Work Text:
It takes a long time for a planet to return to something like normal after it faces unbelievable peril. Fortunately, Vash has all the time in the world to help it along, even if his help is occasionally… unappreciated.
He thinks often of Wolfwood while he works. The two of them may not have known each other for all that long – what, a year or three, tops? – but the killer priest had somehow managed to thoroughly integrate himself into Vash’s consciousness during that short span in a way that no one else he had met on his travels had. He fancies, at times, that there’s a little miniature Wolfwood who’s taken up residence in his skull, grumbling at him whenever he’s a bit too reckless and spouting curses at every minor complication.
Vash may not admit it, but he appreciates that little voice far more than he lets himself think about. It doesn’t fill the little hole in his chest that Wolfwood’s absence caused – not that he really acknowledges that to himself, either – but it helps, a bit. Enough to keep it from growing, and that’s all he can really ask for, busy as he is with trying to clean up his messes.
It’s September, the year after the new Earth fleet’s arrival, when he finally returns to the last place he saw Wolfwood. The idea of coming back to the city of December had been a little too painful to contemplate before now, but there was word of people needing help rebuilding, and so off he goes. It’ll be nice to visit his grave, too, Vash tells himself. Once I’m done, and all that.
Knowin’ you, you’ll get into a gunfight over my casket, the little Wolfwood in his brain mutters, and he smiles in reply.
In Vash’s experience, the first sign of approaching civilization in the new age is always the moment tufts of grass begin sprouting up through the dry orange earth. The first mile or so is always sparse, the blades so tough and sunburnt that you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re weird rocks. They get longer and softer the further he walks, and he trails his hands through the tips of the grasses, eyes wandering over the fields and noting the old ruts where motorbikes and offroaders have passed through.
Soon after that, the earth begins to cling to his boots ever-so-slightly, just barely humid enough to have some grip. The grass and the dirt cleans the dust off of him a bit, making him seem halfway presentable. This is also when the grass is finally soft enough that Vash plucks a piece and chews it as he walks, letting the end dangle like a skinny green cigarette. If a town is particularly small for the number of plants supporting it, sometimes there’ll even be a few trees Vash can stop under to recharge before he arrives, but at this point he can always see the buildings up ahead, and a little bit of bustle in the outermost streets.
Once the Millions Knives crisis was over, people moved back to their homes as quickly as they could, and everyone Vash had spoken to had expressed incredible relief at being able to lie down in their own beds once again. The rotting bodies of those who had been killed during Knives’s rage had been a bit of a problem to clean up, but in that regard, December had gotten out incredibly lucky – being the second-to-last city attacked, they had had enough forewarning to evacuate almost all of the population out to Octovern, and only the most stubborn holdouts had suffered from the temporary absence of all the plants in the city. After the war’s end, though, many of the dependent plants had moved back into their bulbs and begun once again fueling the settlements that depended on them to survive, and the humans followed soon after, putting their all into rebuilding what they had lost.
Nothing motivates them quite like the idea of home.
Vash is put to work early the next morning by his host, an elderly woman who lives in the outskirts close to the city’s orphanage. The days are spent first repairing the upper floor of her house, which had been nearly cut in half with bullet holes, then visiting the neighbors and offering to do the same for them. Little brain-Wolfwood keeps him company all through the hours, sniping at the folks who slam the door on Vash’s cheerful offer and grumbling whenever he’s taken up on it.
Being here doesn’t hurt as much as Vash was expecting. It still does , to be sure – whenever he glances toward the orphanage up on the hill, something in him goes hollow, and he forces a smile to stay on his face until he’s fully distracted by his work once again. But for the most part, he’s just here doing work, just as he would be anywhere else, and… it feels okay.
After a tasty dinner of fried rice on his fourth day in December, Vash is sitting on the porch gazing up at the clouds when a couple of children running past spot him. The first one ignores him, but the second pauses and squints at him for a moment, then shouts, “Tobi! It’s Mister Vash!”
“Whossat?” the other kid responds, pivoting to hurry back to his friend. “Mister Vash?”
“Yeah, I told you about ‘im! He and big brother Nico saved us!”
Vash blinks, then, taken a little off-guard. These children – one of them does look familiar, he notes with some surprise. He shakes himself and gets out of his chair to greet them, and realizes aloud, “Oh, you’re from the orphanage, huh?”
The kid who recognized him nods excitedly and exclaims, “You should come visit! I think Miss Melanie and everyone would be really happy to see you. You’re fun to play with!”
“Well, alright,” Vash laughs, ruffling the kid’s hair. “I’ll stop by tomorrow, how’s that sound?
“Yay!”
