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“Can I have this dance?”
Wolfwood slapped Vash’s outreached hand away. “Pssh! Don't even think about it, Spikey. Your target-red coat’ll take one spin on that dance floor and you’ll be recognized before you can say ‘$$60 billion double-dollar bounty’.”
“But I don't even have a bounty on my head anymore!” Vash pouted, letting his arms fall pathetically to his sides.
Wolfwood rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t make a difference. People still want yer head on a spike.” he said as he poured them both another drink.
The music in the bar had finally changed to something slow and people had started to gather to sway calmly to the music. Vash was enchanted. Sometimes he forgot that NoMan’s Land had its calm moments. Life wasn’t always about running from the law, or from bounty hunters, or hired assassins, or evil twin brothers.
Sometimes life was about two people coming together on a shabby saloon dance floor, cheap alcohol running pleasantly through their veins and bringing color to their cheeks, swaying slightly in place to the rhythm of a song. Not running, just swaying. As if their life didn’t depend on it, but was instead the life they depended on.
Vash plopped himself back into his chair with an exaggerated sigh.
He wanted it. Ached for it. Itched to grab Wolfwood’s hand and drag him onto the dance floor, to get lost in the crowd and emerge just two people among many; just Vash and Nicholas. Have the world shrink down into just this moment, just this room, just the two of them. A hardwood floor to keep them steady and a tune to keep them going.
Maybe it could be enough to make the world stop spinning so fucking fast, just for a little bit.
But Wolfwood was right, with their luck Vash would get recognized immediately and then one way or another all hell would break loose. The song would change to something a little bit more energetic, the dances would change to something with more movement and Vash would get lost in the hypnotizing way his coat tails flew around him when he spun and soon enough they’d hear bellowed from the crowd–
“Vash the Stampede?!”
Vash wasn’t sure if he imagined it or not, too caught up in his own fantasies to tell much of a difference between fact and fiction. He slumped further in his chair, finding himself wanting the ability to just go invisible for a while.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wolfwood raise a shot glass. He resignedly raised his own and they met in the middle with a soft–
– clink!
Wolfwood downed his drink but Vash didn’t take more than a sip. Didn't want the toast to end so fast.
They hadn’t bothered to turn the radio off when they left the kitchen, its tune still echoing quietly throughout the building. Vash couldn’t tell what song was playing from outside but it felt calm, slow. The clouds almost looked as though they moved with the song, faintly, slowly swaying across the blue sky.
Wolfwood moved to pour himself another drink but stopped and gave the bottle of Bride a rest. The couch creaked softly when he stood up. It was an old thing, worn and frayed but it still stood proud among the rubble. It was a miracle it made it out of that shootout at all, Vash thought.
Vash’s gaze refocused on an outstretched hand presenting itself to his face. It was blocking his view of the dull horizon.
“Can I have this dance?”
Vash’s eyes met Wolfwood’s. He looked tired.
Vash let go of his half empty glass and accepted the offered hand, standing to his feet to meet Wolfwood in the middle. Didn't want Wolfwood to have to waste any energy dragging him up off the couch. Didn't want to waste this chance. Didn't want to think about how it was his last.
Wolfwood placed his other hand on his shoulder. Vash let his palm hover hesitantly over Wolfwood’s side.
The last time they stood like this, it was in the middle of a gunfight and it had taken everything in Vash to let him go. He knew his desperation had been obvious, in the way his hand clutched Wolfwood’s side and his shoulders drew up to shield him from the onslaught of blades. He didn't even flinch when the daggers lodged themselves in his shoulder. He’d selfishly wanted to hold Wolfwood as close to himself as he could, take every bullet for him, protect him from it all.
Vash had known then, that after all was said and done, he wanted to share his tomorrows with him. He thought, hoped, that maybe Wolfwood would agree.
But all he could do was hug him. Not too tight, or he’d never be able to let go, but desperately enough that Wolfwood knew. The quiet “Oh…” he’d let out when Vash wrapped his arms around him was telling enough. He’d caught on. He must have. He knew.
He knew Vash would do anything for him, even this. Even sit back on a fight, let him do it his own way. He’d drop his hands to his sides and he’d keep the Eye of Michael’s henchmen out of his way as he took care of his brother. Even if it meant letting him go.
He knew that he was about the most important thing Vash had in his life. Vash wasn’t sure if it made it worse or better, the knowledge that sat between them now, like a rock at the bottom of an ocean. Unacknowledged and unseen but without a doubt there. Vash didn’t want to interpret this as rejection.
