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In Wolfwood's travels with Vash–digging out his barely functioning body from a particularly bad run-in with bandits–he found himself reaching for a cigarette more often than not. More often than usual. This morning was no different. Vash’s weak body lying quietly in the shed behind him. It made the smoke in his throat burn better than ever.
It was a different kind of burn this time around. One that clung to the raw, stinging flesh of his throat. It was a throbbing pain. It hadn’t left, and at this point he didn't imagine it would. Somehow it made the ugly, twisting feeling of grief in his gut feel real, like it had a physical place in the world, unlike Vash’s still body, oscillating between just barely there and dead. The pain in his chest and the ache in his bones felt justified.
When the cigarette in his mouth became nothing but orange filter and gray ash, he kept it in his mouth to suck on. He turned back to the dilapidated shed, fully expecting to be sent back into a spiral at the sight of Vash's still figure.
Instead, he finds Vash’s cloudy blue eyes just barely open, slowly meeting his own. A cigarette butt dropped to the floor and it startled them both, the loudness of it. Their own silences.
Wolfwood would’ve grabbed the blonde by his shoulders–dig his fingers into warm flesh and muscle–hold him ‘till it hurt if it meant he could somehow convey to him just how stupid he is and just how sick he made him with grief. How deeply he felt that in his core. The way the sorrow raked through his body for hours that night. He wants to pull him gently into his arms like he were made of glass, and not a near-indestructible being.
He opted for setting his weary bones down next to him.
Vash was pale, unnervingly so. He brought a hand up to his forehead, pulling back the clumps of blond hair that fell over his eyes. He looked so tired. The blue of his eyes competing with the dark tint of his eyebags, sunken deep into his face. It did something to Wolfwood, to see Vash–a person overflowing with love and compassion for every living thing–so broken down and small.
It wasn't right.
Vash brought a thin, shaky hand to Wolfwoods. He was so cold. His hand gripped his weakly, pulling it down to his cheek, pressing his face into Wolfwood’s hand.
He spoke, his voice barely audible and shaking. His prosthetic came up to rest on the bandages on his chest.
“Thank you, Nicholas.”
Wolfwood just stared back at him. He couldn't even muster up a small ‘ Mm ’ in response. His silence seemed to put Vash on edge, fully expecting to be chewed out for what he did. Fully expected to take the verbal beating, laugh it off and move on. A routine he had perfected over and over. But, Wolfwood just kept staring at him. His rough thumb stroking his cheek, his eyes droopy and dark. The skin of his cheekbones was rubbed raw. It made Vash's heart sink further into his chest, it felt harder to put air in his lungs.
He didn't know what to do with that. With Wolfwood's silence.
Vash brought his own hand up to Wolfwood's face, fatigued and exhausted. Wolfwood radiated heat. Vash wanted to crawl into chest, rest in his arms. Borrow the heat from his body and take it into his. It'd be a better attempt at an apology, he imagined. Better than his own tense silence.
Wolfwood looked defeated. He felt it in the way he sagged into his touch. He gave up every part of himself up to Vash, the two of them so tangled and intertwined in one another that he would never be able to pull himself free. He wouldn't know what to do with himself if Vash were gone. The man he was before he met Vash was the result of years of pain and suffering. That wasn't him, not really. When Vash looked at him, smiling softly in the belly of that sandworm, and told him that he could ‘ see it in his eyes’ he felt so unbearably exposed, like Vash was seeing something wolfwood couldn't. Like he knew something he didn't.
And he was right, of course. As he often is, Wolfwood is learning. He saw traits of himself that he didn't know he had, parts of his character that he thought died off years ago, when he first came to embrace the comfortability of death and violence. He'd have to learn to be someone else, if Vash were gone.
But, Vash isn't gone. He's here. Just barely alive and breathing, but here.
He feels his head sink into Vash’s chest, careful to avoid his wounds, his warm hand tucked into him, pressed to Wolfwood's lips. He kisses them tenderly, one for each finger and his palm, the back of his hand. When he finishes he repeats it, one finger to the next. A silent prayer seeped into each one. Vash struggles to raise his prosthetic, to place it atop Wolfwood's head and curl his fingers in his dark strands.
Vash's throat tightens, a sob escapes him. He wills the words from out of his throat.
“I love you, Nick.”
Wolfwood starts to shake, a silent whimper. His tears wet Vash’s chest and his bandages. He presses his lips further into Vash’s hand.
‘I love you.’