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The nights spent out in the empty wastelands are always quiet. It’s less comfortable out here, in between cities and settlements and limited to sleeping cramped in the car or waking up half-buried in sand by the night winds, but it’s peaceful. It’s a little easier to breathe when you can look up into the vast sky and not feel the weight of a gun pressed against your skull or hanging from whatever you sling yours.
Punisher sits safely in the car, and without it, Wolfwood thinks maybe if he stared at the stars long enough something will be able to come to lift him up and take him to a better place. Or he could get eaten by a worm with no way to get out. Either option has its own appeal some days.
He’s been outside too long. Roberto and Meryl were asleep in the front seats, and he’d been exchanging meaningless conversation with Vash before he’d made an excuse of needing to stretch his legs and slipped out. He knows it won't be the case, but he hopes Vash has fallen asleep in his brief absence. That way Wolfwood can keep pretending he’s the only person left. Even if the other three all snore loud enough to dislodge his fantasies.
He had needed to stretch his legs, in any case. It was purely performatory in terms of easing his discomfort, but stretching out his whole body did give him an outlet for his steadily building restless energy. He feels a little less like kicking Vash or taking his gun for something to do with himself. That’s about as good as he’s going to get.
Vash doesn’t say anything when he slides back into his seat, but there’s a thought clear in his face that almost puts Wolfwood into fight or flight. It’s too late for him to bear those blue eyes looking at him like that. He jerks his head and his sunglasses fall from his hair back to the safety of his eyes. He doesn’t meet his gaze again.
“Wolfwood.”
“Needle-noggin’.” He thinks he barely succeeds in keeping a groan out of his voice.
“Doesn’t it hurt you to carry Punisher around all the time? You hold it with only one hand.”
“No,” Wolfwood lies, plucking out a vial and waving it around, a weak prayer to be freed from Vash’s incessant need to care. “Special cure-all for everything. Nothing hurts if you just wash it all away.”
Vash frowns in his peripheral. “You carry it even without your ‘special cure-all’.” It’s smart of him to point out, and another step taken to back him against a conversational wall.
“Doesn’t matter,” and this is only half a lie this time. It doesn’t matter how long he carries Punisher, or if he were to blast through vials like he does a cigarette pack, something always hurts.
His muscles hold the aching memory of years of growing pains condensed into a moment, his form expanding beyond itself into something new, something awkward and gangly and set eternal into his being. Something that had a madman smiling and praising his successes.
“Come here,” Vash says, but it’s meaningless when he shuffles forward and reaches across the space between them anyway and grasps Wolfwood’s wrist. The fingertips not hidden by gloves are warm.
He doesn’t deserve whatever kindness Vash is trying to give him, but Wolfwood can’t scrape enough venom off his teeth to coat his words and shake off Vash. “What do you want,” he means to snarl, but the skin to skin contact must have knocked something within him a little loose, and he just sounds tired. He’s stepping towards whatever trap Vash is trying to coax him into when he turns to face him, but he’ll deny he went willingly when he no longer feels the night weighing on him.
Vash lets him go —regretfully— and tugs off his own glove. His voice is soft when he makes his next request. “Give me your other hand.”
“What do you want?” Wolfwood repeats, even as he reaches out, as he lets the trap close around him.
The material of Vash’s prosthetic is cold and smooth in contrast to his good hand. He doesn’t explain himself, but his touch is kind as he pushes back the sleeve and drags his palm back down Wolfwood’s forearm.
Wolfwood’s gaze sticks to Vash’s hand like one of its scars as he gently massages his arm. The pain doesn’t disappear under his caring fingers, but it slowly lessens as he works. Relief thicker than blood thrums through him, his heart pounding to keep up with it.
The title Punisher sits heavier in his mouth than the weapon ever has. He doesn’t know what to do with this, Vash’s hands pressing against him comfortingly, wrapping him heavily in the overwhelming love and care that comes before the Humanoid Typhoon, so he sits hopelessly and lets it happen. The Eye of Michael didn’t build him to withstand or even receive affection. The idea of pulling away and hurting Vash feels like taking his own skull when trying to pull teeth anyway.
He knew he was doomed long ago, especially so when he’d first laid eyes on Vash peering down at him, but maybe he can convince himself he doesn’t mind it so much now in the calm in the eye of the storm, even if Vash’s fingers seal his fate with every circle pressed into his skin.
“Feel better?” Vash whispers as if it will break the space between them, hands lingering even after they’ve stilled. Their gazes meet again, and there are no words Wolfwood can pluck from the bible to explain what it’s like to look into Vash’s eyes.
“Yeah,” he croaks out, throat dry from keeping in a secret he barely even knows. “Thanks, Needle-noggin’.”