounding offended by the suggestion. 

He knows full well he’ll never get Wolfwood to admit it aloud anytime soon, but it helps to know that he knows what’s true and what’s not, and Vash just offers Wolfwood a deliberately discerning smile as the last of their shared cigarette burns out to a stub.

They give it a short, but memorable burial service in a nearby mound of sand.   

The night is getting late. And cold.

Vash’s bottom lip juts out just a tiny bit when Nicholas finally rises to his feet, leaving Vash’s flank bereft of shared body heat. Granted, he was the one who stalked off during their argument so it’s his own fault for being out here. 

“If I have you to keep me warm, it’s not so bad,” Vash teases, accepting the proffered hand. Warmth that he can feel even now through the leather of his glove. “Some nights I even wonder if we need the fire.” 

They’ll have many more arguments in the future to come, he imagines, a constant back and forth between banter and chewing each other’s heads off. There are better moments to look forward to, even one like this– passing a cigarette between them in the chilly breeze of the evening after wrestling in the sand like idiots. 

It’s a matter of what they can share together.

“Can’t be Gunsmoke’s Goodest Boy without my beauty sleep.”

Sitting next to Vash sharing a smoke is far more tender of a moment than the cold argument the two were having but minutes ago. Wolfwood can't exactly say that he deserves this, but the two wind up passing the cigarette back and forth—the undertaker savors the way Vash's lips part softly when he exhales, the way they take the vice between them...

God, why is he staring at Vash's lips?

Their sides touch as they lean together, "Hm. Wonder how rich I'd be if I didn't spend half my paychecks on cigarettes..." That is the rub with the habit of smoking—it's expensive. Unfortunately, the itch for cigarettes is stronger than his desire for riches, which leads to long nights under the stars rather than in a bed, but if it leads to nights spent like this... maybe it's not so bad.

"Hey, plenty of saints did illegal, unsavory things. Probably," Wolfwood laughs, "And if you got any statues, let me know so I can go scratch somethin' funny into them."

He doesn't mention the fact that Legato was the mastermind behind the steamer attack. He doesn't mention that if he weren't there, Livio likely wouldn't have been there—that it wouldn't have mattered if they'd recruited the reporters or not, that each misfortune was carefully calculated by a puppetmaster dedicated to making his life miserable.

...One that is likely still trying to make his life hell. Somewhere.

Wolfwood nudges Vash in the side, "If anyone's friends with you and isn't a big jerk sometimes, I'd like to meet 'em. They're probably suspicious as fuck. And I wouldn't call me a good guy—I just happen to be followin' Gunsmoke's Goodest Boy, is all. Maybe you should try lookin' in a mirror if you wanna see a good guy, yeah?"

They finish the singular cigarette like this, and Wolfwood lets out a loud yawn alongside a huge stretch of his arms. For a moment it almost looks as if he'll wrap an arm around the Typhoon—but of course he doesn't.

"Should probably get some sleep," he muses, eyeing his sleeping bag, "You still kicking yourself out to sleep on the couch, or are you gonna come back and keep warm by the fire?"

He stands to his full height and offers Vash a hand to help him up—an offer he can easily reject.

[angelictyphoon]

“You’re welcome,” Vash responds, not realizing until they’ve stumbled past the threshold that Wolfwood is not awake to hear him. It’s stupid, it’s dangerous to get attached, and yet Vash can do nothing about the fluttering behind his sternum as he watches Wolfwood’s resting face and recalls the lingering warmth where their fingers met. 

Balancing Wolfwood precariously against his chest, Vash pockets the key and nudges the door to their single shut behind him. 

They find room to trust despite everything that has happened and everything they have done. Even if they can’t talk about it. Vash moves further into the room, pulling back the top cover and gently easing Wolfwood onto the mattress. He takes his time. The loafers come off and he gently sweeps the edge of his hand to brush the fringe of Wolfwood’s bangs out of his eyes. Back on goes the blanket, and Vash steps away to retrieve a dusty glass off the vanity. Briskly cleaned under the bathroom faucet, then filled with water and left by the nightstand for whenever Wolfwood found himself thirsty. 

What else?

Vash stands in the middle of the room, pensive and tracing outlines of scant furnishings before snapping to. Blinds. Wolfwood has made mention of his gifts before, but a little extra thoughtfulness never hurts. Vash spends a moment to gaze out to the glittering lights of the town before drawing them closed.

Then, pulling up one of the chairs from the nearby table, Vash settles down for the night watching the slow rise and fall of Wolfwood’s breathing. 

“Good night, Wolfwood.”