He thought about it now, of asking. Of confessing. Of praying. He didn’t.
He didn't because he was afraid it’d change nothing. Or that it would change everything. That the simplest acknowledgement of the future, even the innocent question of “what should we eat tomorrow?” would break their bubble, take them out of this moment and into the next, and then the next, and then the next. He was afraid Wolfwood would grace him with a reply. Give him hope.
He couldn't, because Wolfwood had made up his mind. He was sure. This was how it was supposed to go. Vash didn’t have the right to ruin it for him like that.
Wolfwood leaned into his hand. He didn’t comment on how Vash clutched the fabric of his jacket like a lifeline as soon as he allowed himself to touch. All he said was, “Smile, Spikey. You look better when you smile.”
Vash felt like his heart was freezing over. As if anyone so much as touched it, it’d crack right through the middle, cold blood freezing before it could even begin to seep out. The only thing keeping it warm enough to beat was the slow, steady sway of another body against his.
“That was a bit harsh. Sorry.”
Vash buried his face in Wolfwood’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure who he was shielding, Wolfwood from seeing how hard Vash was trying not to cry or himself from looking at the tired look in Wolfwood’s eyes any longer.
He screwed his eyes shut so hard he saw stars, tears threatening to spill and stain Wolfwood’s shirt with more than just blood. If he closed his eyes enough maybe he could pretend they were back to the day they first met. Back then, Wolfwood had complimented his smile and he’d carried no cross on his back, and Vash had been down a gun-arm. In that moment, they were just two people in a crowd. Just Vash and Nicholas.
Now, Vash struggled to form words without making the shakiness he was feeling show in his voice. “Um.. Wolfwood…” he managed.
Oh God… he prayed, helplessly.
“Please don't… say anything stupid.” he muttered, uselessly, into the collar of Wolfwood’s shirt.
God… Grant me one wish.
Wolfwood didn’t say anything more, he just breathed a soft sigh that brushed past Vash’s ear.
Vash wondered if Wolfwood knew the song that the radio inside the orphanage sang to them. If he’d heard it before, while running around the orphanage helping Ms. Melanie wrangle kids to bed late into the night, or while sharing a meal with his brother, or doing chores a kid his age shouldn’t’ve had the responsibility of.
He wondered if it made him feel like in this moment, he was just Nico. The Punisher lying broken and discarded in the yard, knowing his brother was safe and sound and swaying to a familiar tune with a man he knew he could always count on.
If only this moment could last them forever. If only it could make up for everything that came after.
Vash felt something small and light land gracefully on his back. A feather?
They stopped their slow movement and Vash could feel Wolfwood’s head move beside him, looking up. Then Wolfwood’s hand went slack in his. Vash felt a surge of unease at that, no no not yet, so he looked up at Wolfwood who was staring up into the sky with something like wonder in his otherwise hollow eyes. Something like relief.
Was that… confetti raining down around them?
Wolfwood opened his mouth, as if to speak, as if to scream. But all that came out was a sharp inhale of breath, and silent tears rolled down his cheeks. Vash looked up too.
The ship was just a speck in the distant horizon now, but they’d rained down confetti before they left. Wolfwood’s family had welcomed him home, just as the song on the radio fizzled to a close.
The church bell at the top of Hopeland Orphanage rang as confetti sauntered slowly from the sky, landing on the rubble all around them.
Vash felt Wolfwood lean backwards so he made sure to steady him with a fixed hand on his lower back.
Wolfwood's hand slid from its place on Vash’s shoulder, slipped down his chest, until it fell limply by his side.
Vash felt the soft touch of buckled knees fall lightly against his.
Vash let his gaze slowly fall from the sky and onto Wolfwood. His head had slumped backwards at an odd angle. Vash could see the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.
Vash’s heart froze.
He pulled Wolfwood closer to him as static slowly built up in his ears.
He let go of Wolfwood's hand, letting it fall with the other one, so Vash could wrap his other arm around him too as the static grew louder.
He buried his head in the crook of Wolfwood’s neck and pulled him as close to himself as he could, as if it’d somehow fuse their souls, as if his warmth alone could restart Wolfwood’s heart.
All the while the static in his ears drowned out the rumble from the Ark above.
Long, sharp feathers sprouted from Vash’s back and curled around them, covering them, and as far as Vash was concerned, the world, with static.
