Chapter Text
"Vash is tough. You’ll learn that for yourself if you hang around" . Wolfwood remembered the words of the technician on Ship Three, the one who found them on the Sand steamer in the plant room with an unconscious Vash.
Brad was right to be wary of the Undertaker. It seemed both Vash and Brad were able to see through Wolfwood and read him like a book. But where Brad voiced his worries as he saw them, Vash kept them to himself, even when he knew meeting Wolfwood wasn’t just a coincidence.
The words somehow kept haunting Wolfwood along with Vash's thanks before they parted.
Before everything good in Woflwoof's miserable life went to hell. His small smile was so devastatingly sad, but also an honest one. Wolfwood couldn’t even meet his eyes, he had bowed his head in an attempt to escape the pain before the guilt set in.
In the end he had to make his choice, he had to go back to find out what was happening, as the town was suddenly swallowed up by all kinds of black roots and vines of different sizes, from which beautiful night-sky purple flowers started to bloom.
When he reached the tower, catching Meryl just in time before she would fall to her own end, and before escaping with her safely tucked under his arm (thank god she was so small, and for once didn’t voice any complaints about him carrying her, like a portable luggage. It was an almost nice time together, if only not for the whole situation around them. He quickly set that thought aside for some better opportunity, if they ever got one, that is), and managed to lock eyes with Vash, for just a split of a moment. All he saw there was relief towards Wolfwood. How could that be - that there wasn’t a smidge of hurt because of his betrayal? Nicholas didn’t know.
Meryl and the Undertaker ran as far as they could go but were hesitant to leave Vash behind completely, made it to the outskirts of the city, and watched as Vash and his brother rose up and up to outer space with inhuman speed and grace, disbelieving what Vash could do about the cube before the energy from it consumed him.
Then, there was a brilliant, blinding light and a shooting star, or perhaps a falling angel was plummeting back towards the city. In the next few seconds the city was rendered to the ground, in a blink of an eye where once were living beings remained only a blackened pit of despair as the energy wave decimated everything in the closest radius from the impact.
Wolfwood and Meryl had covered their weeping eyes, both from the shock of loss and the inescapable light that carried on and past them, until there was only nothing but darkness all around.
After that everything was a blur.
A blur of emotions, where both Meryl and Wolfwood didn’t know what to think. Meryl was still mourning Roberto, clutching his pistol in her hand tightly. Wolfwood reached an arm to hug her close to him, offering to share some warmth in a time where they were both frozen cold, not knowing how to proceed with what had just occurred.
Vash.. that self-sacrificing idiot.
They had to find someplace safe to get some rest. For a few immediate days after the Fall, they wanted to go around the place and search for a familiar red coat or blonde spiky hair, but the place was swarmed by police officers as soon as the next day’s evening. The few lucky souls who survived the disaster - who had enough sense to run when first noticed two winged creatures fighting in the center of their city - happily reported that the known criminal and outlaw Vash the Stampede was spotted in the city just a day before. It couldn’t have been a coincidence and he was surely planning this catastrophe.
Overnight, the bounty on Vash reached to what no one had to their name ever before.
It made Wolfwood sick to his stomach with anger. Meryl patted his back as he actually had to throw up. He wanted to puke out his guilt, to reach into himself and tug it free so he wouldn’t remember what he had done, what he now had to live with.
How poetic, Wolfwood mused with distaste in his mouth, that an angel trying to save them all, had to be the one carrying the hatred of humanity.
The only possible option laid before them - Meryl still had a job to do, she went back to the company, she would pull clues and hints if anyone has seen someone similar to Vash.
Wolfwood on the other hand was free now. How unbelievable that thought was. Free from his binding clause, free to return to the orphanage and become the priest he was chosen to be ordained. But his consciousness didn’t allow him to get back to the kids. He gave them a clear future, but he felt he robbed someone else of his .
So he set on a new path - to find Vash. No matter how long it would take, no matter where it would take him, he would find him.
Wolfwood traveled through the few nearby towns, seeing more of the blackened pit that used to be July and the disaster spilling from the center of that black crater, anguish, despair, hatred; whispers of the man who was to blame for it, the Humanoid Typhoon, the first man bearing the title of an Act of God.
