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The night starts as it always does: a glass of shitty whiskey, one more button undone, and eyes sharp for someone to bring back to his room.
He usually skips the last part, habit having been long abandoned after travelling with Vash for a few months. But they’ve been arguing, something stupid, a wrong word in a normal conversation, and there’s little that can’t be fixed by going down on someone. And so Wolfwood looks over the crowd dancing, scans the room for someone interesting, a splash of red and blonde, if he’s lucky.
The night stretches, and doesn’t end like it was supposed to, as if often does when Wolfwood strays from the familiar warmth that bantering with Vash provides him.
The punch stings in a way he’s sure he had forgotten, too used to Vash’s half hearted ones. When he falls to the ground, he has to fight against a grin. It does feel good, and maybe he won’t down any vials tonight. He tells himself it’s for his health, and tries his best to ignore the childish urge to hope for someone to get close to him and clean the blood as best as they can, telling him he was going to be alright.
When he inhales, he can faintly recognize the smell of freshly baked bread and sunburnt earth. It feels like home. When the man he angered kicks his side, the gunshot wound Vash stitched up for him throbs, and he’s sure the flimsy stitches didn’t hold up against the assault. Tears prickle behind his eyelids, and they sting all the way to his hotel room, but he doesn’t let himself break. No tears stain his cheek when he opens the door to his — their — room.
When Wolfwood went out, he figured Vash would stay out all night, finding his way in a stranger’s bed. In his imagination, it’s someone dark haired and dark skinned, rough around the edges, but ultimately, soft enough to let themselves be held. But when he opens the door, Vash is there, on their only bed, his back turned.
Wolfwood sucks in a breath, waits for him to lift his head. The seconds slip past him agonizingly slow, but Vash doesn’t move. He does take a deeper breath, but he just nuzzles his face into the pillow before going back to his light snoring.
Wolfwood makes a beeline for the small bathroom in the room, closes the door behind him softly, standing in front of it until he’s sure Vash hasn’t heard him at all. He’s not totally sure he would care, even if he heard. They did argue earlier, and Wolfwood did say things he would regret if he was a different man in a different position. But he isn’t, and every cruel word hides a double meaning, a silent prayer to be left behind. Wolfwood wishes for Vash to get mad, to throw him out. Don’t let me hurt you, he begs, every poison coated word holding that same desire. But Vash grinds his teeth, shoves him, but he always holds his lapels tightly in his hand. Finish what you started, he spits back, each word of forgiveness sweet and unbearable.
He finds himself in front of the sink, gripping its edges until he’s white knuckled. The gunshot wound on his side did open again, the shaky stitches Vash gave him powerless under the beating he just went through. He stares at the blood under his shirt, resists the urge to press his hand against it, if anything just because it would suck to peel the fabric from it. He goes to undo the buttons, but his head spins, and suddenly he’s falling. He faintly registers hitting his head against the sink, before closing his eyes.
In the other room, Vash jolts awake. He squints in the dark, blinking a few times to get his eyes accustumed to it.
“Wolfwood?” he calls out, before noticing the light coming from the bathroom. He yawns, throwing the covers away.
“Are you okay?” he asks, fist rasping against the door, but no answer comes. “C’mon, Wolfwood, you’re not funny. Everything alright in there?”
The silence stretches to the point of being eery. Vash swallows down the knot in his throat, and goes for the doorknob.
“I’m coming in! If you get mad, it’s on you” he tries to joke, but the lightheartedness slips away from him as soon as he opens the door.
He bites back a swear, and in a few strides he’s next to Wolfwood. The blood around him is too little to be fatal, but enough for him to lose consciousness, that’s for sure. Vash shakes his head. He won’t waste his breath talking to an unconscious Wolfwood, but he curses out loud anyway, for good measure.
He kneels next to his body, a shaky breath escaping his lips. He pats Wolfwood’s cheek.
“Hey” he calls out, grabbing his chin and shaking his head. “C’mon, you survived worse with less teatrics” he keeps talking, hoping the noise will bring him back.
Wolfwood groans, tries to move his head out of Vash’s grip, and when that fails he swats his hand away. Just then, after Vash put some distance between them, he opens his eyes. Another groan slips past his lips, and he goes to rest his head on the floor. When he tries to close his eyes, Vash snaps his fingers in front of him.
“Eyes on me”
Wolfwood swallows, and Vash doesn’t miss it. The shadow of a smirk fights his way on his lips, but he stays focused.
“Talk to me, what happened?” he goes on, as he undoes the buttons on Wolfwood’s shirt. This isn’t how he imagined it would go, every brush of his finger against Wolfwood’s exposed stomach sending a jolt through his whole body, and he feels guilty about being glad he even has the opportunity to do it, to feel what it’s like.
“Got in a fight” Wolfwood says through gritted teeth, the fabric of his shirt sticking to the wound on his side. He at least got that right. “Oh, and that reopened” he adds, pointing at the gunshot wound with his chin. Vash nods, feeling slightly self conscious. He’s not good with needles, despite Wolfwood’s unbearable nickname, but for just a moment he wishes he could’ve done a better job.
