Archive of Our Own

Start by pulling him out of another fire,

and putting him back together with the pieces

you find on the floor.

There is so much to forgive, but you do not

know how to forget.

– “Start Here” by Caitlyn Siehl

The first time he wakes, he is in a room. Heavy curtains hang over dusty windowsills and there are crumpled sheets on the bed and crumpled sheets on the floor. The world is quiet while his body screams .

Every soft, fleshy, vulnerable part of him is on fire, writhing and roiling in unbearable agony. He wants to move, get away from the mattress that digs into his skin like fingers, like knives, like roots, but his body is frozen without his consent, time stretching endlessly around him as he fights an ocean of pain. 

And suddenly there are hands on him and worried blue eyes and he wants to scream but his throat is already scraped raw.

There is no sunlight here, but the air is warm on your skin. You can hear the soft rustle of pages next to you and when you open your eyes you are blinded by bright light filtering through mottled green canopy. Nai chuckles when you groan and turn your head away from the light. 

“Morning sleepyhead.”

“Wasn’t sleeping,” You grumble, the rasp in your voice betraying you.

“Liar,” Nai laughs, and the sound pitches up unpleasantly. You want to tell him to shut up but weariness overtakes you again and you close your eyes, the gentle green making place for the dark behind your eyelids.

He is floating on an endless expanse of water, the waves lapping gently at his distant limbs. He thinks it shouldn’t exist here, this limitless water, not in this place of dry dust air and scorching heat. The pain is gone, leaving instead emptiness where feeling should be, only the sensation of waves breaking on his skin telling him where his body is. It feels wrong, incomplete, but he cannot find it in himself to care in this place of peace and nothingness. 

Voices filter through the gentle haze, pitched up in exasperation. He should open his eyes, find the source, figure out where he is and what the hell is going. But he knows if he opens his eyes this will all be gone. 

So he leaves the achingly familiar voices for what they are and lets the water pull him under.

A man is snoring on a chair next to his bed, his legs propped up on the sheets over his own. Dark hair flops down over his closed eyes and his limbs are loosely slung over the chair. For a second, Vash feels a deep contentment in his bones, the scant strips of light that fall through the thick curtains warming his skin. It reminds him of a fuzzy green memory that hides away in his mind.

And then reality hits him with all the grace of a two ton truck and his body is up and moving before his brain can follow. His limbs feel strangely slow, uncoordinated where he knows they once moved with fluid grace. He lurches to the left when he stands, body overcompensating for a weight that isn’t there. A glance to his side reveals a sleeve rolled up to fit over the stump that is his left arm. 

The man has woken up but isn’t moving, only looking at him with dark eyes from where he still slumps in the chair. Vash backs into the wall, taking comfort in the solid stone against his back. 

“Who are you?” He wants to ask, but his lips struggle to form the words, his throat barely scraping out a whisper. The man narrows his eyes, some tension wiring through his frame as he sits slightly more upright.

Vash presses himself closer to the wall, casting about for an exit. The man sits between him and the shaded windows, but the door is only blocked by the second bed. If he moves fast enough he can make it out of here before the other can get close. 

The man has fully gotten up at this point, and has clearly noticed Vash’s eyes flickering towards the door. 

“Don’t even think about it, needle noggin’,” He growls and Vash almost freezes at that nickname because what ?

And then the man moves a half step closer and everything in Vash screams at him to run. Run from reaching hands, and cold eyes and a familiar body that wants him and won’t let go. 

He bolts for the door, shin slamming into the bedframe painfully as he stumbles in his haste, and then there are hands on him and the man is too close and he wants to scream but he is drowning and he wants to run but there are knives digging into his back, wrapping around his ribs and bones and pinning him in place like a butterfly. 

The voices he heard before are frantic now and somewhere a door slams and that means he can’t be back there because the doors didn’t slam and the floor wasn’t a rough wood grain and the hands never gently curled in his hair. But he can’t fucking breathe and this time when the water closes over his head he doesn’t fight.

