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I wanted to cut the most beautiful flower in the rose bush
thinking that I could not be cut out of love;
and as I stabbed myself with its thorns I learned one thing:
a rose is a rose, a rose, a rose.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood is an observant man, or at least he considera himself to be. The thing is, being observant when it comes to one Vash the Stampede is quite literally on his job description, but regardless of his mission he knows he would not be able to take his eyes off of him anyway. The man is like a magnet, a sight for sore eyes, with his bright smiles and his big gestures that alude to an outlaw that doesn’t like to take himself too seriously, even when he should.
Perhaps he would be better off not being so observant. He would do well in practicing self-preservation and not getting too close to the man who can only be considered his target, the poor soul he’s guiding towards who knows what kind of doom. But Nicholas can’t help it.
Vash is just something else, an amalgamation of everything all at once. The magnum opus of nature itself. And Nicholas is just a man, rendered speechless before him, captivated by his very existence.
There are many things Nicholas knows about Vash just by watching him from over the rim of his sunglasses. He knows he scrunches up his nose in distaste and discomfort when he’s not particularly fond of something, he knows he pretends to forget to eat or says he’s not hungry when he’s feeling down and because he wants the humans around him to have a share that he allegedly doesn’t need. He knows that, no matter what, Vash will have a smile plastered on his face, even if most of the time is vacant and hollow and just a lame excuse of what a real smile would look like.
(Distantly, Nicholas notices that Vash’s real smile doesn’t hurt to watch. It’s as beautiful as the man itself, like a ray of sunshine in the middle of a stormy sky. His laughter sounds like birds chirping.)
But out of all of it, the thing Nicholas was more interested on was Vash’s aversion to touch. It was carefully disguised, hidden under layers and layers of pretenses just like his smiles, but definitely there in a way one could notice if he paid enough attention to the blond’s strategical reactions.
He notices it first when they are leaving a certain town. Meryl is filling up the gas tank while Roberto and Vash fill the trunk with their basic belongings and some provisions to last them the few days it will take them to arrive to the next town. Nicholas has been busy inside the gas station buying enough tobacco for him and the old man to pass the following days.
When he gets out of the place the twin suns burn with such intensity immediate pulses of heat run within his skin. Roberto wipes off the sweat forming on his wrinkled brow with his left hand, and pats Vash’s shoulder-blade with the right one.
And no, Nicholas shouldn’t have caught that fleeting reaction, but he does. He sees the way Vash stiffens up under Roberto’s touch as if his hand burned him, almost as if wanting to instinctively wince away from him. But Vash endures it, tries to conceal the way his jaw tenses, and takes the touch for the few seconds he’s granted it.
Then Roberto goes to Nicholas to retrieve his pack of cigarettes, and with a sardonic smile he takes his seat on the passenger’s seat as Meryl gets the car started.
Nicholas glances at Vash from the corner of his eye during a good part of the ride. He looks pensive, distant. Under his coat, it almost seems like he’s trying to curl up into himself, wanting to keep himself small or warm, which is impossible because he’s tall as a goddamn tree and the coat he wears would do more than enough to keep him warm in the middle of this arid heat.
He’s sad. Why he’s sad, Nicholas doesn’t know, but he stops himself from caring too much before he can regret it.
Unmistakably, that exact same reaction takes place more times that he would like to admit during their trip. It’s like a curse. Once Nicholas is aware it exists, he’s painfully rendered a witness to every time it manifests.
Vash’s reactions with both Meryl and Milly are stronger, because the little missy is more touchy than Roberto ever was when he was still roaming the land of the living and the big girl outdoes her at that. She sometimes hugs him when he gets to excited or hides behind his big red coat when a group of bandits threaten him with taking him and getting the bounty on his head.
Nicholas realizes it then, after a few times. When Meryl holds onto his flesh arm and Vash flinches at the unexpected touch, breath getting caught up in his throat before he can conceal it and put on his agonizingly hollow smile back on.
He’s lived for quite a handful of years, Brad and Luida had said, at least a century and a half. Vash has wandered this desert over and over again, running from the humans he so deeply loves and dodging the bullets they shoot at him. He’s probably scared of the same people he vowed to protect, and it’s painfully ironic.
The sight of the scars coating his skin is burned deep into Nicholas’ brain. The grate over his damn heart, the screws holding his spine together, the fact that the man sometimes seems to be more metal and wires than flesh and blood.
