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Rosaline was a pretty girl, with brown eyes and blond hair. It was easy to tell that she would be taken soon enough, as all the pretty children were carried away first. Because Nick knew that, he kept an eye on her, in a sort of anticipatory way. There was a strangeness to her and sand underneath her fingernails.
She liked to dig around in the sand, heavens knew why. There was enough sand everywhere, in the crooks of their clothes, the corners of their rooms, in the grains of their floorboards. Everything was dusty and covered in sand, no matter how hard or furiously they cleaned. But still, she continued to dig, despite them all drowning in sand. Once, he followed her, he doesn’t remember if it was out of curiosity or lack of anything to do. Her fondness for digging definitely estranged her from the other kids, but honestly that didn’t matter, because they all knew she would be gone soon enough.
“What are you doing.” He had asked, watching her as her hands shifted through the burning sands. Her fingers were callused and often pinkish by the time night came around from digging in the sun-soaked grit. It must’ve hurt.
“I saw something.” She hummed back and he peered over her small back to look. Triumphantly, her small hands circled around the neck of a broken bottle. It was this dark blue color, and flashed radiantly, but there was a gaping hole in the body of the bottle. Ultimately it was useless. But still, Rosaline keeps observing it, with a content smile.
He watches her smile, as the pale blue flecks reflecting off the glass smatter across her face. “Be careful, you can get cut from that.”
“Isn’t it cool?” She replies, completely ignoring his warning. The blue of the bottle makes something twist in Nick’s gut, and he ignores that to stare at the dustiness and sand in the gaps and cracks of the broken bottle.
“It’s useless. And dirty.” He mutters. She whips her head up at him, eyes unflinching and intense. Nick stomps down the sudden urge to wince, the force behind her eyes was something else. It was solid, firm, and it cut through him like a knife.
Everyone, everyone, of all the people he met so far, her gaze held the firmness and solidity lacking in this sandy hellhole. Nick knew he didn’t have any of that resolve, any of her determination. If she dared push, he’d just crumble under her, and become nothing more than the sand she dug through.
“It’s not nothing though, it’s not nothing at all.” And she easily returns to her bottle, broken and dirty, and away from Nick.
That was the last time he’d been able to talk with her before she left.
.
It’s not often that Nick cares to think about his past, or future really. Nick tries not to care at all, but at most his resolve to not care is even more wishy-washy than the sandstorms that plague this dying planet constantly. It’s an irregularly rhythmic mantra, alongside his steadily beating heart- he doesn’t pray not quite, but something like that every night he goes to sleep that he would wake up the next. At this point, it whispers in the back of his mind, to not care.
In the end, it’s Juneora Rock and beer that drives him to his past. He doesn’t like to drink, not the taste of it, or the feeling. Inebriation is dangerous, at the Eye of Michael caught at the wrong moment he would be put down like a dog. They are all vicious and rabid things, handpicked for cruelty and slaughter. But he’s Chapel now, and Chapel, well Chapel never had to worry about that. The rest of the Eye avoids him religiously now, angrily, enviously-Knives Million is the closest thing to a god in this godless world, and what a shitty god at that.
But still a god, nonetheless. It’s a recurring nightmare, alongside the ones where all the kids die, he returns home stained of blood, and all other things. His fingers trembled and refused to move, although his aim was steady. In the end, he just couldn’t shoot. What a fool. And a coward. He’s self-aware enough to know that.
If Vash hadn’t found him, left him to die, if he remained stuck in the burning sand-he wonders. A replacement maybe, maybe nothing at all. He doesn’t care to try and understand the mind of Knives Million, not when sober and especially not when drunk.
He is destined to sink into the sands of this planet. He will die as he lived, covered in sand and dust. There are probably thousands of coffins and bones, all jumbled and cluttered just a few meters beneath the sand. He’ll join them soon enough, and that too, really doesn’t matter.
It makes him mad.
.
“What are you doing?” Vash has this sort of wispy voice that manages to hit the right points of extreme cheerfulness and melancholy.
“Nothing, just thinking.” The ship gives his voice a sort of reverberation, and it echoes just a bit. The air is cool here in this place, and surprisingly free of sand. It’s a strange feeling, not to feel it in his skin, his clothes.