You follow Nai down the endless hallways of the ship, the familiar cold metal under your feet as grey walls stretch out endlessly. You want to ask him where you’re going, but the last time you tried Nai only snapped at you to stop being so impatient. So you trudge on behind him even though your legs ache and you want to crawl back into your bed.

Nai stops suddenly and you bump into his back. 

“Do you love me?” He asks.

“Of course,” You reply easily.

He turns around and grabs your wrist, hand digging painfully into the soft skin. 

“Promise me we’ll always stay together.”

His eyes are intense, piercing and the wide hallways suddenly feel much closer, the solid floor beneath you seeming to ripple like water.

“I promise,” You try to say but the water has already closed over your head and you can only scream.

The pain in his bones is back in the form of a dull, endlessly persistent ache and this time there is no ocean to carry him away from reality, just scratchy sheets that smell of sweat and a pillow that bunches up uncomfortably. Someone is softly snoring to his left and when he opens his eyes he sees a girl curled up on the second bed. The sheets that once were crumpled on the floor are nowhere to be seen. 

Her breathing doesn’t hitch as he carefully levers himself upright, a wary eye on the door. The fingers of his right arm come up to brush along the ridge of where once he must have had an arm, and the scar tissue there feels old and long healed. More than anything else, this is what makes him feel lost. 

Who loses an arm and doesn’t remember it? 

Carefully, hand on the bedstead for balance, he moves towards the window. The door will only take him further into whatever this place is. 

He moves aside the heavy dark fabric to reveal bright light, streaming into the room unbidden and blinding. He hisses and drops the curtain, blinking away dark spots from his vision. 

“Where are you going?” A soft voice asks and he startles, cursing himself for forgetting the other person in the room. He turns to find the girl looking at him reproachfully, the effect slightly dampened by her sleep mussed hair and barely awake look. He could probably make it out the window before she had time to react.

…Maybe he should check what story they’re on first.

“Vash,” The girl says, sounding even more reproachful. She says his name with a comfortable familiarity, as if it’s not the first time she’s stared him down as he contemplated jumping out a window. He wonders where she learned his name. (You wonder why her eyes look so sad when you back away from her.)

“Where is my brother?” He asks, because he knows half of him is missing and he’s not here because if he was nothing would have stopped him from getting to Vash. 

The girl's lips thin with worry and she sits up straighter, swinging her legs off the bed. 

“Your brother?” She asks gently, almost politely. He can’t parse the sharp edge to her tone but he knows it’s nothing pleasant.

“I need to leave,” He says desperately, because he can’t tell them about Nai.

(Because they will never forgive him, because they will take him apart like that little girl, because you can’t protect him from the consequences of his actions)

(Because you can’t forgive him.)

“Wait, hold on Vash!”

He’s as close to the window as he can get, fingers fumbling for some sort of locking mechanism. The heat of the day is sweltering through the glass and the light is so bright he can barely make out the distant sand dunes. It’s nothing like the deep green of his memories but it feels familiar all the same. 

“Vash!”

The lock clicks open and he pushes aside the window in a warm gust of air, leaning out over the one story drop down to the floor. There is nothing in sight for miles, only the ramshackle wood of the porch beneath him and then endless sand dunes into the horizon. 

“He told you to stay!”

Vash freezes.

“Your brother, he told you to wait here. He’ll be back soon, I promise.”

He turns back to her, blue eyes meeting earnest grey. 

“You promise?” He asks, and he wants it to be true. He wants to crawl back under those scratchy sheets and close his eyes till Nai comes home. He doesn’t want to walk a thousand miles through the endless desert in search of his only home.

She nods resolutely: “Promise.”

She edges past him carefully, easing the window shut and pulling the blackout curtains into place. She’s careful not to touch him and for a small second the few centimetres between their skin feels like a chasm. 

