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Even as he arrives, he can feel that Wolfwood is slipping through his fingers.
It isn’t like him to just go off on his own and get himself killed, or at least Vash thinks he knows him well enough by now to know that. Vash always calls him a coward for placing his survival over others. He finds him selfishly wishing that he continues to. So when Wolfwood tells him that he won’t be making it out, Vash jolts.
He weaves through the fight with the practiced ease that only time alongside Wolfwood could provide. Each blocking shots the other cannot. A perfect symbiotic relationship, save for the bitter taste of betrayal.
Vash wants to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing here without saying a word to him. He wants to pout and force Wolfwood through his crocodile tears. If there’s anything he’s learned in over one hundred and fifty years, it’s that his wants will always go unanswered.
So even as he fixes Wolfwood with a glare, and they bicker just like always, Vash knows that this is different. Somewhere in his gut, there is a sensation of loss. Loss of trust, maybe. A loss of something fundamental, anyhow.
Wolfwood yells words that Vash cannot decipher in the heat of battle, and something in Vash sinks.
He cares so deeply for him. Somewhere deep in his mind, locked away, is the idea that Wolfwood has become very important to him. He is someone close to him, bonded with him in a way he thought was no longer possible. Wolfwood’s tone shakes him to his core, shakes something loose that he was trying so hard to hold onto. What is important? What are we willing to do to protect it?
Wolfwood calls out again, “Needle-noggin!” And Vash feels incredulous. Even in this moment, he cannot help but call him that.
Vash calls back. “Wolfwood!” So much for calling him Nicholas. He doesn’t know that he could call him that to his face. He’s not sure he’s made himself worthy of it.
Wolfwood careens towards him, and time slows. Vash extends his arms, ready to catch him. Always ready to catch him if he falls. Always waiting for Wolfwood to come back to him, so they can walk off together. Vash doesn’t know what to do if they don’t walk off together now. There is a rattling of loose emotion in his chest, a certainty building as Wolfwood grows closer. After all of this is said and done, Vash wants to see tomorrow with him. Wants to see all his tomorrows with him, if he’s able. The realization knocks almost as much air out of his chest as Wolfwood’s impact.
As he catches him, arm cradling his chest, a jolt of panic zips up his spine. Vash’s fingers dig into his back, sinking sickeningly into the fabric of his suit. The quick pulse, too quick, fluttering with strain, travels through his fingertips. Oh no, this is different. Even the pain of blades thudding into his back cannot dissuade Vash from his frozen panic, and even Wolfwood’s cry does not release him. He cannot let go of him now. It’ll be the last time he ever will, he’s sure of it. After an uncomfortably long pause, wrought with distress, Vash withdraws from him. His hand lingers for a moment longer. He wants Wolfwood to grab it. He doesn’t.
Wolfwood fixes him with that hard stare, and his resolve suddenly reappears. He jumps back into the fray, guns blazing. This isn’t his battle, though, much as he longs it to be. All he can give to Wolfwood now is this. “Wolfwood…” he rasps, in a voice unlike his own. “Crush him.”
He puts a hand on Wolfwood’s shoulder as he passes. A parting touch. As he slumps away, he holds in a sob. He feels no satisfaction in the guilty look that crosses Wolfwood’s face.
“I’m sorry,” says Wolfwood softly, and Vash sucks in a sharp, pained breath.
Vash stands away from the two, allowing this to happen. What else can he do? There’s no saving a doomed man. Some small part of him must have known that from the very moment he first smiled at Wolfwood. He tries so hard to steel himself, even feeling the creeping of feathers up his neck. He can’t help it, gritting his teeth against the pain stabbing him in the chest. Tears stream down his cheeks. Will he never have Wolfwood by his side again? Was this his destiny, from the very beginning? To love and to lose, endlessly, running in circles?
He is snapped out of his stupor as Razlo calls for backup, swinging into action. He has the two lackeys down in a millisecond. Wolfwood is sat on the ground, head lolling against his chest. There is so much blood.
Razlo says something horrible that Vash cannot hear over the pulse pounding in his ears, but even so, he gives a bloodcurdling cry. “WOLFWOOD!”
Wolfwood has always been able to handle himself. He swings back into action the best that he can, and suddenly Razlo recedes. Livio is back. Wolfwood lays on his back, a cigarette between his lips. Vash always tells him that one day they will kill him. One day.
Vash tries to tell Melanie and the kids that everything is fine now. Wolfwood stops him, and the look on his face is softer and more broken than it has ever been. Vash barely registers the Ark approaching. How can he? Deep, shattering betrayal rocks through him with the force of an earthquake.
He knows they have to leave. That Wolfwood will not leave. Wolfwood holds out a broken coin, as if Vash didn’t already know. As though that betrayal was any worse than what he felt now.