The night begins to grow hazy after they clear the crosswalk—the liquor catches up with Wolfwood in a rare moment of real drunkenness. Being curled up in Vash's arms is... warm. Though the pangs of alcohol-based sadness and guilt scratch at his throat, Vash's heartbeat stabilizes him.

It lulls him to fall limp in Vash's arms, ear to his chest, hair a shaggy mess.

Anxiety will prickle at him in the morning as he deals with the hangover (using about five cigarettes, but Vash has made sure he's safe tonight, and that's comforting to Drunk-Wolfwood right now. Comforting enough to let his guard down—out in the open—and fall asleep.

Some noises and feelings without images attached to them fill his mind in flicker-flashes. Again, his body wants to panic at the loss of sense, of control, but that heartbeat again—even against its metal cage—saves him. While Vash fumbles for the key, the undertaker—half asleep—reaches into his pocket and meekly pulls one out.

His body seems to move on its own as his hand beckons for Vash's with a slight flail, then flops onto it when it arrives. The room key rests between their palms.

Drowsily, still deep in his stupor, Wolfwood cracks open heavy eyelids, revealing the gray-turned-silver eyes—just a hint of them.

"Hey Vash," he mumbles, voice gruff and weak, "...Thanks."

That'll have to do for now. Consciousness fully slips away; the alcohol does its job and fights off insomnia for a night.

[angelictyphoon]

Touch for the sake of it is not a common feature in his life. Physicality, minor affections without fear, without expectation, without pain, lures him like a moth to flame. 

Wolfwood does not shove him off, at least not for the moment, and Vash takes a great deal of pleasure in that. Not defenseless, but certainly trusting when Wolfwood begins threading his fingers through wisps of blonde-black hair, Vash’s purr resonates through the tent like a primal thrum. 

Unfortunately, he made it weird.

Hadn’t meant to, doesn’t know what he means to, but…He almost envies how well Wolfwood knows himself. The life of Eriks is one he will not return to again. These mornings as of late, Vash wakes up wondering whether he can manage a day to just be Vash the Stampede or if he is the Humanoid Typhoon. 

Right now he’s a freakish in-between, blundering around in the dark wanting things he can’t have. Wanting a person he shouldn’t have. There is no parity through which the nature of his own being does not interfere.

Alien.

Inhuman.

“...You never seemed lost to me.” 

On the contrary, Vash always admired Wolfwood’s singular focus on his mission. His. Not Conrad’s, not Knives’s. Beaten, broken, bruised, used, and still, the fire in Wolfwood’s heart burned all the same. The need to protect Hopeland, the place he grew up in, the kids he grew up with, the selfless caretakers who raised him. Vash had forgiven him the moment he recognized the fury that blazed in those gray eyes as a kindness, a fierce instinct to protect despite what his hands had wrought as the sandsteamer rolled across the dunes and straight towards Hopeland. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Vash hedges, and that particular phrase represents the usual beginnings of one of his patently bad ideas. The voice of reason, evidently, loses the battle with his heart; a nervous, fluttery thing stuck somewhere in his throat.

Wolfwood wanted to stay.

“You’ve seen my home. Met Brad, Luida, and the whole crew. I’d really like it if after we see everyone at Ship Three–” and Vash slows then, studying Wolfwood’s reaction with a wide-eyed plaintiveness that is both confession and acceptance of whatever answer may come, “I’d like to see Hopeland. With you.”

Wolfwood looks down at the blond currently making a residence on his thigh, and raises a hand to push him off.

Well, he should push him off. Should...

He palms the top of Vash's head, about to shove, then—

—then his grip softens. It softens, and his heart softens, melts like it did that one night, and he runs his fingers against Vash's scalp. He continues the motion, petting the man soothingly, slowly, perhaps with a slight tremor. He could break Vash if he wanted to. Could hurt him, physically, mentally, emotionally...

But instead he chooses love, and comes undone.

"Well, don't put it like that," Wolfwood starts, quietly, "I don't always flirt around with my..." He sighs, failing to put up the front that covers the slight hurt Vash's words stir up.

Letting Vash go to Knives was one of the hardest things he had to do. One of the most cowardly, too. He remembers how tight his throat was—how much it hurt—when Vash thanked him. He's had nightmares about it. He, admittedly, had pleasant dreams about Vash as well, but the nightmares were more common.

"No, it made my 'job' harder, actually," he mumbles definitively, "I... wasn't sure you remembered all that. From that one night on the balcony. Didn't wanna overstep. I guess."

