Work Text:
"You know how to cook?"
Meryl sounds startled. Almost impressed. She's peering around his arm while Wolfwood works and he can't resist the urge to lean over and mime biting her head, causing her to rear back and almost fall on her ass.
"Don't sound so shocked," he shoots back, feigning hurt in his tone as best he can. "You don't think I'm capable enough to feed myself?"
She makes a face. "You're not capable enough to pay for your part of our room when we get hotels," Meryl counters.
Wolfwood points the spatula at her threateningly. "You owe me."
This always gets her going. She's in the middle of huffing and puffing about his awful rates for a burial he did of his own free will when Vash comes in. He sits in a chair, untying his bootlaces, and looks up at them with a smile.
"What are you two doing?"
Wheeling around, doing his best to keep Meryl from stealing the spatula from him after he's whacked her on the hand with it, Wolfwood grins back at him. "Making you and shortie dinner."
And Vash's smile… falls. It's not a frown, just an attempt at a neutral expression. He almost looks like he's in pain for a second before he plasters that smile right back on. Or tries to. The new one doesn't look right.
"You don't have to do that."
Wolfwood makes a soft "pfft" noise and turns back to the stove. "It's almost done," he says, almost sing song. "So too bad."
Vash sinks a little in his seat but doesn't protest further. Not until Wolfwood's setting a plate of noodles and veggies in front of him. Meryl happily plops down in the seat across from him with her own plate, always eager for a good meal, and Wolfwood watches her with a soft little smile–one he'd hate to know Vash saw–on his face before glancing over at Vash.
"Eat," he prompts, gesturing at him.
Vash hesitates. He looks from Wolfwood to the plate, then back up. That mock up of a smile is on his face when he does; the one he uses when he's trying to talk his way out of a fight. It sets Wolfwood on edge even before he speaks.
"I'm not really hungry, Wolfwood…"
He expects to get a little annoyed about it but instead Wolfwood feels his heart drop into his stomach. The crushing weight of Not Good Enough claws at the back of his throat and he clenches his jaw. There's a really uncomfortable length of silence before Meryl speaks up.
"Vash, you haven't eaten all day," she says gently. "It's good, and Wolfwood made sure it's stuff you usually eat."
They both know Vash has hang ups about food. He can't eat certain things, gravitates toward specific meals often. But Wolfwood put some real thought into the meal choice. And yet here Vash is, still turning his nose up.
The weight in his stomach feels heavier.
"Fine," he says, willing his voice not to sound as wet as he knows it is. Wolfwood swallows bile and turns, heading for the window so he can smoke or maybe crawl out of it and break an ankle on his way to the street to get away from this feeling just a little faster.
"Wolfwood–"
"No, no it's fine," Wolfwood snaps over his shoulder, digging a cigarette out of his coat pocket. "I don't care." He flops down in the chair by the window and shoves a cigarette between his lips. "Starve if you want."
He knows Meryl is going to scold him about that before the words even leave his mouth but he can't stop them. Just blows smoke out the window as she heaves a sigh.
"Don't be like that."
"Could tell him that for once," he snaps. He's not mad at Meryl, not really, he's not even really mad at Vash. But his chest hurts and he doesn't know what to do with the feeling so it comes out in sharp, unnecessarily snippy words.
Still in his seat at the table, Vash chews the inside of his lower lip and stares at the plate. There's a brief pause before he grabs a fork, manages to eat a single bite, then gets up from the table in one startlingly abrupt motion and strides across the room to the bathroom. He steps inside wordlessly and slams the door behind him. The tap for the sink cuts on at full blast and Wolfwood refuses to look at Meryl as he takes a long drag off his cigarette.
His voice is smaller and less sharp when he speaks again finally. "I'm never good enough for him."
"You know that's not it," Meryl replies softly. She's picking at her food now, refusing to let it go to waste but unable to properly eat with the mood in the room.
Wolfwood tries and fails to swallow the lump in his throat. "Feels like it," is all he can really say on the matter.
Vash comes back a few minutes later and silently returns to his spot at the table. He won’t look at either of them, instead fixing his eyes on the plate of food. It’s like they can see the gears turning in his head while he stares at the food. Tries to will himself into picking up the fork and trying again for a solid minute before Meryl clears her throat.
“Vash…”
His voice is unusually quiet when he speaks. “I can’t…” He’s silent for a moment, then tries again, “I don’t deserve…”
Wolfwood watches this quietly, trying very hard to play the part of uncaring and angry. He flicks cigarette ashes out the window and turns his head away so he doesn’t have to see the two of them at the table. So he doesn’t have to see how conflicted Vash looks over a plate of dinner.
But he can’t help the offer that slips out next. “I could make something else…”
He hears Vash’s elbows thunk against the table, plates rattling, and knows Vash is sitting there with his chin pillowed on his hands even before he glances back over. But neither he nor Meryl can be swayed by his fake pouting–never could be, really.
“That’d be worse,” he says quietly.
Wolfwood wants to snap at him again. Something close to ‘I’m not trying to poison you’ crosses his mind but he snuffs it out along with his cigarette. Meryl’s been quiet for a bit so he leaves room for her to give her 2 cents on the matter. Which pays off.
“You could try eating again later,” she offers. “It doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Pretty sure Wolfwood made enough to feed us for a week…”
She’s probably right. He never learned to make smaller portions. It would be useful if Vash actually ate as much as he clearly needs to.
But that idea isn’t working, so Meryl starts working on something else. After a moment, she grabs another plate off the counter and waves Wolfwood back over to the table. He’s hesitant, still wanting to sit and sulk for a bit longer, but he knows better than to deny her when she gets that kind of a look in her eyes. So he drags his chair to the table and plops himself between her and Vash.
“You both need to eat,” she tells them, grabbing Vash’s plate and sliding half of it onto the plate in front of Wolfwood. When she sets Vash’s plate back in front of him Meryl looks at them both expectantly. “We all deserve to eat, right?”
Even though he’s pretty sure she’s only pulling out that line he used because she’s hungry, Wolfwood can’t argue with the results. Because by some blessed miracle Vash actually looks at him, then their plates, and slowly picks up his fork.
They end up eating the rest of the food from the pot. Meryl just wordlessly gets up and brings it over and none of them bothers filling the plates. Wolfwood doesn’t pay attention to how much Vash eats, just knows he does. Just knows that somehow whatever witchcraft comes from sharing food works on him. Knows that Vash tucks his chair in a little closer to his at one point and they both linger over the press of knees and elbows during the meal. A silent shared apology.
And that’s enough.