Vash sinks down to the floor, all energy gone, head spinning like a whirlwind. The girl sits back down on her bed and he can feel her piercing gaze long after he falls asleep.

You’re so very tired. Your eyes blink open lazily and the view shutters from dark roots and grey walls to a green field to red geraniums. A heavy body is curled up against your side, the heat of it stifling.

You groan. 

“Nai, get off me.”

“No,” Nai says petulantly and he tightens his arms around you.

You start pushing at him because you just want to sleep and when he’s holding you like that you can’t breathe and you can feel your skin crawl and hum everywhere his body presses into yours.

“Vash!” Nai whines and you almost feel guilty. 

But you elbow away the hand that tries to grab at your arm and then he’s gone, and you’re alone in an endless field of flowers and you can breathe again.

It’s night when he wakes up again, and he’s not sure whether it’s the same day or the next. The window is wide open, sweet night air filtering through and softening the sharp edges that day reveals. Someone has moved him from the ground to his bed, sheets tucked up to his chin. He wriggles out from under the blankets, feeling stifled under the scratchy material. The air is cold on his skin and he runs his fingers curiously over the goosebumps that raise on his thighs. He can’t remember ever being cold like this. 

The voices that creep in on the edges of his dream are back and only now can he link them to the man and woman who apparently live here with him. 

The door opens and the man steps through, head turned to continue his conversation with the other: “And I swear to god if you don’t do those dishes right now…”

He trails off when he sees Vash staring at him, something defensive creeping into his posture. Vash regards him warily, standing up from the bed and turning to face him. 

The man hesitates for a long moment at the door, silence cloying and thick between them, before he makes an awkward half gesture with the broom he’s holding.

“You mind?” He asks, and his voice is low and husky, as if he chainsmokes five packs of cigarettes a day. 

Vash almost asks him to leave, but somehow, the thought of that door shutting and leaving him alone in this dark room is more unbearable than this charged tension. 

So Vash settles down awkwardly on his bed and nods. 

The man huffs and shuts the door behind him before fastidiously starting to sweep the floor, which looks mostly spotless from Vash’s vantage point. 

The scrape of the rough bristles against the floorboards is distracting, the repetitive noise of it reminding him of roots dragging over flooring, of bark running along his skin. He lies back down on the bed, head swimming strangely. The dark hides the familiar corners of the ceiling, obscures the dark mark he would focus on when he couldn’t sleep. He feels unmoored without those familiar anchors, the sweat stained sheets buzzing along his skin in rhythm with soft hiss of bristles against wood. 

“You should take a bath,” That rough voice says and Vash startles violently when he notices how close he is, standing right at the corner of his bed and looking down disapprovingly at his bare legs. 

Vash resists the urge to pull the covers over his body. 

“Bathroom’s over there,” The man says, pointing towards the single door and then he just stares down at Vash, waiting for him to move.

Vash squirms under his gaze. He doesn’t want to get up, doesn’t want to leave this little room that has been his whole world since he has woken up. Irrationally, he feels like if he leaves, it will not be here when he returns, that it might be claimed by the sands of the desert outside or simply slip from his mind like so many other things have. 

“You smell, go take a bath,” The man repeats, enunciating clearly, like he’s fighting to hold onto his patience. 

So Vash gets up and treads uncertainly towards the door, throwing one last look back at the man who is lifting the dirty sheets from his bed with a wrinkled nose. 

The door scrapes slightly as he pushes it open and then he’s standing in a dimly lit hallway, the smell of dust and old house even stronger here, on one side a staircase keads downwards and light streams in, along with the soft clink of ceramics and the gentle splash of water. He turns towards the other door and finds a small bathroom behind it. Dark clothes are folded up on the lid of the toilet and a towel hangs along the edge of the bath. He moves it before turning on the tap, watching the slightly brown water slosh out and cover the bottom of the old tub. 

