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Vash ached. He couldn’t decide if that was normal or not. As he sat up with a groan, he decided the action was entirely too familiar for the aches to be anything but normal. What had he been doing? There had been... sand, and running, and fear. Had Nai found him? Vash wasn’t sure what else could leave him in this much pain.
He breathed in. There was fresh air coming from somewhere. Good. That meant Vash could climb out whatever hole he had fallen into and keep on going. That was one of the most important skills he had. He patted the ground around him. It felt... soil-y. Not sandy. Wooden! That was the word, wooden. Vash shook his head and then groaned at the wave of nausea. How long did probable concussions take to heal? He didn’t remember having had one before but that was about the only explanation he could think of for why he was having so much trouble thinking.
Urgh. Stay on task, Vash. Out. You need to get out. Then he can think about things like how his head feels like someone scooped out his brain and took a few bites and then decided it was rotten and put it back in the container and left it for Vash to find— that was not focusing. Vash dragged himself to his feet and ignored the complaints of his body as he did so. He’d heal faster if he could get to sunlight and water and food, so just letting himself pass back out was a bad plan. Up and out.
Vash rubbed at his eyes and squinted through them and finally got his vision to resolve into more than just blurs. He was surrounded by… plant roots? Tree roots, maybe, if they had been scaled up to a massive degree.
Oh. This had to be a dream. There were no trees like this on Gunsmoke. So Vash would wake up eventually. In the meantime, maybe he would get to go see a big tree. That would be nice. It could look like anything, in a dream. But he should still start climbing. He’d like to see it before it vanished like mist.
The tree roots were thick and gnarled, and when Vash finally pulled himself out of the tree’s embrace he laughed with joy at the spread of color he saw, every shade of blue and purple flowering forth from it. It was beautiful. It was majestic.
And for some reason Vash realized he was crying looking at it. Waste of water. He couldn’t make his own, even he could go for a lot longer without.
He didn’t seem to have his water bottle on him. He’d have to get another one. But he found a nice wad of double-dollars, so he should be able to do it.
Had he been… given them? He ran a thumb over the wad and felt twinges of affection. Mm.
A problem for him after he woke up. Dreams never made any sense. He knew that. Or they made horrible sense and he’d wake up in a cold sweat. That was fine. Normal, even. Other people had nightmares. He’d heard them, even if he couldn’t quite remember how.
He couldn’t quite remember a lot, right now, but… it was a dream. So that was fine. It was fine that everything was a dirtied, smeared slate after Rem after Nai after the crash. There had been other humans. They had been kind. And then they had left to extend their lives and there had been more humans. Sometimes they were kind and sometimes they were cruel and they never, never knew him, not really. Didn’t understand him. Vash tucked himself into a groove in the bark and curled up. He was hard to understand. Not even Nai understood him. He could hardly expect people who hadn’t had more than a century to try to understand how his brain worked. Especially when they were working off of faulty data that assumed he was another human just like them and not some hybrid freak of nature who had only ever existed three times as far as he knew and he hoped, he hoped so dearly that it rose out of him even through the fog, that there had not been another, born on Gunsmoke and into human hands that wouldn’t know anything at all but to use a plant up until she died.
Vash rolled over and tried not to think about it. He was forgetting a lot of things. It would be nice if he could forget that instead.
Hm. Well. He was forgetting to take off his coat. Vash stripped his coat off and pillowed it under his head. He wasn’t going to take off his shirt or his pants— he felt like that would be bad, even though he couldn’t quite think of why— but his shirt was thinner material. The twin suns could pierce through it, and so Vash let himself lay back and bake in the sun.
It would have been almost perfect if he had had some water.
And if he could have been there with a friend.
Vash sighed. No point in mooncalfing. It was good enough to spend a few days with people. To get to be a part of their lives. And hopefully a good one, not a bad one, but it felt like that always rested on the flip of a coin.
He couldn’t quite scrabble up any specific instances. A child— and Vash had to pause and put a hand over his mouth as nausea rose in him. Maybe he shouldn’t try and remember, right now... He should just enjoy the dream, as long as he could.
Vash tried to focus on the play of the sun on his eyelids. It was nice. He had to keep on focusing to make sure he didn’t fuck it up and start to think of anything serious, but it was almost easy to let memories stay hazed, especially with the headache that pounded in his head.
...
The suns really were nice, when you couldn’t get sunburn.
