Archive of Our Own

The evening started off pleasant, and ended up with Vash going through a window. That was probably a metaphor for his life.

They had been staying in the same small backwater town for a couple of days by that point, taking the time to replenish their meager funds. Meryl, in a stroke of good fortune, managed to find herself a gig as a wedding photographer. Vash and Wolfwood meanwhile had taken whatever odd jobs were available. For the most part, this meant manual labor. 

It was the sort of honest sweat and toil he appreciated - no bullets, no stakes, just good work and grateful people - and for all his grumbling he suspected Wolfwood felt the same.

Two days in and they were riding high on the appreciation of the locals and the fact they were no longer one step short of completely flat broke, so when Meryl suggested they take to the saloon to celebrate, neither of them objected.

In truth Vash missed the ambience of such places - laughter and conversation, the beating heart of a community - there was something intrinsically alive about a well filled saloon that felt palpably human. Sometimes he drank just to feel a part of it… sometimes he took a mug of ale to the far corner, closed his eyes and just listened. 

Tonight, with Meryl and Wolfwood dragging him along, he anticipated a few hours of light banter and maybe a round of cards, then they would clear their heads and pack into the truck, ready to drive on to their next destination.

For the first few minutes it looked like that would be exactly what it was…

Then Wolfwood proposed a drinking game. 

This was a bad idea - Meryl was a lightweight, but had neither the self preservation nor the humility to admit it, Wolfwood was overconfident and would pursue victory to the point of self destruction, and Vash was pretty sure he could drink any human under the table despite the show he liked to put on.

It looked like they would be staying one more day. His options were to accept his role as the sober (relatively speaking) member of the group, book a room and help everyone else to bed after they inevitably drunk themselves into a stupor, or to play up his own inebriation and tap out early in the hopes they would give up and call it a night.

That was what he’d thought - but Wolfwood was more diabolical than he’d given him credit for.

Setting a full bottle of whisky and three shot glasses down on their table, he smugly announced the game to be ‘never have I ever’.

It was here that Vash realized his error.

As it turned out, after one hundred and fifty years, there wasn’t a lot that Vash hadn’t done… or maybe they were picking their statements purposefully. Whatever the case, both Meryl and Wolfwood delighted in watching him down shot after shot, whining and complaining about the unfairness of it all the while, and Vash was beginning to feel an actual buzz that could progress to true drunkenness if he kept up the pace.

Which was a rarity - he wasn’t immune to alcohol per se, but his faster metabolism meant he needed to drink fast and keep going or he burnt it off before it could turn him stupid. Useful for the times he wanted to lower people’s guard by playing the fool, less so on those nights when he wanted to numb himself and forget who he was for a while…

Maybe that was what they wanted to give him… which was probably an indication he was slipping. He’d thought he had been doing a good job of filling his old role, back to the antics they would expect, but he’d be lying if he said his mind didn’t drift from time to time.

July wasn’t an easy shadow to shake.

But Vash was determined, and this night, at least, he made a conscious effort to enjoy himself. They were all laughing, and even if Vash was on the losing streak of his life, he got to watch Wolfwood’s face flush an embarrassing shade of red before downing three shots of his own, and Meryl was just as likely to get flustered by her lack of drinking. On a single shot, she looked to be the likely victor.

He was content to let the situation play out regardless, safe in the knowledge that they would scoop him off the floor if they had to, and that he would wake up somewhere comfortable and warm. Tomorrow he would worry about the cracks in his armor. Tonight, he’d let them have this, maybe even let himself have this, and perhaps they would fret a little less after feeling like they had done something.

Of course, things never went entirely to plan when it came to Vash the Stampede.

Over the years he had developed something of a sixth sense for brewing violence - knew it from the way the hairs on his arm stood on end and his fingers itched for a trigger. So, he knew something was wrong. Knew, even if he didn’t say it yet, just smiled along as Wolfwood teased Meryl for never having tried something as tame as graffiti, ears honing in on more distant conversation until he found the opportunity to cast a casual glance over his shoulder.

There.

Two men talking close to the window, voices terse in contrast to the levity of the rest of the room. Not bounty hunters, no sign they had even noticed Vash, but their body language screamed ‘confrontation’. 

Both of them were on their feet, though there were several other men at a nearby table watching the proceedings closely. 

One of the men was obviously the aggressor. He was muscular and carried himself with an easy confidence, the kind of man who settled things with his fists, and clearly losing patience with the other stranger. The smaller of the two was older and visibly nervous. 

In most cases Vash would guess that it would end with the larger man winning whatever debate they were having through the wonders of intimidation, or maybe a quick scuffle to show he meant business, but unfortunately both men were armed.

It was the smaller man that concerned him. 

Vash had spent an embarrassing amount of time learning to recognise when someone would actually fire a gun. Some people lusted for the chance to draw - caught up in the power fantasy and eager to show the world their might. Some people shot only by necessity, hands steady and eyes cold. And some people… some people weren’t used to a gun at their side at all, and grasped for it in a moment of panic before they could fully process what they were doing.

The smaller man was the last type.

In a few minutes he would crack, and he would shoot, and whether or not he killed the other man there would be a retaliation because the group at the table plainly had a stake in this.

All of which ruined the possibility of a nice quiet evening getting absolutely hammered in good company. 

Okay then. Vash estimated he had a couple of minutes to devise a way to defuse the situation, and Meryl and Wolfwood were going to be so mad at him but that was a problem for later, sober Vash to deal with - for now he just had to prevent anyone from killing each other.

He kept his eyes on his shot glass as the gears in his mind spun.

“Never have I ever,” Wolfwood drawled, leaning back in his seat, “been to space.”

Vash looked up with a petulant frown. “Now that’s cheating.”

Wolfwood just grinned. The kind of self-satisfied, taunting grin he’d learned just how to shape, the kind people either wanted to kiss or to punch, or both. “No rules against it. Well, needle-noggin?”

With a sigh, Vash tipped back his shot, sliding the glass to the center of the table so Meryl could top it up. His options for breaking from the group were limited. They were perceptive, and he was short on time. 

Better just to get it over with. 

“Hold my turn,” he said, flashing a smile, “need a quick bathroom break.”

Even as he was pushing his chair back and gaining his feet, he could see the change in Wolfwood’s demeanor, the playful mocking giving way to suspicion, assessing the room with the ruthless efficiency his old work had required. It only took him a moment to spot the men by the window.