“You should still go! Don’t argue with me!” Vash spews, hardly able to believe the nerve of this man. Of course he wants Wolfwood to come with him. But he won’t.
They exchange more meaningless banter as if nothing is different. Everything will always be different after this, and that certainty squirms in Vash’s gut.
“Anyway… come on, we haven’t had a drink in a while.” Wolfwood hums.
It is ridiculous that a pristine white couch sits among the rubble. They both sit, and Wolfwood pours him a drink. Please, he thinks, fingers gently curled around the shot glass. He cannot think beyond please. He clinks his glass against Wolfwood’s, wanting their fingers to graze one last time. His wants go unanswered. The drink grazes his lips with a burn, but he doesn’t open his mouth.
“Smile, needle-noggin.” Wolfwood doesn’t look at him as he says it. A shameful request. “It suits ya, when ya do.”
It’s unfair. So unfair for him to say that, now of all times. Vash doesn’t trust his throat to force out his words, and Wolfwood continues. “It was harsh of me… to say all yer smiles were empty.” Vash’s memory floods with a sunny day that is so far away now. The very beginning of his life alongside Wolfwood, parallel to these final moments.
“Wolfwood,” he manages, his voice rough. “Um…” Vash prays to a god who he has never believed in, knowing that it will change nothing. “Don’t say… stupid things.”
He hunches over, gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes against the onslaught of tears. He won’t cry in front of Wolfwood, not now. It would be cruel. Please, he thinks again. Just one favor from a god that has always ignored him. He needs more time. He needs to tell Wolfwood something, anything, everything.
Vash can sense that at the moment confetti rains onto them, in the instant the bell rings, that it is over. He doesn’t look, but the clatter of the bottle to the floor is proof enough. Vash crumples in on himself, feathers itching against his skin. The Ark looming overhead is an afterthought, thwarted with ease in comparison to the complex loss that thrums through his skin. His grief is like lightning striking, deadly and powerful. It thunders with the same might, as he keeps all his focus on not going off like a bomb right here and now. He stares up at the Ark, as if daring Knives to try again and kill him this time.
Knives has the audacity to laugh from atop his throne. Yet he leaves, the coward that he is. As the Ark becomes a speck in the sky, Vash allows the panicked grief to consume him. His hands clasp tightly on each arm, feathers growing at an alarming rate, as his heart sinks even further. No, he needs more time. Not needs, wants. He always wants and he never gets anything to show for it. A sob wracks his body again.
One more day, he thinks. Anything for one more day. Just one would be enough. A voice… no something further than that, something that reverberates through his body like music and terror, answers his prayers. Sliding into place, something in him clicks. The world explodes in blinding light and falling feathers.
If grief is lightning striking, then unconsciousness washes over him like a gentle tide. He has never felt the ocean, and yet, Vash imagines it feels something like this. The lapping waves pull back, as the force of the tide draws them out to sea. His eyes open to the sun beating down on his exposed skin… his coat is in tatters around him. He sits up, wincing as a stab of pain goes through his head. His vision goes in and out of focus, and the faint outline of a struggle between two people appears. He swears he can see Wolfwood… but, no, that’s not possible. He gives a dry laugh, as a wave of dark spots crashes over his vision and he’s drawn back into the sea.
…
“Vash, get up!” A voice yells, rough with worry.
A voice that cannot be speaking to him, not anymore. He jolts awake, arm outstretched as if he could hold onto that voice and make it stay with him.
A hand grabs his and hoists him to his feet, as the world precariously spins around him. There are still feathers climbing up the nape of his neck, itching to grow to their full length. He inhales and surveys the situation… finding that there is something familiar about it. The sun feels the same as it did before, just minutes prior. When he sent Wolfwood to his death. Livio… no, Razlo, is here, attacking just as he was before. The hand in his belongs to Wolfwood… Wolfwood, who is not alive. Wolfwood is dead, says his brain, as his eyes look at the very man before him. There’s no way for him to be here, no explanation that could possibly make sense. Vash recoils from his touch for just a moment, a sinking feeling of horror growing in him. Then, just as quickly, he moves back to grab Wolfwood’s hand with both of his. He cannot understand how this happened. But if God wants to give him a second chance, who is he to question it?
Wolfwood seems none the wiser. “Needle-noggin, what the hell are ya doing here?!” As Vash traps one of his hands, he pulls away violently. “Christ, ya look like ya got run over by a sand steamer!” Wolfwood shouts over the noise, bewildered, as he shoots at Razlo.
Vash listens as the noise gets drowned out by his own heartbeat, that panic gripping him by the lungs once again. He scrambles to grab Wolfwood’s wrist, feeling for any kind of pulse… his damp hands find that weak, fluttering beat once again. He hasn’t come in time. He cannot help but let out a weak sob, one that leaves Wolfwood whipping his head around, looking utterly lost. “Wolfwood…”
Wolfwood looks as if he’ll say something for just a moment, but is occupied by battle once again. He’s been shot so many times, the suit he’s wearing is more holes than fabric. Vash can see steam rising from the wounds that are sealing themselves at an inhuman pace. So this is what he did… Vash hadn’t had time to think on what had really done it before. The vials… there had to be a limit to what a human, or someone nearly human, could take. Wolfwood had well surpassed his limit.