He should stop petting the mess of blond hair lying on his thigh, but he can't. Vash is addictive. Once he let the Stampede have an inch of space in his mind, it was over for him. Of course he still loves Vash. There's love and fear in equal balance, strength and weakness, determination and doubt. Does he agree with everything Vash does? No. Does Vash agree with everything he does? No.

They ground each other. Show new perspectives. Vash more often showing Wolfwood than the other way around, but sometimes miracles happen. Wolfwood finds himself licking his lips nervously—a dry mouth makes words hard to speak into existence. Fingers pause in thought as he finds the right words to say.

"I don't think I can leave you. Not again. I get kinda... lost... I guess... without you."

There's a loud silence after. Wolfwood resumes running his fingers through Vash's hair.

[angelictyphoon]

“Woah, hey–” Aaand he’s up. Vash rests a palm flat on the ground behind him for an additional point of balance. They would never meet. The Wolfwood of this world and the one pacing restlessly before him now, caught in the visceral grip of knowing someone he’s seen in the mirror his whole life. 

Their very core, what makes them the same person from one universe to the next and– Wolfwood lays it bare. He spells it out because Vash the Stampede is a spiky-headed idiot who’d sooner wallow alone in his own grief, bound and anchored to a few precious, fixed points in time. If Vash refused to listen to him in this world then maybe it needed to be pounded through his thick skull by as many versions of Wolfwood as possible. 

Right now there is just the one. Younger, perhaps, but no less changed by the people he has met.

The rings glinting on Wolfwood's hand did not escape Vash’s notice.

Vash breathes wetly and scrubs the back of his hand against flushed skin by the time Nick sits back down. Out, Vash extends his flesh and blood hand, hesitating only briefly before clenching it into the sleeve of Wolfwood’s shirt and pulling him close into a loud, sniffling embrace. Brow tucked against cheek, tears wetting his nose, then the rest of his face as he nuzzles in with shuddering breaths.

Apologies meant for the dead have little worth. The urge is there, nonetheless. Prostrate, whimper, convince himself that he does not deserve happiness. The void has beckoned him before. How much nicer it would be to simply feel nothing, to stop. An urge that could become nearly deafening if he let himself drown in it. 

If Wolfwood can still believe in him after learning everything, the reason behind the inescapable hush that now shrouded the desert, maybe that's all he needs to keep going. 

With focus and measured breathing through, Vash can hear it as he tucks in, greedy for sound; a steady drumbeat. Vibrant and vital, the pulse of life, of someone living and loving. The sound is exactly the same. A fresh cascade of tears patters onto the sandy ground like gems glowing with firelight. 

“I said I would, didn't I?” Even if he himself didn't exactly believe it at the time. Small steps. Reality checks, too, in the case that someone must remind him he is still here. Still breathing. 

“I'll stay with you all.”

Vash smears wet tracks of tears on his own cheeks ardently across Wolfwood’s face like an overly affectionate cat. “You’d think I’d have a better sense of direction after all this time, but I guess I’ll always be a little lost…”

Hands folded, eyes downcast, Nick is silent for a good long while, allowing the crackling of the fire to speak in his place. How does one respond to that? Sure, he's been through his fair share of horror and tragedy, but in the end he's the lucky one—he's engaged to both his Vash and the whirlwind that is Meryl Stryfe.

Engaged. Him, of all people. Whether he can believe it himself or not, it's a truth, and now while he has to consider a future that was never meant for him, their counterparts deal with grief from losing those dreams. It feels like theft.

Hell, the older shades knew their companions for years, by the sound of it.

He furrows his brow as he stares at each granule of sand. It feels like forever ago that he was in a similar position as this Vash, talking to Nicholas about how sorry his life was—God, he didn't even know the half of it then. His digits fidget with the rings linked together on his left ring finger.

There's no use scolding Grace. He's sure that the man has imagined his Wolfwood scolding him to cope—or, worse, to punish himself.

Nick shakes his head slowly, "You took good care of him. There's millions of other situations that could've happened, but maybe a handful that actually..."

He catches himself, exhales.

"...What I mean is—you're not the only one who made mistakes. I'm sure he had as many regrets as you do now. And—well—I think at the top of that list would be—"

How do you try to comfort someone in this situation?

"Rrgh," Nick puts his hands to the back of his head, frustrated, trying to find the right words, "Look—I—he—it's not..." There's an avalanche of words tumbling out of his mouth and he wishes he could just turn around and take everything back. Who is he to try and comfort him? Why should he listen to him?

"How do I put this—" he sighs through his teeth, then looks up at Vash genuinely, "He failed you too. So don't carry his burden. Let it rest with him."