“Leave it,” he warned Vash, and pointed at his vacated seat. “Sit. It’s not our problem.”

“What is it?” Meryl straightened up, immediately focused on the pair of them. “Something wrong?”

Wolfwood held Vash’s gaze for several long seconds. “Our idiot wants to stick his nose into other people’s business, same as usual.”

Busted. Wolfwood knew. Vash knew he knew. Meryl was maybe three seconds from putting the full story together. He still wasn’t going to admit it, because then they would think that this was a debate in which he could be swayed and not a certainty which was already set in stone, and he’d always found stubbornly riding a lie down to its grave to be easier than speaking a truth no one wanted.

“What? Nooooo …” he protested. Did a little arm flail like he could sweep their accusations aside. “Can’t a man answer the call of nature without everyone leaping to conclusions?”

“The only thing I’m leaping to is your neck if you don’t sit your ass back down,” Wolfwood informed him. “Just let it go, for one night, okay? We’re supposed to be having fun.”

The earnest note he threw into the last part was playing dirty. Well, Vash was made of sterner stuff than that, so he pointedly ignored him, though he didn’t miss Meryl sliding his refilled shot glass back across the table to him. 

Knowing he would regret it he still chanced a glance at her.

Big blue eyes and dainty downturned lips. Yeah, they were both playing dirty.

“Vash,” she said, “maybe just… wait a few more minutes, until Wolfwood stops worrying. Then if you need to go you can go.”

He wished it was that simple. Hated that he had to disappoint them like this, both of them, when they had clearly been trying to do something for him. Hated that it wouldn’t be the last time either.

But like the storm he was accused of being, there were some things that he couldn’t contain…

And he moved, he reacted, he was a stampede - driven by an emotion so fierce it would never be calmed, no heed to the obstacles in his way.

He was both, and maybe worst, he knew he could be neither, but not now. Not anymore. Not yet. So the only option was to do what he knew best, and hope that they did not tire of the forgiveness they so continually ceded.

The rakish smile he sent Meryl’s way was half mischief and half apology. “Sorry, have to go now.”

And with that he turned on his heel and strode off. 

Or, tried to. He was pulled comically short when his coat failed to follow the rest of him, pinwheeling for a moment before he restored his balance and turned to glare behind him. Wolfwood had lunged forward and snatched the end of it, which was, frankly, a bit childish, and while Vash might have seen the humour of it on another occasion right now he was on a mission.

“Let go.”

Wolfwood tightened his grip. There was no sign of his grin now, just determination. “No.”

Oh, so that was how it was going to be. They were at an impasse - an old fashioned standoff - and he didn’t have time for this, so, rather than starting an ineffectual game of tug of war, Vash opted for the quickest solution to the problem and unlatched the guard over his shoulder before slipping his arms free and making his escape.

Wolfwood cursed. Meryl sighed. Vash left them both, putting a little more sway into his gait than the alcohol really necessitated, taking the time to reassess the scene as he ambled his way over.

By now the two men were almost nose to nose, the larger of the two sneering down at the older one in an open invitation for retaliation. Daring him with an arrogance that only came with brute strength and a gang of onlookers ready to cheer at the first sign of victory. A dime a dozen in the unregulated territory outside of the relative comforts of the cities, though there were worse kinds to be found - kinds who preferred to settle matters with bullets rather than brawn.

The older man’s fingers twitched over his gun.

Swiping a glass from an inattentive table as he made his way past, Vash approached at an angle, humming jauntily and channeling as much drunken energy as he could muster so that when he swayed a little too far to the left it looked like an accident. Just a casual stumble. Just enough to upend his stolen drink all over the larger man and stagger bodily into him.

The reaction was immediate - a splutter, a swear, a backward step as he sought to shove Vash away - all attention on him and exactly where he needed it.

“Sorry, sorry,” Vash slurred, making as if to wipe up the wet stain on the man’s shirt as he deftly dodged his attempts to dislodge him. “Whoops, didn’t mean to-”

“Get the fuck off me,” the man growled, finally managing to snatch one of his wrists.

Vash would love to, except that the other man, the older one, still hadn’t taken the opportunity his excellent distraction provided to get the hell out of there. He’d backed up a pace, but  seemed more stunned by the intrusion than anything, and until he was well out of sight and there was no chance of their confrontation continuing then Vash needed to keep all eyes on him.

So he dropped the empty glass and grabbed the man’s forearm with his free hand and clung on.

The man shook him but Vash held fast.

“I said get off, you halfwit.”

“Nope,” Vash said cheerfully, “can’t, sorry!”

“Why the fuck not?”

Why indeed? Mostly because the other man still hadn’t skedaddled (seriously, come on), but admitting that wasn’t an option. He needed an excuse just ridiculous enough to make him the focus, but not scandalous or threatening enough that anyone felt like drawing their weapons or starting a fight early. Something absurd. Entertaining.

“Because…” he said, grinning desperately, “because you’re Vash the Stampede!”

Oh. Bad. Tipsy Vash made bad decisions. Still, it was too late to change tact now, he might as well double down. “You’re Vash the Stampede, and I’m gonna collect my sixty billion!”

The man stared at him.

His friends at the table were guffawing, full on knee slapping and elbowing one another, which was honestly perfect, he could work with this - so long as it stayed one big joke this was fine.

“Looks like he’s got you,” one of them crowed.

“Yeah, caught the big bad Stampede himself! What you gonna do now?”

“Gonna share any of that bounty, kid?”

“Pay for our drinks at least!”

“Better go quietly, Liam, think you’re outmatched!”

The man was slowly turning red, starting at the tips of his ears and blooming across his weathered cheeks, all the way to his scraggly beard.

“Shut up!” he hissed at his companions. “Don’t encourage him. Sod’s pissed out of his mind.”

“Surrender,” Vash said sweetly, “and… I won’t have to get violent!”

That started a fresh round of laughter. 

The man’s patience had snapped, but that was okay because finally, finally the other man had slipped out the door, so he only put up a token struggle as he was pried free from the forearm he’d been hanging onto. 

Vash could see Wolfwood out the corner of his eye, moving with purpose toward them.

More pressing was the hand that fisted itself in the collar of his shirt and held him still while the other arm drew back with purpose.