He is aware of the mirror at his back, of the slight flash of blond hair in it that he resolutely ignores, stripping off his shorts and sticking his fingers in the water. It’s tepid, just slightly warmer than his skin and smells a little of freshly dug earth. 

The tap splutters to a stop when the bath is one third full and Vash eases himself into the tub, his long legs pulled close so he can fit. There are scars on his legs he cannot remember. He rubs his thumb over a metal plate fused into his knee, the steel slightly warm against his skin, humming with a soft electrical pulse. 

It sings in time with the ache under his skin, cold and clinical and incessant. He blinks, and the room is white. He blinks again, and there are black spots crowding his vision. He can feel the water lapping at his thighs and it grabs like hands, and it sticks to his skin and makes him feel dirty and unclean and spoiled. 

And he blinks again and there is Nai, face sharp, eyes gleaming. He’s tilting Vash’s head back with fingers that dig into his hair and tear open the soft skin of his scalp. And Vash remembers someone washing his hair like this, but their hands were softer, kinder. 

He feels blood trickle down his neck and pool in the hollows of his collarbones.

“I’m only trying to help,” Nai says kindly and Vash chokes on the water pouring down his throat. 

His hand shakes and he almost slips on the wet tile floor as he scrambles out of the bath. The bathwater is just as brown as when he first got in, and try as he might, Vash cannot find a trace of blood as it swirls down the drain. 

He towels off the feeling of hands on his skin and tugs on his clothes with shaking hands, studiously avoiding the reflection in the mirror that doesn’t look a thing like him.

He runs into the girl in the hallway and she looks surprised to see him out of the room. She freezes for a moment as she processes him awkwardly standing in the hallway, dressed in dark clothes and hair still dripping onto his shoulders. Then she smiles. 

“You found your clothes! Wolfwood repaired them so I was a bit worried but he seems to have done a good job.”

“Wolfwood?” Vash asks, the word sparking a vague sense of recognition in his chest.

“Oh yeah, I guess we never introduced ourselves. I’m Meryl, the grumpy guy is Wolfwood.”

She smiles, but there is a tension in it, her eyes glued to his face as if looking for some reaction. Judging by the hidden disappointment, she doesn’t find what she’s looking for. The names feel faintly familiar to Vash, but not in any significant way, as if he has heard them yelled somewhere in the back of a bar before.

“How do you know my name?” He asks, a question that has been eating at him from the first moment he woke up. 

“You told us,” She says simply, and he wants to ask more but she’s already moving away, towards the light at the end of the hallway and Vash follows her down to a small kitchen. 

It seems that day broke some kind of dam, because instead of merely tiptoeing in and out of the bedroom and leaving Vash to sleep, they force him outside regularly, to shower, to eat with them at the rickety table or to lie down on the couch instead of his bed. It’s tiring at first, to sit in that hard wooden chair and force food he doesn’t need down his throat. But Meryl will stare him down until he takes a bite, and Vash can’t take Wolfwood’s disappointed look when he refuses food. 

He almost wants to resent them for enforcing this new rhythm. It was so easy to lie in that bed and drift endlessly, to not face this new world he has been dropped in with no instruction, no framework. But there is something so fragile in their expressions when he does go along with it, when he takes a bite of food or answers a question, something so soft and hopeful and Vash wants desperately not to break it. So he swallows down the nausea and exhaustion and gives them his best smile. 

It’s evening, and Meryl and Wolfwood have been in and out of the bedroom a few times already, sometimes talking to him, mostly just grabbing some clothes from the floor or leaving a plate next to the bed as Vash stares at the ceiling and tries to pull his skin back around himself. Tries to think around the buzzing in his brain long enough to remember where he is. Tries to find his senses enough to hear the rustle of wind against the house and feel his chest rise and fall. Someone opened the window a while ago, and he’s awake enough to hear voices drifting in from the porch. 

