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Wolfwood should’ve known better than to fall into a false sense of security when none of the townspeople seemed to give a damn about Vash’s bounty. Should’ve known better than to humor an invitation to hitch a ride on a passing caravan. Should’ve known that something was up long before he uncovers a crate of rifles hastily hidden in the back of the wagon. “Modest merchant troupe” his ass- no civilian would have a cache of arms like this.
There’s a gun pressed to his back before he can find Vash and suggest a change of plans. A switch flips in his brain at the touch of the barrel, and the next moments blend together in slow motion: there’s a shout, then an impact, then a searing tear through his chest. He has half the mind to tighten his grip on the Punisher before he’s flung off the caravan. In one last moment of clarity, he notes the practiced motion of the throw, admires the way his attacker turns his weight against him, military trained maneuver in perfect execution- and then he’s falling.
Wolfwood doesn’t have the luxury of passing out when his head collides with the red rocks of the canyon. Rather, his skull is flooded with a sharp ringing ache, the cacophony of it drowning out all thought until there’s little he can do but pull the Punisher against himself to brace the fall. The 300 pound hunk of metal makes for a lousy cushion, unfortunately. He feels something tear in his shoulder, and then his breath is knocked out of his lungs. There’s a sound like Vash calling his name, but then that disappears too. There’s nothing but ringing in his head all the way down; if he hit the ground and stopped falling at some point, Wolfwood doesn’t remember it.
The adrenaline rush starts leaving him when he tries to get up and collapses over a mangled leg. Wolfwood grits his teeth. He’s losing his vision rapidly, dread and pain catching up to his senses as the edges fade out. Gingerly, he palms at himself to catalog the damage and tries not to throw up when his fingers catch on a splintered ulna jutting out from the folds of his suit. Broken bones are the worst. He’s never liked healing from them, but is there any kind of healing that’s pleasant?
There’s no time to make this about himself- Vash must be worried, and every moment he loses to his injuries is another moment for their attackers to get further away. He sucks a breath between his teeth, counts down from three, and resets his knee. Then he counts down from ten. Fingers grasped around what’s supposed to be his elbow, he twists the remains of his arm into an approximation of its original shape. He can’t stop the pathetic noise that comes out of his throat when the shoulder joint snaps back into its socket. His vision whites out and he curls into himself until the worst of the pain passes. Twenty seconds. Not his proudest moment, but this will have to do.
With a trembling hand, Wolfwood uncaps a vial from his coat pocket and throws it back. The bitterness burns down his throat, and he holds his shoulder in place while the drugs do their work. A searing itch courses through his nerves as bones realign and tendons knit back together, sharp aches fading into dull throbs as his injuries dissipate with the vial’s contents. Wolfwood breathes, rolls his neck and tries to shake off the chill that wants to settle into his skin. He can’t afford to go into shock. He can’t afford to lose any more time.
The vials do wonders for bullet wounds and broken bones, but have little effect on hunger and dehydration. Wolfwood ignores it at first, always does. It’s a simple process: drown out the nagging in his stomach by focusing solely on dragging one foot in front of the other. Right, left, right, left.
The sharp contours of the Punisher dig into his back, and the leather straps around it chafe against his fingers. Wolfwood is a creature of pain. He can only hope that Vash is doing better, even if only marginally. The guy already has no sense of self preservation on most days. Vash’s latest endeavor of reviving a little town’s dying plant had left him hollowed out in a way that Wolfwood hasn’t seen in a long time- it’s the main reason he had agreed to hop on the suspicious caravan in the first place, and he kicks himself for it.
Right, left, right, left. His limbs and the load on his back grows heavier, and Wolfwood feels himself slowing down. He blinks, and when his mind comes back to him he finds himself on his knees, legs sinking into the hot sand. His appetite left him by the end of the first day, but Wolfwood distantly notes that he needs to eat something if he wants to continue to be of any use.
A scan of the area: there is nothing around him for miles but rocks and dead bushes. The worms that pass by fly out of his reach. In this state, he’s too weak to grab them out of the air like he normally would. Through the fog over his mind, Wolfwood sits on his heels and weighs the merits of eating his own leg. If he only cuts out a chunk of it, it should grow back with a vial or two, right? But then- would the calories be enough to make up for the metabolic toll that the drugs have on his body? The vials he can spare, but there’s no point if the cost outweighs the benefits, is there?
The freaks at the Eye would have a fucking field day if they found him deliberating this. He chokes out a bitter laugh at the thought of becoming a flesh farm- because it really is something they would do. If anything he’s surprised he’s never heard about them trying something like it. Is cannibalism where they draw the line? Wolfwood must be that much more wretched than them then, if this is how far he’s willing to go. He pushes down the lump of revulsion rising to his throat.