In a century and a half, has someone ever treated this man with kindness? Has no one seriously held Vash like he’s something precious?
Has every touch hurt? Made only to inflict violence upon him?
Nicholas doesn’t want to ask, but he knows. He knows because he sees the way Vash sulks after it happens, like his instincts betrayed him, like he’s in the wrong for his animalistic impulse to want to stop the pain before it comes. It must be hard to love and crave something so deeply, and then be scared of it at the same time. It must feel horrible to have heart and brain be so at war.
(He would be lying if he said he didn’t know what that feels like.)
They’re in an empty alleyway, him and Vash. He knows they’re being chased, but Nicholas can’t hear them, he only hears his own ragged breaths and the rustling of bullets inside of the Punisher as he runs with it held firmly in his hands, unwrapped and menacing.
Sprinting right in front of him is Vash, the ends of his red coat following suit as if they were the wake of a shooting star. He’s far ahead, used to all of the running, his body moving on autopilot. The bullets burn holes on the ground under his boots from where he’s being shot at, the villagers greedy to collect the reward for his corpse.
Nicholas cannot allow that to happen, wielding his cross as he turns back to face them. Behind his back is only Vash and a large brick wall that cuts them off from the rest of the village. He shoots, more out of muscle memory than actual intention to, his reflexes a bit too used to spill blood under the firm gaze of his cross.
But they’re outnumbered, and it’s not enough, and he gets shot at. It happens sometimes, so he doesn’t let it get to him. Regardless, Nicholas mutters a curse. He hears Vash pull out his gun from behind him — perhaps a bluff or a distraction. Maybe one of his intricate plans to actually shoot without killing.
Reaching out inside his jacket, Nicholas finds the trustworthy vial that will get him out of this one. But fate is that cruel, and as soon as his hand is out of his jacket more shots are fired. The glass shatters, blue liquid spilling all over his bloody fingertips, the bullets making a home somewhere within his torso. Nicholas can’t help but let out an agonized, wrecked noise.
Shots reach his ears. From Vash, some, from the villagers, others. He’s laying on the ground in the middle of the crossfire, and while he sees some villagers scatter with bullet wounds on their thighs or arms that will surely not kill them, he knows they are losing.
More villagers come, the crowd approaching. Vash has gotten shot a few times, Nicholas can see him shake as he places himself before the undertaker’s bloody remnants. His coat is stained in a darker red. Nicholas can see crimson pooling under his feet.
“Stay with me, Wolfwood,” he grits out with great difficulty. A plea, desperate and stern at the same time.
His orange-tinted sunglasses fall to the ground and break with the impact. Nicholas’ blood boils.
Vash shields him from most of the bullets, but even the greatest marksman in No Man’s Land can do so much against so many armed people. A man against a whole battalion. Nicholas fights to keep his consciousness, to try and lift his hand to gather one of the remaining vials and hopefully aid his partner, but some bullets are still making their way towards him, not allowing him a reprieve.
The blond is starting to stumble on his feet. He looks like a damned strainer, coated in blood, his body ruined by too many holes, and Nicholas thinks they’re done for as he watches the crowd get closer to collect their outlaw. Vash lets out a heart-wrenching scream as he places himself not shy of on top of Nicholas’ body.
His eyes fail him, or maybe it’s the blood loss, but Nicholas can’t quite gather what happens next until it’s over. His vision is swimming and the sound comes to him as if he were underwater. He sees villagers running away, scared like a baby thomas, tripping on their feet to get away. Nicholas thinks then that he doesn’t need to look up to know what happened, so he doesn’t.
Instead, he concentrates his remaining energy in getting another vial, a task now easier without the unstoppable input of the bullets to deter him. The venom slides easily down his throat and leaves a bitter aftertaste that makes him feel nauseous. For a moment, his entire body burns, blind hot pain shooting at every single one of his nerves.
And then it’s gone, and Nicholas sighs in relief. His freakshow body doing the impossible to keep itself standing one more day. He opens his eyes, he hadn’t realized he had been keeping them closed shut for a while, and the weight that was on top of him not moments ago has vanished. Above him is only the bright blue sky and the awfully merciless twin suns with their usual heat.
Nicholas scrambles to stand on both feet, looking everywhere for his stupidly reckless partner, when he finds something that might just be similar enough. Truth is, he has only seen Vash in this shape in few occasions, but there is no mistaking it.