He knew exactly how to break free - how to twist his own arm around his assailant’s and apply enough pressure that the pain would loosen his grip - how to follow it up with a blow to the solar plexus to incapacitate him, and a solid kick to knock him down to the ground and out of the fight for good. He could end it in all of a second. 

If he did that, however, the joke would be over and the man’s friends wouldn’t hesitate to draw their weapons. A sudden show of force like that frightened people, and frightened people with guns did stupid things. Vash could dodge a few bullets if he had to but there was still a bar full of bystanders who could get caught in the crossfire and he wasn’t so confident about their odds…

So - second option. He could do nothing and let the man hit him. Roll with the punch, put on a show, let him think he’d knocked him senseless with a single strike… The stranger could maintain his pride and would lose interest when his target was a jellied pile of loose limbs and nonsensical gibberish.

He would have to stagger into Wolfwood of course, so the undertaker was too preoccupied keeping him upright to retaliate, but that could be arranged.

That was the plan then. Simple, no casualties, he would definitely get yelled at later and his face wouldn’t thank him, but overall it was a tidy solution to this confrontation.

Unfortunately that wasn’t what happened.

In retrospect, the following morning, Vash would blame it on the alcohol - would admit that he had been a tad more tipsy than he had thought at the time. It was the only reason he could think of that he was still bracing for a punch that never came, and didn’t notice when his opponent had a sudden change of mind. Didn’t think anything other than ‘ oh shit ’ and ‘ this guy’s actually pretty strong ’ as the second hand seized him and he was lifted into the air and promptly flung.

By the time Vash had caught up to the fact he probably should have stopped him, it was too late.

He was going through the window. That was an absolute fact at this point. All the athletic prowess and snap quick reaction speeds in the world couldn't change a person's direction midair, the only thing that could feasibly do that would require him to reveal his nature to everyone watching and that wasn't an option at all, so… window it was. Which was fine. Vash had been through his fair share of windows in his hundred and fifty odd years - was an old hand at it - knew how to twist his body to hit with his back, how to tuck his head and limbs close to his chest to protect the more vulnerable parts of him. 

When he crashed through the glass it was with an air of resignation, distantly wondering about the repair bill as he hit the ground and rolled over his shoulder to break his fall. 

That part was all muscle memory - ear to clavicle, one arm out flat and the other reaching behind him, one leg bent and one kicked straight over the opposing shoulder, let the momentum carry him through in a diagonal until his feet were under him once more and he could use the last of that velocity in tandem with his own strength to take him to a standing position.

Textbook. What wasn’t textbook was the way his legs seemed to stagger as he exited his roll, managing a few ungainly attempts to balance him before deserting him completely. Gravity seized him. Stunned, Vash slammed back to the ground.

Something was wrong. It was a wrongness that was visceral, sudden, a missing step in the darkness, a spike of something sharp that sent his sense singing, too immediate to decipher and too exigent to ignore.

There was a high pitched ringing in his ears like static, like the keening of his sisters, like…

He felt it then.

Pain, but not just pain - pain was easy, for all that he hated it it had become a familiar acquaintance, he knew how to walk hand in hand with pain. This was different, this was…

There was something stabbing into his upper back. 

The sensation was all his mind wanted to fixate on, looping back on itself until everything else lost its meaning, a blur of visual and tactile information that was hastily discarded when all that mattered were the sharp blades driving deep into his flesh.

Glass, the last frantic cry of his consciousness tried to reason, it’s just glass, you went through a window.

But it wasn’t glass Vash felt. It was the metallic point of interlocking razors that struck with the ferocity of a coiled snake snapping at its prey. It was his brother’s voice resounding clearly through the chemical blue of the tank. It was the pieces of himself crumbling through his fingers, leaving his memory a perforated wound of missing moments he couldn’t even mourn…

He couldn’t move. Not a twitch, not a breath, not a scream… 

He had tried to run, desperately, feet pounding on the sand and the steel and the concrete ground, fleeing through one dreamscape to the next but never finding his escape. 

Nai did not let go. He had left him over a century ago, bleeding out on the floor surrounded by the bodies of men he’d been too weak to fight for, but not this time. This time he sunk his teeth in. This time he devoured him, no matter how Vash pleaded, no matter how he cried, reasoned, bargained… 

Once they had been two halves of a song… sound by themselves, but forming a harmony when they stood side by side. They made words the other could not, found reason together, never speaking over one another but adapting intuitively in an ever changing symphony only they could hear. Sometimes, when one of them cried, the other would press their foreheads together and they would let their thoughts bleed into a single note, the way their sisters spoke, and they would face the pain in concert.

Nai had been a place of comfort and safety.

Now he desecrated all he touched. Vash was only a means to an end, a possession he sought to reclaim - not with the gentle clasp of a child’s hand but with the cruel twist of a knife. 

A hundred and fifty years cut out of him like a cancer, and he was helpless to stop it, and…

He smelled smoke. The familiar acrid tang that clung to a well worn jacket he’d spent many a long car ride pressed against, his head pillowed on a willing shoulder as the rock and sway of the van lulled him to sleep. A scent that still jerked his head up on days when his sensitive nose picked it up from fifty yards away, eyes bright and eager, searching the streets for dark hair and shades. Sometimes he found only disappointment - a stranger carrying the same brand of cigarettes and nothing else. Vash still looked though. Every time.

There was something tugging instantly at him, but it didn’t matter because it couldn’t compete with the bone deep despair that welled within. Please, he thought, not him. Don’t take him too. Nai, don’t make me forget, please-

His beseechment would fall on deaf ears of course, a litany of desperation that would only earn him further scorn. Nai did not discriminate in his destruction. If it meant anything to Vash, it too would be torn asunder. 

But what else was he to do? He couldn’t stop this. He didn’t know how. 

Maybe if he was hollow, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. It hurt now - knowing all he could lose, staring at the faces of everyone he’d ever met and watching them wither, knowing the unspeakable atrocity his body would be used to achieve. Another sin that was his to bear. Only this time, he would not grieve, would not cry out against the injustice of those who were taken from life and those who were thrust into it. A shell had no rage and no sorrow to give.

The smoke left him.

For one terrible moment Vash thought the rest had gone with it.

Not him, not him, not him, not him, not him- 

Except. Except when he reached for it, each syllable of his name was still whole and untarnished. A name he could murmur like a prayer, conjuring his image a thousand ways. Tanned skin, strong nose, stubble at the line of his jaw and eyes that carried a kindness he tried to hide from the world as much as from himself.