Could you dream within a dream? Could you fall asleep within one? Vash jolted upright and realized that the suns had changed position, and it was almost night. So he had slept. But the tree was still there, and he heard his name.
“Vash! You idiot! Can you hear us?”
Vash yelped as two heads crested the flora horizon, and scrambled back into his coat as the two humans started to run towards him. Oh fuck was he in trouble? Was he going to get blamed for this? He hoped he wasn’t going to get blamed for this, that would suck.
“Haha, yes! Right here!” Vash bowed slightly. “That’s me! Sorry, I was asleep! So I didn’t hear you before.”
“Asleep—” Vash could hear the indignation in the man’s voice and held up his hands in surrender.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to cause a fuss.” Apparently that wasn’t worth commenting on, and the man just slung his cross higher on his back and kept on picking his way towards Vash.
Wow! That looked like a really heavy cross that he was carrying. Impressive! Vash would hold off judgement on how impressive until he got a better sense for it, but the way it moved meant it had to be at least a hundred pounds. It made the woman contrast the man all the more, because while Vash could smell gunpowder on both of them when the wind blew into his face, he really couldn’t see how she’d handle anything but a very light gun well.
“I can’t believe you,” the man continued the moment he got within three yarz of Vash, who deliberately did not back away even as he calculated the best way to knock the two of them out and make a getaway. “We’re busting our asses trying to figure out what happened to you, and you are just taking a nap! That’s it. You’re taking first watch tonight.”
“What Wolfwood is trying to say is that we were really worried about you, Vash!” The woman shook her head. “And now it’s too late to get down from here before nightfall. We’re going to be in real trouble if a sandstorm kicks up.”
Oh. Did Vash have friends, in this dream? He felt himself tear up and couldn’t help it as he began to blubber.
“Y-you guys,” he managed to get out through the tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worry, I was just really exhausted! And I thought if I just napped for a while I’d feel better, and I wasn’t sure—” Vash’s voice broke at the idea that maybe even in a dream he’d have found the two of them later and seen their dead bodies splayed on the ground and know that he had failed even if he didn’t know them.
“Just— don’t do it again, spikey. Come on, let’s find some shelter before the suns finish setting.” Wolfwood shook his head. “If you’re that tired we’d better just hole up and hope everything’s smart enough to stay damn well away from here.” He flicked a finger at the tree. “This thing is unnatural enough we should get a night out of it.”
“I think it’s pretty,” the woman said. “You just have no taste.”
“Sure. That doesn’t mean we should assume everything’s going to be hunky-dory.” Wolfwood reached out and tapped a finger to the bark. “Huh. Although maybe it’s edible.”
“Bark’s often edible!” Vash realized he was being a bit loud, but. He had something to contribute! “But it also protects the tree, so we probably don’t want to take any where it’s exposed.”
“That’s where all of the bark is, isn’t it?” The woman sounded dubious. “Since it’s the outside bit?”
“If we find a place where the roots snarled and formed a cave, we can work from there. C’mon, shortie, with your legs we have to get a move on.” Wolfwood hefted the cross again and started to move without waiting for a response, and Vash shrugged and followed after him.
“Jackass.” The woman shook her head. “Whatever.”
Vash followed the two of them happily, and while he was able to not start saying everything he knew about trees, he couldn’t stop a happy hum and didn’t bother trying. Friends! What a dream. He got to see a tree (the tree looked like— well. It was a dream. Of course it had symbolism, and.... Of all the dreams he had with Rem, this was one of the better once. She was sheltering him, and he had friends). He’d taken a nice nap and woken up actually feeling refreshed. And he had friends! He really, really shouldn’t ask for anything else, and got the real sense that this was the best he’d had it in an unfathomable amount of time.
Better not to think about it. Vash looked for crevices in the tree instead, and eventually pointed out a hole at the same time as Wolfwood.
“You both have way too good eyes.” The woman shook her head. “But still! Good looking out. Anyone got anything to eat?”
“Sure, we can do a two-thirds one-third split on a meal block.” Wolfwood pulled a small wrapped block out of his pocket. “Trade you for some of your water.”
“I have a granola bar?” Vash fished it out of one of his pockets and held it up. “I’d like water too, please.”
“What happened to your water bottle?” The woman shot him a glance. “It looked really sturdy.”
“I don’t know.” Vash shrugged. “I didn’t wake up with it. C’mon, please? You can have the bigger half, they never split evenly.”