It’s Meryl and Wolfwood, for once not bickering, their tone soft, almost intimate. Vash pushes himself upright and shuffles to the end of the bed, where he can just see out the window, to where the sky is slowly darkening as the sun disappears behind him. Meryl and Wolfwood are a little ways away from the house, no longer needing the cover of the porch against the harsh sunlight. They’re sitting on the bare sand, close to each other but not quite touching. Meryl is absently running her fingers through the fine grains as she talks, Wolfwood leaning in to listen to her. It’s such a gentle scene, their care for each other bleeding through in their every motion and Vash feels a little like an intruder, watching them like this. 

But the cool night air from the window is a welcome refreshment, and as he watches Meryl elbow Wolfwood in the ribs as he laughs, he finds he doesn’t want to move. 

You’re alone in that quiet field, the gentle hum of distant machinery keeping you company as you run your hands through the soft grass. A red flower blooms right in front of you, its colour familiar and comforting. You think you hear something, in the distance. A far away screech of metal, the rhythmic beeping of an alarm. You remember the heat of the air, the shaking of the once solid floors. You remember a hand in yours and dark hair. 

Perhaps you should get up, find out where the noise is coming from. But you’re alone here, for the first time, and you don’t want to face what waits for you there. Those sharp, pale eyes, those cold hands. You don’t want to face the fire and the screaming. You don’t want to face the grief in her brown eyes. 

You close your eyes again.

He wakes early for the first time, the first vestiges of sunshine tinting the sky purple through the open windows. In the dim light he can see Meryl and Wolfwood, curled up close on the second bed, his arm slung over her waist, her body relaxed against his. Vash closes his eyes and imagines what it would be like to lie next to them, feel Meryl’s gentle snores against his cheek, feel Wolfwood’s arms wrapped around him. For a few seconds, the thought is peaceful, comforting, and then he remembers the feeling of those same hands on him, and the knives that dug into his back. He remembers the way his skin crawled when Meryl got too close and the nights where he can feel his body being taken apart by hands that are not his and have no mercy. 

He opens his eyes and breathes through the nausea that abruptly wells up in his throat, shaking off the blankets that feel too much like skin, like an embrace he can’t escape. 

He gets up and tiptoes his way out of the room, stopping by the kitchen to fill a glass of water before heading out to sit on the porch.

It’s the first time he’s been outside since he woke up, and the feeling of sand under his bare feet surprises him. It’s rougher than it looks when it rolls up those endless dunes, scratching at his skin and leaving it feeling slightly sticky and dust covered. He decides he doesn’t like it, and curls up his legs onto the chair he’s sitting on.  

He takes a slow sip of the cloudy water as he watches the sky steadily brighten. It has the same sharp metallic tang of blood.

He’s still there an hour later, when Wolfwood bursts through the thin door, eyes frantic and worried. He stops at the sight of Vash curled up on his porch chair and lets out a soft sigh of relief. Vash gives him a questioning look.

“Thought you ran off,” Wolfwood explains shortly, before sticking his head back through the door to yell at Meryl: “Found him.” Then he stalks past Vash and rummages around in the inner pocket of his suit. 

Vash watches curiously as he pulls out a cigarette and flips his lighter expertly before lighting it. The movement is showy and unnecessary, but clearly practised, Wolfwood barely looking at his hands as he flips it. Something about it is familiar to Vash, and he wonders if he could replicate it. 

Wolfwood sits on the ground near Vash’s chair, his back to him to look out at the dunes. If Vash stretched his leg he could almost reach him. 

“Have you always lived here?” Vash asks after a few minutes of companionable silence. 

Wolfwood barks out a sharp laugh. 

“You think I look like the kind of guy who settles down in a shithole in the middle of nowhere, blondie?” He asks, smile sharp.