Nicholas D. Wolfwood.

Self proclaimed undertaker, former cult member, smoker, orphan, gunman, friend… more than friend, even if none of them put a name to it. A man Vash trusted implicitly the same way he trusted his own aim with a pistol after a century's worth of practice.

Not gone. Not yet. And Vash supposed he could hold on a little longer, endure this for as many seconds or minutes or hours he had left, anything for a few more selfish moments before he was robbed of that warmth for good.

Until then he would repeat their names while they had meaning - everyone who mattered. Rem. Wolfwood. Meryl. Luida. Brad. Nai. Roberto. Rosa. Tonis. Rolo. Any name he could grab with the urgency of a drowning man.

If they persisted then so did he, and if he had to watch them fall apart in his arms then at least he would see them one last time before they dissolved and left only an obfuscating darkness, like the black spots that lingered in his vision after staring at the blazing suns - the afterimage of something brighter than he was meant to behold.

Rem. Meryl. Wolfwood. Luida. Brad. Nai. Roberto…

He didn’t know how long he recited them, but there was a beat. Not to the words themselves, but something else that tickled at the edges of his awareness… steady, inviting, a thrum that tap-tapped against the glass of his mind until it could not be ignored.

It came to him at once that this was a heartbeat. Not his, but another, a pulse he could feel even if he didn’t understand why. 

Slowing his own heart to match was more of an instinctual reaction than a conscious decision - the same ritual he and his sisters would enact when they approached one another. A politeness that was an acknowledgement of their coexistence even without their thoughts intertwining.

He didn’t realise how fast the stuttering rhythm in his own chest was racing until it began to grind down to something more restrained. One beat at a time, dragging out the delay before the next contraction, slower, slower, not the rapid blur that had hammered him stupid but easing closer to the other beat he felt.

Ah. Vash supposed he had been panicking. That made sense. As his heart continued to settle, he found his awareness making a valiant attempt to follow suit.

The heartbeat he felt was under his right palm, the hand pressed firmly to a chest that rose and fell in deep, measured breaths, slender fingers holding him there to be sure he could pick up the pattern. It was probably these breaths that they’d intended him to imitate, not the heartbeat at all, and it would be rude to refuse when they were making such an effort…

That part was harder. He had to fight each inhale, struggling to transform his shallow gasps into a deliberate pull of air that would swell his lungs. Had to fight twice as hard to keep it in. To let it out nice and slow. But the more moderate tempo of his heart had helped, and he was making progress.

Time was a nebulous concept to him, but Vash knew it was the heart he mastered first, and knew that more time had passed since then before he was breathing close to the pace of the person in front of him.

The ringing in his ears abated and he could hear a voice talking softly to him. Counting sometimes, offering little encouragements, murmuring his name…

He knew that voice.

A voice that had called him back then too…

Barely daring to hope, he persuaded his head to lift, hazy vision swimming as he strained to focus on the figure before him. White… white jacket, dark hair… Her eyes looked watery… his fault, that was his fault… but when she saw him looking back at her she broke into a smile. Her heart lurched and he stumbled in his attempt to mimic it before they returned to the rhythm they had established.

“Vash?” she asked tentatively.

He swallowed. His first attempt at speaking was a discordant noise and nothing more, but he persevered, concentrating on his leaden tongue and the shape of his lips until he managed to croak out, “Hey.”

One word. Pretty pathetic, but hey, it was still speech - he was talking now, that was a thing.

He even twisted the corners of his mouth up in a shaky smile.

“Hey,” Meryl echoed back, her grip on his hand tightening momentarily. “Vash, can you do something for me?”

He didn’t know why she even thought she had to ask. “Sure.”

“Can you tell me five things that you see?”

He blinked.

“Five things?” Meryl repeated. She was waiting for him to answer, not demanding - a gentle expectancy in the way she watched him. He hated to let her down.

Vash fumbled for a response for several long seconds before landing on the most obvious of them all. “You.”

Her. Meryl. Stubborn, passionate, terrified of worms and never more at home than when absently chewing at the end of a pen as she considered the scribbles filling her well worn notebook. Meryl, who would push small, easy to consume snacks into his hands when he skipped breakfast… who’s brow scrunched up in single-minded focus while he directed her on how to better aim her deringer… who curled up so small when she slept she could almost disappear.

The woman who came back for him despite the impossible odds stacked against her and refused to give up even when everyone was shouting at her that it was a lost cause…

“Good,” she told him. “That’s good. What else?”

His second answer was no quicker.

“Street,” he arrived at. 

That was where he was, sat on the hard packed earth with his knees bent and his body folded forward over them, his prosthetic arm driven into the ground and the other one still in Meryl’s grasp, held to her chest.

“And?”

“Light,” Vash said. Sticking to the one-word theme still, but that didn’t seem to bother her.

He could see light spilling from the windows of the surrounding buildings, a soft yellow glow that kissed the edges of every shape, giving them form, but leaving the colours muted and muddled. 

"Windows," he added unprompted, since this seemed like the next logical step.

"One more." Meryl's fingers ran soothing circles over the back of his hand. "You're doing so well."

The fifth would not present itself though, and Vash struggled for an age before it finally occurred to him to move his head. He tipped it back and gazed upward.

"Stars."

Bright and unchanged even after a century, constellations he knew by name, silver heralds of distant suns that could guide him on his path through the ever shifting sea of sand when all landmarks were lost in the monochrome uniformity of the endless desert. Sometimes when he lay beneath them, he felt blessedly small, just another creature on this floating rock, staring up in wonder at a beauty that would outlast them all. It was humbling in the best way possible - a reminder that a hundred and fifty years was nothing in the grander scale of things. The stars would outlive him. Vash liked that.

“Okay… now how about four things you can feel?” Meryl asked encouragingly.

He felt… he felt the sharp slide of blades pushing into the flesh of his back… and he knew what that meant, and he didn’t want to be here for it… didn’t want to feel anything… didn’t want to bear witness to all his body was made to do, to his sisters-

“Hey, no,” a voice called insistently, “not that. Not that, okay Vash? Don’t think about that. Tell me something else. Anything else.”

Hands cupped his face, tilting it down until he was looking back at her again. Meryl. That was right. She had called him back, then and now, and trembling in her grasp he knew she wouldn’t let him go until he was whole again. He trusted her… and for her, he would try.