“After today, you definitely need all the food you can get. Eat the granola bar.” The woman sighed. “And you can have some of my water. Maybe tomorrow we can scrounge up another... and some method of transportation, if the Tomases haven’t all run off. Or maybe even another car!”
“We are not finding another car if you’re driving it still.”
“Sorry? I didn’t hear you offering to drive, do you even have your license?”
“No one has a license, why do you have one? Are you some kinda rich kid?” Wolfwood snorted.
“I’m a journalist!” The woman threw up her hands in exasperation. “We get licensed or we don’t get company vehicles!”
“Weirdo.” The man turned to Vash and raised an eyebrow. “You good there?”
Vash wiped away his tears. “I’m just! So happy to listen to the two of you!”
“We’re just arguing...” the two of them said it in confused unison, and Vash didn’t know how to explain himself without probably worrying his dream friends, so he didn’t, just laughed and hoped they wouldn’t mind his happy tears.
It seemed to work, at least. Vash poked his head into the hole in the tree first and exclaimed in delight.
“Hey! It’s glowing in here!” Vash scrambled the rest of the way in and found to his delight that the hole had everything he could have wanted in a shelter. It was big enough for all three of them and the cross, there were a few bioluminescent flowers for light, and wonder of wonders, there was a trickle of water going down the bark at the very back. “And it’s got water!”
“Shit, really? That I have to see. Catch, spikey.” Vash scrambled into position and managed to catch the cross just before it could crash into the tree. Wow! It really was heavy— Vash would estimate it at two hundred ninety-five to three hundred and five pounds, unwrapped. So Wolfwood was definitely enhanced somehow. That might also explain his reflexes and how, unlike the woman, he didn’t seem all that nervous, traveling through the desert.
It was hard to be nervous when you were carrying that much gun on you and knew how to use it.
Or if you were Vash, it was hard to be nervous when you knew you’d heal anyways and you could run or very, very carefully shoot to disarm or disable. And he hated even shooting to disable, there weren’t enough people and every time he shot someone they could die, and then they would be that much closer to a population bottleneck and that would be it, that would be the end of humans and it would just be him and Nai and their sisters and their sisters weren’t amazing conversationalists and Nai would be the only person left to talk to and god Vash felt horrible saying this but he might rather die. Although their main source of disagreements would be gone, so maybe it would be fine? But also it would not be fine at all.
Vash realized he was holding the cross like a teddy bear and also that he was getting stared at which was not an ideal state of affairs. At all! Whoops.
“Hi?” Vash laughed nervously. “I’m fine! I was just thinking. Lots to think about! Can I have some of that water now?”
“Spent too long out in the sun, huh.” The woman shook her head. “Next time find some shelter!”
“Mmhm.” Vash nodded and extended his hand for the water bottle. He didn’t feel bad about chugging it when there was a way to replace it right in front of them. “Ahhhh....” He sighed happily and carefully balanced the bottle under the drip. “Thank you! Very much.”
“Of course. Now eat something.” The woman leaned over and poked Wolfwood. “You too. Hand over the food, mister.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Wolfwood grumbled as he pulled a small package out of his pocket and broke it open.
Vash busied himself pulling out his granola bar and eating it. Mm, edible wrapping. Delicious. Nutritious. Aw, he was getting looked at again.
“Wah’?” Vash raised a hand to cover his mouth and catch crumbs. “Why’re you lookin’ at me?”
“Are you eating the wrapper?” Wolfwood looked so confused. “That can’t be good for you.”
“S’delicious.” Vash took another bite. “D’you want some?”
“Not at all.” Wolfwood shook his head. “Have fun with that, I guess.”
Vash shrugged. More for him! The woman and Wolfwood only had what looked like really tiny blocks of food, and he listened as they bickered quietly over if it actually constituted a full meal. But he knew even if he wasn’t sure why that people got picky about just being given stuff. Maybe in the morning he could test and see if the bark was edible.
“Alright, everyone else go to sleep, I want to smoke in peace.” Wolfwood shook a cigarette out of a carton, which just put the calluses on his hands on display. Definitely a gunman. He wondered what was in the cross.
“I thought I was taking first watch?” Vash looked up from where he was fidgeting with his coat. “You know. Since I took a nap, and all.”
And he didn’t want to go to sleep, not if he was going to wake up. He’d probably just gotten lucky with the nap— or maybe it was his dream’s way of doing a time skip. He didn’t know. But even so. He didn’t want to go to sleep. So he grinned wide and did his best to seem so nonchalant and relaxed.