He’s clean, and bandaged, and away from both his suit and Punisher. It makes him feel like a new man, almost. If he looked into the mirror right now, he wouldn’t even be able to recognize himself. Still, despite his new attire and clean-shaven face, he is still inherently harsh. Like a ragged edge in comparison to the blunt spheres of everyone else here. It’s in the corners of his eyes, the frame of his back, the scars on his hands.
Vash doesn’t talk much, unless he has to. It’s not really a shock to Nick, but at the same time, it does feel strange. Everything is a pretense, buried deep beneath an ocean of dirt. There is something about Vash that draws people, a magnetic intensity, perhaps even stronger because of who he is.
It scares him. The world revolves around Vash, in the same way planets revolve around black holes. It’s a spiral down, and Nick has already run out of cigarettes.
One part of him wants to kill Vash, another wants to spill out his entire heart to the man. Place his fucking heart in that angel arm. Vash would listen if he ever dared, he would just watch him with his green eyes and mild smile. Another handful of sand on the tragedy that is Vash’s existence. Silently, amicably carrying it until he dies.
But because he can’t do that, he just sits there, wishing for his cigarettes.
“WE GOT A SIGNAL!” One of the folks cry hysterically, and her voice echoes like a drum in the ship. Vash and Nick stare at each other. Nick smiles first, against the loud beating of his heart. He wonders if Vash could hear the deafening roar of his own heartbeats.
.
If Vash draws people in, Wolfwood scares them off. He had never learned about social etiquette or norms, the Eye of Michael was too busy teaching him to kill efficiently. They taught him how to intimidate, to see the fear and signs of lying, but never how to talk to people. Thankfully, the standards for politeness was nonexistent, drinking together practically constituted a lifelong friendship.
However, what went well with all the dinged up wanderers and gunslingers, went under heavy scrutiny with the common folk and the more classy. Meryl definitely didn’t like him. Well, it was hard to tell. They just didn’t spend enough time around the other to really tell, but there was a sort of tension to their meetings. Like magnets that repelled each other.
She was a smart lady, with common sense and quick wit. Probably saw the jagged mess that was Wolfwood and decided to sidestep it entirely. It was a dust-ridden nook, far away from all the chaos and rubble, he had made sure to leave at a time when Vash was busy. So, he wondered, why the hell she was here with him while he was trying to get himself drunk.
It wasn’t for leisure, there was a serious look to her face. Meryl had robustness that cut through the shapeless nature that was so common in the people here. If he were younger, he’d crumble under that vehemence, but now it only makes him bristle. And mildly murderous.
“What is your role?” She demands, straight to the point. Her eyes are a sort of dark blue, and her clothes are white. It must be a hell to clean if stains got on it. Maybe it was arrogance, to wear white where blood splashes more than water.
Or maybe, despite everything, she doesn’t need to worry about that. Meryl has a relatively stable living, insurance pays a lot. Especially since only the rich can truly afford it, and the common folk are desperate for it. Lost July and Juneora Rock gave the dying business a new heave of life. There’s no need for her to abandon white clothes, if that’s true. But still, even if blood doesn’t stain her, the dust and the sand will eventually dirty that pale luminance in the end.
“Role on what.” He mutters. Confrontations usually ended in shooting and someone dead, it was a rule of thumb. Don’t confront anybody unless you were prepared to kill the other. Or at least, that was what Wolfwood was taught. He wondered if Meryl knew what she was doing by doing this. At least Vash understood. Vash knew too well, actually.
“I’m just wondering why you follow Vash around.” She replied evenly, but there was a new stiffness to her, as if she had seen Wolfwood’s thoughts.
“Mmm, I don’t have to tell you. It’s my business.” He replies, warily. She won’t back down, and he knows that this wouldn’t end well unless it ended quickly. “Let’s say, I’m just doing God’s work? Or something like that.”
He really doesn’t need to be having this conversation right now, and it doesn’t help that the words come out all bitter and drenched with barely repressed anger. Knives Million, Million Knives, Knives Million. Lives, lies, all the same. Dust to dust.
“I don’t get you.” She finally says, and Wolfwood almost drops his dirty cup and gets a splash of beer on his suit. “I’m pretty sure someone like you would’ve killed Vash by now.”