A row of blades embedding themselves into his feathers brings him to the present. The feathers… they’re flowing out of him without him even noticing. Wolfwood turns back and his face pales, even after the times he’s seen this before. Maybe because of the times he’s seen this before.
“Vash… I can’t…” There’s nothing he can do to stop this. No way to take back what is already in motion. “I’m sorry.”
You called me Vash again, Vash thinks. “I know,” Vash says. “Just… go do what you have to do.”
All the righteous fire that burned in his gut during the previous fight is doused now. He tries to remember what he said before. Crush him? He laughs a bit to himself, the feeling biting against his throat. He lets go of Wolfwood’s wrist.
He watches the battle with some sort of detached numbness, the same events playing out all over again. Seeing the same thing from a different vantage point is almost maddening. Like a person dangling a slab of meat over a dog, taunting it with something it cannot have. His feathers don’t retreat, they twitch with a desire to intervene. There isn’t any point to it, he reasons. He’ll still die. Vash doesn’t yell out his name, doesn’t break down again… he watches, ice in his veins. His hands clenched in the ripped fabric of his red coat, trying to hold onto something that won’t disappear from his hands.
Livio appears, heralding the end of the fight. Wolfwood attempts stupid conversation with him again. Vash doesn’t have it in him to reciprocate with the same ferocity or false cheer as before. When Wolfwood holds out that broken coin, Vash stares down at him.
“I already knew that. It doesn’t change anything.” Nothing has changed here, has it?
“I know.” Wolfwood replies.
“I still wanted you to come with me,” Vash insists, tears dangerously close to falling. “I still wanted you by my side.” His voice comes out hoarse.
Wolfwood looks down, an unreadable expression on his face. “Spikey… yer judgement needs some serious work.” He runs a hand through his hair, streaks of blood left in its wake.
Vash crouches down, smoothing his fingers over the bloody spot in his hair. This blood is the end of him… yet, it’s something of his that Vash can still hold. “You called me Vash before.” A soft statement, laced with pain. “And I think I can trust my own judgement, thank you.”
Wolfwood lets himself be pulled to his feet silently. “We haven’t had a drink in a while.” Vash tries not to wince.
They walk, and they sit on that godforsaken couch. Wolfwood pours him a shot, again. Vash dutifully takes it, and this time he downs it in one gulp.
“Smile, Vash. It suits ya, when ya do.”
Somehow, it hurts even worse for him to refer to Vash by name when he tells him this. Vash turns his head to Wolfwood, a clear expression of distraught pain flitting over his features. “How could I?” He whispers.
Wolfwood’s thought process stutters for a moment, but then he’s back. “I just… didn’t want yer disappointment to be the last thing I see.” It feels like a brutal blow to his chest.
Vash leans over and grabs the bottle, making sure it won’t fall this time. His fingers brush against Wolfwood’s cold palm. “It won’t be,” He nods up to the sky, where confetti rains down upon them. Vash can’t fully know the importance of this moment to Wolfwood. But he sees the way his eyes light up in recognition, and knows that this is a good thing for him to see before he… well.
He doesn’t look away this time. He bleeds every second of Wolfwood’s final moments dry, taking in the final exhale like it’s the air he breathes. He sees the life leave his eyes. He reaches out, and with a shaky exhale, his fingers brush the side of Wolfwood’s face.
“I wanted you to stay with me.” He won’t say I love you to a corpse. It’s easier to want than to know with certainty that he feels something that can never be reciprocated, not anymore. Want is his language, the ever-present soft thrumming of grief like electricity through a conduit.
If he can just do whatever it is that sent him here before again… the ringing in his ears sounds like terror again. It sounds like love, and grief, and ethereal music. Before Knives has the chance to appear again, Vash is gone, light blooming behind his eyes. Further this time, he wills. Further back. Just enough that he can save him. Just enough, even, that he could tell him how much he means to him.
Nicholas… I need you to know something.
…
Vash awakens to the sensation of stabbing pain in his head again. A figure, muddled by shadow and feathers, approaches him. He cannot move a muscle. Whatever this is… it must be taking a lot of power out of him. He vaguely wonders how much more of his hair has turned black. He grits his teeth to hang onto consciousness, but black shapes dot his vision and his hearing buzzes. He doesn’t know how much time is passing, but when rough fingers hold onto him, he cannot bring himself to care.
“Needle-noggin! Hey!” Lukewarm water douses his face, and Vash sputters into consciousness. “Jesus, I thought you were dead!”