Vash shrugs, unsure how to answer. Wolfwood carries himself as if he’s constantly expecting a fight, muscles wired and eyes scanning for threats. Everything about him screams danger, but at the same time, he wakes up early every morning to set out breakfast. He passes Meryl her cup of coffee when she’s too tired to keep her eyes open as if it has been their routine for years. He keeps the house religiously clean and teaches Vash to cut vegetables with unending patience. Vash could very well see him settling here, living out his days in this small valley. 

Wolfwood only scoffs before lighting another cigarette, letting the dark smoke curl up into the bright blue sky.

You’re not on the ship anymore, and there is no green. The sky stretches out endlessly, not held at bay by the metal dome or covered by steel ceilings. You can feel fire on your skin, scorching the fine hairs along your arm. The smoke curls up your lungs, settling in your body like something heavy and choking. You scream but there is no one to hear you. 

And then he is there, and you’re pinned to the ground as he looms over you, blue eyes cold and empty. You tell him to let you go but his grip only tightens, leaving bruises on the fragile skin of your wrist. His body moves along yours, every point where you touch a brand of searing agony. 

You can feel tears in the back of your throat, salt water gathering behind your lips, but you don’t let them spill over. You only lie there in silence as around you the world burns. 

Wolfwood enters the bedroom one day with something green tucked under his arm. He drops it on the bed next to Vash, who has been spending the past few hours staring blankly at a spot just left of the door. He slowly drags his gaze back into focus to squint at the green shape right next to his face. 

“What?” He asks tiredly, because he already had breakfast with them and helped with the dishes and his whole body aches and he barely has the energy to keep his eyes open. 

“It’s your arm, dipshit.”

That does catch Vash’s attention, and he shuffles back far enough to make out the shape of a hand, attached to expertly wrought metal that curves into an arm. It sparks something in his chest, and even though it lies detached next to him, it’s like he can already feel it. The smooth metal ridge that sits around his stump, the well oiled way it moves, the familiar weight of it, his balance restored. 

He manages to lever himself upright against the headboard and picks up the prosthetic. It is exactly as heavy as he expected it to be, but far smoother. He has the sneaking suspicion someone took the time to clean it while it was out of his sight.

He tries to remember how he used to put it on, but the memory is blurry, and his hands shake from exhaustion. Wolfwood, who’s still hovering by the bed, watches him struggle for a few seconds before sighing heavily. 

“Need some help with that, spikey?”

Vash nods immediately, and Wolfwood raises an eyebrow, as if he expected a different reaction. 

“Alright then, scoot over,” He says as he moves to the other side of the bed for easy access to his arm. As he sits down on the bed next to Vash, he suddenly realises the problem. Wolfwood sits so close to him in the cramped space that Vash can feel the heat of him through his clothes, and his skin is already crawling at the thought of Wolfwood coming any closer, lifting up the sleeve at his left arm to fit the prosthetic into place. 

“You can tell me to stop,” Wolfwood says quietly and Vash takes a deep breath, releasing the tension that has rocketed into his frame.

“No, it’s okay, just…”

Wolfwood starts by pushing up the sleeve over his stump, movements slow but professional. Vash looks away as his body tenses, as if bracing for pain. 

But no pain comes, and Wolfwood retracts his hands after a few seconds, leaving Vash to breathe through the nausea as he fiddles with something on the prosthetic. 

“Ok?” He asks, when Vash has stopped shivering so bad and he nods shortly. 

The plastic cuff slots smoothly over the ragged scar tissue and he can feel the familiar whir of the wiring as it connects. Vash feels something like triumph at the sensation. 

And then everything in his brain stutters to a halt when Wolfwood’s fingers brush the skin just above the plastic cuff, his touch warm and gentle, skin calloused and rough. 

He yearns for it so violently it feels all consuming, his skin crying out for any gentle touch, drinking up that warmth and comfort ravenously. And he can feel the memory of another hand, not on his shoulder but his cheek, skin colder and paler, but rough and calloused all the same. Can remember the helplessness he felt, the revulsion as his body was taken from him, can remember knives and drowning and knowing it was his fault, his fault, he should have been stronger, he should have been better, he should have been what Nai wanted so he didn’t need to take it like that.  