Unable to take it sitting down anymore, he stands up hastily and with sudden fervor—unnaturally emotional. "He'd want you to be happy, damn it!" his fists are clenched, his throat tightens as he tries not to sob his way through this, "So what if I'm dead?! You can't just give up, alright? It can't all be for nothing, you know?! It doesn't just—doesn't just end because you say it does... because he's not there, because none of them are... You still wake up tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and you keep going because if you don't then they're really gone! If you give up, then it was all for nothing!"

He swipes at his eyes with the crook of his arm, "If I'm gonna—If he's dying, he doesn't give a fuck what the world does to him! He just wants you to be happy—just wants you to have a future somewhere. He wants to watch you hope again, wants to see your damn goofy smile—to hell with the rest of it! You deserve to be happy, and he wouldn't care if he's there for it or not as long as there's—as long as you have somewhere, something, someone."

Trembling, sniffling, Nick crumbles back down to where he was sitting.

"If you're alive, then there's hope. You were—are—his hope, alright? I can't... can't put it simpler than that. If Vash the Stampede is happy, then he's happy too, wherever he is. So... so stay with us."

[angelictyphoon]

“Like I'm not having just as hard a time as you are getting my brain unscrambled,” Vash gasps on an inhale that trails into a quiet whine as he hips tic forward into the warmth of Nicholas's hand. Coalescing his scattered thoughts into something coherent beyond the mantra of want bleeding into need and his fingers divoting desperately into Wolfwood’s shoulder for leverage is asking a lot of a guy who’s never had to describe his physiology in the heat of the moment before. 

Trying times, this. 

“I’ve honestly never– mmn, ah.” Words, how troublesome. He’s working on finding them even as he drops his weight onto Wolfwood’s torso and noses against the side of his neck to muffle himself and hide his own embarrassment. “It all feels good…Because it’s you and…I just…I trust you.” 

Permission granted, and all that.

Somehow dodging bullets and insults is easier than talking about first times. His face feels like it’s on fire, but they’ve gotten this far. 

So Vash decides on a different track which mostly involves pouring his energy into more open-mouthed kisses and insisting upon stroking the inside of his thigh with a few tugs of Nicholas’s free hand. There and more, he hopes to communicate with an encouraging pulse of light every time Wolfwood’s fingers pass over his Plant markings, the thrumming roll of his purr, and his own hands as they wander down to Nicholas’s waistband again to tug down his boxer briefs. 

As Wolfwood helped peel away Vash's leathers, his eyes couldn't part from the growing appendage between the downy blond's legs. Literally downy. Angelic, even, as if that were any surprise.

The glowing is beautiful as he traces the cyan pattern from hip to thigh before taking his sex in palm, stroking it as he would do to himself. Nicholas's own skinny slacks hang below his hips—belt unlocked, fly down—only his boxer briefs provide him with any sort of decency. It's only a shred of decency though; the outline of his own arousal sits heavy underneath.

Without his shirt on, further branding mars the skin of his forearms—two matching crosses reiterate exactly who he belongs to, as if the Eye isn't enough. He's not sure how the markings stay after injuries (he knows, he's tried), but there they remain. Perhaps they're there due to the mental trauma—they've fully sunken into his subconscious, his image.

He groans with need, wanting to kiss Vash again and again and again, so he bends upwards to meet the blond's face and does as he continues to stroke him. Wolfwood's fingers wrap around the extension and push and pull; practicing well-rehearsed motions with a slight twist as he crests the tip.

"Okay," Nicholas mumbles against Vash's lips, "What next, Blondie? Just like this? Does this feel good?"

His gaze wanders down, down, latching onto Vash's slick thighs. He dares not move his hands without Vash's guidance, but God, would he like to explore him.

"Do anything you want to me. Full permission to tell me what to do, too."

[angelictyphoon]

“Maybe.” Maybe if they had boarded the sand steamer a day earlier, maybe if he hadn't tried to ditch the reporters, maybe if he reached his sister sooner they never would have had to worry about Hopeland. Vash grimaces and soothes his throat with two fingers after Wolfwood reclaims his stolen cigarette. “Maybe it would have been destroyed if you hadn't been there.”

Up until that point he had seen Wolfwood annoyed, angry, impatient, frustrated even, but never afraid. 

Teary-eyed, Vash swipes beneath his waterline with a finger and peers at Nicholas with a plaintive sniff. “What's that supposed to mean? If I'm spending all my double dollars on cigarettes that means I won't have enough for bullets. Or donuts. Or real food. Or a bed. Figured I'd see for once why you like them so much…”

Mostly, they just remind him of Wolfwood now. 