He’s always been weak to people with clear eyes, and a foot in the future. So he both simultaneously surprises himself and her by responding, “I’m surprised too.”
He swallows his words along with the next drink of his beer. This sort of conversation he’d really rather not have. Let dead dogs lie, that was much more his style. Perhaps there is some sort of mercy in her, well of course there is, so she just changes the subject.
“He’s really something isn’t he.” She sighs, looking at the bottle considering. “I wonder what he thinks of us, truly.”
Yes, the reason why he hated Vash so much in the first place. Rosaline, Meryl, Vash, Knives Millions, they were all the same. And all Wolfwood could do, was put up a weak and vapid resistance, knowing that it would blow away despite his best attempts.
“He’s a fool. We’re all fools, and then? Then we die.” He can’t stop the drawl in his voice, the haze of violence far too familiar. He wonders why he tries, until he remembers the expectant faces back at the orphanage with Auntie. That makes him sober up a little, and his mood grows even blacker. “Don’t make the mistake that you think Vash knows what he’s doing. Nobody knows what they’re doing. We all play along to God’s whims.”
And that God wanted them all dead.
Wolfwood chuckles to himself boneless at the hopelessness of this entire world, and Meyl watches him judgmentally.
“You don’t think of God too highly for a priest. I see you’re in a bad mood, so I’ll take my leave.” She stands up, but then pauses, looking back at him. Her eyes are oddly shiny in the dim light, and her gaze clear but without emotion, “You won’t hurt him, will you?”
“Contrary to my roughhousing, I’m not maiming him.” grouches Wolfwood, looking into the amber drink.
“No, not like that.”
He looks up at her, and again, those clear eyes. As if she sees beneath the dust and sand he tries to bury everything under, leaving him vulnerable and weak. So he chokes out, “Then what other way?”
The way she opens her mouth, closes it, and just shakes her head- it’s not nothing. But he really doesn’t care for what it is. And so his mantra continues to pulse.
.
Milly and Wolfwood get along to some extent, at least far more than him and Meryl. When they aren’t fighting, and the weather is alright, they get along. Milly reminds him of Tania and Roberto, with their kindness and caring. Meryl makes him bristle, only slightly, and Milly smells like nostalgia.
“Pudding?” He offers to her. He’d seen her across the street, giving out her food to the children. She brightens and takes it.
“Thanks Mister.” If he was feeling particularly sentimental, he’d say that his brotherly instincts were kicking up, but he isn’t and doesn’t.
“How’s business?” He asks, partly because there’s nothing to do, partly because he’s genuinely curious. She looks at him, clearly deciding what to tell him. Wariness, and distrust-but surprisingly mild warmth. It’s not overwhelmingly strong, but a warmth nonetheless.
“It’s not bad. This week should be enough for my family.” She replies, not exactly carefully, but with caution. She’s watching him from the corner of her eyes, but not blatantly.
“Oh that’s nice. I also have siblings to care for too.” All the important people know anyway, especially the people he’d rather didn’t. “Must be hard being away from them.”
Maybe he’s just imagining it, but Milly perks up a bit more. It’s just a slight shift, like a breeze of wind, but he can tell. “It is! Although when I was younger it was definitely more suffocating than anything. All my family lives in one house you see, it’s rather noisy. But I do miss it.”
“I definitely feel that- dinnertime really is a wild race, isn’t it.” The only times that everyone was obedient was during mealtimes. Coming when called, dropping everything and running. It was nice to sit with the other kids as they chatted.
Nick alternated between loudly calling the other kids out for their lies, and watching them scream. Back then, it was nothing, noisy and annoying. But now, now that he’s much older and alone- he longs for anything like that. Nowhere in the world was better than mealtimes with them. Before his mind could wander off into dark and strange places, he tries to not care, staring at the blue sky.
“Yeah it was.” Milly hums, finished with her pudding. “Patrica, she’s my younger sister, is really good at cooking. Her soups and pastas were to die for. The next time I visit, I am going to stuff my face with her cooking. She must be married by now.”
Milly stretches, and she turns to Wolfwood. “When are you going to visit your family?”
“Not anytime soon.” A smile, although it was lacking, it didn’t have any edges to it. “I’m far too busy being a priest! And all those kids would probably get sick of me real fast and kick me out. Auntie wouldn’t, but man. They can be real vicious, I tell you.”