Carefully he wrestled his breathing back under control. 

“Your heartbeat,” he rasped, because it was an anchor he still clung to.
She had let go of his hand to turn his gaze back to her, but his palm still rested on her chest where she had left it and he hadn’t withdrawn. Didn’t want to, really. It gave him something to follow. The synchrony was both a comfort and a goal to strive toward. His heart in step with hers, faster than calm but slower than the frenzied race it wanted to return to, he could almost be sensible.

“Good. That’s great, Vash. What else?”

“Your hands.” That felt a little like cheating but she was being lenient with him and it was an easy answer, something he could focus on. Her, again, holding him steady.

But Meryl had asked for four things, so he kept searching, carefully side stepping the treacherous pitfall of sensation he was not allowed to dwell on and sorting through the mundane instead.

“The ground.”

He must have dug his prosthetic into it at some point while his awareness was scattered elsewhere, a frantic scrabble for purchase that left his fingers buried up to the second knuckle. Feeling had always been deadened in that hand, but it picked up pressure just fine - enough feedback to properly manage the force he exerted without fear of breaking anything he held. He would have to clean it later. Add that to his list of problems.

One more…

“Sand,” Vash said. He hesitated though, not satisfied with the response. He’d been doing so good at two word answers. “In my boots,” he added, searching her expression for approval.

She gave him a reassuring smile. “Now three things you hear.”

He must have looked faintly betrayed because she laughed - well, not quite, more of a quick breath out through her nose, but she understood. “Almost there, I promise.”

Vash gnawed at his lip. “Voices. Not close. Can’t make out the words.”

It was a blend of sounds that knitted too tightly together to pick apart, intonations of varied ages and genders all with their own unique cadence, conversing over one another, all meaning lost when he didn’t know which to follow. For a small town, the saloon certainly had a nightlife.

The saloon who’s window he had been so rudely tossed through. Ah, he was going to have to pay for that, wasn’t he?

“Two more,” Meryl reminded him.

“You,” he said. “Talking to me.”

That one was definitely cheating. 

“Metal. Pans,” he continued, since she didn’t stop him. “Someone cooking, probably.”

“Now two things you can smell.”

Vash pulled a breath in through his nose before he spoke. “Blood.”

It was a distinct iron tang he recognised as well as his own face - hated the way it would seep into clothing even when the discreet convenience of black fabric hid it from prying eyes. Hated those times when he had to carry it with him, waiting for the luxury of water, somewhere secluded he could scrub every inch of his garments until the smell faded beneath the cloying stench of cheap detergent.

That was the wrong answer though - he knew it in her expression, the pinch of worry that twisted her features before she opened her mouth to speak… like she had to correct him quickly or he might begin to spiral into his own memory again. Another failure, that he made her so wary of even a word…

Vash talked fast, stumbling over a better choice of response before she could give voice to that fear. “Soap… you uh… smell like soap.”

A far safer bet than telling her she smelled of Meryl. The scent was floral… or, No Man’s Land’s attempt at floral, which was several generations removed from people who had actually smelt flowers. It was over sweet and honey rich, but still had an undertone of something fresh, and sometimes he could almost pretend it was a distant cousin to the subtle fragrance he remembered from the various specimens Rem had kept on the ship.

The answer at least seemed to placate her, and her mouth fell closed, some of the worry smoothing from her brow. 

When she spoke again it was in the same patient and calming murmur he had come to expect. “One thing you can taste."

He ran his tongue over his teeth.

“Whisky. Cheap, not that I’m complaining… there’s worse out there.”

The flavour lingered, though the alcohol had long since left his system - burned out by the adrenaline most likely. Back to square one again… not that there was any point in chasing the high of intoxication now… If he’d wanted to convince them both that he was doing just fine post July, he thought it safe to say he had well and truly failed. 

Under different circumstances he might have laughed.

As it was, he just waited, his focus on the set of her lips and the intensity of her eyes. Meryl was studying him with grave attentiveness, and he could only hope she found what she was looking for.

Her thumb brushed over his cheekbone in a gentle caress.

“Are you with me, Vash?” she asked, holding his gaze.

“Yeah…” he murmured back, “yeah, I’m with you.” 

Which he was - exhausted beyond all reason and clutching reality by the coattails with the fretfulness of a child, but undeniably present in a way he hadn’t been earlier. 

He frowned. “Where’s Wolfwood?”

“He’s making sure everyone stays put in the bar so it’s just us out here. Is that okay? Do you want me to go get him?”

She would, if he asked her to, he was sure of it, but that would mean Meryl would have to leave him and he wasn’t sure he would survive that. 

“No,” he decided, “this is fine… I think I just need a minute.”

“Take as long as you need.”

She was more than he deserved. He wanted her to know the depth of his gratitude, his affection, which burned within him with a warmth beyond words, a sentiment he had no voice for.

It was the most natural thing in the world to push his head up against hers so that their foreheads met, eyes falling shut and mind stretching outward.

Then Meryl squeaked. It was this noise of surprise that pulled him back to himself.

Vash’s eyes snapped open again, his head jerking back. Had he glowed?

He was being weird again, a slip he usually didn’t allow, but perhaps he wasn’t quite as grounded as he’d thought he was - still lost somewhere in the matching drum of their hearts. Reaching for a stronger line of connection was a reflex… he forgot, sometimes, that humans couldn’t do that. 

His smile was sheepish. “Sorry, I just…”

But Meryl was having none of it.

“It’s okay,” she told him, catching the back of his head and gently pulling him forward again until they returned to the same position. “Does this help?”

“A little,” he admitted after a moment.

It wasn’t the same as it was with his sisters - their thoughts did not blend, did not really touch at all - but he could appreciate the closeness for what it was. A gesture of solidarity, compassion and comfort and safety and tenderness. She cared, and he cared, and somehow that meant everything. 

They stayed like that for a while. 

When he felt his equilibrium had more or less stabilized, it was Vash who broke away, finally removing his hand from her chest and straightening up. He pried his prosthetic fingers up from the ground, shaking the dry dirt from the digits and giving them an experimental wiggle to check he hadn’t clogged the joints.

“I’m okay now,” he assured her, and, because she didn’t look convinced, “mostly okay. Thank you, Meryl.”