Vash grumbles as Wolfwood waggles the cigarette in his line of sight. He appraises it with narrowed eyes as he plucks the proffered smoke out of the undertaker's fingers. “I've done plenty of illegal, unsavory things.”

Saint, Nicholas says. Not wanting to kill people doesn't make him a saint. 

Recalling the manner in which Wolfwood breathed in through his nose while holding the cigarette, Vash attempts to replicate his technique. It helps that he is better prepared for the spiced smoke to fill his lungs this time, even if he still feels the urge to cough on the next exhale. 

“Well, you know, one thing leads to another and the next thing you know they've named a statue after you or something.” That seems like the worst token of appreciation possible for a guy like Wolfwood. “And sometimes they stick you with a multi-million double dollar bounty.”

Vash smiles and glances at his companion out of the corner of his eye as he holds the cigarette back out for Nicholas to take. 

“It’s okay. I know you're a good guy even if you're a big jerk sometimes.”

Wolfwood is about ready to snap at Vash, to pick a fight with him, to raise the tension as the man takes his cig away from him, but something stops him. Maybe it's the genuine nature of his tone or the way he's trying to help with his identity crisis; Nicholas finds himself stunned. He scratches at his neck awkwardly.

"I guess I technically wasn't," Wolfwood mutters, followed by a long silence behind tinted glass and a blank face. He continues to stare as Vash runs through potential titles—then the man tries to smoke, and he can't hold it together.

The undertaker laughs heartily as Vash coughs; the laugh feels like cleaning cobwebs from a dusty attic. He has been in his head for too long and he's too young to have an identity crisis. He's not sure who he is anymore, but one thing is for certain:

He is with Vash. Wholly, entirely, genuinely... hell, eternally even. Wolfwood can't imagine (unfortunately he can imagine) his life without the blond in it. Living before him was hardly living at all.

"Not sure I can call myself the 'Protector of Hopeland' considerin' I was the reason it was just about wiped out by a sand steamer," he had a lot of time to reflect on that, too much time to reflect on that, "But I do know I can be that other thing. I'd say your right-hand man, but it looks like you need more of a left-hand man."

Nicholas scoots to sit next to Vash and pats him on the back to get the smoke out; he grins wide and uses the opportunity to snatch his cigarette back and show the blond how it's really done. "Goddamn Needle-noggin, it's like you've never smoked. Can't tell me that in the span of your long-ass life you've never smoked anything before. You may think yourself a saint, but you're not that much of a saint, are you?"

Smoke blows east with the slight breeze, and he turns his attention back to Vash. He holds the fragrant cigarette out to him, "Wanna try again?"

[angelictyphoon]

Pretending– they have done plenty of that. Pretending not to know, when they know perfectly well. Wolfwood does not pretend now. Not out loud, not through a droll retort, not even to tease. He wants this. They both want this. To want someone, to have them. Touch and response, breath for breath.

“I want you.” 

Vash runs his hand down along Wolfwood’s obliques, circling down around the jut of his hip where it peeks over the top of his trousers, with a slow, purposeful study of unmarred skin and the trail of curled hairs down Wolfwood’s navel. He has witnessed first hand the power of the small blue vials. Broken bones and torn flesh; terrible injuries mended in a matter of seconds. 

How many more, never seen, never known? 

Completely focused, Vash leans down to kiss Wolfwood in the same motion he undoes the a button and zipper to curl mismatched fingers around Wolfwood's arousal with a steady, stroking rhythm. 

“Huh,” Vash utters through a breathy laugh as they come up for air and he buries his face against the crook of Wolfwood’s neck. “Would’ve figured ‘whatever I have in mind’ is generally a bad thing.” 

How far will they go? How far does Wolfwood want to go? So far so good, so far so not panicking yet. 

Vash reaches with his prosthetic, angling his weight off to one side so that he can circle fingers around Wolfwood’s wrist and guide his hand past the waistband of his underlayer and towards the feather-wreathed bud aching between his legs. He attempts a belated warning.

“Wolfwood– I, uh. It’s. I…It’s a little different down there.” 

Oh, there’s the panicking now. 

His back's against the wall—well, against the bed—and there's nowhere to run... even if he really wanted to. Sure, he could tell Vash to stop—and he would!—but it'd be a lie to say he's never... thought of this before. It's strange, and it's new, and it's confusing, because he's never felt the need for someone before he met Vash. He never had the time, sure, but he also simply lacked the interest.