He is pulled into a quick hug, and just as quickly released as the two bound off, once again distracted by their game. Vash watches them as they run down the street, running a hand over the back of his neck with a chuckle. Kids, huh?
You just like ‘em ‘cause they’re not gonna shoot you.
He rolls his eyes and retorts, “I’ve been shot by plenty of kids, but they’re still cool!”
Yeah, well, yer a god-damn idiot–
The next morning, Vash arrives at the orphanage and takes a minute to pause outside the doors, taking in the scene. This was where he and Wolfwood… they’d become a good team pretty quickly after becoming friends, but here was where Vash had really noticed the depth of their synchronicity. There’d been a few moments before this where it had occurred to him – they’d been uncannily good at reading one another’s expressions for some time, and there was that strange moment on the Ark where he’d almost thought he could hear Wolfwood speaking to him despite not being anywhere nearby – but here they had worked in perfect tandem without even a breath of strategy discussed beforehand. He hadn’t ever felt something like that before, and in the year and change since Wolfwood’s death, he still hasn’t. He’s not sure he ever will again.
While he’s lost in thought, the doors swing open, and Miss Melanie emerges, eyes wide as she spots him. “Vash!” she calls, and he looks down from the stained glass above the doors, smile returning to his face.
She ushers him inside and brings him in for breakfast, where he’s greeted enthusiastically by far more children than were here the last time he passed through. He understands why with only a glance at Melanie – so many people had died over the last year and a half. Their children had to go somewhere – and for those who had fled to Octovern, Melanie’s place was one of the closest places they could go.
He wonders if she’s ever considered hiring some more helping hands. It’s a lot of children to take care of practically on her own.
But if anyone can manage it, it’d be her.
The children play with Vash with reckless abandon until Melanie calls him in to help her prepare lunch. Once he’s inside, though, the topic changes quickly.
“Vash, you should know… there’ve been some rumors as of late.”
“There’s always rumors,” he says with a shrug, not looking up from the onions he’s been tasked with chopping. “What about?”
He hears her exhale sharply, as though she’s considering how to phrase her next words. “The plants downtown have been communicating with us more recently. I… there was word in the market today that they might be able to… bring people back.”
“Like, back to December?”
“Back to life .”
His knife slips, and he flings his other hand away to avoid slicing his fingers, with the end result of about a sixth of an onion slamming into a nearby cupboard at high speed. The sound of the impact startles them both, and the sudden silence filling the kitchen is only amplified by the bubbling of a pot on the stove.
Melanie dries off her hands and plants her elbows on the counter, gazing out the window as she speaks. “Apparently some of the plant engineers have been able to… pick up on what they’re thinking? Or saying? And they’ve been… I don’t know the details, but I don’t think anyone’s done it yet.”
She’s still talking, but suddenly the only thing Vash can hear is the roaring in his head. There’s a chance… a chance Wolfwood can come back. Actually come back, not just as the little voice Vash makes up in his brain, but as a real, living person.
It feels fake, almost. Like some sort of cruel joke. He’s almost managed to convince himself that he can get through this loss, and now the possibility of this is… it’s almost enough to break him.
Would he even want to come back?
Do I have the right to make that choice?
I know what I want, but…
Hey, idiot, you’re still in the kitchen, his little Wolfwood interrupts, and Vash blinks to find himself sitting on the floor, back against the cupboard and hands covered in crushed pieces of onion. The glowing pale outlines of feathers shimmer through the onion mush, and his face feels wet in two lines from the corners of his burning eyes down to his chin.
Miss Melanie is crouched next to him, a hand on his shoulder and a look of concern on her face as she reaches over to wipe at his cheeks. “Oh, dear,” she says softly, and the gentleness in her voice makes his eyes blur. Her arms wrap around him, and he leans into her, trying to fight it. Failing.
He misses him so very much.
A certainty flickers in his chest, a candle flame burning like the end of a cigarette in the gap of Wolfwood’s absence, and in some nook somewhere in his head, Vash decides.
The rest of the lunch preparation goes mostly without incident, and Melanie sends him on his way with a bowl of soup and a look in her eyes that’s hard even for him to read. Not too much later, he’s poured the last drops of soup into his mouth and is cheerily breezing past the bewildered plant engineers, eyes closed as he follows the voice-not-voice of a collection of plants deeper into the building.
It’s a strange thing to describe. They don’t use words, exactly, to communicate – normal humans either don’t have the senses needed to pick up on it, or aren’t able to make sense of it. It seems as though there’s some exceptions, now – Vash overhears one of the engineers telling another that the plants seem to be calling to him, and to let him pass – but they’re humans translating a language they’re only just beginning to learn, one that is fundamentally and essentially inhuman. “Listening” to it is more like feeling the drum of a motorcycle’s engine in his chest, and knowing exactly what each pulse and fluctuation in the sensation means. He’s fairly sure that, when humans talk about being able to feel the energy coming off of plants, they’re referring to being able to feel a little bit of that “voice.”