So be it- wretched he is. For all the times he’s butted heads with Vash on his refusal to choose violence, Wolfwood has grown to see the value of it. It’s just that he sees the cost too. All actions have consequences, all things of value have a price. If someone lives freely, it’s only because some poor sucker has paid something in their place. Vash pays too much for others to be free- bleeds too much for someone that doesn’t heal all the way. Wolfwood sees the winces that Vash tries to hide when storms roll by, catches the way his limbs lock up at night in the middle of his sleep, and he hates that for him. Yet somehow, against all his trained instincts, somewhere along the way Wolfwood learned how to take bullets for another too. He never thought of himself as the type to be one of those poor suckers, but if it meant that Vash could bleed a little less, then-
He takes out his knife. Turning the handle between his fingers, he settles down and measures out an expanse along his leg. Two, four, six, eight inches down from his hip. His outer thigh ought to be a good place to start: it’s meaty enough, a good distance from any vital organs and most major arteries. Won’t be too hard to recover from if things go south.
Wolfwood is counting down his breaths and aiming the point of the blade over his thigh when the sour stench hits his nostrils. He squints, lowering the blade to scan the dunes for the source- and there it is.
Just a small distance away, an animal is laid at the foot of a withered shrub. The body of an ewe, dead with its horns tangled in the bushes like some twisted version of God’s offering to Abraham. Wolfwood laughs again then, chest full of acid because it’s really fucking funny for the heavens to decide he’s worth just a little more than a corpse, isn’t it? A ram for a son, a carcass for a leg. Fucking sure. God damn it, literally.
His salvation smells like shit, but he drags himself towards it anyway; cuts it down and lays it out for a closer look. The body can’t be more than a day old- it would probably take another week or so before the worst of the rot really sets in. Running a hand along its sides, he’s surprised at the amount of give there still is against his fingertips; the meat has retained a remarkable amount of moisture despite the blazing heat of the suns.
Wolfwood lost the ability to die from food poisoning and most bacterial diseases long ago- if he can get past the smell and keep the bile down, this is a viable source of energy. He works his knife into the carcass, cuts strips out of its side, and tries not to gag because he can’t afford to lose what little water he has left in his body to vomit. The meat is tough, but if he closes his eyes and lets the delirium take over, it’s almost like the jerky that Vash keeps in his pack.
There’s two armed men at the front of the outpost when Wolfwood arrives to it, the setting suns stretching their shadows long against the dunes. Wolfwood uses the diminishing light to his advantage and moves closer, staying low and taking care to keep to the edge of their peripheral vision. They don’t notice him at all, guns slack in their arms while they chat amongst themselves.
“You really think we got the right guy? I can’t imagine a pansy like that being the Humanoid Typhoon. He’s so weak.” The man speaks with a drawl. Hair slicked back and a patch over one eye. He seems slightly younger than the other.
“He matches the description well enough, regular folk don’t have scars like that,” the older man grunts. His gaze is distant while he talks, hands idly fidgeting with the safety on his rifle. Click, click. On and off.
“Have you heard the rumors though? I caught the boss whispering about how the Typhoon is actually a plant.”
At this, his partner pauses his fidgeting to let out a scoff. “Some plant our guy is. We tried hooking him up to a generator the other day- didn’t even make a spark. Boss insists that we keep him on it just in case, but I’m sick of the noises he makes. Keeps saying sorry for no reason- it’s pathetic.”
Something snaps in Wolfwood, then. It rots something deep in his soul, the way people keep taking from Vash like it’s nothing. As if he doesn’t matter, as if they have some kind of right to the sins they etch into his body. Wolfwood already knows the look that Vash would have in his eyes while he hurts: it’s the one of resignation, the hollow stare he wears when he truly believes that all the pain he receives is deserved.
Whatever exhaustion he held in his bones is rapidly eclipsed by a rising fury- Wolfwood has no recollection of what else the men say to each other, only the hard edges of the knife handle digging into his grip as he stands up straight and walks directly at the two shit stains.
“What the fuck have you done with him,” he grits.
There’s a sound of firearms fumbling, and the goons turn to face him.
“Shit, it’s the priest.”
Wolfwood brings the knife down on the older man’s wrist as he reaches for his radio. He lets out a yelp and clutches at the wound. Before the man can further react, Wolfwood swings the Punisher on him for good measure, and then curses at himself for knocking out a source of intel. So much for infiltrating covertly.
Bad decisions upon bad decisions, he hears the other guy calling for backup behind him. He swings the Punisher on him too, but the impact falls a second too late. In moments, the rolling door they were guarding snaps up, and dozens of armed men pour out of it.