His consciousness weighted Nicholas down the longer he spent looking for the other man and not finding anything that could lead straight to him.
Vash… where are you?
An evil thought plagued his brain: He could be dead. (It would be your fault, your fault.- no, no he’s not dead!) Wolfwood was sure he would find Vash, it just took more time than he wanted, it took more toll on him to still believe he would find him alive.
What kept him going were those rumors and whispers, of people claiming they've seen a red-clad devil walking the streets of their town. Others that they’ve heard he died in the center of July, just like he deserved. That thought pained Wolfwood… I helped him to get there..
But even as all these rumors could be nonsense, they gave him some hope - if there was really nothing about Vash, he was sure people wouldn’t even hiss about him.
The last time he saw him, eyes to eyes, he wasn’t even wearing his red coat.. no, it was his coat, but in purple-ish black color, like those flowers curling along the vines in July, just before the catastrophe happened.
He wondered if the Fall disintegrated Vash’s coat, his clothes,.. his glasses? If he got out of the crater safely, if he was safe now, if he was in pain.. if he even remembered ?
~~~
It took Wolfwood a long time, weeks turning into months of wandering the scorching desert, from towns to abandoned settlements, suffering the unbearable heat that wasn’t even the least of his worries. He spent every waking moment repeating his sins and apologies, even when his throat was parched and hands scratched from the leather bands on his cross, the weight nothing in comparison to the hurt he felt from his betrayal. Was it really betrayal if he had no other choice? If Vash knew all along and went with him anyway? What else could he have done? Without any answers to his questions he could only put one foot before his other; keep going, keep searching, until he would get his answers, until his wishes and pleas were heard.
When he did find him, his heart simultaneously broke into a thousand pieces and healed all back together in the same breath.
The second sun was just setting over the horizon when he came to the end of another town, another gray, unremarkable town with just a few dozen citizens and their cattle, farther from the remains of July than he traveled before. But then he passed a figure in an old wicker chair on a terrace of a rickety plain wood house, the last house before the road ended and morphed into another part of the infinite desert.
The man didn’t seem to notice him, his gaze was lost somewhere far in the distance, hidden behind pale blond hair longer than what Wolfwood ever seen on him, but he would recognize the color of those eyes in death, beyond all worlds.
Wolfwood’s breath caught in his throat, he was suddenly aware how parched he was, how traveling took a toll on him he never acknowledged. Not until I find him, not until I know he's okay. Not until I can say my repentances, he kept telling himself over and over.
“Vash?” A wave of hope he didn’t allow himself to feel until then slipped into the word, the name so unusual on his tongue, yet bringing him the comfort he now desperately craved.
He saw the other man flinch at the name harshly, head flipping towards the source of the sound, panicked blue eyes meeting dark brown ones. Only when Wolfwood held Vash’s gaze for who knows how long did those eyes settle into something calmer, steadier, a dawning of realization, and Wolfwood felt like he could breathe again. He couldn't stop the few tears escaping with how much relief he was suddenly overwhelmed with.
“-Eriks? Are you on the porch, it’s getting colder- oh.” A girl walked out of the house, in plain clothes and a mop of brown hair, but halted her steps when she saw Wolfwood. She looked to Vash and back to Wolfwood, gauging the situation hesitantly.
“You know him? Should I call grandma?” she asked Vash as she looked back and forth between him and the stranger carrying a cross on his back as big as he was tall.
“It’s okay, Lina, he’s not here to hurt anyone.” Eriks gently said, his voice light and scratchy and barely there, but oh, did that make Wolfwood so happy to hear his voice after all those months, close to two years now, searching for any hints if he was still alive. The blond man gave Lina a small smile, something painfully obvious to Wolfwood as fake, but Lina took it as a sign to continue.
“You his friend? He appeared a few weeks ago, almost passed out in the middle of the road.” she said to Wolfwood this time. “He says he can’t remember anything. He must have been in some sort of accident.”
Wolfwood saw Vash’s prosthetic was gone, the long sleeve of his gray linen shirt was carefully folded up, the space not occupied by the limb now moving slightly in the wind. He tried to see if he missed any other visible injuries, but from across the way he couldn’t tell. He moved closer, carefully, not trying to spook either of them, still unsure what Vash's reaction to him would be.