They are seeking him out, though, that is true. They want to talk to him specifically , in close quarters so they can speak clearly, with no miscommunications. He tells them he is on his way, he is coming, and they all already know that this encounter will ripple far beyond them alone in the depths of December. The thrum in his sternum grows ever stronger.
Vash opens his eyes and gazes through the membrane before him, the transparent bubble that both protects and contains dependent plants. He meets the pale, glowing eyes of the plant within, her feathered wings and tendrils floating in loose, uneven layers around her massive core of bodies. She reaches out a hand, presses it to the inner surface of the membrane, and her arm ripples and bends with the unseen currents within.
He presses his hand against hers and leans his forehead against the cool surface.
The vibrations grow and grow, and then cease abruptly, the silence clear around them both. They are both somewhere else, now, somewhere no one else can access. This is the part which, despite all the efforts humans may put themselves to, they cannot access. No – until the next independent plant makes their appearance, Vash alone can be this bridge.
It is good to finally meet you off the field of battle, Vash the Stampede, she tells him lightly, almost playfully, and he smiles.
You, too, friend. I heard you wanted to chat?
So she shows him.
Vash doesn’t grasp the specifics of it all – being independent as he is, there are some aspects of being a dependent that even he fundamentally can’t understand – but he understands enough to know why they want him here. It comes in four parts.
The first, that the plants have been attempting to come up with some way to recover their numbers. They know that, despite the additions to their numbers that had come with the new Earth fleet, they are incredibly limited in their capacity. If humans truly take root and thrive on Gunsmoke, as they want to, then their current level of production will be far from enough to support them. They have been working on learning to communicate with the humans, too, but that effort is still in its early stages, and a fear remains even in the new era that if the problem is described to them, the humans might revert to their old ways in order to try to “help” solve it. No one wants that outcome, but the plants are optimistic about one of the strategies that has occurred to them recently.
The second, that many – both humans and plants – are grieving those lost in Knives’s rampage of vengeance. There is a deep and profound sadness in this part, a recognition of the plants’ involvement in causing this suffering, both intentional and not. There is a desire to make amends, to try to heal what has been hurt – and, ever so faintly, a desire to make some good come of Knives’s evils.
The third, an acknowledgement and deep gratitude for Vash’s own actions, and for bringing them back to themselves. For setting them free from Knives’s command and control. The plants have expressed gratitude in various ways to their caretaker-engineers for taking them back in and caring more kindly for them, but those ways are rooted in December, in a continual reciprocation of little kindnesses that they hope will spark a cycle. A representation of gratitude for Vash has been in discussion since they returned to their places, but a gift of equal magnitude has been difficult to determine, until recently.
The fourth, an offer.
Vash knows exactly what it is.
This would be the very first attempt , the plant warns him. We have only guesses as to whether it will work at all, and there may be… changes.
This… this would be above and beyond anything I could’ve imagined. I…
Are you scared?
He pauses, trying to assemble his thoughts. His feelings. If this goes poorly, then he knows he will be grieving all over again, the wounds now freshly reopened by the hope of a second chance.
But if this goes well…
It’s worth a try. Always good to have hope, huh?
The collar of Vash’s jacket is slightly damp with fallen tears, and the corners of his mouth are upturned in a slight smile, too nervous to be fully hopeful. He wipes away the trails on his cheeks, already knowing that no matter the outcome, they’ll be carved out again in not too long.
He watches as the plant curls into herself, her wings fanning out until they curve across the surface of the membrane. Her eyes close, and the drums in his chest grow louder and louder, rolling like thunder in waves over him until he sits down to keep from falling. He hardly blinks as he watches the glow brighten, hands folded tightly together in his lap.
Vash doesn’t consider himself to be much for prayer, but that little light in him pleads nonetheless for this, somehow, to work.
The plant grows so bright that he finally has to close his eyes. He’s not sure anymore if the trembling he’s feeling in every cell of his body is the plants’ doing or his own barely-contained emotions, nerves and hope and worry and joy and…
The rolling thunder fades to the pattering of rain. Vash opens his eyes, blinking the afterimages away.
There floats the plant in her bubble, exhausted but still moving, uncurling slowly and drawing her wings close. She looks up at him again, her glow diminished but still present, and gestures with one limp arm to the base of the membrane, where a shape that hadn’t been there before now rests, covered in feathers. Vash leaps to his feet, staggers against the railing, and stumbles down the nearby stairs to get a closer look – and when he does, he gasps and presses his hands to the membrane.
How do I get him out? he asks, and the plant shows him how.