Some kind of militia , Wolfwood notes. They’re uniformed and organized enough to fall into a sort of formation, but there’s a roughness to their edges that knocks the group a couple notches below a proper military unit. Not that it makes much of a difference. Wolfwood widens his stance, and fights.
It’s strange going toe to toe with opponents that seem prepared for him. They come at him in all directions and keep going for his head. It’s a pain in the ass to put so much focus on blocking and dodging, so for a moment Wolfwood just stops. He lets everything below the neck hit, and uses his attackers’ baffled looks as an opening to concuss them with the Punisher. The knife gets knocked out of his grip at some point and he’s pretty sure something in his hand is fractured, but that’s a small matter- Wolfwood pulls his handgun out and shoots at knees and wrists. Pistol whips the guys that come too close to shoot. Nothing lethal, but damn him if he doesn’t make it hurt. The ground is littered with grunts groaning and clutching at themselves; Wolfwood leaves them there and hopes that wherever Vash is, he appreciates his restraint.
He pants, lungs burning from exertion. His pilgrimage here is catching up to him; Wolfwood really isn’t in the condition to be fighting like this. He reaches for a vial but there’s a flurry of movement, and the glass shatters impotently at his feet. A man had hidden himself in the fading edges of his vision and grappled him from behind. He pulls a blade across Wolfwood’s neck in a swift arc, and Wolfwood can’t stop the cut that’s slashed into his throat, or the inordinate amount of blood that gushes out of it- only manages to lean away just enough to botch the decapitation attempt. He has enough tendons left intact to bash his skull against the face of his assailant in response, but it’s shoddy. There’s a wavering moment of stillness, then the hold on him goes slack and he feels another body crumple to the ground.
Wolfwood straightens- just in time to feel a bright impact go off in his head, the resonance of it resolving into a high hum in his right ear. No rest for the wicked , he absently muses to himself. He turns towards the direction of the bullet to see the smoking barrel of a gun and the horrified face of the man holding it. Wolfwood didn’t dodge that one, he was simply a very unlucky shot. It’s funny, so Wolfwood coughs out a laugh, two fingers digging into his eye socket to pull the bullet out. He throws it over his shoulder where it lands with a little plink . Then with the other hand, he raises the Punisher and shoots. Low.
The barrage knocks up a fine wall of dust, and the bullets catch on a few of the men. There’s yelps and groans as the dwindling number of conscious goons curl over their new injuries. Wolfwood cocks another round of shots into his weapon, and points it higher. The blood pouring out of his throat is steady enough that he needs to concentrate on not choking on it. It’d be pretty ironic to drown in his own blood in the middle of the desert. He fixes a glare at his enemies and rasps.
“Run.”
He must look like a monster, because the men gape at him with absolute terror in their eyes. Wolfwood looses another half round of bullets just to make a point, but he only watches until their scrambling disappears over the first dune. He had been bluffing with that earlier shot- there’s a numbness creeping up his fingers and he’s not sure how much longer he can remain standing.
The interior of the outpost is thankfully small when he ducks past the entrance, and it doesn’t take long to find Vash. The various pipes and cables in the facility converge into an unwieldy generator, with the man seated in a tangle of wires and electrodes at the base of it. He’s clearly been struggling at his restraints, every table and box of equipment in his vicinity knocked over or kicked askew in some recent scuffle. His expression shifts when the other man comes into his view, but Wolfwood can’t quite make out what Vash is saying. The ringing in his head is too loud.
“Looks like we’ve both seen better days, Blondie.”
Wolfwood raises his gun and relieves Vash of the cuffs around his wrists with two bullets. Vash pulls himself off the generator, and his hands are on him immediately, fretting.
“Wolfwood, you’re bleeding!”
He’s been stripped down to his slacks, so Wolfwood gets a clear view of the bruises on his ribs. There’s circular burns along his arms and torso where he tore himself off the electrodes too, but he sees no other wounds and Vash’s eyes are bright and alert. It’s a relief; Wolfwood just feels something pull in his chest to have that look of concern directed at him. He pats at himself, stiff fingers feeling for one of the vials in his pocket.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” Wolfwood mumbles.
The words slur on his tongue more than he’d like, but that can’t be helped. He uncaps the vial and pours its contents between his lips- only for the burn of the drug to stop abruptly at the back of his throat. Wolfwood chokes instead, hand coming up to his neck while he tries and fails to catch his breath, and he remembers just how deep that cut is. Ah. Someone did try to decapitate him.
The worry on Vash’s face deepens, and he slides a hand up Wolfwood’s back to steady him while he coughs.
