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Every day, just as the sun dips low and paints the hills gold before it sets, Vash takes a short journey. He walks past the vegetable garden and barn and paddocks, down a slope of knee-high grass, till he’s out of sight of the house and at the fence demarcating the edge of the little Saverem family homestead. There, he waits for the most beautiful man he’s ever seen to ride past.
The cowboy is always preceded by a lowing mass of dusty but well-fed bovines that pass under the eaves of the scattered oak trees. Vash can envision him even before he appears, shapely in his well-worn leathers, all warm brown skin and thick black hair that shines with a touch of red in the setting sun. The strong, angular profile of his nose. A few of Vash’s horses often join him by where he sits waiting atop the fence, and they nicker in greeting to the cowboy’s mount as he comes into view, a lovely paint with the powerful flanks of a good cow steed.
Breeding and caring for horses is what Vash and his brother do for a living, and Vash tends to judge a person’s character, first and foremost, on how they treat a horse. The man’s paint is always calm and happy and nicely groomed. Loved. It makes Vash’s heart beat fast.
The man drops the reins and lets her nibble on the grass a stone’s throw from the fence as he tips his hat to Vash. “Hola, hermoso,” he says.
“Hello,” Vash replies, wrapping his whole arm around the neck of a mare who has stuck her head over his shoulder. He’s tempted to hide his blush in the tawny fur of her neck.
They smile at each other in amicable silence, because Vash is quite sure the cowboy does not speak English and well…unlike Nai, Vash doesn’t speak much Spanish. The man tends to call him “Solecito,” which Nai told Vash, with a narrowed look, translates roughly to “sunshine”.
Vash wants to touch him very, very badly.
“¿Y la Lunita? ¿dónde anda?” the man asks, gesturing up towards the ranch house with his head.
Vash furrows his brows, turning the words over in his mouth. Where…where is…the moon? That makes no sense.
The cowboy sees his bemused look and waves him off with a chuckle. “Buenas noches,” he says, picking up the reins and clicking his horse into a walk.
He rides off over the crest of the hill, the cows trotting before him, back to the next valley over and the sprawling cattle ranch owned by the Gomez family. They have done this dozens of times over the last few months, ever since the day Vash first spotted him riding by at sundown, a hired hand (Vash has surmised) returning the Gomez’ cattle after their daily grazing in the hills.
“Goodnight!” Vash calls after him.
After darkness has fallen, and the chickens and horses and goats are tucked away for the night, the brothers tuck themselves away, too. Vash lays back naked on their simple straw mattress, exhausted from a day chasing unruly young horses, and watches Nai as he strips and sponges himself off. The candlelight burnishes every curve of milk-pale skin that is uncovered, then turns pink when its delicate surface is rasped with the cloth.
Certainly, Nai is just as beautiful as the cowboy, but Vash has never seen him the way he first saw the other man. There was no moment of initial perception with Nai; he’s in Vash’s oldest, fuzziest memories, having come into the world first by a whole fifteen minutes.
Now everyone else is gone and it's just the two of them on the ranch, and the horses, and the endless waving grass; green in the winter, gold in the summer.
Nai is sidelong to him, running the cloth up one long thigh, across the planes of his lower stomach, under his balls. He's just washing his crotch, but Vash feels like it's his personal show.
Vash doesn’t realize Nai is watching Vash watch him, he sees Nai's sideways glance and quirked brow. "Not tired of the view after all these years?" Nai asks.
"Never," Vash replies, smugly tucking his hand behind his head.
Nai throws the towel into the basin and approaches, a protective hand over his chilly water shrunken bits. “Did you get a visit from your cowboy today?”
“What?”
“Did your cowboy show up for your usual date today,” he repeats. There’s only a bit of jealousy in his voice, it’s mostly teasing.
Vash scratches at one of many scars on his chest. “Yes. I think he called me brother? Which is odd.”
A smile is curving the corners of Nai's mouth as he drops to the bed on all fours and crawls over to Vash. “Was it ‘hermano’, or ‘hermoso’?”
Vash contemplates this, peering at him through lowered lashes. “The second one.”
Nai doesn’t stop until he’s directly over Vash and they’re perfectly mirrored, nose to nose. Vash loses the train of thought altogether when Nai kisses him, slow and teasing, just little flicks of tongue and brushing lips that leave him reaching for more.
Nai pulls back and whispers, “He called you beautiful, not brother.”