Now he's with Vash, this specific man, and want smacks him like... like a trailer in the desert. Yeah. Like that. Even when he thought he lost Vash, a piece of him held onto the yearning like a prayer, as though if he believed hard enough he'd bring back Vash.

Well it... it kind of worked. Thanks, God.

Eyes dilate like a cat catching its prey (or maybe catching a nap with its person) and his breathing destabilizes. The touch of skin to skin is electric, addictive. It reminds him of his body's natural desire to be held, to be cared for, and perhaps even to be loved. None of these are feelings he deserves—but Vash, who he reveres—thinks otherwise.

Skin twitches with each press and drag of a finger—he thinks he moan-whines again; his head is a mess of pulsing mind and roaring blood. Roaring blood which... seems to be rushing downstream, his body and arousal both responding to the blond's treatment.

Wolfwood looks down at his bare skin with a fair layer of black hairs, then looks to Vash's hand, searching for where exactly his focus is.

"Spoil me...?" he croaks, "S-sure. Go ahead—you can... do whatever you have in mind, Blondie." What does Vash want? Well, he's not sure, but whatever it is is bound to fill his mind with thoughts.

[angelictyphoon]

Perfectly demure, Vash eases the pressure of his kisses from scorching and needy to chaste and indulgently lazy pecks to the areas on Wolfwood’s face which have garnered the most heat and color. “I will!” 

And kiss away he does.

Restraint. Wherever it went, whether it rolled under the bed or flew out the window, Vash wouldn’t mind if it left them alone long enough for him to enjoy this. There would certainly be hell to pay later, once he had a chance to sit down and think about it and replay every moment in excruciating detail.

What little good has come from wanting has never actually stopped Vash from doing so. What’s more quintessentially human than wanting? 

Wolfwood looks about as dazed when they first met. Granted, the circumstances are not exactly comparable as far as being rammed with a multi-ton vehicle in the middle of the desert, but the thrust of it is about right. The safe assumption, considering Wolfwood hasn’t attempted to scramble away and flee the room like a headless tomas is that maybe, just maybe, Wolfwood is enjoying this as much as he is. 

“You could stand to be a little spoiled.” Vash hoods his eyes. Past the splayed front of Wolfwood's jacket and shirt, he traces the contours of Wolfwood's body with his palms. Broken and healed again more times than anyone should ever have to suffer through. To live, because the dead cannot protect anyone, but living tasks them with more than just eating and sleeping. 

Asking for permission precedes every point of contact, every action.

May I…?

Removing Wolfwood's jacket, unbuttoning his shirt, touching flesh and blood hand to bare skin, happens with reverence. 

Wolfwood has gone red with rage before, faced heat exhaustion, screamed, cried, all sorts of reasons that one could have for blush the warmth of a sizzling frying pan—but this? Embarrassment, endearment, something hotter...

Attraction? Vulnerability? Desire?

Oh, he's feeling desire, alright. He can feel it growing like a pit in his stomach; a heat roiling through his abdomen. It's alarming.

Has Wolfwood felt like this before while thinking about Vash? Sure—but the source has never been so close, touching, pushing...

He blinks his eyes open at the compliment, ready to refute it, but Vash has other ideas and kisses him with ferocity. There's a hum, a whine, that leaves his lips at the contact—he hardly recognizes it as being his own noise. Wolfwood is nearly cross-eyed as he searches for a hint of reason in Vash's response. Maybe, he thinks, he needs to search himself for the reason he kissed first.

Taking a moment to breathe, he presses his nose to the side of the blond's, "Well, sorry for interruptin' you. By all means, kiss away."

Exhale, inhale.

His glassy stare reflects his disbelief—is this a dream? Why would Vash want to kiss someone like him? How much does he want to take?

Well, the undertaker would let him take anything he wants. Anything. He's not sure what that says about him in relation to Vash.

Calloused hands move from jaw to ribs to waist, guiding his companion to get as close as he wants. Wolfwood gives Vash his lips, his mouth, his teeth again in another intense kiss—a silent insistence for him to take what he wants, because, God, he wants it too. He wants it, wants this, so bad it hurts, and only just now has realized it.

They part again, naturally. "You're not too bad at kissin' either. Could get used to it, if you spoil me too much."

[angelictyphoon]

“Yeah. Fatty,” Vash teases without any bite to his voice. They have shared in mutual trust in many an instance during the heat of battle, but this is another sort of trust altogether, and it makes his chest ache to know that Wolfwood is comfortable enough (or drunk enough, at any rate), to allow himself to be carried without any fuss.