On a dark corner of the alley Nicholas sees two pairs of wings, closed in on themselves as if forming a cocoon. He cannot say what lies underneath, but he knows it will be Vash, from the way vines and roots climb up the walls behind him, leaving dark purple flowers hanging from them.
A sigh escapes him, but it’s not one of relief. There’s a reason why he has only rarely seen Vash like this, there’s a reason why Vash likes to keep his nature hidden.
Warily, Nicholas approaches the cocoon with silent steps, not wanting to alarm him. He knows better than to upset a creature like this especially now — but Vash has been shot, he’s hurt, and Nicholas has to make sure he’s okay whether he looks like a big bird or not.
His wings have no feathers, he notes when he’s close enough. They’re like a strange mix of an inky substance and pearlescent lights that somehow float in the air. When he gets close he can hear a small buzzing sound, like static from a TV, a steady thrumming of energy.
“Spikey, it’s me,” he says. “We’re good to go now.”
But Vash doesn’t answer. He never really expected him to. The cocoon is shaking a little, but it remains silent and unmoving. Nicholas kneels down in front of it —him—. The wings are big, huge, even. Blood and flowers pool under them, but they never get stained. They’re like a dark abyss of nothingness enveloping Vash.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, quite stupidly, because he knows the answer already.
Again, no response comes his way.
“Let me see.”
When once again silence greets him, Nicholas takes the lack of a negative to hesitantly place a hand on one of the wings. He grazes it with his fingertips first, earning a shudder that rattles Vash from his very core, and then places his open palm onto the inky substance. It feels somehow solid despite its looks, buzzing and warm. It feels like energy, like electricity. Nicholas doesn’t think he’s felt something like it.
That can be said about Vash, too, or so it seems. The moment Nicholas’ hand rests over his wing he can feel it stiffen, the shivers intensifying. He makes an effort to awkwardly try to relax him back into stillness, shushing him like he once used to do to the kids in Hopeland when they had a nightmare.
“It’s alright, Birdie. They’re gone,” he tries.
But it’s to no avail, so he carefully places his other hand on the remaining wing and starts rubbing small comforting circles over their strange surface, allowing Vash to calm back down into his right mind, but still feeling the anxiety of the blood staining his knees as a drag to his every move.
He spends a few minutes like that, in complete silence, observing his fingers run over pearlescent and black time and time again, with a gentleness that he didn’t know he still had in him. Nicholas finds some peace of mind when the big wings finally stop shivering, and they relax into something less stiff, their shape still a weird blob of inky nothing.
One of his hands retreats, unsure, when one of the wings is lowered down. A pair of blue eyes peeks at him from inside the strange shield Vash has locked himself in. Bright luminescent streams coat his forehead and cheeks in intricate patterns, and when Nicholas locks gazes with him again he can see those exact patterns scattered across his irises, colored an artificial baby blue, electric.
(It’s only then that Nicholas realizes he’s being stared at with not only an unbearable intensity, but also a kind of fear that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen in the blond before.)
“There you are,” he sighs, repositioning his hand back on his wing. Vash flinches, but he says nothing and he doesn’t hide back, which he considers a win. “You saved me from a good one there, huh, Spikey?”
Vash simply stares at him, eyes open and big and wild like a feral animal that’s cornered by its natural predator. Nicholas gulps. Maybe humans are the natural predators to plants, after all. Vash has to be living proof of that, with all the shit they’ve put him through. This is just his impulses acting on his behalf.
He knows Vash is not scared of him, even though it would do him well to be. Vash loves humans more than anything, and Nicholas is included as one of them despite the horrors that his body has survived. In the back of his mind he knows that were Vash coherent enough, he would have already stood up, made a lame joke, and probably passed out from his wounds.
But this is Vash’s body, not his mind, acting on pure reflex. The self-preservation instinct the blond seems to always lack.
Nicholas knows that, when you’ve only been hurt for a whole century, when you haven’t met a touch that is kind, it might be difficult to accept it. If anything, Nicholas trying to touch him to ground him is probably what has Vash so scared, but he wants to show him the gentleness he deserves. He wants to try and comfort him in the best way he knows how.
So, what he does, is that he holds out his hand. Vash eyes it with distrust, frowning, and then he stares back at him with a confused stare.
“Take your time, Spikey. I need you to relax if I want to check your wounds, so I’m not moving.”