She rested her hands in her lap, just watching him for a moment. It looked as if she wanted to speak but wasn't quite sure how to phrase what she had to say. Her teeth worried at her lower lip.

“You know," she said eventually, "I’m pretty sure you just had a panic attack.”

Vash pulled up a lopsided grin, a note of dry humour working its way into his tone. “I noticed. Kinda hard not to.”

“Was that… I mean, has that happened before?”

Ah. That sounded like a conversation he didn't want to have, not ever, preferably, but certainly not now with his body and mind freshly wrung out by the experience and no way to hide the ugly reality of it.

“Do you want to talk about it?" she asked when he only stared at her mutely. "Not now, I mean, but… later.”

“No."

It sounded harsh when he put it like that.

"Maybe," Vash tried again, searching for the right balance between outright refusal and an opening he was loath to leave anyone.

"I’ll let you know,” he settled on. Judging from her expression this was probably the right answer.

“Okay." She built up a small smile of her own, which seemed a little tight at the edges but sincere in its intent. "I think I should probably get the worst of the glass out of you if that’s alright?”

He suspected that she wouldn’t take the suggestion that he could handle that part on his own very well. Meryl was understanding of many things, but not when it came to his injuries. 

This was an ongoing conflict. Vash’s inbuilt instinct was always to isolate himself and tend to his wounds in private, the same thing he had been doing for over a century - he still hadn’t fully adjusted to the concept of two people following him around who would drop everything just so they could patch him up. It wasn’t unwelcome, but it was disconcerting.

He was durable. He’d had worse. The glass still had to come out, and it would be awkward to reach that far back with no way of looking at what he was doing, and he… didn’t want to think too hard about exactly where the pain was emanating from…

So. Yes. It would help, actually, for her to do it. He could acknowledge that. He could be pragmatic.

There was no chance she missed his hesitation, but he hoped the light and easy inflection he picked would go some ways to allaying her fears. “Sure. Don’t cut yourself though.”

She scoffed a little at that - like he was silly for concerning himself with her. "I'll be careful."

With one last reassuring smile Meryl got to her feet, moving behind him. She kept her movements slow, easily telegraphed, though Vash remained perfectly still, eyes on the ground. 

It took most of his concentration to remind himself not to tense. The rest was spent maintaining his silence, breathing steadily through his nose as she gingerly pulled the larger shards free and let them clatter to the dirt. It hurt, but the relief of their absence was a balm. 

Only bleeding wounds. Only holes in his flesh, soon to be scars - not impaled, not pinned in place.

Meryl’s spare hand ran through his hair and over his scalp in the way she knew he loved. “Almost done,” she promised.

He didn’t mean to lean into the touch, but by the time she had finished his head was at an angle just shy of his own shoulder.

“There,” she said, with one last brush through the blond mess before she returned to crouch in front of him, “that’s all the pieces I can grab. You still with me, Vash?”

He lifted his head up, blinking back at her lazily. “Yeah. That’s much better, I… Thanks. Again.”

“Anytime. But if you could stop getting yourself injured that would be nice too.” Her scolding was just the right amount of teasing and sympathetic. It was nice - better than pity or frustration, something he didn’t feel the need to hide from. Meryl was great.

“I think there’s still a few bits to pick out but I can’t do it by hand,” she told him, “and we need to get you cleaned and bandaged up somewhere. I’m going to go get Wolfwood and then we can sort that out, okay? Do you want to come with me or do you want to wait here?”

He wanted her to stay and run her hands through his hair again, or maybe he wanted to disappear entirely and take an extended vacation from existence until he’d sorted through his emotions and was ready to don the careless smile and unaffected persona he had spent so long perfecting once more. Neither of these were realistic, so Vash said, “You go, I’ll be fine. Don’t want to cause a scene.”

Another grin - just enough teeth to sell it, all practice and no heart.

She wavered for an instant before giving his head a pat. “I’ll be quick.”

True to her word, she scurried off and into the saloon without a wasted step, and Vash was left alone in the empty street.

He sat there for a count of three before he got his legs under him and pushed himself to his feet. The least he could do was make himself a little more presentable.

The blood he could do nothing about, but he could brush the powder soft dusting of dry dirt from his pants and straighten his crooked glasses. That felt like an accomplishment. 

His right hand rubbed at his face. The skin there had a tightness to it - tears already dried - but he didn’t think it would be visible. 

He looked composed. 

The stinging of his back, the exhaustion that left his limbs heavy and his head throbbing, the misery of his own failure - these were all things he could bottle down where they couldn’t trouble anyone. 

Vash was in control of the situation.

When Wolfwood burst out of the saloon’s doors with Meryl at his heels, Vash had opted for a casual stance, hands loose at his sides and a sheepish grin plastered across his face.

“Hey,” Vash said breezily, like they had just run into one another by chance at an open market.

Wolfwood stared at him. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and the rest of the bottle of whisky in one hand. 

He didn’t look pleased - Wolfwood rarely ever looked pleased - but some of the tension drained from his shoulders, and he pinched the cigarette between his fingers as he let out a long exhale.

"You good, needle noggin?" he asked.

"I'm fine. So-"

"If you say 'sorry' so help me God, I will hit you."

That was a lie. Wolfwood only hit him when Vash was being unconscionably irritating, and even then he held back. At most he exerted enough force that his point was made. More of a heavy tap than a real strike, a warning to back off or not do anything stupid. 

Wolfwood was all bark and no bite when it came to the people he cared about.

Still, this was a game Vash was familiar with, so he put on his most pathetic expression and whined, "You would hit an injured man?"

Wolfwood snorted. "I would hit an idiot who thinks he needs to apologize for having emotions. There’s nothing to be sorry for, and I’m not gonna stand here and listen to you harp on about how you didn’t mean to be an inconvenience or whatever else you think you were.”

Vash opened his mouth, halfway to another apology before he realised what he was doing and snapped it shut. Given the exasperated look Wolfwood fixed him with he knew exactly what Vash had been about to do.

"Alright, shortie,” he said to Meryl, who had Vash’s coat bundled in her arms, “what's the damage? Physically?"

"Some glass in his back,” she told him, “I got the worst of it out but I think we'll need tweezers to pick out the small bits. And some kind of dressing, at least until the bleeding stops completely. We can rent a room for another ni-"

"Nah, think we'd better skip town. Next one over is only a couple hours drive, we can stop as soon as we’re out of spitting distance to patch him up."

