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Wolfwood has been watching. Silently watching. A familiar warmth bubbling its way through his chest and making its way throughout his body. Wolfwood is familiar with the feeling of adoration. And right then, he feels the sweet ache of tangible likeness blooming across his shoulders and clawing thorns up his throat.
Deep crimson dusts across his compatriot’s face, under the warm glow of the lively inn’s gaslamps and through shadows cast by crowding bodies, Nicholas could still faintly map out the curves and edges to his face. The softness of his lips, the point of his jaw and nose, the curl to his lashes, the abundance of youthfulness in the universe that was Vash’s eyes.
Nicholas thinks he could trace a finger lightly across his face, commit every part to memory. Sometimes, when he looks at Vash, he swears he sees the sun and feels the pleasantness of an ache spawning in his chest. And he continues watching still, as Vash eyes him back with the same vigour, words lost in favouritism of edging closer to the man, glasses slipping to the very tip of his nose, and tasting Nicholas’s breath on his lips.
And they keep this up for long periods of time. Intimacy and physical boundaries weren’t much of an issue between both men, light touches and countless hauling of one another’s bodies off battlefields and treating each other’s injuries went way beyond the topic of whether or not the occasional - many times - they’ve slept almost naked next to each other, skin upon skin, was a subject worth bringing up.
Then there was this strange feeling that constantly seeks Nicholas out like a parasite, leeching to his nerves, pumping whatever chemicals it was that made him feel this way whenever he looks at Vash for a moment too long. The sun, golden in his hair, the sweat trailing down his neck, the curve of his ear and how many more piercings would Vash be willing to let him put in. And on rare occasions, when Nicholas has had a little too much to drink the night before, the shape of his arms, his collarbones, the telling of a story by the form of scars littered all across his pale body. The smoothness of his skin when it isn’t coated with sand and debris and blood.
Reverie and inebriation paints Nicholas’s senses blue, and right then he’s trying stoically, in great massive effort, to keep his emotions out his eyes.
But it’s so damn hard when Vash was eyeing him like Nicholas had personally wrung the stars down and showed him his heart, plucked a fistful of Bailey flowers in this godforsaken land and tucked them behind Vash’s ears, whose pupils were blown and wide and Nicholas quickly busied himself with trying to decode the feelings flowing in its depths. Suddenly, the world seemed to only occupy the two men, and everything else melted away. Voices were muted and feelings flowed tenfold. All Nicholas could focus on was the wild fluttering of his heart against his ribs, the rising heat in his ears, and godforbid the intense urge to put out a hand and run them through a fluffy head of blonde hair.
Then Vash huffs, and with great effort manages to lift his cheek from the stained counter and send his head teetering on his shoulders. Nicholas watches as he steels himself and picks up the fourth bottle of wine between them and chugs a few mouthfuls, and a bemused grin finds its way to his lips.
”Blondie, you’re going to regret that t’morrow.”
Vash merely responds with a grimace, then sets the bottle down and shifts his barstool to face the other man, a quick and meek attempt at flashing a smile before slurring Nicholas’s name and an almost incoherent sentence in a small coo. “Neeco, y’er red!”
”I am.” Nicholas responds softly, it comes out more of a statement than a question, he wonders if Vash can even hear him amidst the sea of patrons and roar of chatter. “…Y’er plentiful red y’rself.”
”I am?” Vash widens his eyes for a moment, then chuckles before falling to a tepid string of silence with a giddy grin.
This cycle lasts for awhile, shared glances and soft gazes, shallow breaths, saying something barely sensible and falling silent again, each time invading Nicholas’s personal space and Nicholas not having anything to say about it. He wonders if Vash, with all his wondrous inhumane abilities and all, could count the beats of his heart and feel the molten lava in his veins.
Suddenly, as if snapping out of his drunkenness for a second, Vash sits upright and wobbles, then with cold hands he slips them around Nicholas’s neck.
”Can I try something?”
”You about to kiss me?”
Vash stops, pauses, as if that thought was something he had been considering, then shakes his head no, hair flaying out in all possible directions like a cat shaking itself dry. “No. Not that...mm...I don't think so? Plant. Very… me thing. Okay, just. Just watch.”
”Okay, but wait.” Nicholas reaches for the fifth bottle and pops the cap, Vash eyes him.
”Five is alot.” There’s a chuckle and amusement in his tone, he waits patiently as Nicholas breezes past half before setting the alcohol back down and turns his attention back on him again.
Then Vash stops again and seemingly analyses Nicholas with fervor, a dip dances in between his brows and eyes as he frowns, then as if something clicked, he hauls the man to his feet, both leaning and clinging to each other for stability. Nicholas doesn’t say anything as Vash leads him out the backdoor to where their truck stood waiting and the both slammed into the side clumsily before sliding to the sandy floor.