And take his time Vash does, because Nicholas stays in position like a statue for more minutes than he can count. Every now and then he hears the small clicking sound of metal hitting the floor, and he knows that somewhere he can’t see Vash’s body is working its magic to push the bullets out of his body in order to hopefully heal itself. With every one of the bullets, Vash flinches, even though he’s a gunman that is more than used to that awful noise. Nicholas can’t help but want to take that sadness away.
Bring back his jolly stupid partner back, please. He’s had enough of watching him suffer in silence.
After a while though, God seems to have heard his wishes, because Vash’s flesh hand comes out of somewhere beyond what Nicholas can see and hesitantly places itself over his own. It takes Vash a bit of a trial and error process, because he winces whenever he grazes Nicholas’ skin and when he finally manages to place his hand on top of his, the limb is stiff as a brick.
“Sorry,” Vash whispers, choked out and pathetic. It comes out hoarse. He hasn’t said a word in quite a while.
Blue eyes stare at him, this time with a melancholy that Nicholas can’t help but despise. Vash’s eyes are glistening with unspoken sadness, and he can even catch a glimpse of his usual self-hatred thrown into the mix. As if he was to blame for his loss of composure.
He’s not. He never will be. The fact that he thinks like that makes Nicholas’ stomach turn upside down.
“Why?”
“I’m scared,” Vash says simply.
“Of me?” Nicholas asks, taking his hand in both of his.
“I’m not sure.”
“That’s alright,” he tells him. “You have the right to be scared, too.”
“I don’t…” he retorts, but he trails off and never finishes that sentence.
Nicholas understands. What else can he do?
“You’re okay, Spikey. We’re fine. Nothing’s going to happen now,” he tries, and if his voice seeps with uncertainty then that’s his business alone.
Apparently, it works. It works because in a whirlwind of brightness the wings unfurl greater and more majestic than anything Nicholas has ever seen. And then something way more beautiful, more powerful — Vash in his own shape and glory, throws himself at him and wraps his arms around Nicholas.
It hurts. He’s way too strong, having forgotten to act human for a second. His prosthetic arm is painfully stabbing Nicholas’ lower back. But it’s manageable, it’s manageable if it’s for him.
Vash is not comfortable yet. He’s stiff as a rock and his entire body trembles but he’s making an effort to try and follow his brain, to trust humans like he always does, to trust Nicholas like he always does. With the weight of the situation still on his shoulders, Nicholas wraps his own arms around Vash, careful not to touch the birth of his wings on his upper back.
How many times has someone wrapped his arms around Vash only to strangle him? To crush him under their weight? How many caresses have turned to slaps or punches? How many times has he been poked with knives rather than with a helping hand?
Nicholas bites his lips as he squeezes Vash’s figure. The wings wrap around them both, enveloping them in a brief moment of darkness, and Nicholas thinks he can understand why they’re doing that as he feels his shoulder start to get wet.
Vash doesn’t make a show of it like he always does. Most of his tears are usually fake, pouts played for laughs or to get what he wants, crocodile tears. They’re loud and abrasive and they make Nicholas want to smack him in the face.
But these tears are silent, vulnerable, intimate. He doesn’t make a sound. Nicholas can only barely hear him breath, sniffing raggedly under his breath.
“Let it all out,” he says. His shirt is stained with blood as he holds Vash within his arms, his hand carding through crimson-matted locks of blond hair. “I’ve got you now, Angel.”
He doesn’t think he’s even seen Vash the Stampede cry like this. Maybe nobody has ever seen anything of the sort. Nicholas whispers sweet nothings in his ear until his body finally relaxes under the first gentle touch he must have had in a lifetime, and they stay like that for a while.
The wings retreat, infusing themselves into Vash’s back with practiced ease until nothing remains and it’s like they’ve never been there to begin with. Vash hangs on to him for dear life throughout all of the process, and then with no warning the energy seeps out of him. Be it the sorrow, the blood loss or something else entirely Nicholas doesn’t know.
(What he does know is that he has someone to look after, and he has over a century of lost years to make up for.)
So Nicholas lifts up Vash’s limp body in his arms and holds him tight against his chest.
“Let’s get you patched up, Spikey,” he tells him, even when he knows he can’t hear him. “I got it from here.”
And when I opened my hand and let it fall
the wounds on my skin began to bleed;
yet with its petals the flower healed them oh so kindly:
a rose is a rose, a rose, a rose.