Meryl paused. She folded her arms around the coat, her voice taking on a lyrical note of danger. "Wolfwood… why do we need to leave?"

He took another drag of his cigarette, turning his attention back to Vash rather than meeting her gaze. "I said I'd pay for everyone's drinks if they stayed inside away from the windows."

She spluttered. "We just earnt enough to not be broke, can we even afford-"

"Nope, which is why we're better to hit the road. Small town like this, they wouldn't have trouble finding us if we stayed, and I don't fancy dealing with that. Figure needle noggin feels the same."

They both looked at him.

Vash shuffled his feet. This was, as usual, his fault. It was why people called him a typhoon - no matter how many problems he sought to fix, inevitably he would set in motion another disaster, and it was down to luck whether the chaos he caused was preferable to the peril he prevented.

Soon there would be a lot of angry people discovering that their ‘free’ drinks had to be paid for. Optimistically, this would result in a riot. And he couldn’t stay to talk their tempers down and reach a compromise because that would mean Wolfwood staying, and Wolfwood would only rile them up, and if anyone decided to get physical then the undertaker would react with violence in turn, and Vash might actually have to draw his gun, and…

And it would all end in unnecessary bloodshed, the very thing he’d started this mess to avoid…

At least if they fled, there was a chance the mob would tire themselves out with a bit of harmless brawling, and with no target to focus their anger on they might call it a night.

“We should go,” he said, since they were both obviously waiting for him to speak, “there’ll be trouble if we stay, and I’m not hurt bad - just a scratch, really - I think I can survive a few hours in the truck.”

Wolfwood nodded, flicking the last of his cigarette to the ground and grinding it beneath his heel. “Well, there we have it. Let’s get moving.”

Meryl sighed, but she didn’t argue.

They were only ten minutes into the drive when Wolfwood directed them to pull over by a ridge of uneven rockface. The town was far behind them - just a speck of light in the distance, all detail lost and blurred into one, as impersonal as the stars. 

Here, Vash sat on the hood of the vehicle, reluctantly peeling his shirt off while Meryl held a torch up. 

Wolfwood handed him the rest of the bottle of whisky. Vash resisted the urge to down the lot in one go and instead took a few burning sips. It would do exactly nothing, but he wasn’t sure if clouded judgment was something he wanted at present, and if Wolfwood thought it helped then maybe that was good enough.

He listened to the sound of the first aid kit being rifled through.

“Alright,” Wolfwood’s gruff voice came from behind him, “keep still, and let me know if you need me to stop.”

Vash said nothing, just turned the bottle of whisky round in his grasp.

It hurt. There was no way it wasn’t going to, but this was a pain he knew well and could grit his teeth through, a simple sharp twinge with no significance and no consequences.

That, and for all his bluster, Wolfwood’s hands were surprisingly gentle when he wanted them to be. He picked out the glass shards one at a time in a methodical rhythm that kept each point of contact to a minimum. Occasionally the fingers of his left hand would ghost over Vash’s shoulder, a little reassurance before the next hurt, interspersed with Meryl’s hushed murmurs of encouragement. 

It barely felt like any time had passed at all before the click of the tweezers being set down on the truck’s hood sounded. “There, that’s the lot. Anyone else I’d suggest stitches, but you’re...”

“I don’t need them,” Vash confirmed, before he could finish that thought, “it’s not as bad as bullet wounds, it’ll close over soon.”

“Okay, but you better not be lying.”

A hand snaked around him and held itself out palm up. Vash stared at it in confusion.

Did… Wolfwood want to hold his hand? Not unheard of, but definitely unusual under the circumstances…

The hand shook itself more insistently. “Whisky,” Wolfwood demanded.

“Oh!”

He slapped the bottle into his palm and the hand retreated.

“This will sting,” he warned.

Vash chuckled. “Yeah, not my first rodeo.”

“Not mine either, but that doesn’t mean it sucks any less.”

The sensation of a damp cloth against his skin was pleasant, easing off the layer of blood that had collected there, but the moment it touched his wounds he couldn’t fully withhold a wince.

“Told you,” Wolfwood muttered, kind enough to sound only a pinch smug.

Meryl was more sympathetic, stroking the side of his arm in a soothing gesture since this was the only part of him she could reach while still holding the torch up and not getting in the way. 

“You’re doing good,” she said, “after this it’s just bandages and then we can get going again. It won’t be long till the next town, we can all get some rest there.”

Vash forced a smile she couldn’t see. “Sure.”

Sleep did sound kind of nice… truthfully, he was running on fumes, but admitting that seemed like a bad idea. He’d caused enough worry as it was, he didn’t need them to start thinking they had to coddle him.

He could nap in the truck once their attention was off him. 

He was used to doing that - making up for lost time after a night of staring at the ceiling, unable to close his eyes for fear of what might find him.

Wolfwood did it too sometimes, though Vash had never asked him about it. 

Meryl accused them both of being narcoleptic. 

But for her, sleep still came in a reliable schedule, and it was a miracle he hoped would never fail, because if it did then he would have to accept that that was his fault too. 

One way or the other it always circled back to that… 

There was too much to make up for, too many mistakes, and at times he didn’t know if he wanted to scream at the unfairness of it or bury himself in the sand and never get up again… But he could do neither. So he would start each day the same way he always did, run through the motions, smile and forget quite how fundamentally destructive he was, and occasionally he could fool himself too…

He was still brooding on this reality when he remembered another blunder he had yet to correct, and groaned. “Oh, the window! We didn’t pay for that, did we?”

Wolfwood stopped winding the bandages around him for a second, a harsh tsk or irritation sounding before he resumed his work. “Trust you to be worried about the window.”

“Those things cost money… it’s not the owner’s fault, he shouldn’t have to take it out of pocket because I-”

“And it’s not your fault either,” Wolfwood snapped, “it’s that asshole who threw you through it. Christ, spikey, you’re not to blame for every bad thing that happens, okay?”

Vash disagreed - he understood the concept of cause and effect. He had chosen to interfere, which resulted in being thrown through a window, thus the window was broken because of him. He should have made a better plan - shouldn’t have drunk so much whisky - should have slipped free the moment his goal was accomplished… but because he hadn’t, the window was irrefutably broken and he was irrefutably to blame. He was not irrational, he was observing a pattern. 

Explaining this never went the way he wanted it to though - they would get frustrated and he would default to deflecting before they could bring up events he had no intention of discussing.