“Mm.” Vash hums thoughtfully as he waits for an opportunity for them to cross at a bustling corner store intersection and late night cargo carriages unloading their goods. “Sick like drank too much sick or sick sick?”

The distinction probably isn’t so important here.

“I’ve had a fe– h-hey! What’re you doing?!” He raises his voice a little too much in response, and a few other pedestrians waiting to make their way across the street stare at him. Vash turns even redder and jerks his chin out of Wolfwood’s hand in the same motion that he claps his fingers around Wolfwood’s wrist.

Vash purses his lips and haughtily stomps across the way once the unloaders give them the all clear to pass. “...being around you does make me happy…” he mutters, low and nearly unintelligible.

They walk in silence for a short while, until Vash finally sees their hotel come into view on one side of the street. He ultimately decides against saying anything in case Wolfwood has dozed off, instead carrying him the rest of the way without a word. Through the lobby, up the rickety stairs, and down the hallway until Vash stalls in front of their door and struggles to fish in his pockets for the key.

"C'mon Blondie, you tellin' me I weigh as much as my cross?" Nicholas feels drunk enough to find comfort in being carried like this and curls against Vash, cheek to chest. "Guess I gotta cut back on the donuts. More for you."

He pouts against the blond, looking up at his face with dazed slate eyes, "S'no way to talk to a guy. And I'm not gonna barf on ya, I'm not that drunk. I think. Don't get sick usually, don't know if I ever have. You ever get sick?"

With a smirk, Wolfwood reaches a hand up to cup Vash's chin between his thumb and fingers; each side of his hand squishes his cheeks and shakes slowly, "Heeyy, why the long face? It's a nice night out and you're with your best friend! Should be happy."

Wolfwood grins. He was clearly being facetious, but with how much time they spend together, it's probably not too far off the mark. Well... they spend pretty much every day together... The undertaker takes a second to think—yeah, Vash is kinda his only friend. He gets teary eyed at the thought.

[angelictyphoon]

“It's fine.”

When did such a simple little phrase become so loaded? 

He feels almost envious of the numbing blanket now wrapped around Wolfwood's brain.

This close, the smell of liquor and stale sweat is particularly potent. If he tries, he can still scent the remnants of Wolfwood's last cigarette off the tips of his fingers.

Vash walks them both away from the light of the bar, away from the hum of conversation and clinking glasses. He manages to keep them both upright despite Wolfwood's best efforts, but even the Humanoid Typhoon must slow his pace when gravity becomes a force more compelling than he is. Lower and lower, Vash sags and must adjust his grip around Wolfwood's waist so they do not topple over.

“Yeah, alright,” Vash huffs, deciding enough is enough when Wolfwood's feet are practically dragging over the ground. He ducks down and sweeps his arms behind Wolfwood's shoulders and the back of his knees, then lifts Wolfwood off the ground, bridal style.

“Make yourself nice and cozy if you plan on napping. Just don't barf on me, okay? Otherwise I'll dump you in the tub and splash you with cold water when we get back.” 

He wouldn't really. Probably. He said it for the sake of saying it. God knows how much they already leave unsaid. 

“Sheesh. You're heavier than you look.”

"Now I am, Sunshine," Wolfwood mumbles, leaning heavily against Vash and resting his head on his shoulder, "Sorry I didn't save you any, didn't know ya wanted some. Dunno how I got here or why—guess it was just m'legs."

He's stumbling along the dirt path, dizzying footsteps impossible to match, "Lousy priest, yeah, never claimed to be a good one!" There's a hollow laugh, almost fake, that calls out from his chest—he coughs afterwards to cover up the sob he wants to let out instead.

Thinking requires thoughts, which he struggles to have. Each time something coherent bubbles to the surface, it's sucked back down again into the murky cerebral fluid that occupies his skull. It's frustrating—Wolfwood hates getting this drunk and never lets himself overindulge this much. With his alcohol tolerance being as high as it is, it's almost impressive that he managed to get this far gone.

"God, I'm tired," Nicholas utters into Vash's shoulder, "Bet I could fall asleep right here at your feet. Dirt looks comfy."

He is not alright.

[angelictyphoon]

He isn’t sure whether he should laugh or cry. In reality, he does neither. Vash studies Wolfwood, the florid color dusted over his face, the part of his lips as their gazes meet, and the glint of silver peeking through darkened lenses. The painful stirring behind his sternum makes him look away first. 

Drunk. Wolfwood’s drunk. It doesn’t mean anything.

