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Vash absolutely could not sleep.
It wasn’t for want of being tired, because he was utterly exhausted. Legato’s torture over the past seven months, and the treacherous escape from Knives’s floating warship earlier in the day, had more than seen to that.
While the rock his head was currently resting against wasn’t exactly comfortable, that wasn’t the problem, either. He’d spent many a night sleeping outside in the desert, and all things considered, this was a rather peaceful place. There were no towns nearby, so light pollution was low. If he wanted, he could have moved out from under the rocky overhang above him to get a breathtaking view of the stars. The consistency of the constellations usually soothed him—being able to pick out the same ones, night after night, as they danced across the sky in unchanging patterns was oddly comforting.
He’d seen far too much coming and going in the past 150 years, after all. Consistency was a welcome change of pace.
Regardless, the stars weren’t enough to calm him tonight, and counting them had no hope of putting him to sleep. He was tense in both mind and body, overwhelmed in spirit, and currently in the process of trying to come down from extended panic.
To be frank, it wasn’t going well.
He rolled his head to the left again to look at Wolfwood. He could see the gentle rise and fall of the other man’s chest where he lay on his back, half-propped up against the rock wall behind them. Vash’s fears were assuaged just the tiniest bit, just for the moment. He forced a deep, controlled breath of his own. But he knew as soon as he closed his eyes—as soon as the ringing in his ears and flashes of blood-stained gunfights took over his senses again—he’d be on the verge of a heart attack.
Vash had spent the past seven months wondering whether Wolfwood was alive. After they were reunited—after Wolfwood risked everything to rescue him—he’d almost lost him in as many minutes. And while Vash had been unconscious for most of the actual fighting, what he had seen was horrific.
He’d woken up just in time to block the bullets that may have finished Wolfwood off, shielding him with the massive, convulsive wings he finally had some level of control over. The wings proved useful again to slow their descent when they fell from the warship, as he’d somehow managed to get one around Wolfwood in midair to soften his landing, at least somewhat. But crashing to the sand dunes had still been a brutal ordeal that knocked the wind out of him. Hauling Wolfwood’s bloody, unconscious body to the first rocky outcropping that provided even a vague semblance of shelter immediately afterwards hadn’t been pleasant, either.
Finally setting Wolfwood down and confirming that he was still breathing, by some miracle, had come as a relief. But the dozens of bullets buried in his limbs and torso hardly inspired confidence. Vash had been gearing up for another painful goodbye when Wolfwood woke up and called him an idiot.
He’d never been so happy to be insulted.
At this point, he was armed with new knowledge of just how durable Wolfwood was; he understood that he was far tougher than a normal human. He’d also seen him take some sort of medicine that would ostensibly speed up his healing, and these things should have been reassuring.
But when Wolfwood had closed his eyes to go to sleep after their discussion, more or less telling Vash to shut up and leave him be, he hadn’t been able to calm down at all.
And so now, here he was: staring at Wolfwood in the quiet dark, hardly blinking, to make sure he was still alive.
He knew he couldn’t keep this up all night. He would go insane first, if that somehow hadn’t already happened. He needed something specific, and he knew what it was, and he just had to work up the nerve to ask for it. The odds that Wolfwood would go along with his request, however, weren’t high. The priest was irritable on the best of days, and he had even more reason than usual to be ornery right now.
After several minutes of contemplation, Vash shifted onto his side to more fully face the other man. “Hey, Wolfwood?” he asked softly.
Wolfwood grunted, unmoving, not opening his eyes. “What is it, Spikey?”
“Are you… still feeling okay?”
Wolfwood heaved a long sigh. His voice was low and even when he replied. “I told you already. I’m going to be fine.”
Vash bit his lip, trying to figure out the best way to phrase his actual question. The night air around them suddenly seemed too silent, too still. “Yeah, I know you said that. But… well…”
“Spit it out, Spikey.” Wolfwood sounded both tired and annoyed now.
“It’s just…” Vash scrubbed a hand down his face, though Wolfwood wasn’t looking to see it. “I… is it alright if I move closer?”
Wolfwood frowned slightly, though he still didn’t open his eyes. Vash was already hardly an arm’s length away.
“Sure, if you want,” he replied after a short pause. Despite his evident confusion, his tone was disinterested. He’d say whatever he could to get Vash to stop talking and go to bed, it seemed.
Vash let out a shaky breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Far more of his mental stability was riding on this than it should have been. “Okay. Thanks.”
He shifted over to Wolfwood until he had closed the gap between them. They were pressed shoulder to shoulder, Vash’s bare, useless stump of a left arm against the ruined suit jacket of Wolfwood’s right. He was careful not to use too much pressure, lest he aggravate the priest’s injuries. After a moment’s hesitation, he ventured to nudge his calf against Wolfwood’s for good measure. Looking down, he found himself momentarily jealous of the other man’s dress shoes for the first time ever, considering that his own boots—not to mention his shirt and duster—had long since been confiscated. Whether they had been destroyed immediately or kept as some sort of sick trophies back on the warship, he’d probably never know.
If Wolfwood was surprised or bothered by how close he’d gotten, he didn’t show it. But in truth, Vash was relatively unconcerned about what Wolfwood might be thinking at the moment. His basic physical functioning was a far more pressing matter.