Vash looks up, wanting to say the same thing. “I…” he feels tears welling up in his eyes, and he tries to breathe and force them away. “Nicholas.”
He’s made it. This is before the fight, he realizes with a start. He rushes up, wobbling and falling onto Wolfwood, bracing himself against him.
Wolfwood shoots him a look, but still catches him and holds him upright. “Did ya hit yer head, or something?”
Vash knows his face must be bordering on delirious adoration. “You’re here,” His voice is soft and watery. He lapses into silence, just looking at him again.
“Seriously Spikey, yer starting to scare me.” Wolfwood grips his shoulders tightly, trying to understand. “Yeah, I’m here. Why are you here?”
Vash snaps back to reality, his eyes focusing. The sky is dark, and the cool air around him bites at his exposed skin through the tears in his coat. It seems he’s traveled to the night before the fight. Wolfwood breathes a sigh of relief as the feathers dappling his face seem to fade more into his skin.
“I… where is here, exactly?”
Okay, back to the concerned crease in Wolfwood’s brow. “Middle of the damn desert. How the hell did ya end up like this?” Wolfwood has seen Vash take a bullet like it’s nothing… to see him so genuinely out of it is unnerving.
“Um… I…” Vash stands up straighter, ignoring the shaking in his legs and the way a wave of dizziness washes over him. Still, he grasps onto Wolfwood’s arm, unwilling to let go again. “I ran into some trouble.”
“Of course ya did,” Wolfwood sighs, though his face still creases with worry rather than annoyance. “Well whoever it was gave ya a nasty beating.” He narrows his eyes a moment, as if again questioning exactly what Vash is doing here. “Don’tcha have enough trouble to deal with already without followin’ me out here?”
Vash doesn’t miss that accusatory tone, and he rolls his eyes despite his exhaustion. “Maybe if I could trust you to stay safe, then I wouldn’t have to add you onto my plate.” Bitterness from the last two attempts at saving him burns on his tongue.
Wolfwood’s face darkens, and he pulls his arm away from Vash to light up a cigarette. The flame illuminates a patch of the desert, and Vash gets the sense that Wolfwood is like a lighthouse guiding him through the endless expanse.
“Hardly think yer in any position to get on my case about stayin’ safe.” He grumbles, an exhale of smoke clouding Vash’s senses long enough to pull him out of his thoughts.
Vash doesn’t want to fight with him again, feathers bristling at the back of his neck. It reminds him too much of their last minutes together, always wanting to get the last word. So he takes a deep breath, and lets it out as a tired sigh.
“I guess not.” He smiles, and it crackles at the edges like burnt paper.
Wolfwood’s eyes flicker over, brows raising at the lack of retort. The corner of his mouth dips into a frown. “What I mean, is… aren’t ya supposed to be off savin’ humanity from yer brother?”
Vash plops down onto the ground, dragging a finger through the sand. He still can’t explain, even after being asked before. His voice comes out more hurt than he intends. “Did you think I wouldn’t find this important enough to help you?”
Wolfwood looks taken aback for a moment, but quickly gets back to tearing into him. “Of course I knew ya’d think this was important, idiot! That’s why I didn’t want ya to know where I was goin’!” His fingers massage at his brow in frustration. “This sure as hell isn’t important enough for ya to be be followin’ me out here and wasting time!”
Vash resents that. How can anything Wolfwood needs help with be a waste of time? He knows that his brother is a pressing matter, and maybe he even wants to avoid him for that very reason. Sue him! He’s spent his whole life running and he isn’t going to stop now! He hugs his arms around himself, a habit he’s still unable to break from years of having nobody else to do it for him. He isn’t spending these possible last hours with Wolfwood fighting. He pointedly doesn’t respond.
“Christ, can ya stop actin’ like a kicked puppy?” Wolfwood’s tone bites at his raw wounds, those left each time he dies knowing that Vash could help him.
“You left without me, how am I supposed to act?” Vash finally gives in, glaring at him with all the agony his betrayal leaves in its wake. “I finally started to think— I thought that you would be by my side. I thought we could talk, despite our differences, about the things that really mattered.” His hands tighten over the frayed fabric of his coat, and he can’t stand to look at Wolfwood anymore. “I know I’m… not open, but with time I thought I might be. I don’t know what time I have, anymore…” his speech halts with the weight of truth upon it.
Wolfwood stares at him, unsure, his mouth half-open with a dying retort. His sunglasses slide down his nose, and he pushes them back up in silence, the shifting winds the only noise left in the desolate desert. He finally settles down cross-legged across from Vash in the sand, seeming to weigh his words with some thought for once. “I didn’t think—“
“No, you didn’t.” Vash feels childish, cutting him off, and he can’t help apologizing. “Sorry.”