Warmth swirls in Vash’s chest, making him feel smug. “Oh, I like that better. Brother is only for you.”
"Hermano," Nai breathes onto his lips, and good lord, that word sounds too sexy coming from Nai when they're like this, in any language. He kisses his way down Vash’s stomach, pausing with his nose in the nest of dark brown curls at the base of Vash’s cock. He stills there, taking a long inhale through his nose. “Did your mysterious beau say anything else you need translated?”
Nai is making it very, very hard for Vash to think, but with valiant effort he replies—despite the hot breath ghosting over his yearning and sensitive skin. “I…I thought he asked me…ah…where the moon is but that makes no sense.”
Nai’s lips are wrapped around the crown. He pulls off, damn him, and gives Vash a thoughtful look in the flickering candle light. “He calls you little sun, no?”
“Y-yeah.”
Nai’s grin is predatory. “Well, then, I suppose he was asking after me.”
That stirs something deep in Vash’s guts that makes his dick twitch and his asshole clench. Or maybe it’s that Nai has just taken him to the root in one go, and his throat is spasming around Vash, saliva pooling at the base.
“Fuck me,” Vash groans, imagining Nai and the cowboy taking turns doing just that.
It’s Vash’s favorite day, bath day. It means a half day's rest from ranch labors for him and Nai, spent relaxing together, fresh and clean.
He may have dragged the metal tub closer to the boundary line of the property than usual. Almost right up to the fence, in fact, despite it requiring him and Nai to lug buckets of water that much further from the well; one-armed, in his case. Nai rolls his eyes when he first sees the new location for their little spa, but declines to comment, even though he does two thirds of the water hauling work—Vash chose the perfect place under the shelter of a massive oak in deference to privacy and Nai’s pale skin, after all.
Nai's long johns and white linen shirt are drenched and indecent by the time he's dropped the last bucket, and Vash’s eyes get a bit stuck on his wide chest, rosy nipples peeking through the transparent fabric.
Bathing is an old ritual for the twins, one that starts with them sitting at either end of the big metal basin, their legs overlapping in the middle as they scrub away a week's worth of oil and grime from their skin and blonde hair. No place behind ears or between fingers is missed, Nai helping Vash out where a second hand is needed, the same way he’s done in all things since the day a horse stamped on Vash's left arm, shattering it. It was Nai who did the amputation.
Sometimes they wash amidst teasing banter, but today Vash sings Rem’s song and Nai listens with his eyes closed, until a billy goat steals his towel. Nai is forced to chase it, naked and barefoot and bellowing about butchering it for supper; which likely isn't an idle threat. Vash hoots with laughter, and enjoys the beauty that is his twin, nude and in motion. Towel regained, Nai carefully rinses his feet from a bucket before climbing back in.
They gaze at each other for a moment, basking in the summer afternoon warmth; then Vash lets his whims lead him like he always does and he moves into his brother’s space, draping his body over Nai's and bringing their lips together. Only the grazing chickens and livestock know how long it goes on for, the greedy share of breath and matching tongues, faces angled and tangled together as the sun dips lower on the horizon.
It's only natural they rut against each other while they're at it, wet and soapy and slick as they are, until they’re breathing each other's breath more than kissing. Eventually Vash pulls back and prompts Nai to turn over with a slap on his hip, so that he's on his knees in the murky water, his arms curled over the tub's rim and his ass up. Vash loves Nai's ass, and it's so nice and clean for him now, so he buries his face between the cheeks. His hand kneads at one globe as he licks, flat tongued, over the furl between. Nai groans and tips forward, his head on his crossed arms and legs slipping wide.
Time gets as slippery as their skin; Vash is incapable of keeping track when he’s half suffocated against his brother, tasting him, licking and nipping and dipping his tongue in and out and rolling Nai’s balls in his hand while Nai praises and curses him in turn. He’s real damn used to ignoring the sound of hoof falls, considering the countless numbers of animals who have witnessed their debauchery over the years, so he pays the ones that clop by now little mind until Nai’s entire body goes rigged.
Vash pulls back and follows the path of his twin’s gaze up, up a set of brown and white patched equine legs, to the cowboy sitting astride the animal, pulled up directly beside the fence. Then he leans down so low in his saddle that he's bent right over the fence, his smug face no more than a couple feet from Nai’s pink, pleasure flushed one. There’s a crooked and half burned-out cigarette between his lips. The cows are nowhere to be seen.