Vash's longer hair shifted around his ears and neck when he tilted his head down, breaking eye contact, the blonde strands almost completely covered his eyes and face as if he wanted to hide in shame.
(Wolfwood felt an urge to run his fingers through the long hair and tuck the few strands behind Vash’s ears so he could see him fully, so he could make sure he was really there.)
Lina’s other words registered and Wolfwood felt a sting of pain.
Ah, that’d explain a lot. Wolfwood wanted to reach out to Vash, to take him in his arms and hold him, to feel if he was really breathing. But upon hearing Lina’s words, he stayed put. He wasn’t sure how much Vash, Eriks , really remembered and how much of that was pretend. Or how much he actually wanted to forget.
He nodded at the girl slowly, wiping the corner of his eye. “We met once or twice.”
The girl raised an eyebrow at that, clearly not buying the easy lie, but with one last nod to Vash and a hard look to Wolfwood that said “You better not try anything,” she went back inside, giving them some privacy.
“Wolfwood.” hearing his name on Vash’s lips shouldn’t send shivers down his spine, if only the word didn’t sound so sad.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Wolfwood wanted to ask millions of questions, was he alright, what happened, how did he survive, what did he actually remember?, he seemed to recognize Wolfwood, but what of their previous journey? Meryl? Oh, she will need to know Vash is alive as soon as he was able to send a letter out to her, but every word died on his tongue from the sheer exhaustion that followed after the relief.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
What? “What? What do you mean, Needle-noggin?” Vash only looked away with a small sigh at the nickname, head still bowed down.
“You shouldn’t have been looking for me. You should go.” Vash spoke in such a tired voice, the sound scraped at Wolfwood’s heartstrings.
“Like hell I’m leaving you again. Do you even know-” he cut himself off, not wanting to raise his voice, he didn’t want to scare Vash. He wiped his scorching forehead, his head was aching, but he paid it no mind. “I’m not leaving you. Meryl.. she needs to know you’re alright. It’s been close to two years.. she was so worried,” he glanced at Vash. “We both were.”
He found him. He found Vash.
Except it was not the Vash he knew, not really. He could see it now - the way his shoulders were slumped, tired of the weight of the whole world, unshaven jaw and long matted hair that were usually so shiny and bright in the sun.
The silence stretched and Wolfwood didn’t know how to break it, fortunately it was Vash who spoke first.
'I-.. I don’t think I can be him again. At least not yet.' He finally raised his head a bit, giving Wolfwood a chance to look into his eyes again. There were unshed tears, pooling on the edges of his lashes, and so much pain and sadness in those beautiful blue eyes, but also a sliver of something else. A recognition. A welcome sight.
Wolfwood took a few cautious steps towards him, and as soon as he was within reach, Vash crumpled into his open arms.
'I just want to be Eriks for a little while longer.'
'Okay. That's okay.' Wolfwood could live with that. He could stay like that for an eternity if it meant the man in his arms was safe and sound. He ran fingers through his longer hair, and enveloped him as best as he could, mindful of the stump of his left arm. His own heart beating fast at realization he was actually holding Vash, alive alive alive , he pressed Vash close to his own body, gave in to the urge to kiss his temple and swore in his mind he would do anything Vash (or Eriks) asks for.
Wolfwood found him. Changed and broken and incomplete, but real and alive , and that was all that mattered to him.
At the touch of his lips to the blond’s temple, he felt the other man’s tension in his body slowly recede, and in a feeble murmur he whispered “I almost lost hope that you survived. I missed you,” hiding the words into Wolfwood’s neck.
It felt like coming home, a pure flame of warmth flooded his chest, and Wolfwood held him a little tighter as they both silently let the tears of pain and hope clean their souls.
~~~
That night, after the kind women of the house - Lina and her grandmother - let Wolfwood stay, and after they had a small dinner, when the night brought darkness and the only shining light was the soft glow of the moons in the orbit, then, when Vash and Wolfwood were alone again and it was too eerily quiet that only their breathing was heard - Wolfwood sunk to Vash’s feet and after all those months spent searching for this man he began to cry.
The longer he spent on his journey, the longer he wanted to make amends, to apologize. To keep apologizing, because that was what Vash deserved - an honest person in his life, someone who could be worthy of calling themselves Vash’s friend. Someone who would want to keep him safe.