Wolfwood gives him an annoyed glare and continues. “I didn’t think you had the time to be part of my business. Still don’t.” He lets a puff of smoke waft into Vash’s face. “But I’m sorry. Guess it’s yer decision whether ya want to be involved.”
Vash leans his chin into one hand, still feeling petulant. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry now.”
Wolfwood flicks him in the forehead, earning a yelp of pain. “Fine, I’m not sorry then!” He responds in irritation, though the barbed wire of his earlier jabs is gone.
Vash laughs a little, caught up in their usual game of fighting. The push and pull of their conversations is every bit a declaration of love as they’ll ever get. Even through all this stress, he can’t help his soft smile at this. Wolfwood’s mouth quirks up a bit at that, even if his face is still hard around the eyes. This is their normal, more or less. Vash wants to savor it. Knowing how close they are to the end, though, if he cannot interfere enough this time… something has to give. This is his penance for over a hundred years of holding all his feelings so tight to chest that they’ve burrowed into his lungs. He reaches out, hand faltering midway, then resting atop Wolfwood’s where it sits on his knee.
Wolfwood has given Vash several looks that all but ask if he’s gone nuts, but this one feels the most pointed. Vash laughs again, a comfortable, quiet laugh. “You know, sometimes I think you don’t understand just how much I owe you.” Wolfwood looks like he wants to argue, and Vash silences him with a squeeze of his hand. “I mean it. For challenging me. For picking up my slack whenever I’m too much of a coward to pull the trigger. Especially for putting your life on the line back on the Ark. There was no guarantee you’d make it out alive, and I still can’t believe you are.”
Wolfwood is uncharacteristically bashful under the praise, hand over his mouth and looking away from him. “Have ya forgotten I’m part of the reason you were in that mess to begin with? Yer not stupid, you know I was workin’ for him.”
“Yeah,” Vash leans forward a bit, closer to him. “But you did it to save the ones you loved. How can I fault you for that?”
Wolfwood jolts at his proximity, bristling. He doesn’t respond, lost in the depths of a conversation he never expected to have. Vash thinks that Wolfwood knows this will all lead to his death, one way or another. His cigarette burns up, the dim light sputtering out into the cold, unforgiving desert night.
“I know what it means to have something be so important to you, that you would do anything to keep it safe.” He would do anything to keep Wolfwood by his side, he thinks, but does not say. “I tried keeping everything at a distance, but…” You have a way of worming into my heart. “It was unfair of me to say you give up too easily. I gave up in my own way too.”
The silence stretches out for a long moment. “Why are ya tellin’ me all this?” Wolfwood’s brow furrows, like he’s trying to work out a puzzle.
Vash very well cannot tell him he might die tomorrow. Well, he supposes he could, but something about that doesn’t feel right. Like his chances might be taken from him if he reveals this secret. Perhaps it’s just a paranoid fear, that this will all be for nothing. He runs a hand through his hair, shutting his eyes.
“I just wanted you to know.”
Wolfwood takes a moment to pull something out of his pocket, forcing Vash to let go of him for a moment. He pulls out that broken coin, the symbol of his betrayal that he keeps forcing Vash to see. He holds it out so gently, like it is precious. Or like it hurts to touch. His glasses have slid down his nose again, and his eyes search Vash for some kind of anger, betrayal, hurt, anything. Vash just sighs with a wistful smile, pressing Wolfwood’s hand shut over the broken piece.
“Nicholas…” The name feels alien on his tongue. “It doesn’t matter to me. I said that already.”
Wolfwood’s eyes stay glued on his fingers, clasped around the coin. “It should matter to ya. I keep wonderin’ why ya never got angry, really angry, with me.”
Because I love you, because I understand, because some part deep in me knows that I need you to balance me out. “Because I care about you.”
Vash cannot tell him he loves him, even now. Even when he knows this could be his last chance, even as he feels that he grows weaker with each attempt. The words stick to his throat and choke him like he’s swallowing glue. To declare love is to want, and to want is to lose. So he reaches out again, hand over Wolfwood’s clasped fingers, thumb stroking his wrist. He wills his fingers to say I love you. He wills the crinkle of his eyes to say I want you here and I always will. He wills his pulse to sound out a steady beat of longing, you are the first person in so many years I have let see me, and I see you in return.
Wolfwood, for all it’s worth, seems to understand that some meaningful message is being conveyed here. He flounders for a moment, always unsure, always second-guessing.
“Spikey…” He starts, a warning that tells him that this is not worth it. Loving a monster only ever gets one bit and bruised. Luckily or unluckily for him, he is not the monster here.
“How many times do I need to tell you, it’s Vash.” He wonders if he’s mixing up timelines, unable to keep track of each in the blur. He wants to lean in and… kiss him, touch his face, hold him in place and make him stay out of danger.
