Chapter Text
… He was joking about the dwarf witches.
Meryl Stryfe, the apparent owner of Stryfe Potions Emporium, is a tiny spitfire and one of the prettiest little bastards Wolfwood has ever met. She kicks him as a greeting, for one, then threatens his unmentionables.
For whatever reason, Wolfwood is convinced instantly that Milly is going to love her. Adorable, can kick Wolfwoods ass with magic, is apparently competent in her work and has Milly’s taste in home decor.
There is also the whole thing with the ornate robes and the hat that seems bigger than she is, adorned with as many knick knacks as the whole room is, and the soft gleam of her eyes . It’s not quite the same shade of blue as the colour Vash is wearing, but brighter, clearer.
He is doomed, isn’t he? He’ll have to ask, slash beg, Roberto not to send Milly, which means that’s exactly who is going to be his back up.
Fuck his life sideways.
Vash bounces around the kitchen like a particularly vibrant cat on catnip, scattering feathers everywhere until Meryl pulls at his wings and hisses for him to “Chill the fuck down, Vash, I just swept the floor.” That’s when the colours change, where the content blue shifts into something flustered, a gentle purple that spreads from the markings on his face, down to the tips of his wings and feathers, up his horns, then shifts further into pink tones that keep flickering in between shades until they settle into something more reddish.
The kitchen table is drowning in papers, books and random trinkets, tiny flacons filled with various glittering fluids that could be coloured water or basically weapons of mass destruction, only shiny. Wolfwood has enough sense not to touch any of it. When one of the books grows a tongue and it flicks Vashs wrist as he sets down the teacups… Well. He feels very vindicated. Until Vash pets the book, it purrs and Wolfwood realises that he really wants a head pat as well.
In his defence, it’s been a few years.
He really misses the matron now, fuck.
Meryl turns towards him, her witch hat bobbing dangerously on top of her head and Wolfwood spies one of those little bottles attached to the brim of the hat. The hat is littered with glowing little stars and several little tufts of flowers wedged in between a few seemingly randomly placed stones. The whole thing is drenched in protective magic, the faint smell of ozone still weak against the stronger smells of herbs, bread and tea, power not yet activated and Wolfwood will be perfectly honest: if this little girl is capable of actually powering a protection spell of this size? He is the first one out of town if anyone ever pisses her off.
He knows his limits.
It doesn’t mean that he is capable of thinking first and talking second.
“Allright, shorty, what is your take on the local cult and the state of the city?”
“It’s Miss Stryfe to you, Mister .” she grumbles into her cup and offers him a glare, “I don’t do business with cultists if I can help it. They like to sniff out that guy over there and then everything goes very messy very fast… how are your ribs?”
All healed.
“Well enough. Thanks for letting me crash at your place and not leaving me behind in the alley?” Wolfwood offers her a smile and only gets a glower back. That is, until Vash touches her shoulder, carefully, gently and he watches her literally melt and soften into something less angry and so much more human.
“Couldn’t really leave you back there after you tried to help Vash. Took me a hot minute to realise that you weren’t aiming at him and by then the spells were already cast and I… Well.” She shrugs, “I promised Vash I’d let you heal and say your piece and then we’d go from there.” Her fingers are now circling the rim of her teacup, eyes downcast again, “As for the cult… We’re just two people, it’s not like we really have a chance against the whole city and you exorcists are, frankly, useless idiots and like to drop like flies most of the time, so I sort of… gave up? Fighting them openly. We do save people when we can, but actively looking for them is a hassle, what with the shop and babysitting Vash and his hero complex…”
“Hey!”
“Shut up, you tried to adopt your third demon cat this week last night. But yeah. Not a fan. Most of the civilians aren’t, but the only ones in danger are usually those that have a thing for summoning? I am left alone, the other witches with different specialisations are too, so we get by.”
So fortune tellers are safe, brewers, elementalists, maybe even alchemists. That’s a good thing to know. Wolfwood mentally notes it down, even if it’s not the most useful information. Exorcists rarely work with witches, something, something unholy energy and conflict of beliefs or something like that.