He pushes himself away from Wolfwood, choking on a gasp as he fights down the sickness, the revulsion, his skin writhing and singing, begging for more and yelling at him to get as far away as possible. 

Wolfwood looks panicked as he scrambles away as far as he can get, back slamming painfully into the frame of the other bed. 

He can’t fucking breathe.

He hears Wolfwood curse sharply, and then he’s moving and Vash cringes in preparation of a blow, of hands on his skin, of anger. But there is only the slam of a door and then Vash is alone with lungs that don’t work and eyes filled with hot tears. 

Somehow, he makes it back to his bed and curls up under the covers. This time, there is no one who quietly picks him up and tucks him in without complaint. He shivers even though it’s full day and the window is wide open, letting in the scorching sun. 

He floats outside his body, in that endless blue water, light filtering through it strangely, distorting the dusty cream walls of the bedroom and shifting them to a bright, clinical white. 

He waits for someone to return, for someone to open that door and close the window. But no one comes, and after a while, he forgets who he’s waiting for. It’s easier to let the memories slip away again, crumble from his fingers like sand. 

It’s easier to be alone than bear the pain of someone touching him. To bear the pain of someone looking at him with pain and love and pity. 

He has to ask for Meryl’s name again when she comes in, and his heart almost shatters when her face crumples, fighting valiantly not to cry. He doesn’t know entirely what he’s done wrong, but he knows that he shouldn’t have forgotten, that he shouldn’t have made her sad. He apologises and somehow that seems to make Meryl even more sad, and she repeats to him that it’s okay at least three times before leaving. He spends the rest of the day feeling hollow and guilty. 

A man enters one day and for a few seconds Vash doesn’t recognise him, feels only fear at that broad shouldered frame and shaded eyes. Then he lifts up the sunglasses and Vash remembers those weary, sad eyes.

Wolfwood shifts awkwardly in the doorway, as if he wants to enter but doesn’t dare to. This sort of hesitation looks strange on him.

“You can come in,” Vash says, because Wolfwood hovering there in the doorway and looking at him as if he’s something delicate makes him want to both cry and laugh. 

“I just need to grab something for Meryl,” He says by way of explanation and Vash only shrugs, rolling over in bed to turn his back to the other. He closes his eyes as he listens to Wolfwood rummage through the pile of laundry on the floor, trying not to tense up everytime he huffs in frustration.

When he finally stomps out of the room again, Vash feels relieved, and then immediately guilty at the feeling. 

Weeks pass, every day the same, with Meryl and occasionally Wolfwood coming to drag him out of his room. He sits with one of them on the porch as the sun rises, or watches as Wolfwood cooks dinner and Meryl scribbles in her notebook. It’s weeks of doing things for the first time and remembering he’s been here before, relearnt this before. 

Meryl comes in one day carrying something bright red and the colour of it is so achingly familiar. A colour he sees in his dreams, flowers that grow in thousands on the bright green fields. (Flowers that spill through your fingers like sand as you can feel your mind leave you, feel him dig deeper into you, taking it and turning it into bright, bright red.) 

“That’s mine,” He says, confident in this one fact.

Meryl brightens at the words.

“It is. Here.”

She holds out the bright red and it unfurls into a long coat, so tall it drags on the ground when she holds it. Vash picks it from her hands carefully, and runs his hands over the rough grain of it. It reminds him oddly of this place, this house with these two people in it, the late meals and whispered conversations. A feeling of belonging, a feeling of falling and knowing someone will be there to catch you. 

He wraps it around himself and the weight feels familiar, the comfort of its warmth settling some deep ache in his bones. He smiles up at Meryl, who’s looking at him with an expression so tender it flays him right open.