He catches the limp body of Wolfwood, all winged up and glowing ever so faintly, and almost falls to the floor at the sudden weight. Vash presses his head against his chest, listening for the signs he knows – and there they are: a pulse, a rise, a fall.
He is so beautiful.
He’s alive.
Is it good? the plant asks, looking down at them both.
“Thank you,” Vash responds, his voice trembling just a bit. “Thank you.”
And, as Vash makes another realization, the Wolfwood in his head comments, You didn’t bring any clothes for me, huh? How’re you gonna get me back to the orphanage, genius?
It takes a few days for Wolfwood – the real Wolfwood, no longer a construct of his grieving mind – to awaken, laid out in Vash’s bed while he sleeps on a cot his host fished out of some storage closet for him. She’d had some questions when Vash showed up with a stranger in his coat, but had figured out quite quickly that none of the ones she asked gave her any answers that helped clarify the situation, and left him to deal with his own business. He’s there by Wolfwood’s side pretty much every hour of the day, waiting for him to finally wake up, pondering what kind of silly joke to make to welcome him back to life.
But things rarely go to plan for Vash the Stampede, and he’s nodded off completely when Wolfwood wakes with a start in the predawn hours and flings himself out of bed, startling him awake.
“Spiky? What the fuck just happened?” he spits, turning and looking all around at the room – too cramped for two people in two beds, and only illuminated by a couple of candles on a nightstand. “Where are – what happened to – oh, I need to piss real bad. Where’s–”
“‘s the door across from you when you open it,” Vash mumbles in reply, rubbing his eyes to clear the sleep away just in time for the door to slam. “Wait, Wolfwood? Oh, he’s awake now.”
A minute passes, then another, and the door opens and shuts once again – much quieter this time, although still a bit too slam-like for Vash’s liking – and Wolfwood stumbles inside and collapses on the bed, eyes upturned to the ceiling.
“Welcome back, sleepy,” Vash greets him, fighting the urge to yawn. “Did you enjoy your nap?”
His face turns, and their eyes meet, stilling them both into silence. Vash looks as deeply as he ever has, trying to find any sign of a difference, of anything that could have gone wrong and changed him. Anything other than the glowing outlines of feathers along his cheekbones and sprouting out of his hair like grasses; he’s suddenly keenly aware of the same thing happening on his own face.
He can tell, too, that Wolfwood is trying to make the same assessment on him.
“Ya gonna tell me what’s goin’ on here, spiky?” he asks, his voice as deep as ever but oddly faint, which catches Vash off guard in a strange way. “Why I’m in this bed I don’t recognize, when last I remember, we were sendin’ me off to hell?”
“It’s my bed, actually.”
From the way Wolfwood’s eyebrow arches, that did not clarify things as much as Vash had, for some reason, assumed it would. If anything, it probably had the opposite effect.
“...so, can I have it back?”
“Hm… no. It’s cozy."
“What!”
“Tell me what’s going on and ya can have your bed back!”
“Man, I sit here waiting for you to wake up for three days and this is the thanks I get?”
Wolfwood squints at him, then tilts his head. “You look like… are you cryin’? Really?”
“Not – it’s not about the bed,” Vash retorts, wiping at his face yet again. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and continues, “It’s been… it’s been a little while, Wolfwood. I’m just happy to see you alive.”
A pause fills the room, and the question he’s been waiting for – in some form or another, maybe not exactly this one – finally comes. “Alive?”
“It’s… it’s been almost two–” Vash starts, then is cut off by the yawn that finally forces its way out. “Mm. Two years. Can I… I’ll explain everything in the morning when my brain works. D’you mind if I…”
Wolfwood sits up and watches as Vash slides into the bed and pulls up the blankets, the residual warmth from his presence only minutes earlier a startling relief from the cool of the desert room. He looks at him as if trying to figure something out, and Vash takes his turn to raise an eyebrow at him from the comfort of the bed.
He doesn’t manage to stay awake long enough to hear whatever Wolfwood says in response, the warmth of the bed just enough to tip him back over the edge into blissful slumber.
Wolfwood remains awake for a little longer, just gazing at Vash. His hair has gone black, he notes with curiosity, and he almost laughs at how quickly, even already asleep, he’s starfished out to take up as much of the bed space as possible.
Adorable, he thinks, then shakes his head with some surprise at the thought. Surprise and… hm. Well, he doesn’t have the energy to do any serious introspection tonight, and Vash has a lot to answer for tomorrow, such as giving him his clothes back.
Speaking of which, it’s starting to get a little chilly.
Well. The obvious solution to that is right in front of him, and something tells him Vash wouldn’t be too upset about giving up a little bit of the warmth Wolfwood has rightfully produced while under those blankets for three whole days.