Vash made an attempt to settle in where he was, minutely adjusting his limbs and his position against the rock wall. He genuinely tried not to bother Wolfwood again, seeing as he’d already been allowed to get away with invading his companion's space. Wolfwood had done him a monumental service that day, after all. He undeniably deserved a night’s rest without Vash’s constant fretting.
But despite his attempts to be logical about the situation—despite his efforts to convince himself that he could feel the rise and fall of Wolfwood’s breathing through their existing contact well enough—he still wasn’t alright.
When he closed his eyes again, all he saw was Wolfwood’s gruesome demise.
He snapped them back open. Wolfwood was going to think he was crazy, he knew, and that was just going to have to be okay.
He turned inward to face the priest, close enough to count his dark eyelashes now if he’d wanted to. His voice came out less cautious and pleading this time, more insistent and a twinge desperate.
“I need more.”
Wolfwood frowned again, unimpressed. He inclined his head towards Vash, still with his eyes shut. “What?”
“I…” He struggled for another way to say it. This would have been a lot damn easier if Wolfwood would just look at him. “I need to know you’re alive. Can I just…”
He reached across his own body with his right hand to mime placing it on Wolfwood’s chest. When the other man still kept his eyes closed—stubbornly, Vash thought—he let it land.
Wolfwood stopped breathing for a moment when Vash’s hand touched his skin. Even so, the relief Vash felt was near-instant.
Wolfwood was warm. His heart was still beating, surprisingly strong and steady, on the other side of his ribcage. It was working. Despite the many bullet holes punched through his suit, his body hadn’t given up.
Vash’s awed gaze moved from his own hand on Wolfwood’s chest back to the other man’s face. His eyes were cracked open now, and to Vash’s surprise, his mouth was turned up in a small, amused smile. He could hear the laughter in Wolfwood’s voice when he finally spoke.
“You’re such a mother hen, you know that?”
Vash sputtered. He managed to get out a few half-statements about how any reasonable person would be concerned, how he’d thought Wolfwood was dead about five different times that day, how Wolfwood himself was severely under-reacting to the whole thing, when Wolfwood cut him off.
“Relax, Spikey. I don’t care much as long as it’ll make you be quiet,” he said mildly, stifling a yawn and confirming Vash’s earlier suspicions. Before he could form a retort, Wolfwood continued. “Here, I’ll even do ya one better.”
Wolfwood covered Vash’s hand with his own. With some difficulty, he shifted down the sloped wall behind them into more of a lying position, clenching his teeth when the pain from his countless wounds flared again. Vash followed after him, biting back the apology rising in his throat.
Their new position made it easier for Vash to keep his hand in place, he realized. With gravity working for him, there was little chance of it falling if he managed to drift off to sleep, and he wouldn’t lose Wolfwood’s heartbeat. The move had been an unusually thoughtful one on Wolfwood’s part, and Vash found himself grateful.
The priest settled into place on his back again. He squeezed Vash’s scarred hand in his calloused one before letting go of it, folding both arms over his stomach, instead. Something about the position, combined with Wolfwood’s attire, triggered another alarm in Vash’s mind—Wolfwood looked far too much like he could be lying in a coffin—but he didn’t say anything.
Wolfwood took a deep breath and let out a sigh. Vash felt the other man’s chest expand and contract under his palm, and his nerves dropped down to a low simmer.
The priest cracked his eyes open again, looking at Vash out of the corner of them. “You gonna make it now?” His voice had gone softer, and the overtone of poking fun at Vash had mostly fallen away. What was left of it did a poor job of hiding the sincere question underneath.
Vash found himself momentarily stunned by that transparency. But maybe it wasn’t so strange that Wolfwood cared how he felt. He’d cared enough to plan and execute a one-man mission to save his ass, after all. And he’d certainly paid the price for it.
“Yeah,” he managed to reply at length, looking at the priest thoughtfully. He was searching for something in Wolfwood’s face—some explanation for why he’d gone to such lengths to rescue him, for why he was willing to indulge his odd requests right now—but came up short.
Wolfwood merely grunted, closing his eyes again.
With the priest seemingly as comfortable as he could get, Vash took a moment to settle himself on his side. He checked the placement of his hand on Wolfwood’s chest where the other man’s shirt was open, making sure he wasn’t pressing on a bullet wound. He threw caution to the wind and shifted his whole person a bit closer, his chest against Wolfwood’s upper arm and his shin against Wolfwood’s leg. He found the increased contact comforting—more pieces of proof, somehow, that Wolfwood was okay. He could feel the remaining tension in his body slowly dissolving.
When they had both been still for a minute, and Vash’s eyes had fallen closed without the action triggering a bloody montage in his mind, he found himself speaking again. “Thanks, Wolfwood.” He kept his voice neutral, not intending to let on just how panicked he’d been or how much relief he felt now, but he suspected Wolfwood knew, regardless.
He felt Wolfwood heave another sigh. “Don’t mention it, Spikey.”
The words were casual, but Vash somehow got the sense that Wolfwood meant them quite literally. He was okay with that. If this all vanished with the sunrise, and he never had to be confronted on his overwrought mental state, that was hardly the worst outcome.
And besides, he had Wolfwood back.
They were both alive, and they were both free again.
What more could he have asked for?