“Depriving a man of his smokes is a terrible thing, you know.” Wolfwood tapped the cigarette back into the carton with a grunt. “You just don’t want to sleep with it in the air, don’t you. Fine. I’ll take second.”
“Yeah, you better.” The woman lightly smacked his shoulder. “Since you ate more.”
“Hey, shortie, I split it proportionally.” Wolfwood laughed as he was hit again. “It’s only fair! C’mon, Vash, back me up— ow!” Wolfwood folded over where he was poked. “Stop that! We’re sleeping now! Everyone knows that sleep time is a détente time.”
“Bullshit everyone knows, you made that up!” The woman still pulled off her coat and found a place to curl up in the hollow. There were areas that looked shaped to lie down in— and Vash was quite happy about that. Maybe the tree was meant for people. That would be nice.
Vash listened to the two of them bicker, and let the noise wash over him. It was so nice listening to friends talk. He didn’t have to sit in a saloon and let noise wash over and pretend he was part of it without being able to interject or have any continuity. Or anything.
Just a facsimile.
Vash watched as the two of them fell asleep, and carefully sat himself in the entrance so he’d know the moment anyone or anything got close to his friends.
The light made it easier to stay awake, as well.
Vash let himself settle, half-awake and half-asleep, but not all the way. He kept his eyes open and watched his friends while the delight kept him warm. He felt— well. He felt like a plant that had finally been watered. And it felt wonderful.
Vash watched the flowers sway in the breeze, and started to count the stars he saw in the sky.
It calmed him to have something to do, even as he kept on losing track of where he was in the count.
The suns crested over the horizon one after the other. Vash yawned quietly and watched the light creep down until it was almost in Wolfwood’s eyes and then decided it was probably time to wake him up. Then maybe he would wake up the woman and use her name, and when Vash woke up he’d have names for both of them.
“Wolfwood,” he said softly. He didn’t want to risk getting punched if he shook the man’s shoulder. “Time to wake up.”
Wolfwood groaned and slowly opened an eye. The moment he got it halfway open he shot up. “Well past time, Vash! What the hell! Are you planning to sleep at all ever again, or do you not have to do that anymore?”
Vash yawned again. He couldn’t stop himself. “I mean, I don’t have to sleep as much. You ready to get going?”
“Jesus. No, I’m not. Give me a few minutes to stretch out.” Wolfwood reached over and shook the woman’s shoulder. “Meryl, he’s been an idiot again.”
“No, s’too early for idiocy...” The woman— Meryl! His ploy worked! He had a name!— groaned, and then exactly copied Wolfwood, shooting upright. “What the fuck, Vash! You need sleep too!”
“We can drink some more, fill out water bottles, and let you rest for a few hours.” Woflwood sighed. “Better than having you pass out on us.”
“Mmno.” Vash shook his head, and then blinked rapidly as that made him dizzy. “I’m okay. Don’t want to.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to, you still need it!” Wolfwood reached out and flicked Vash in the forehead.
“I don’t want to wake up,” Vash whined. “It’s fine.”
“Oh, if you already can’t tell if you’re awake or asleep we have a real problem. I’ve seen sleep deprivation in school, and no offense, Vash, but I do not want to see you experiencing hallucinations.” Meryl reached over and yanked Vash into the hole, and Vash let himself be pulled. “Sleep, dumbass.”
“If I sleep I’ll wake up,” Vash tried to explain. He’d already said it, after all. “And then I’ll be alone again, and I don’t want to be alone again.” People weren’t like bullets. He couldn’t calculate the variables that went into their trajectories and figure out how to act so that they would be his friends. He was just too different. So maybe he was suffering from a bit of sleep deprivation even as he slept. That was worth it to get to experience having friends for once.
Oh, they were both looking at him with very worried faces, now. Had he said all that stuff out loud? He had a horrible brain to mouth filter at the best of times and this was not the way of times, and they were only looking more worried. He was getting a bad grade in dream friendship.
“Vash,” Meryl said softly. “You’re not asleep. Do you... not remember us?”
“Everything’s a blur,” Vash managed to get out. “Brain’s all jumbled... s’okay. Still worth it.”