He does touch his face. Vash grazes the side of his face with his hand, with his weapon of mass destruction. Nothing he ever does will make this hand gentle, no matter how hard he tries. He tries, though. Wolfwood freezes, unable to accept this, and Vash almost pulls away. But he needs to be brave. Then Wolfwood is impossibly close, pulling closer, until the smell of smoke is on his tongue like an aftertaste. Their noses graze against each other. Wolfwood’s eyes are searching, probing him for an answer he cannot give. He can only respond in the flickering of eyes to lips, in the soft exhale of want.
Vash kisses him before Wolfwood can think too hard about it and pull away. He lets all his love, and fear, and every other conflicting emotion bleed through his lips like an open wound. Wolfwood makes a noise of surprise in his throat, but then his hand is in the back of Vash’s hair, gripping dead black strands and pulling him in. They kiss like they bicker, back and forth with a ferocity and a flickering undercurrent of love. Wolfwood’s lips are chapped, and his mouth tastes of bitter smoke. This is the best kiss Vash has ever had in his life.
Vash pulls away after a minute, and Wolfwood is looking at him with a bewildered mixture of happiness and melancholy. “Vash…” it’s no longer a warning, but more of a breath. His eyes flicker away with a click of his tongue, unable to put what he’s thinking into words.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Vash insists, getting up from his seat to set up a spot to sleep. “We can…” he almost says forget about it, a force of habit. “We should go to sleep. Big day tomorrow.”
He lays down, feeling Wolfwood’s eyes boring into his back.
Vash turns to see him, unable to ignore the feeling of being watched, and Wolfwood’s hand is over his own mouth. His brows are furrowed again, but they soften when he notices Vash looking. Wolfwood closes the distance between them slowly, agonizingly. He leans over Vash with that unreadable expression he always gets when he thinks Vash isn’t looking. Vash forgets to breathe, air caught in his throat. Wolfwood leans down a bit.
He doesn’t say anything. He stares some more, like he expects Vash to say something, and when the silence draws out he gives a little sigh. His calloused fingers find their way into Vash’s hair again, the pad of his thumb ghosting across his cheek bone. The I love you too is unspoken but hangs in the air as dark and foreboding as an empty noose. One Vash just keeps pulling tighter around his neck.
“Good night, Wolfwood.” Vash croaks, suddenly overcome with a wave of loss and fear. Will either of them ever be brave enough, when it comes down to it? To live, and to love freely?
“G’night, Spikey.” Comes Wolfwood’s tentative reply, as the warmth of him leaning over Vash dissipates into the cold night air.
…
The ride to their final destination passes in a blur, interspersed with more unreadable looks from Wolfwood. They aren’t talking about what happened. Obviously there are more important things at hand.
The battle with Razlo is just as muddled, and Vash has the feeling of being in a haze. A haze of blood and breathlessness, just on the cusp of total exhaustion. He almost doesn’t notice, in an attempt to help Melanie and the kids, when Wolfwood takes out the vials. The sight of that bright blue sends a shock of fire through his skin, one that guides his hands before he can even think too hard about it. He sees one glass vial shattered by a bullet before he realizes the smoking gun in his hand.
Wolfwood’s eyebrows raise almost comically, even amidst the heat of battle. “Needle-noggin, now really ain’t the time to be takin’ out yer anger on me.”
Vash doesn’t even know if this is the right thing to do. He can see the bullet holes riddling Wolfwood’s form, the blood quickly forming red pools across his clothing as his body becomes unable to catch up with the damage. One vial isn’t enough, that’s why he took two! But he’s survived impossible odds before, if Vash can just keep his heart intact…
Wolfwood must notice Vash’s strangled breathing, because he doesn’t try to joke with him again. He pulls in, weaving them together in battle, back to back. It seems like an attempt to ease the tension, but even so, feathers curl their way up Vash’s back and down his arm. They stretch out and shudder under the fire of bullets, bullets meant for Wolfwood.
Wolfwood flinches away from them, but then his eyes narrow. “What’s up with you?”
His eyes flicker back to Vash in a moment so quick Vash has to wonder if he’s imagining it. His voice sounds… Vash cannot tell if he’s annoyed or worried. Leave it to him to be both.
“I can’t…” Vash cannot mess up this time. He won’t lose Wolfwood again, he’s not sure he can take it. His voice falters over the words, and he takes a deep breath. His heart rattles in his chest. His head feels like it’s buzzing, hopped up on too much adrenaline for such lackluster sleep. His legs are buckling, whether under the pressure or the pure bone-deep exhaustion he isn’t sure.
Wolfwood catches him before he realizes he’s falling. “Jesus, thought ya were here to help.” he grumbles, a veneer of annoyance painted shoddily over a look of alarm.
Vash finds himself babbling the first thing that flitters through the hurricane in his thoughts. “I didn’t sleep very well,” His vision is going gray at the edges, and feathers flail around Wolfwood in an attempt to hold onto consciousness. “I never really do.”