It’s all lies. But Milly only laughs, it’s a colorless laugh but still it’s noise. “You must’ve been a good older brother.”
“That’s what I tell them too! I am the best older brother they’d ever have, but nooo, they just laugh at me.” He sighs, rolling lies off his tongue faster than gunshots. He imagines, he likes to imagine. “Awful cute, but awfully rude.”
I miss them, he doesn’t say.
I will never return to them, he doesn’t say.
I am a monster now, he doesn’t say.
“What I’d do for a cigarette.” He sighs out loud, knowing that his pocket is filled with nothing but sand. “Well anyways, I’ll be around, see ya later Milly.”
“Bye!” She calls as he makes his way elsewhere. Somewhere far, far away- far enough from his memories and farther from the nostalgia.
To him, Milly is dangerous in the ways that Vash and Knives Millions aren’t. She strikes at the places where he has buried his fears and loves, but not directly. And those indirect hits hurt harder than any threat in the world. It unsettles the dust of his mind, and leaves him in a tempest of memory.
.
The first time is in a dusty bedroom, with his awkward kissing and jerking touches. It’s night out, and the desert gets awfully cold. His first kiss was desperation, passion, but only a few touches later did it prove what a bad idea it was.
After the sudden haze of emotion, he realized exactly what he was doing, and lost a lot of his muster. He was uncertain, doubt-riddled, and guilt filled him. He was so foolish, thinking that he could just use another human to try and forget his sins. There was a boy, and he looked exactly like Jay, and that boy was dead- killed by him. He’s not foolish enough to try and give that nameless boy a proper burial, the Eye of Michael would see it as weakness, so he had just thrown sand over the body. A desperate and crude attempt to hide it.
“Stop.” The word fell from his mouth, high with anguish and guilt. Even to his own ears, it didn’t sound like his voice- it sounded more like a desperate plea from a man ready to be hung.
She was obliging, and silently slid off of him, and settled down next to him. Her skin was soft and warm, in comparison to his calloused fingers and scarred body.
“We can just stay here and sleep.” Her voice is a breathy murmur, a rattle in the night. The dark hid them both, and he can barely make the contours of her face. “It’s not uncommon you know, we’re all just lonely and alone.”
“I’m a bad sleeper.” He chokes out roughly, hands still trembling. Her arms reach over, soft and weak, he could break them easily but he stays still.
“That’s fine.” It’s a soft tone, a lure of safety in the arms of another that he can’t help but fall prey to. Hesitantly he reaches out, and she doesn’t flinch at all. That nameless boy, that shapeless boy, he had flinched although he did not beg.
Like this, it feels like they don’t exist at all, and all his sins are someone else’s. They bury deeper into the bed, away from the cold. And the next morning, he runs away and never looks back.
.
“You’re extremely hard to hate.” Wolfwood confesses, in the dark of their room. “Extremely irritating and annoying, but it grows on you. Like fungus, or sand plague.”
“Thanks.” Vash replies dryly, cradling the drink in his hands like a baby. “Well, I don’t hate you too, Wolfwood.”
“Whoever said I didn’t hate you? Liars, the lot of them.”
“That’s hurtful, we’ve been traveling for so long together. We’re surely best buddies.” He doesn’t say friends. He doesn’t say that we're close. Vash sidesteps commitment like a swindler. Wolfwood sneezes, from the absurd amount of dust in the air. All the fighting the other day really sent the sand flying.
“I hate sand so much. I pray to you God, send all the sand away.” Groaned Wolfwood as he drinks greedily. Who said that drinking was bad? Not him, never him. Drinking is the best. Fuck the Eye of Michael, bunch of murderous psychopaths, never learned how to have fun. “Drinking is great, why did I avoid drinking so much before? I think drinking should be done everyday!”
“If only you could see yourself right now.” Chuckles Vash, “How strong is this stuff anyways?”
“Don’t like it?” Tasted like absolute shit to him, but hey, whatever got the party started.
“I have high tolerance.” Right, Vash is a plant.
“Well then give it to me.” Wolfwood leans over to grab the bottle from Vash’s clutches, but misses his target and heads up bumping into the man himself.