“Thank you,” He says, and he knows the words are not nearly enough but he also knows she will understand. 

“When will Nai be back?” He asks one day as they’re all sat at the dinner table, Vash merely pushing the food on his plate around and Meryl and Wolfwood halfheartedly bickering about money. 

Immediately, the table is blanketed in a shocked silence, as Wolfwood freezes in the middle of a word. His eyes skip first to Vash and then back to Meryl, something dark and dangerous in them. Meryl, for her part, is looking resolutely at the floor, arms crossed over her chest and leaning as far back from the table as she can get. She couldn’t look anymore guilty if she tried. 

“ What ,” Wolfwood asks, voice low and dangerous. 

“I didn’t think he’d remember,” Meryl hisses under her breath, as if she can stop Vash from overhearing.

The confusion Vash had felt at the initial reaction is being replaced by slowly unfurling dread, and a realisation that has been pushing at him ever since he woke up here. 

Nai isn’t coming for him.

Maybe that should feel earth shattering. Maybe that should destroy him all over again. Maybe that should send him right back to the state he was in almost a month ago, confused and in pain and crying out for his lost brother like a child. 

But he can only watch numbly as Wolfwood shoves his chair away from the table, not even glancing at where it falls heavily to the ground before storming out the front door. He doesn’t react to the worried look Meryl sends his way before scurrying after him.

Nai isn’t coming back, and he’s not sure whether the creeping feeling in his throat is relief or betrayal.

He waits for Meryl to leave, taking their beaten car out to the nearest city for supplies before he shrugs on his long coat and fills up a canteen from the tap. He looks around the small kitchen, the table covered in sheafs of paper, the leftovers of their breakfast displayed on the counter in case someone gets hungry. Something yawns in his chest at the thought of leaving, of never seeing this place again. 

He thinks of Meryl’s eyes on him this morning when he woke, her hair messy from sleep, Wolfwood’s arms wrapped around her waist. For the first time, there hadn’t been that complicated mix of emotions colouring her gaze, the grief and hope and fear. This time, there had just been naked affection and Vash had almost gotten up from his own bed to join them in theirs.

He shuts off the tap and dries his hands on the dish towel before stepping outside. 

"Are you leaving?" Wolfwood asks from where he's smoking on the porch. Vash looks out at the dark wastelands, imagining the world that lies beyond it. Imagines the miles he will have to trudge to return to his brother.

"I don't know," He replies.

"Do you really want to find your brother?"

"I don't know," Vash replies again and Wolfwood looks unsatisfied at the answer.

"He hurt you," He points out.

"Yes, but is that a reason to give up on someone?"

Wolfwood sighs in frustration: "Jesus Christ, yes blondie."

“You’ve hurt me,” Vash points out and it feels like a low blow.

A complicated show of emotions passes over Wolfwood’s face before it settles into something sad.

“And have you given up on me yet?”

Vash looks at him, trying so hard to look casual where he’s sprawled out on the chair, but his eyes are tense, as if the fate of the world depends on Vash’s answer.

“No, never,” Vash answers, because he might not remember everything about this strange, beautiful, terrifying man, but he knows that he cleans their room every week and changes the bedsheets. He knows he cooks them breakfast and looks at Meryl like she’s the whole damn world and sometimes he looks at Vash like that and it terrifies him. He knows he trusts Wolfwood, despite everything.

So he sits on the ground next to Wolfwood, leaning to press his back to the other's legs. He can hear his breath hitch behind him, his muscles tensing up for a second before he relaxes, sitting almost perfectly still, as if Vash is a wild animal he doesn’t want to scare off. 

“Made your decision then?” Wolfwood asks tightly.

“Let me think about it for a while?” Vash asks and he can feel a slight shift as Wolfwood nods.

“Okay.”

So Vash stays, sitting on that old, mouldy porch as they wait for Meryl’s car to appear over the sand dunes.