Razlo is raising his guns, Vash notices through the shockwaves of dizziness. Wolfwood’s pulse beats weakly in the small of Vash’s back, where his hand holds his crumpling form.
“Maybe if ya weren’t always so worried about someone else…” Wolfwood chuckles darkly, as the bullets whizz towards them. Vash cannot move, cannot form his mouth into the word go. He can only watch in abject horror as his vision tunnels onto the blooming of a bloody flower through Wolfwood’s head.
In the sea of unconsciousness, the afterimage of red taints the water like Moses’ staff. The waves are in turmoil, cold and whipping into Vash in a feeling of familiar pain. In the end, no matter what he does… no matter who he spares… his thoughts are caught up in the tumultuous red waters. Is this worth the ache of loss? Is the cost of his love always prostration before a higher power?
No, the music answers, rippling through the waves.
His mind jolts into focus, taking in an endless reflective expanse. He sits up, folding his knees against himself. When he attempts to find the music and lose himself into it again, he looks to his side to find Rem.
She smiles, that motherly smile which always means he’s figured something wrong. “Vash, what are you trying to do?”
Vash rests his chin atop his knees, feeling the nostalgia of a long-dead youth. “Save him.”
Rem tilts her head with a knowing look. “Is that really it? Are you sure it’s not something else?” Her hand rests over the middle of his back.
“I can’t let go,” his voice is small like a child’s. Rem leans in to kiss the top of his head, pulling him into her.
“Why do you think that is? You’ve never had a problem before.” She mutters into his hairline.
Vash’s eyes are trained down at his feet, where ripples in his reflection obscure his face. He isn’t sure he agrees with her.
“I wanted to tell him something, but I don’t think I can. What’s the point, if he always dies?” Vash sighs, weary with the age rapidly creeping back into his bones.
Rem frowns, like she’s thinking over something. “Would you have told me you loved me, before I died, if you knew what was going to happen?”
Vash turns, looking at her with an unsure expression. “… yes. I’d like to think so.” He quickly tries to argue, “But that’s different, they’re different kinds of love. With you, it would be affirming something you already knew. I can’t tell him for the first time just before I lose him.”
Rem’s face softens, and she takes his face into her gentle hands. “Oh, Vash. He already knows, deep down. But I’m sure he would be happy to hear it.”
Vash allows the shocked silence to settle over him like a layer of sediment on the ocean floor, only ruffling it to give her a pathetic sniffle. After years of reserving his tears for show, it almost feels fake when they trickle down his cheeks. He buries his face into her neck, the quiet sounds of held in sobs reverberating through his reflection. The music is creeping up on him again, leaving a taste in the back of his mouth like the air before lightning strikes.
“I’ll try my best,” he gasps, through heaving breaths.
“You’ve never done any less.” Rem smiles, and then she is gone.
…
Vash comes to, the beeping of a heart monitor filling his ears. Something in him has shifted, calmed after the encounter with Rem. His head isn’t pounding anymore, and for the first time in so long, he feels… at peace. Vaguely, he wonders whether another plant has something to do with all of this, remembering that musical voice. Whatever effects this time loop has, he feels that they are being alleviated by something.
After a calm couple of minutes, he recognizes that he is in the same room he stayed in after his rescue from the Ark. He gently lifts the blanket wrapped around his form, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. It’s now or never. He senses that this is his last attempt, and he cannot waste it.
Vash tiptoes through the hallways, the dark and empty corridors less foreboding with a purpose in mind. Everyone should be asleep, and Vash thanks a nonexistent God that he won’t have any trouble getting to Wolfwood. He remembers the room number, just like everything else about him. When he approaches the door, he lets out a breath, expelling all of the past timelines like they’re the smoke of a cigarette.
He tries to imagine he’s opening the door to a train car, Rem’s voice echoing in his mind.
Vash sits on the side of Wolfwood’s bed, leaving plenty of space between them. He reaches a hand out and brushes the bangs away from his forehead. Wolfwood’s brow furrows, and his eyes flutter open. There’s a hitch in his breath, a twitch in his hands that dissipates when he realizes it’s Vash.
“Spikey, ya scared me.” His voice is hoarse, cracking like ice in the spring.
“I’m sorry,” Vash replies, a sad smile on his face. I’m sorry that I can’t save you.
“S’okay,” Wolfwood mutters, disarmed by grogginess. He rubs at his eyes, and man, Vash is going to miss how soft he looks when he’s just woken up. “What time is it, anyways?”
“Oh, it’s— I dunno,” Vash grins sheepishly, a hand scratching at the back of his head. “I just wanted to see you, for some reason.”
Wolfwood sits up with a groan, body protesting against the movement. He shoots Vash an incredulous look, his goofy response enough to sober him from sleep. “Well could ya want to see me at a reasonable hour?”