In his case, he never got to meet one and now he met the probably most terrifying one of them all.
“I see.” So, what now? He met Vash the Stampede. He could exorcise him, wash his hands clean by saying he fulfilled his assignment or… He could figure this shit out, shut down the cult somehow and actually do some good for once. If push comes to shove, he can always just level the city to the ground.
Depending on whether he’ll be able to evacuate the civilians.
“What will you do now?” Vash drops down onto a chair, his own mug in hand, his other hand holding a plate filled with donuts that he places between the three of them on the table.
“I report home and wait for more orders and while I do that… I guess I’ll start gathering intel on the Eye of Michael.” Wolfwood shrugs, “Not much I can do on my own. Lay low, I guess. Keep an eye on the demons in this city and try to make sense of… everything, really.” At this, he looks at Vash and lifts both eyebrows.
Their eyes meet and Vash’s whole being lights up a vibrant red, then back into a deep pink, one that Wolfwood can’t place exactly aside from “It’s cute”.
Really, that’s his whole train of thought, he’s adorable.
Meryl watches their exchange, snorts, then stands up, “Well, if you need something, you know where to find the shop. Vash likes you and that will have to be enough for me. Let us know when you know what you want to do. For now… excuse me, but I have work to do. Vash, he is your problem now, I've got a few commissions I need to finish today.” The ‘ You survived until now so I’ll give you that’ is left unsaid.
Wolfwood hears it anyway.
Vash himself reaches out and pokes his arm, “If there is anything I can help you with, let me know. You did try to help me after all.” He smiles, a small, lopsided thing that melts yet another fuse in Wolfwood's brain and makes him question all his life decisions.
“Sure.” He can’t say much more through the fog, but he tries to anyway, “Where is my gun?”
Classic, Nicholas D. Wolfwood. Well done. Milly will laugh at your sorry ass for ages and beyond.
“Oh, right! We never picked it up! We can get it after breakfast!” At this, Vash shoves the plate closer to Wolfwood and grabs one himself, “Why a cross?”
“Standard issue design? That’s the official statement at least.” Wolfwood snorts, “Truthfully, the guy making them is a nutcase. Or rather, he has a very specific sense of humour. He usually likes to add a joke to every single weapon he makes. My best friend's weapon is stunning , mine’s packed full of mercy , things like that. My boss’ gun is hella lit and I never had the balls to ask what that’s supposed to mean.”
He can’t really help it, talking to Vash. It’s like meeting a friend again after years of separation, just a sort of close connection he can’t quite place or name, something that leaves him comfortable, now that everything's out in the open.
Wolfwood is here to eliminate Vash. His assignment changed.
Vash is a demon from another plane of existence. He is also just a little guy trying to get by and help and that’s already shaping him into a better person than Wolfwood could ever be.
Strange, how things tend to pan out.
Wolfwood eyes the donuts and grabs one of them.
Vash, quite literally, beams just that little bit brighter.
Punisher is really standing in a blue room. Blue walls, a ceiling painted a darker blue and absolutely covered in what feels like a million stars of different shapes and sizes. There are several plants in this room, bookshelves and a table in the corner. Wolfwood finds a sofa squashed into another corner, the blanket thrown haphazardly over the fabric, black this time.
In all of it, His gun looks terribly misplaced, like a modern day weapon in a mediaeval setting… which is not that far off the mark, so the comparison sucks but Wolfwood is not the best with those anyway. So.
He’ll take what he can.
Vash waves at Wolfwood’s probably oldest friend and moves to fold up the blanket, leaving his back open to Wolfwood, which, stupid . Wolfwood has a weapon now. He could shoot this idiot right here and now and there would be no Meryl to save him in time.
Not that Wolfwood will .
This is his only viable lead to a solution, but it’s the principle of it!
A demon! Leaving his back open to an exorcist!