Out here, where the commotion and music mellowed out like a steady record playing in the background, Nicholas finds himself listening to Vash’s breathing. Low with an occasional huff, the fifth bottle had begun to take its toll on his body, and his consciousness was beginning to slip. All he could focus on then was the thrum of his heart, the intoxication offering a blanket of a sort of peace and tranquility that had long evaded his grasp, his hand wound and intertwined its fingers around the warmth of Vash’s own, who returned the favor gladly and wielded a certainty in its gesture.
Vash’s touch was Nicholas’s grounding mark. His safe point. Where he knew he could come home to.
After awhile, the blonde man mutters his name, to which he responds with a hum.
”Nico,” Vash says again, softly, and this time he’s shifted to face the man and inches closer.
”Nico.”
The feeling of Vash’s forehead resting against his own elicited an internal response of a colourful explosion. As he closes his eyes, a wonderful myriad of emotions slams into the forefront of his mind, as if the barriers containing these feelings had broken and allowed the dams to run free. Nicholas feels the burn of adoration filling every nook and cranny of his body that it finds, a paralysing, and ethereal feeling. He leans into the touch freely, the pleasure of fondness carving itself into his skin. The loudness of the crickets were not loud enough to drown out Vash’s soft chanting of his name, a soft mantra leaving his lips and disappearing into the ghost of Nicholas’s breath.
And that was when he feels it, this strange, foreign feeling came light as first, starting as small vibrations from his hand where they touched which Nicholas chalked off to his senses tingling, but it gradually increased, reverberations growing stronger in response when he drew slow circles on the back of Vash’s thumb. He enjoyed it at first - it must be the alcohol doing its work on his body. Vash had begun to shift his head slightly too, moving in gentle and barely discernible motions against Nicholas’s own when the first ghosts of a broken hum, like the gentle beating of an insect’s wings, albeit softer and pleasant to the ears, spawned from somewhere deep within Vash.
These sounds grew and grew, till the point where Vash had taken the liberty of making his home in Nicholas’s lap and seemed really intent on getting comfortable, and would absolutely disapprove of any of Nicholas's attempts at getting them both comfortable. After a minute of shuffling around and curling from one position to the other, he finally settles on leaning against Nicholas's front, long limbs entangled and blonde hair sticking to the other man's neck, every muscle relaxing and going limp in Nicholas's pseudo-embrace. With his hand wrapped near Vash's sternum and the other winding its way around his disheveled nest of a hair, Nicholas was sure that those vibrations that have doubled in both feeling and sound, were somehow coming from Vash.
Purring. That's what it was. Like a stray cat that had stumbled itself into Nicholas's lap and seeks his affections. These sounds had a therapeutic quality to it and reacted for every single time Nicholas moved his hand in a favorable manner. Each touch, each caress and stroke generated a strong wave of purring that fluctuated in tone in accordance to the movements Nicholas made. Everytime he stopped, Vash would make a disapproving pause and hum.
The yearning burns, this pleasant ache takes root from Nicholas's heart and it takes him a massive effort to keep the trembling off his hands. The way Vash, the Vash, that he had witnessed countless times in gunfights and battlefields, bathed red with blood and colored with the aura of impending danger, an unstoppable force with a long colt in his hands. Whom could take on Nicholas with a single shot to his heart if the will ever finds him. But now a melted puddle against his body and flimsy like a limp puppet, enveloping the other man with a warmth that stems deep from fondness, seeking every inch of closeness that he could reap and relishing in the way Nicholas massages his scalp.
Before he could gather his senses, Nicholas finds his hand brushing aside the stray blonde hairs at the back of Vash's ear, and before he could make sense of himself, had plant a quick kiss to the pale skin there, immediately igniting a huge torrent of purrs that reverberates through the entirety of Vash's body.
Vash turns around slightly and butts his head against Nicholas's again. Adoration pulsing through his nerves. One thing that Nicholas learns tonight is that the feeling of intoxication, mixed with tenderness, makes for a great feeling of euphoria that tenderizes his muscles into complete softness.
”Mmm... plant equivalent of a kiss.” Vash mumbles quietly, a little flimsy and still a pile of goo in Nicholas’s lap.
”So you’re telling me you’ve been kissing me for the past ten minutes - and I didn’t even know?”
”Now you do.”
A soft smile tugs at the corners of Nicholas's lips.
"Kiss me whenever," and he lands a quick peck to Vash's forehead, "I'll enjoy it very much, anytime."