“Oh get off me, you’re heavy.” Vash groans, trying to shove Wolfwood off him. Wolfwood responds by being the most helpful drunk in the world by doing nothing at all, and gets a hold of the bottle. With the prize in hand, he lets Vash shove him to the floor. “How much did you even drink?”
“Not enough.” Wolfwood snickers as Vash starts to count the bottle in the room.
“One, two. . .seven. . .Wolfwood do you need to go to a hospital or something?” Vash gaps at the wriggling drunk on the floor, with a bit of concern. “Pretty sure this could kill.”
“I’m fine, I’m always fine Vash. When have I ever died? Pretty sure I’m doing better than you!” Wolfwood lies in a sing-song. His pulse is so loud in his ears, but that’s fine.
“Well, not as long as I can help it.” Vash sighs, rolling his shoulders. “Shouldn’t you be off to bed?”
“Mm, good idea.” Wolfwood drinks to that.
“Well, help yourself to the floor, I am not dragging you to bed.” Vash sighs, exasperated. But Wolfwood knows that Vash would indeed, drag him to bed if he had to.
“What are you going to do after this?” Wolfwood drawls out of curious morbidity. He thinks he has a right to know, after all, he’s quite literally dedicating his entire life to this man. Or at least, whatever is left of it, to Vash. “If somehow, miraculously, you stop our Go-Knives Millions, what are you going to do?”
Vash says nothing for a minute. He sighs the words out, like a confession pulled from the grave, “I want to settle down somewhere. Somewhere small.”
“Oh rest ye weary feet traveler, as God has watched over wanderers.” Bullshits Wolfwood. Hey, he may have the basic idea of what to do as a priest, but it’s not like he’s memorized what to do. As a priest, all he’s done are funerals. “Sounds like a fan-fucking-tastic idea.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” Wolfwood peers upward, squinting, there’s a small frown on Vash’s face. There’s a creak in his words, like sagging boxes under the weight of something heavy.
“Actually no. No, you know what?!” Wolfwood jumps up, startling Vash, and his black sunglasses slip off his face. “That’s actually a really good idea! Hey Vash what do you think of December? There’s an orphanage there. You like people right? Wait, what am I saying? You could blow it up again!”
“I-I don’t want that.” Vash’s voice is small, and-Wolfwood doesn’t care. He really doesn’t.
“You need to live as happily as you can, no matter what.” Wolfwood leans over Vash, his grip sweaty and weak on his shoulders. “No matter how much blood there is on your hands, you need to live happily. And far away from December as possible. Otherwise, I’d have lived for nothing.”
Vash stares, his green eyes muddied. It’s the same look he gets when he thinks about Rem, whoever that is. “Who are you saying this to?”
Wolfwood doesn’t quite jerk back, but it feels as if he’s been punched. It feels vulnerable, and he’s thinking of the past. In a scramble, he shoves the sunglasses back on and teeters over the gritty floorboards.
“You’re going to get blood on your hands. You are, no matter how hard you try and avoid it.” Wolfwood rasps. The children, his hands, and everyone else in the world. With that, he runs from Vash.
.
Livio likes to read. He doesn’t read often, but he tells Nick stories of books he had read. Stories about dogs and wolves, of princes and other things. It’s fanciful stuff, but he doesn’t hate. Almost all the kids in the orphanage are illiterate, which makes Livio a rare oddity. Nick too, was illiterate.
“Wolves? Sounds ugly.” Nick snorts as Livio talks about different kinds of animals. His face lit as he had talked about it, and although Nick understood none of it, he wasn’t as cruel as to turn his ear away.
“Well, they were the ancestors of dogs,” Livio haughtily replied. “And if anything you’re the ugly one.”
“Take a look in the glass.” Nick mutters.
There’s a wrinkled and faded illustration of a strange creature in the book. It was apparently a fox. Apparently it had soft fur, and bright eyes. Nick couldn’t imagine such a thing surviving on the sandy planets. Dogs were still around because they could be put to use, and even then, there weren’t many of them.
“If wolves are so cool, then why didn’t we also keep them.” Nick decided to humor Livio. These days he was becoming subtly distant, in the way he looked at them. As if all of the orphanage was a mirage in the sand he would never return to. A sense of fragility, even though he was even more welcome than ever.