Vash finally rushes to his feet, one hand out resting along the crook of Wolfwood’s arm to steady him as he teeters dangerously off the precipice of the first step of the stoop. 

“Back,” Vash reiterates with a sigh, and the finality in his voice compounds the hold he has around Wolfwood’s waist. 

“Gimme that.”

Plucking the bottle hanging from the undertaker’s fingers before he has a chance to protest, Vash stares at the lip of the glass for a moment. He doesn’t know exactly why he didn’t drink with Wolfwood tonight. Dulling reality’s hard edges has always been appealing, but this time felt different. Vash tips the meager contents down his throat and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“C’mon, you lousy priest. I’ll help you out.”

They stumble down the steps, through the not-so-dark, and Vash cannot suppress the urge to ask a stupid question:

"Are you alright?"

"Wh—hey, at least take me to dinner first," Wolfwood tries again to stand on his feet and, thankfully, he succeeds. When did this bottle get in his hand? God, when was the last time he'd gotten this drunk? He's not even sure why he was drinking so much in the first place—there's always a fuckin' reason for these things; it's not like he went out to some kind of party or something.

He meets Vash's face with an expression between smug and dazed. It's a strange face—especially to see on someone who's usually so... not... any of those things. Taking the final swig from the hard liquor in his hand, he staggers, then leans against a post.

"Kinda dark out here, huh?" Wolfwood squints behind his sunglasses.

Behind the tinted glass, his silver irises meet Vash's gaze, "Maybe y'did take me out to dinner... Don't remember. I'd take you out to dinner if y'wanted. Wait, we do that all the time. Shit..."

Wolfwood staggers, taking one shaky step and nearly falling off of the porch, "Uh. Might need help, if y'don't mind me askin' a favor of my guardian angel."

[angelictyphoon]

“That’s just it though, right?” He is a criminal. People died because of him, because in trying to completely stop Knives he nearly gave his brother exactly what he needed to seal humanity’s fate. Vash doesn’t voice the thought. He wears it plain on his face every day, in the weary smiles and the memories that hide behind his eyelids whenever he manages to close them for any extended period of time. Pursuing this tired argument does neither of them any favors.

Even so, Wolfwood is here. Regardless of Vash’s feelings one way or another and against all reason, Wolfwood found him. 

“Huh, and now you’re going to tell me the only reason you came after me in the first place is because you felt guilty and not because you liked me or anythin’, stupid.” His Nicholas D. Wolfwood impression is painfully rough, though apparently not enough to stop him from teasing back.

Vash does not seem at all concerned about his state of undress. He nods in agreement to Wolfwood’s assessment and shimmies his pants back up. The bruise will likely be gone in a matter of days. It’s fine, and as petulant as he wants to be, he understands the why. 

For all his talk of understanding others, it occurs to him that Wolfwood is one of the few who have tried to understand him. “Friends with the Humanoid Typhoon, huh…Not a task I would have encouraged anyone to undertake. Though I guess you are an undertaker.”

That was pretty bad, even for him. Vash grins, then falls backwards onto the cushion of his bedroll with a loud sigh.  

“What about you? Are you still the Punisher or are you Nicholas D. Wolfwood?”

When Vash turns over, Wolfwood is indeed looking at him with those big, sad eyes that he was hoping to avoid. It's not a pathetic expression so much as it is a hurt expression; the assumptions Vash made about him seem to hit him where it hurts.

"Well, there's no use wallowin' in the hypotheticals, is there? You're my friend, idiot. Of course I care about what happens to you—of course I care about you," he has to stop himself before he reaches out to cup Vash's cheek. That's an impulsive thought that he has to stow away for the rest of his life.

With a huff, he continues, "If all I had were your crimes, eh? You mean like... how I did when I met you? S'not like I expected to meet a man with a heart of gold who was also responsible for the destruction of at least two cities and several deadly shootouts. Way I saw it back then, I'd have to trick ya in order to get you to JuLai. Didn't think I signed up for a whole adventure. I..."

Wolfwood blinks slowly, then meets his crystal blue gaze, "It wasn't about the job anymore. Shouldn't have been. I still think about the years without you. D'ya think I'd feel guilty as I did if I had only led a criminal to his doom?"

He should really shut up now while he still has some dignity.

Oh. Vash is comfortable enough with him to lower his pants like that—

"Wha—Jeez Blondie, at least lemme take you to dinner first," Nicholas teases, definitely not meaning it (a lie), "Just a bruise, eh? Doesn't look like anything's broken, at least. I'd offer ya some ice, but uh..."

The undertaker gestures around to the wide open desert.