Vash swallows hard. He’d imagined the handsome cowboy might spot them from afar, and watch them in secret. That maybe Vash would catch a glimpse of him in the distance, touching himself. He hadn’t expected him to come so close. All at once, Vash is conscious, and self-conscious, of his countless scars being on display under such close scrutiny.
“Qué sabroso,” the man says. The unusually rough purr in his voice goes straight to Vash’s dick.
Nai flushes a darker shade of pink, puts a shielding hand over his flagging cock, and says something in Spanish in reply, his words too harsh and quick for Vash to make out. Vash sets a calming hand on his hip.
The cowboy leans down further, one hand gripping the pommel to keep him from toppling off, and drawls out a reply Vash also can’t follow. Nai stays stalk-still.
“W-what did he say?” Vash asks, burning with curiosity. The cowboy’s eyes flick from Nai to him, and the man smiles.
“He says his cunt of a mother named him Nico and that we shouldn’t stop on his account.”
The narrowed look the cowboy turns on Nai makes it clear the flourishes Nai added in translation aren’t entirely lost on him. He rights himself in his saddle and takes a long drag on his cigarette, before sweeping his arm in a “well, go on,” gesture. His posture is abrasive in its casualness. Vash expects Nai to holler at the man in anger, to slap at his horse’s rump and send it running, but instead he turns and gives Vash a resigned look, like he knows exactly what he’s going to find on Vash’s face.
Nai lets out a chest-heaving sigh at whatever he sees there, because Vash’s blood is fizzing in his veins and he’s fairly sure he’s never been more turned on in his life. Vash glances up at the beautiful, smirking cowboy, and licks his lips. It’s all incredibly reckless and stupid of them, of course, anyone with eyes can tell they’re very, very related. But, the man— Nico —sure seems into it.
“Fine,” Nai grumbles, and Vash doesn’t need to be told twice. He wraps his arm around Nai's narrow waist and crushes their bodies and mouths back together.
Above them, Nico waggles his eyebrows.
Vash can feel Nai fumbling for the soap, and then his slick hand is on both of their cocks, stroking them in a sloppy rhythm that would have Vash lighting up from head to toe any day, and doubly so now when he’s watching Nico watch them through half lidded eyes over Nai’s shoulder. Vash runs his hand over Nai’s back and the muscles are bunched tight as wire; it's no small thing, leaving himself vulnerable to a stranger like this. But when Vash brings his hand around and grips where their cocks slide together, Nai is as hard as Vash has ever felt him, his breath coming in shallow pants. Nai’s free hand finds its way into the cleft of Vash’s ass, petting over his hole with soapy fingers, and Vash’s choked cry is muffled by his brother's lips.
It’s perfect, the beautiful cowboy’s lustful gaze burning into them both like a brand, turning them molten in each other’s arms. Nico shifts on his horse, his denim trousers strained, but he does nothing more than tilt his head and take another drag of his cigarette. Vash is going to combust, so he shuts his eyes and lets the pleasure build in his center as he suckles Nai’s tongue.
The sound of boots hitting hard packed earth has Nai jumping from Vash’s grip and to his feet, hissing like a startled cat. By the time Vash manages to focus his arousal-addled eyes Nico has already tied his horse to the fence and is ducking between the rails. It brings him nearly nose to nose with Nai, who is coiled up like a snake, his face beet red, his fists balled and ready to strike. Vash has seen the destruction Nai can cause when he snaps, and it turns all of the warmth in his belly to ice.
Nico, the no-good-sense bastard, smirks, flicks his cigarette away, and bends his knees a touch, lowering himself to a less threatening height as he reaches out slowly to Nai with both hands, as if he’s a spooked horse. It’s ridiculous, Vash realizes, all of it: him and his brother standing in knee-deep dingy water, buck naked, this stranger clothed from neck to toe. The cowboy has even got his fucking hat on. Vash breaks down into helpless, nervous giggles.
He’s gotten them so damn far in over their heads.
Nico leans in oh, so slowly, like time has stalled out, inches split into fractions, until he touches his soft looking lips to Nai’s. His warm, brown hand cradles Nai’s alabaster cheek. It’s too beautiful, more than Vash could possibly take.
Nai bites him.
“¡Puta madre!” Nico yelps, slumping back against the fence. He smears blood from his torn bottom lip across his chin with a swipe of his hand.