“Well, they’re not as useful as dogs. Not as obedient, I think. They were too loyal only to themselves, and did whatever they wanted.” Livio mused, “Very strong though, and mean. Like you, Nick.”
“Hey! Who are you calling mean, when I treat you so well!” Nick shouted, reaching over to try and grab the other in a chokehold, but Livio only smirks back and they end up tussling in the sand. Sand is flying everywhere, but they don’t stop.
“I’ll show you who’s mean!” And then he starts tickling Livio. The boy starts squirming like a sandworm.
“Hahaha, stop it! I said, hahahah, STOP-It!” and with renewed vigor, Livio is very present, and his eyes shine. He turns tables, only for Nick to wiggle out and return his assault.
It’s a good day, they’re both tired out, and the sky is a bleeding red. Nick closes his eyes as the sweltering heat of the day dips into a much more approachable temperature. He can hear Livio breath, and there’s something about being next to him that makes Nick genuinely warm. Comfortable. He doesn’t mind laying in the sand, and soon he knows Auntie will call everyone in for dinner.
The sand is warm, but not bad, and Nick wouldn’t mind if he just melted into the desert enjoying this as his last few moments.
Livio suddenly sits up, sending sand and dust flying. Nick squints his eyes open to see Livio’s back.
“We should go somewhere together.” Livio’s still facing the sun, and away from Nick- but that’s fine, it’s cooler in the shadows anyways
“What are you talking about, where would we go?” Nick snorts.
“I want to see Augusta, and Juneora Rock, and July.” Livio’s warmth is carried in the air, a youthful tone. “I really want to go somewhere new, somewhere far away.”
“But Auntie is here, and so are the others.” Nick protests. “We can’t just leave them.”
That makes Livio finally turn around to look at him. His face is blank, it’s eerie. Then it cracks in a wobbly smile, with chips and tears of pain, “Yeah, you’re right.”
Nick just stares, half-blinded by the sun, half-stunned by Livio’s face. Auntie calls them all for dinner, and Livio starts running. Bewildered, Nick just followed, and was unable to say anything. He shovels the watery potato soup and bread into his mouth, thinking.
The very next day, Jasmine’s puppy was found dead.
.
Nick should be in a hell of pain, and he registers the fact numbly with the deeply worrying fact that he doesn’t. He just feels sort of numb, and tired. A deep, bone-aching pain that makes him want to curl up and cry, or sleep.
For once in Vash’s long-lived life, he gets himself together. He uses the angel arm with finesse and control that he clearly lacked, as the last three times was a circus of destruction and death. Nick distantly notes that for all he’s harped about Vash’s extremely infuriating and stress-inducing will to not kill, for a very bright star-shaped moment, he sort of believes the man can do it.
Nick’s body is shutting down. He knows that reduced sensitivity to pain is one of the things that is common in the older members of the Eye of Michael. It wasn’t uncommon to see them drag their living corpses in a heaving race to do whatever they wanted to in their last short moments. If he’s careful, he never is-he knows that, he can live maybe a good one to two years longer.
A white feather, neither downy nor pearly drifts down, melting in the sand like a mirage. He knows he won’t be able to afford the luxury of time, Knives Millions is out there.
Wolfwood thinks, just enough to consider that maybe Vash would be able to do it. A distant part of him registers that Vash came to save him, in full control of himself- a somewhat flattering but somber discovery. It’s not like lighting striking desert sand to form sand glass, but a gradual heat. Pounds and pounds of tragedy and misery to accumulate into this moment.
It’s a desperate attempt to get mad at Vash, at how this was the moment he gained control, but his will is lackluster and ultimately misshapen. For a pearl-shaped second, Wolfwood thinks that humanity has a chance, a god against god. A divine war, and all humans would have to do was sit back and watch as they tore each other to shreds. And in the end humans would benefit from the fight, as they always do, feasting on the scraps.
No matter what lessons this generation learns, it’ll be washed down and evaporate the next. And on and on it does until there is nothing left and history repeats itself.
But right now? Vash is shining more brightly than ever, a beacon and a flame all the same. No matter how hard Wolfwood tries, he can’t think Vash a god. Vash is definitely not a god, but he’s definitely not a human either. There’s something lacking, or perhaps full about Vash that separates him from the rest of mankind. Maybe it’s only a crack, or it’s unnaturally smooth. Either way, it’s- It was enough to get Wolfwood to bristle.