“What will you really do now?” Vash asks and wolfwood catches an expression that’s nothing like what he’s seen yet, forlorn and lost as it seems, “Are you really just going to believe me? Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Wolfwood agrees, “In my defence, shit is already wild here in Julai and really, you are the least weird thing I’ve seen by now.”
He has a demonic trash cat in his dumpster. There is a fucking demon worshipping cult in this blasted city. His target has an evil twin brother . He feels like he is stuck in a particularly bad fantasy book with a trashy, cliché plot. For fuck’s sake, his assumed enemy is a beautiful misunderstood boy who only wants to do good and gets stuck in the worst situations because of that. Wolfwood doesn’t know him all that well but even he has seen enough in the last 24 hours to understand that.
And once again, evil twin brother . Dude’s probably unfairly pretty as well.
“And to be perfectly honest, I just want to understand what’s going on.” And you. “What did you mean, when you said I can’t exorcise you?”
Vash flinches, “I… Can we please change the subject?” His feathers puff out, a bit like a cat’s tail when it’s agitated, until he paws them down and Wolfwood notices more feathers sprouting from the backs of his hands, “It’s… private.”
“Sure?” Wolfwood checks Punisher for damage, then any tampering, only to find everything in place, so he hoists his gun onto his back, “what will you do now?”
“Walk you home?” Vash is still trying to pat his feathers down, “I promised I'd do that. And then… Well, I’ll keep going like this. I don’t know. Having you here makes things… different. Meryl won’t say it, but having an exorcist survive this long without being noticed… It gives her hope for the city. Things have been changing around here, she just hates talking about it. The demons are getting more vicious. I think Nai is… Well. I think he is planning something, I just don’t know what . And I don't know what I should do about that.” His face screams ‘It’s my brother’ and ‘It’s my responsibility’ and he is so unerringly human in this moment that Wolfwood does the one thing he is really good at.
He puts his foot in his mouth.
“Fine, let me rephrase. What do you want to do, needles?”
“I want to help you.” Vash turns towards him, his marks fading back into a translucent, pale blue, strong and calm, his determination a sharp contrast to the softness displayed before.
Powerful and steadfast and fierce, as he repeats, “I want to help you.” His feathers settle back into place, his wrists now finally uncovered enough to show the black contract mark and finally, it’s Wolfwood's last proof of his innocence.
A Demon with a contract cannot kill. Of course that’s not quite right, there are contracts that allow murder, that allow for damage to be done, for the demon to defend themselves. But those have their own contract marks, their own shapes and runes and rules . Vash is wearing the chains of knowledge , of learning . His rules are those of servitude in the sense of answering questions and learning new things himself.
A contract such as his, even blacked out, is that of an exchange.
No wonder that he answers Wolfwoods questions so willingly.
Even if his first master has died, he is still bound to the contract, because he has never been released from it. Wolfwood reaches out and takes one of those wrists into his hands, stares down at the mark.
“It has been modified.”
“I can choose not to answer, if that’s what you mean.” Vash smiles, “She never wanted to force us. She just wanted… company.”
The questions burn on his tongue. Wolfwood wants to ask , he wants to prod and burrow and he wants to know, but he refrains, because he doesn’t want to break this.
Vash does not kill.
He can believe that, because the clause is tattooed into his skin, because no matter what, no matter how modified, his summoner had been careful enough.
“I am going to send my report back to my boss tomorrow and until my reinforcement arrives, I will be on my own. I still need to gather more intel and at least try to keep the people here safe.” Wolfwood whispers, unable to raise his voice, as if afraid to spook the literal demon in the room, “You are welcome to help. I could use a second pair of hands.”
He should probably omit that from the report, though. Roberto won’t care, but the other exorcists might get their panties in a bunch.
Vash looks up at him and Wolfwood finally notices that he is half a head taller than the other man.
It’s oddly endearing.
“Okay. I’ll do that.” Vash smiles, brittle and hopeful, “Maybe we can change something after all.”