In the next instant he’s on Nai, clutching him by the shoulders and kissing him savagely, pushing him further back into the tub so he slams into Vash, their feet sliding on slick metal and almost coming out from under them; and Nai, beyond all reason, is grabbing Nico and kissing him back. Vash watches, wide eyed and dazed, his cock now nestled in the seam of Nai’s ass, half bowled over with his nose inches from where his brother and his cowboy crush devour each other.
Nico pulls back, shifts his gaze to Vash, and drawls something in Spanish. Blood is smeared on both his and Nai’s faces now. Vash blinks.
“He asked when you’re going to wake up,” Nai says. His voice is cracked with lust and anger, and he’s trembling hard enough against Vash to shake them both.
And shit, what the fuck is Vash even supposed to do with this situation? Nai and the cowboy are kissing again. He looks down at where his cock slips between the plush mounds of Nai’s ass. He’d sure like to fuck Nai right now, but it’s a gamble, a potential bridge too far that could leave him and Nico with black eyes and broken noses. Instead he pulls back a hair, bends his knees, and shoves his cock between the meat of Nai’s wet, soapy thighs.
Fuck. They’re so thick and soft and rather than turning around to deck him, his brother squeezes them tighter together, his muscles hardening around Vash’s eager dick.
"Fuck," Vash says.
Nai rumbles against Vash’s chest as he groans, leaning back into Vash, and shit, there’s something bumping against Vash’s cock every now and then as he thrusts, and he realizes its Nico’s hand jerking his brother off.
Nico says something Vash doesn’t think he could process at the moment even if he spoke the language, and Vash looks up. Nai and the cowboy are no longer kissing, instead his brother has slumped forward so his head rests on Nico’s leather clad shoulder, delirious in his place pinioned between them as Nico matches the pace of Vash’s thrusts with his fist. It’s so much, it’s too fucking much for Vash’s poor little brain, and that’s before Nico’s free hand snakes behind Vash’s head and pulls him into a kiss.
His eyes are dark pools, and he tastes like whiskey and cigarettes and iron. Vash opens his mouth to Nico’s tongue and moans, his thrusts picking up pace once more, and Nai curses and pleads between them, hot as a coal, as if Vash’s cock was somewhere other than between his thighs. Vash can feel it, the tension all through his brother’s body as Nico’s clever hand, and the press of their three bodies, hurdles him towards his peak. One of Nai’s fists is bunched into Nico’s leather vest and the other digs into Vash’s hip, pulling them both close. His shout is ragged and guttural as he comes.
Vash lets himself go, too, coming in blissful, lazy thrusts that make a lovely mess between Nai’s legs as Nico milks his brother until he snarls and pushes his hand away from his sensitive cock.
Nico breaks the kiss in a mess of stringy spit, and seems content to support Nai’s considerable, slumping weight as he murmurs to them; Vash picks only a few words out from it, perfectos is clear enough, and another one, terribly familiar: Gemelos. Twins.
That he knows what goes on between them should frighten Vash, but it doesn’t. Nico gives him a playful slap on the cheek that goes right to the dick that’s still trapped, half-hard, between Nai’s thighs. Nico follows it up with a peck on Nai’s cheek; he's smart enough, it seems, to know a similar slap would earn him a hard right hook. Nai curls his blood-reddened lips into a sneer in response as Nico wipes his sticky hand on their towel, grabs his hat from where Nai had knocked it into the dust during their struggle, then ducks back through the fence and unties his well-behaved horse.
It occurs to Vash’s slow and muddled brain while he holds his unsteady brother against him, that the cowboy didn’t ask for anything, or so much as loosen his belt, but by then Nico is swinging back into the saddle with a hand on the pommel.
"Hey wait!" Vash calls after him.
Nico only tips his hat low to them before returning it to his head, as if this is any other evening he’d ridden by with the cows, and there isn’t a sizable bulge straining the ties of his trousers.
“Buenas noches, mi Luna y Sol,” he says, clicks his tongue, and is gone into the quickly falling dusk.
Nai pulls them both from their awkward stance in the soapy water, and collapses cross legged on grass with Vash in his lap, heedless of getting them dirty all over again. Vash curls against his older twin’s chest the best he can; he’s a bit big and ungainly for it. The crickets are starting to strum their chattering tune.
It’s only then Vash realizes he’s shivering, from his drying sweat or the encroaching night or the comedown from the experience, he’s not sure. Maybe all three. Nai locates one of their dropped towels, and drapes it around his shoulders.
“I think I hate that guy,” Nai mutters into his hair.
Vash smiles. He’s got a hell of a lot of new words to learn.