“Shit. Hey, look at me.” Vash felt his chin get grabbed, and whined as a light was shined into his eyes. “Pupils are dilating normally, but he could still have a concussion, fuck knows.” Wolfwood didn’t let go of his chin. “Do you have any head pain? You’re definitely feeling sluggish. Dizziness? I guess we wouldn’t know if you had concentration problems.” Wolfwood sighed. “And you didn’t say anything about two strangers accosting you?”
“That felt normal! And you both seemed pretty nice.” Vash realized he was on the floor now. “Oh, when did that happen.”
“I pushed you. Dumbass. Go to sleep, and we’ll still be here when you wake up, and we are going to talk about this.” Wolfwood hefted his cross and set it down atop Vash. Hm. That was a nice weight. “Shortie, back me up here.”
“You are entirely right, Wolfwood. We’re not going anywhere, Vash. Sleep. And we’re going to have a talk.”
“This is a really nice dream,” Vash murmured. “You guys even care about my sleeping. Tha’s nice. Hope I dream of the two of you again...”
“You won’t need to dream, Vash. You’ll be awake.”
He drifted off. He couldn’t stop himself.
He felt tears dampen his face again as he did. He was really going to miss this.
Vash couldn’t stop sobbing. He knew he was a crybaby, he knew he was weak, but he couldn’t stop anyways, heaving sobs right from the center of his chest and out through his mouth and despite all of that his friends his friends who were real and existed and were not a dream weren’t leaving in exasperation.
“You’re gonna dehydrate, Vash, c’mon.” Meryl rubbed soothing circles into Vash’s back. “Even if we’ve got the water here, I think you might be crying more out from your eyes...”
“More importantly, I’d really like us to get away from the beacon of fuckery.” Wolfwood kept on alternating from looking out the hole to back at Vash. Vash couldn’t be certain through the tears, but he was pretty sure Wolfwood was worried. “Especially if you don’t remember self defense.”
“What, your laser cross not good enough to protect the both of us?” Meryl snarked and set Vash into another round of sobs. He had friends and his friends were friends with each other!
“Not if we get a really big convoy, lady!” Wolfwood shook his head. “We’d be sitting ducks. And I don’t like that we haven’t heard or seen anyone else.” Wolfwood darted Meryl a look and Vash was sure there was something there in his missing memories that he should get from that look.
Oh well! He was going to trust his friends and they would tell him if he needed to know, probably. That was what friends did, Vash was pretty sure.
He’d find out, and that was such a beautiful idea. The moment he could speak without dissolving into more tears about how amazing it was that he had friends.
He tried the breathing exercises that Rem had shown him, and slowly got himself under some kind of control. Or at least enough to drink more water.
“M’okay.” He drank more and then set aside the bottle to fill. “And I slept, so we can go.”
“Great! Great.” Wolfwood had started to not-quite-fidget, and Vash couldn’t even count how many cigarettes he’d gone through. Where did he store those? Did he know about cancer? “Let’s at least see if we can scrounge up some food and other supplies before it gets too late, yeah?”
“Sounds like a good plan!” Vash gave him a big thumbs-up. “And if we don’t find any food we can make bark stew! Or just chew on it, but you only want the inner bark for that, really.”
“Yeah, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Wolfwood pauses as he heads into the sunshine. “You’ve still got your gun, yeah?”
Vash’s arms move before the rest of him and he’s pulling out a gun, heavy and solid. Vash bet he could deflect bullets with this, use it as an extra shield.
“I guess!” Vash grinned. “But I don’t think I’ve got any bullets.”
“Of fucking course. Bullets for you both, then.” Wolfwood heaved a sigh, and something stirred in Vash’s mind and told him it was long-suffering but not an actual complaint. “Let’s go, kids.”
“I’m definitely older than you.” Vash shook his head and scrambled out and then leaned back in to help Meryl heave herself and the water bottle out. “I… I don’t remember how old, but definitely decades! And you can’t be more than two! Decades,” he tacked on hastily. “Not. Just two. I know how ageing works.”
“Oh, god.” Meryl pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s a problem for later us. But I have a whole-ass degree, Wolfwood, so I regret to inform you that I am a solid twenty-three.” She looked him up and down. “I bet we’re the same age.”
“Definitely not.” Wolfwood snorted. “Whatever. C’mon. Don’t forget to grab a worm if you see it, those are good eating.”
Worms. Small bugs and large bugs, all the same type of bugs, someone had been so excited to study them…
Vash shook the memory off and trotted off after his friends.
Friends!
He thought he could handle just about anything, as long as he had friends.
Behind them, the hole in the tree closed up. It was no longer needed.