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It was a fact ofte forgot that Milly Thompson had saved the life of the great Vash the Stampede. With her stun gun, she had taken down Monev the Gale and allowed the Humanoid Typhoon to see another day.
Under the dazzling glare of the twin suns, Vash hefted the stun gun in his arms, its loaded bolts clinking in their chambers. 50 paces from them, a series of makeshift targets stood gleaming under the suns, the bottle on the far left reduced to small shards of glass under a metal X. His hands shook minescutely under its weight and he sighed, disappointed with his display; he’d been aiming for the can to the right.
“That’s one powerful gun you’re packing. Tell me, how does a sweet girl like you end up with something like this?”
Vash was no stranger to the muscles that Milly had built up on her shoulders and back from carrying her stun gun around with her so often. If Milly wasn’t such an open book, he might have been suspicious about the origin of her strength. As it was, he was only impressed.
Milly laughed and Vash braced himself for another tale of her boss’s backhanded compliments.
“I made it!”
“You what?” Beside him, Wolfwood had been leaning on the Punisher but was now standing straighter, eyes flashing behind his darkened lenses.
“Well, my little big sister helped me with it,” Milly confessed, almost sheepish.
Vash examined the weapon with closer scrutiny. Sure enough, there were the faint traces of homemade repairs, and the barrel lacked the craftsmanship of a true gunsmith like Frank Marlon. It wasn’t too far off, though.
“I’m not so good with leatherwork, so that’s why the strap keeps breaking. My big big brother has got new tomas though so maybe he can help me out,” Milly continued, oblivious to the boys’ surprise.
“Yer tellin’ me you made it? Designed it ‘n all?”
“Yep!” Milly smiled broadly at them but didn’t look nearly as smug as Vash thought she ought to, merely her usual cheerful self.
“Well I’ll be.” Wolfwood whistled, low and impressed and Vash couldn’t help nodding in agreement.
“That’s quite some talent. Say, do you think you could give my .45 a look over? I think something’s come loose and it’s not shooting quite right.”
“Sure thing!”
Vash dropped the stun gun in Wolfwood’s unexpecting arms, poorly hiding his grin as the other man stumbled to catch it while also keeping the Punisher upright.
“Here.” He held out his colt to Milly but she didn’t reach out to take it straight away.
“Could I have a couple of test shots with it? It helps me know where the problem might be.”
“‘Course!” Truth be told, Vash was more than a little interested to see what Milly would make of his gun. The aim on it wasn’t as off as he’d been suggesting having relatively recently been serviced by Marlon, but with the revelation that Milly had been hiding her gun-making expertise, his curiosity was piqued.
He emptied the chamber of his final two bullets and went to replace them with blanks from his pocket.
“Oh…” His hands patted his chest, but his search was futile; his coat with its freshly torn shoulder wasn’t on his back, but instead with Meryl who was somewhere in the house behind them diligently repairing the ruined sleeve.
“I gotcha.” Wolfwood passed Vash a handful of blanks from his own trouser pocket in what was more a demonstration of his strength than a real attempt to be helpful, holding both his and Milly’s guns with a single arm.
Vash took them with a small and only slightly sulky thanks and slotted them into the chamber, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Wolfwood used his newly freed hand to pull a crumpled cigarette from god knows where and jam it between his lips.
“Hey, don’ s’pose you’d gimme a hand lightin’ this thing?” Wolfwood was more than capable of using his own lighter, yet Milly acquiesced all too happily with his request. Vash couldn’t help but roll his eyes as Milly slid her hand into his slacks’ pocket and withdrew his silver zippo. It clicked to life in her hands, its small flame flickering in the increasingly small gap between them. Vash briefly considered firing into the sky to make them jump and put an end to their little game, then thought better of it. Really, who was he to judge them for flirting. Mostly he was just annoyed they weren’t flirting with him .
“Thankin’ ya kindly.” Wolfwood shot Milly a grin, the look in his eyes painting an all too vivid picture of how he was planning on repaying her for the help. Milly didn’t say anything as she replaced his lighter, but judging by the faint blush that tinted her cheeks, she’d received the message as loud and as clearly as if he’d yelled it. She lingered by him for just a split second too long before finally turning back to Vash, clapping her hands together in a charade of obliviousness.