“Why did you get into a fight?,” he asks. Then, “Careful, this might hurt” he says before lifting the shirt. Wolfwood sucks in a breath, but doesn’t answer. “Wolfwood” Vash hoped it would have came out a little more assertive, but the whisper he lets out makes him sound like he’s begging him. Isn’t he?
“Why did you let them do this to you,” he wants to say, “don’t tell me it was because of me”. Instead, he says Wolfwood’s name, and hopes it’s enough.
“Bored” Wolfwood replies, already pushing himself into a sitting position.
“Bored? Are you fucking insane?” Vash snarls, and that makes Wolfwood smile.
“Nah. Just needed someone to hit me like they meant it”
Vash scowls, flexes his hand into fists. He looks at Wolfwood, who’s now standing, while he still kneels on the bathroom floor, like a believer begging for forgiveness. He keeps his eyes hard, but the line of his mouth turns into a frown under Wolfwood’s scrutiny.
“Are you seriously mad at me for not wanting to hurt you? Wolfwood, we’re-”
“What? We’re what, Vash?”
Vash swallows thickly, getting up to his feet. “Friends. Are we not?”
Wolfwood scoffs. “Just go back to sleep, I’ve got it from here”
Vash considers, for a moment through the haze of rage, to just leave him there. Who is he to keep him from his martyr act? But the way Wolfwood avoids his gaze makes his chest hurt, and he can’t find it in himself to leave him alone.
“Like hell” he murmurs, before pushing him against the sink. He’s somewhat aware of the grunt Wolfwood lets out when his back makes contact against the ceramic, but he’s already studying the purpling bruise on his jaw, and the red bruise on the side of his head.
The bathroom light flickers. Someone on the street shouts along the lines of a vulgar song, messily, drunkely. Wolfwood grips the sink when Vash starts stitching him up again, blinks fast to get rid of the tears threatening to spill over. He’s too close, he can feel his breath on his skin. He wants to shove him away and pull him closer at the same time, but pointedly does neither. He tilts his head back to look at the light above him.
“Don’t move,” Vash tells him, bringing his chin down, “I can’t see what I’m doing”. So Wolfwood tries his best to keep still, under the tickling of Vash’s fingers on his skin, his breath on his shoulder, and the incessant beating of his heart, which, he’s fairly sure, is gonna explode and kill him in just a few seconds.
When Vash breaks the thread with his teeth, Wolfwood lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The muscles of his stomach relax, and tiredness settles deep in his bones, as if he ran for hours, instead of being pinned for a few minutes to the bathroom sink by the man he came to consider his best friend.
He thinks they’re done. He thinks he’ll be allowed to slip into bed, back turned, to forget that evening even happened, but Vash puts his arm on his hip, keeping him in place. He leans forward, his chin brushing against Wolfwood’s shoulder, and he can hear water running.
“This will sting a bit” Vash murmurs, brushing a wet rag against Wolfwood’s jaw. The burn comes almost immediately, but Wolfwood doesn’t let go of the breath he sucked in just a few moments earlier. Instead, he fixes his eyes into Vash’s, and finds him looking back. It feels like being scolded. It feels, once again, like forgiveness.
Vash turns his gaze away to properly clean his face, washing away the little blood at his temple. Wolfwood is usually aware of the few centimeters Vash has over him, but right now, under his scrutinizing gaze, he feels like a small child again, hiccupping in the arms of Ms. Melanie, after scraping his knee while playing.
Once he’s satisfied with his job, Vash lets go of Wolfwood’s hip. He squeezes it before moving his hand, and Wolfwood’s breath itches ever so slightly. He wants to kick Vash for the flash of a grin he manages to catch, before the hard line of his mouth is back.
His mistake is thinking Vash was done after that. Just as he breathes out, Vash’s hand is in his, and he’s being dragged to bed.
“You know I was about to do this by myself?” Wolfwood mumbles, but Vash doesn’t pay him any mind.
“Just get into bed” He says, pushing him slightly. Took off guard, Wolfwood stumbles and trips over his own feet, falling onto the mattress. Vash does his best trying not to laugh, but the smile on his lips is telling enough. He doesn’t waste too much time staring, though, and in just a few moments he’s lying next to Wolfwood, pulling the sheets over their bodies.
“There,” he coos, resting his hand behind Wolfwood’s head, and guiding him to rest against his shoulder. They’re close, Wolfwood can feel his breath on his head. Every other night, he would’ve jerked back, spluttering some nonsense, but tonight he’s tired enough to let Vash hold him however he pleases.
“See? Doesn’t hurt to be taken care of, does it?” Vash asks, but his tone tells Wolfwood he isn’t looking for an answer.
“Now, sleep. We can take it easy tomorrow”
“If you manage to not get our asses kicked out of town before noon” Wolfwood grumbles, but even he can feel the smile bleeding into his voice. Vash snorts, scratches his scalp. Wolfwood hums. He guesses it isn’t that bad, to be held, once in a while.
He’s tired enough to slip into sleep easily but before he falls into the warm embrace of the night, he seems to feel two strong arms around his body, suddenly very small, and a kiss being planted on his forehead. A woman, closer to a mother than a caretaker, tells him he’s safe. With his head cradled against the chest of the man he trusts more than anyone, he believes he is.