Wolfwood tied off the bandage. “Don’t sulk,” he said. “We’ll pass through this way again eventually, you can… run errands for the barman or whatever until your conscience cuts you some slack. Just forget about it for now. Right now, just worry about yourself.”

“He’s right,” Meryl chimed in. “Besides, collateral’s expected this far out, that’s what insurance is for.”

Vash was outnumbered as usual. “Fine.” 

It wasn’t fine, but he got the sense that neither of them would take his insistence on the matter any better than they had before, and he was too tired to argue. He would just have to start putting a few double dollars aside, and plan a totally unrelated excursion that would take them through the same area in a few months time. 

Meryl patted his arm consolingly. “There there. Plenty more windows in the sea… or something.”

That earned a weak laugh. 

She’d been keeping a record of things like that - odd turns of phrase that didn’t belong in the world of No Man’s Land, things that Vash would spout without meaning to, an echo of a time generations behind them. Sometimes she grasped the meaning, sometimes no amount of explanation would wrap her brain around an idea she had no context for.

But she would parrot them back to him regardless. Occasionally it was seamless - the sort of moment he would blink and miss if she hadn’t been studying his reaction so closely - other times she fumbled. Very rarely, though, she would get them wrong on purpose, just to see if it would amuse him.

He thought that was what she was doing now.

“I think ‘windows under the bridge’ might be closer?” he suggested, turning his head so he could see her.

Meryl hummed, tapping a finger to her lip thoughtfully. “No use crying over spilt windows?”

“Yeah that works,” Vash said. “Man… I can’t believe you’ve never tried milk. People here have no idea what they’re missing out on.”

Wolfwood snorted. “As if. You told us where that shit comes from, couldn’t pay me to drink it.”

In truth, Vash had only had the powdered, reconstituted kind that had been kept on the ship, but he and Nai had learned a lot about old Earthen agriculture and farming along with their other education. Its origin didn’t seem any stranger to him than meat or eggs, but the people of No Man’s Land had cultivated their own diet out of what little was available to them and weren’t about to be swayed. Though to be fair, it had been a while before the survivors of the fall had warmed to the idea of eating worms.

“You’re awfully judgemental for a priest,” he said, twisting further so he could catch Wolfwood’s expression.

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m an undertaker, blondie. You know that. Anyway, you’re done - get your shirt on and we can get moving again.”

The fondness was still there, lurking in his eyes without his shades to hide them. Wolfwood never fooled him. 

“Yeah yeah…” Vash muttered.

He eased his arms and head into the spare shirt Meryl dug out for him, and then wrapped himself in the comfort of his coat before they set off.

The passenger seat stayed empty. Vash suspected it wouldn’t always be that way - that someday, someone would fill it - but he knew it wouldn’t be him or Wolfwood. They were content to maintain their routine of packing into the backseats and sprawling out across the added space, and on the rare occasion Meryl would take a break from driving she joined Vash without comment. 

Unfortunately, with his back still raw and aching, his ability to sprawl was greatly diminished. He ended up leaning into the door, curled inward, head resting against the window, then the frame, then his own arm - finding no relief no matter the position he chose. The judder of the vehicle rattled all the way in his skull, and closing his eyes did nothing to help regardless of his exhaustion. 

He should have taken the other side - at least then his arm might have functioned as an actual pillow rather than another unyielding surface that amplified the tremors of the engine. 

Asking Wolfwood to swap at this point felt like making a nuisance of himself. And, it would also mean admitting his own discomfort, which could start both him and Meryl worrying again. He’d made them worry enough tonight - they deserved a break.

Evidently he would have to wait until they reached the next town before he could rest. In the meantime, he would mimic a doze as best he could, which would at least assure them that he was recuperating and avoid the need for awkward conversation.

Vash sighed.

It was going to be a miserable two hours.

Resigned to his fate, he clinched his coat close around him and tried to smooth his expression into something passably peaceful.

The second sigh was not his own.

“Come here, idiot.”

A hand reached around his waist, tugging at him, and Vash opened his eyes to regard Wolfwood with a calculating stare.

He considered resisting - pulling away and tucking himself into the corner he’d claimed, hood down low and limbs folded up. If he did, he was pretty sure Wolfwood would let him.

But that would definitely draw their attention and he didn’t want them to start trying to decipher his behavior and make conclusions he was too tired to refute.

They were still concerned, and Vash was falling back on old habits… 

He knew better than this.

So, he let himself go pliant, let Wolfwood drag him across the seats until he was pressed up against the undertaker. 

It was more gradual than he was used to, care taken to avoid his injuries and slowly guide him into a position that suited them both. He ended up draped over Wolfwood’s shoulder, his head resting in the dip of his collarbone and his legs across his lap. 

One arm remained at his waist to keep him steady but the other found its way to his hair.

It was… pleasant. The familiar scent of smoke tickled his nose and the warmth of the other man’s body radiated even through the layers of his shirt and jacket. The shudder of the truck could barely be felt. Like this, there was only the gentle pitch over each dune, and Vash was beginning to go boneless. 

He couldn’t remember why he had considered resisting at all.

“Sleep,” Wolfwood told him.

That sounded great.

A low rumble was building in Vash’s chest. Purring, they called it, which it wasn’t, just a vibration that traveled well through a liquid environment such as the tanks that his sisters were suspended in… but the meaning was close enough, and Vash had long since given up arguing the point. It was nice, not to have to hold it in. A weirdness of his they'd taken great pains to teach him was acceptable. Somedays, he believed them. 

Meryl made a high pitched squeal from the front, and murmured something that sounded a lot like 'so cute'.

"Shut up," Wolfwood grumbled.

Vash made a noise of protest at the disturbance, and he tutted, reaching up to pluck Vash's glasses from his face and fold them carefully away in his jacket pocket.

Wolfwood's fingers carded through his hair once before they settled.

"Sleep," he said again, softly, tucking Vash's head beneath his chin.

Slowly, Vash felt his eyes begin to drift closed.

Tomorrow he would worry about damage control. Tomorrow, he would bring all the bright eyed cheer and energy he needed to make them forget there was ever a reason to worry at all. But tonight, here, now, with two of his favourite people close and the rock of the van over the dips and rises of the empty dunes ferrying him closer to sleep, he could allow himself just one more moment of selfish weakness.