Wolfwood puffed smugly on his cigarette. Vash did not throttle him. Meryl ought to be proud of his restraint.
“Right! Let’s have a look at this gun of yours.” Milly finally took the colt from Vash, both of them gamely ignoring Wolfwood’s muttered innuendo about how they could look at his gun later.
“Hmm.” She turned it over in her hands, running over it with a sharply appraising eye before lifting the weapon with a practised ease. Cocking the hammer back, she fired three shots in quick succession. The sound of sunshots was echoed by two corresponding thunks as the blanks hit their marks and the can Vash had been aiming for was blasted to the ground alongside another smashed bottle, the third vanishing into the sands beyond.
“Not bad Milly!”
Meryl’s voice caused the three to turn. Standing triumphantly on the porch of their little house, Meryl waved to them, drenched in a shroud of red cloth. Vash gulped heavily at the sight of his coat draped across her narrow frame, no sign of the gash that had threatened to tear an arm from its body. Even as she approached, Meryl looked far tinier than usual, drowned out by the reams of thick leathery fabric. She pirouetted elegantly in front of the group, coat tails fluttering out around her.
“Not bad yourself, Meryl. You’ve outdone yourself, like always.” Vash scrutinised her handiwork as she joined them. The stitching on the coat was flawless, far better than any repair job he’d done himself despite his long decades of practice. She’d even fixed the stray strap between the back panels which he’d been meaning to fix for years. Not only that, but the patchwork of rust-coloured stains were all but gone too, its colour now a uniformly bright crimson.
It reminded Vash of Rem’s geraniums. Not for the first time did he ache to show her where his blank ticket had taken him.
“Vash, are you okay?” Meryl touched his arm gently, as though frightened he might bolt like a startled animal. Dragging himself back to the present, he found himself faced with three pairs of expectant eyes, tinged with varying degrees of concern. Even Wolfwood had momentarily traded his blasé smirk with a small frown. He must have been lost in his memories for longer than he’d realised.
Contorting his face, he threw together a wide, shoddy smile. Meryl raised her eyebrow, a silent question of whether he’d really try to hide behind a faux cheer with them. He froze for a moment, then let his shoulders sag in resignation and the tension between them disappeared.
“I-uh, sorry. I was just thinking about how much I wish you could have met Rem.” Sympathetic smiles were shot his way. He scratched at the back of his neck awkwardly, then cleared his throat.
“The coat looks great,” he announced, pulling Meryl into a lopsided hug. “Especially on you,” he added in a whisper, lips brushing against the shell of her ear. Even without seeing her face, he knew her face went as red as the coat itself. Meryl wiggled in his grasp, squeaking out small whines of embarrassment. To their left, Wolfwood let out a deep chuckle.
“Well now, ain’t that something.”
Meryl dislodged herself from his arms with a huff, almost tripping on a coattail in the process. She was only able to stay upright by wildly flinging out an arm and grabbing onto Vash’s shirt. Vash swore he heard seams rip as he steadied her.
“Hey, careful! This isn’t even my-” Too late, Vash clamped his mouth shut, taking a step back from the group before going stock still.
“What do you mean Mr Vash? It’s not your what?” Milly asked innocently. Vash took another step back, towards the safety of the house behind them.
Wolfwood’s eyes narrowed, zeroing in on the oversized collar that adorned Vash’s neck.
“Needle-noggin…”
Vash took another step back. A grin spread across his face, not guilty, but genuine. Winding up Wolfwood was truly one of life’s great pleasures.
“ Needle-noggin! ”
Vash was already gone, sprinting up the steps of the porch with a half-crazed laugh. Encumbered by not one but two large guns, Wolfwood was slow to follow, entrusting Milly with the Punisher before finally chasing after Vash, stun gun raised and a litany of insults falling from his lips.
Meryl and Milly watched with amusement as Vash danced and ducked away from Wolfwood’s ire, the two trading nonsensical insults all the while.
“They sure can be funny sometimes,” Milly commented. Meryl hummed in agreement. A crash rang out from somewhere inside the house. More yelling followed, then a distinctly Vash voice cried out.
“Mercy! Mercy!”
It sounded like he was laughing.
“Come on, let’s stop those idiots from actually burning the place to the ground.”
“That would raise the premium on our insurance.”
“That it would, Milly, that it would.”