His face is trying to be annoyed, Vash can see it, but it’s fond. Even his frown sort of turns up into a smile.
God, Vash wants so badly to tell him to stay here. He knows that Wolfwood will never listen, that he won’t abandon the orphanage and heaven knows he shouldn’t. But this moment is reminding him of all the little things he’ll miss… the way his brow furrows, that smile that sort of looks like a frown, how he looks at Vash with all the love and frustration in the world. His thoughts are interrupted as his gaze catches on a small bag, packed and ready on the chair next to the bed.
Wolfwood’s eyes flicker over him, his eyebrows raising. Vash almost laughs. For someone so guarded, his expressions always give him away. He turns back to Wolfwood without acknowledging it. “Now, when have I ever been reasonable?”
Wolfwood snorts a little at that. “At least yer aware of it.”
His eyes turn back to the bag, narrowing at the reminder of what he has to do. Vash puts a hand on the side of his face, tilting it to make Wolfwood look at him. Wolfwood’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. Vash places a thumb on his bottom lip.
“I wanted to talk to you.” Vash corrects himself, and then he looks to the side because he’s still so afraid. “I just— well…” He falters, and then lets a heavy exasperated breath out of his nose. “Wolfwood, you know I’ve been grateful to have you by my side, right?”
Wolfwood’s face does something that Vash still cannot understand, and he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Even when the whole time I was leading’ ya to him?”
“Doesn’t matter. I saw through you, from the beginning.” Vash fusses with Wolfwood’s bangs again, hands desperate for something to do. “I saw your core. When I first met you, and you gave what little you had away to those kids… I knew you were a good guy. It didn’t matter if it was all too convenient, that you knew too much. I looked into your eyes, and I could see you clear as day.”
Wolfwood ponders this silently, his eyes searching Vash’s face. “I let ya stay in that cell for months, Vash.” His voice carries the somber guilt of a confession.
“And you almost got yourself killed to free me.” Vash responds in turn, hand squeezing the side of his face. “I haven’t exactly been perfect myself. I should’ve dealt with all of this a long time ago. Maybe if I had…” He imagines a world where Wolfwood grew up happy and free, and almost instantly shuts it away from his mind. This isn’t about what-ifs anymore. “Well, no point in worrying about it now.”
Wolfwood doesn’t know what to say, so Vash keeps talking. “What matters is… I know why it was you, that was sent to me. You’re everything about humanity I love, and everything that I can never understand.” Vash’s free hand crinkles the sheets in his grip. “And I’m grateful, even if…” Even if tomorrow never comes.
The silence draws out between them, the beeping of the heart monitor cutting in to remind them of just how little time there is left. Vash realizes he’s let his love seep into his words, and then he wonders if there’s ever a time he hasn’t.
Wolfwood leans forward, back hunched as he rests his head in the crook of Vash’s neck. His voice is soft, and the warmth of it against his neck feels like home. “I’m grateful too, ya know.”
“Oh.” Vash gives a breath somewhere between a laugh and a sob, his arms wrapping around Wolfwood in a tight embrace. He stays like that for a moment, memorizing the curve of his shoulders, the bumps in his spine. Feeling the itch of his stubble against his neck, the softness of his hair. One last chance.
“I’ll be okay,” Vash mutters, so quiet it’s nearly drowned out by the machinery. “After this is all over, I’ll make it out and come back. So you don’t have to worry about me, Nicholas.”
Wolfwood pulls his head back, tilting his chin up so his eyes bore into Vash. “Take care of yerself, Vash.”
“You too,” Vash’s thumb trails over Wolfwood’s cheek. His skin is rough, but so warm, so full of life. He’s always been so full of life. Kicking and screaming and clawing, always fighting for it. Vash’s hand drops, and he stands up from the bed.
He walks a pace forward, his back turned to Wolfwood, before he dares utter his next words. “I love you.”
Before he can make his escape, a hand grasps his, and the force of it spins him back to see Wolfwood’s face. Open, and vulnerable, clearer than the cloudless sky. Vash hears the music, and now it sounds like love. It warms his veins, all up his arms and then down through every last inch of him. He cannot hear the words that Wolfwood manages to get out, drowned out in the rippling symphonies. But when Vash looks at his lips, he thinks he can read something like I love you too, before his vision blooms in the serene light. And that is more than enough.
The calming sound of water lapping up to a shoreline puts him at rest. He tilts his head back, and feels the sunlight against his face. Worn fabric graces his fingers. He hears the ringing of a bell, so familiar and yet so distant now. He smiles, and tears fall down his face. A bottle hits the floor.
Vash opens his eyes, and he knows where he is. He knows where he’s going. He knows what he has to do. He pitches forward, and he lets the quiet settle over him, watches as the confetti reaches the floor and the shadow looms over him.
Vash knows what he’s fighting for.