The static built, and it built, until it couldn’t get any louder. And so it simmered. Simmered until the wings of the Ark were just close enough to slice the world, Wolfwood’s world, apart and then Vash let it go too.
His frozen heart cracked in two, and blood started to trickle out from the wound.
Vash’s jaw clenched together too tight to release a single sound but it felt like a scream. It felt like a scream that tore up his throat and spilled all of his insides all over the ground and rattled all of the still intact windows of the orphanage.
It felt like it bled, it felt like it scarred.
Vash suspected that it sounded like a scream, or something akin to one. Like thunder rupturing through the sky on an otherwise cloudless day. Like the wail of a wounded animal. But all Vash heard was deafening silence as his entire body trembled with adrenaline.
Grief sliced through the air, back towards its genesis and cut Him across the cheek, right below the birthmark by His right eye. Vash finally looked up and met His gaze as feathers sauntered from the sky, twisting in the air before hitting the rubble at his feet.
He’d taken enough from Vash, He’d not take this too.
He smiled. He smiled as his hand traced the streak of blood across His cheek. Then He laughed. He laughed and He laughed, a sickening cacophony that followed the Ark as it slowly disappeared into the horizon.
Vash could feel the feathers and markings on his face retract along with his energy and by the time every feather had fallen to the ground, so had he. Not before lowering Wolfwood oh so gently onto the worn couch beside them, then he could fall to his knees and his eyes turn as hollow as Wolfwood’s had looked.
Eventually he’d stand up and find a shovel. Eventually he’d find a nice spot behind the orphanage. Eventually he’d start digging.
The blood pooling out of the wound in the cracked, frozen flesh of Vash’s heart didn’t freeze. It just kept bleeding. It bled, and it bled, and the tails of Vash’s coat tracked blood in his path as he robotically walked around Hopeland Orphanage.
He’d considered the wrappings of the Punisher, but that was meant for a weapon and Wolfwood wasn’t a weapon. He was just Nicholas D. Wolfwood.
So he took down one of the freshly cleaned sheets Ms. Melanie had put out to dry earlier that day. It looked older than it probably was, worn down over the years with consistent use, but lovingly cleaned and hung to dry instead of tossed out.
He carefully wrapped the sheet around Wolfwood before picking him up just as gently.
He couldn’t bear to look at his face so lifeless, so he didn't. Focused on his own hands, and then his own footsteps, until he arrived at the hole he’d dug sometime along the way.
He didn't notice himself picking up a piece of confetti and a single feather until he let them fall into the open grave. He wasn’t sure why, too tired to think.
It looked comfortable.
He imagined himself by Wolfwood’s side, both of them so tangled up in the sheets that neither was sure where one started and the other ended. He remembered laughter and cigarette smoke and hydrogen peroxide. He remembered the cheapest of hotel rooms, the coldest of bundled together nights and the hottest of motorcycle rides at the mercy of the twin suns.
He wanted to crawl in and fall asleep next to him, like he’d done so many times before. He wanted to let all of his remaining energy bleed into the earth around them and bury them both in the most beautiful of geranium flowers.
But if he did that, Wolfwood would break Vash’s sunglasses across his head and yell at him about giving up so easily.
So, selfishly, Vash buried Wolfwood alone.
He selfishly stripped Livio of the right to attend his own brother’s funeral. Because he was angry, furious, at him, for what he’d taken from him. Or maybe because he wanted to spend one last moment alone with Wolfwood. Or maybe because he wanted the option open to join him and Livio would try to talk him out of it.
Or maybe he was just sparing him from seeing the lifeless body of the brother he’d murdered. Vash suspected it just might break him. And he needed him to be alright. He needed Livio to be alright because Wolfwood had died for him to be.
The radio was shouting static when his cold, bloody trail led him back inside Hopeland. He spotted his reflection in a mirror and couldn't tell if he was disappointed when he turned his head to find that only half of his hair had withered to a deep black.
He tinkered mindlessly with the dials on the radio until it played anything but static. Instead, the radio filled the kitchen with a familiar melody.
“I'll always remember, that magic moment
“When I held you close to me
“As we moved together, I knew forever
“You're all I'll ever need
“Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
“Could you be my partner every night?
“When we're together, it feels so right
“Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?”
Vash wasn’t sure where he’d heard it before, but it made something in his chest ache. He let it play anyway, distantly wondering if the wound would ever freeze too or if his heart would just keep bleeding and bleeding until it had none left to keep his body moving.
Maybe then, finally, he’d fall right into the ground next to Nicholas.