“Hey are you alright?” Vash’s worried voice, it’s strange to hear. It hits notes that are unfamiliar to Wolfwood. The sort of tone he had only heard when he was very young, in what feels like a dream. “You really shouldn’t go to sleep, you might have a concussion.”
“Let me sleep.” He growls back, and sighs. The sand scratches him uncomfortably in between his clothes and his skin. “My heart has had enough for the day.”
“Your heart is not the only thing you should be worried about.” It’s the last thing he hears before his mind wanders off and his eyes close. But he feels something light brush against his chest before surrendering himself completely.
.
“You give and give and give.” Roy says, his dark eyes narrowed. “You’re always giving, that’s why it hurts so much in the end.”
“Oh shut up.” Nick snarls, glaring at the other boy as he sits in his bed. Roy only sends him a perfected look of disdain that Nick can distinctly recall giving him in the past.
Roy is one of the older kids. He’s too young to be independent, but old enough to be undesirable. All the young children, moldable and soft, are easier than the older ones, who have broken off-screen. Everyone loses their luster, some more rapidly than others. But family, the whole point of it was damage control, coping mechanisms. The difference between pushing a vase aside and watching it shatter, to then carefully putting the pieces of the vase back together in the end. It’s easy to tell who never got put back together. Roy managed to put himself back together, but in a lopsided way, imperfect.
Nick doesn’t want to think about his metaphorical vase. He knows he’s got a good grip on the sand, as good as any when the ground constantly disappears, but it’s not enough. It’s an easy rule, to not get attached. It’s easy to say, easy to sing, and easy to breath to. Unfortunately it’s much harder in practice.
“Someone needs to get you out of your funk, you’ve been stupid since- well, whatever.” Roy grimaces, sighing. He doesn’t mean the words unkindly, but it is said with a lack of care. “You’ve been over this, it happens all the time.”
“What the fuck do you know? You have nobody left.” The words are dislodged before Nick can get control back. He immediately regrets it, and Roy’s face sags even more.
Roy closes his eyes, and his face twitches. With rage? It really doesn’t matter. He exhales, and glares at Nick. “You need to get it together. You may not like it or not, or whatever, but if you want to sulk and mope do it. But do it so that it doesn’t hurt the others, got it?”
With that Roy coldly leaves. Frustration and hurt bubbles in Nick, and he clenches his fists. Roy isn’t wrong, but Roy makes him mad. It feels like he’s the only person who saw Livio, who even really spoke to him. Everyone else just threw him away, brushed off his good deeds. In the end too, Nick had started to believe that Livio killed the dog. That makes him even more frustrated
.
“If only you had asked for help.”
“What good would it have done us now, huh? In the end, I have never changed. I die stained with blood. I can’t live like you.”
“I never asked you too.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. At first I thought it was just weakness, but in the end. I can see why.”
“. . .We’re being so honest with each other, it makes me sick.”
“You really have a sparkling personality, don’t you?”
“Cheers. Well, I think if there’s anyone in the world that can pull off such stupid stunts it’s gotta be you.”
“Who are you and what have you done with the real Wolfwood?”
“Pruning in his own blood, why do you ask? Anyways, you gotta keep moving.”
“I’m always the one leaving.”
“It’s the way of things. I think I’m going to take a long nap now.”
“Alright, I guess I’ll stay with you till you sleep.”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“. . .”
". . ."
". . ."
". . ."
“. . .I really wished you could have seen this to the end. You, Rem, and everyone else on my hands. I really wanted. . .I really did. . .I’m. . .no.”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“Goodnight, old friend.”
.
“How did you know something was there?” He finally asked. The dry wind tousles Rosaline’s hair, and her skin is sunburnt, but her fingers remain constantly callused.
She tears her eyes from the bottle, the bright spots of light on her hands. An unwavering gaze, an enviable stability. “I didn’t really. I saw something, it could have been nothing at all. But I’m glad I decided to dig anyways.”
When Rosaline leaves, she leaves that broken blue bottle behind. It’s on the window sill in the room that she slept in. Nick wonders if she had forgotten it, he wonders if she still remembers it. Maybe it was something, after all.