“What’s wrong? Why isn’t it working?”
Wolfwood wishes Vash wouldn’t look at him like that. He doesn’t deserve it.
“Can’t swallow,” he manages between wet gasps, “Needs to reach my stomach.”
“What should I do?”
Vash’s hands are on him. Vash’s hands are always on him, and Wolfwood hates that it helps. He hates the way it takes the edge off dread he feels over the whole of his existence, and he hates the way it makes him hope. Hope is a poison , Chapel once said. And yet, Wolfwood has always been a foolish man, too desperate to stop himself from reaching for a glimmer of it.
“What should I do?” Vash repeats, mouth falling into a stern line as he lightly smacks the better side of his face for attention. “Wolfwood, stay with me!”
The urgency in his voice snaps enough of Wolfwood’s consciousness back into his body for him to think. Their situation is far from ideal, but he’s had a similar issue before. Wolfwood pulls out another vial and presses it into Vash’s palm.
“Easy, Blondie. We put it straight in.”
He takes a blade off of one of the nearby tables, points it over his stomach, and cuts.
What’s left of his vision goes black.
There’s a special kind of peace to oblivion. Wolfwood is suspended in it; consciousness making revolutions around a nostalgia for something he cannot remember, a pull like gravity towards a distant point, somewhere long before the grueling ordeal of existence. Here, he is nobody. There’s nothing to want, nothing to need. Nothing that hurts, because there’s nothing to feel. An infinite expanse of void pools all around him, but- something about it doesn’t quite take. Doesn’t quite catch. He can’t seem to sink deep enough.
Memories of the self he must return to cuts through the emptiness in sharp fragments: needles and knives, rage and regret, pain and wanting. Hope, and the hurt of it. Red, red, gold, and black. There’s someone waiting for him. There’s something he still needs to do. It’s not time to go, not yet.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood comes back to the world gasping in a sweat.
Waking up after getting knocked out is always disorienting. His mind feels scattered and he has one hell of a headache. The vials give him nightmares, he thinks, but he can never recall much beyond a sense of long and twisting unease. He’s back in his body, but he’s not sure where he is, or how he got here.
He winces at the wave of nausea that comes when he tries to raise his head. Gives it a moment to pass, and manages to prop himself up just enough to assess his surroundings. It’s daytime, late morning by the looks of it, the second sun looming towards its zenith in the sky outside the window. Wolfwood is on a bed in a room he doesn’t recognize, his jacket is folded neatly over a chair, and Vash- Vash is here. The other man sleeps beside him quietly, head laid on his arms while the rest of him sprawls across the floor along the side of the bed. It can’t be comfortable. His eyes look dark and puffy from whatever vigil he’s been holding, but Wolfwood feels a wash of relief at the sight of his resting face more than anything else.
He starts to say something, but his throat doesn’t quite work. How long has he been out for? Wolfwood swallows and tries again.
“Hey Blondie.”
Vash’s eyes shoot open at the sound of his voice, and he grabs him by the arm. Wolfwood finds himself surprised at the force of his grip.
“Please never do that to me ever again.”
For all of Vash’s conviction, Wolfwood can’t really place what “that” is referring to. He tries to remember, but the space behind his eyes pounds in retaliation when he reaches too deep into it, the shards in his mind still sharp to the touch. It’s hard to think with a headache. So instead, he tries to ask.
“What did I do.”
Vash glares at him wetly. “You-”
But the indignation quickly leaves his voice when he notices the way Wolfwood hunches over himself. There’s too much light in the room.
“Shit, are you okay?”
Wolfwood has seen better days. He tries closing his eyes, but that only intensifies the throbbing in his skull, so he settles with leaving them open. Gaze on nothing in particular. It’s a little better when he focuses on his breathing.
“They got me in the head, didn’t they? Sorry, my memory’s gonna be spotty for the next few days.”
He doesn’t receive any response to that. Vash is quiet for a long time. When Wolfwood looks at him, he finds him crying.
“You didn’t wake up,” he says at last.
There’s a few pieces starting to come back together. Bullets, knives, broken vials. They didn’t have a lot of options. Wolfwood’s head pounds. He had made a choice.
“I’m awake now,” he replies.
At that, Vash just curls into himself. He holds his arms tighter around his body, and his voice is feeble when he speaks again.
“... I thought you were going to die.”
For a man that’s two inches taller than him, Vash is remarkably good at making himself feel so, so small. He sniffles a little. Wolfwood hates that it’s his fault.
He hesitantly raises a hand and puts it on Vash’s shoulder. To ground him or get him to look up, Wolfwood isn’t sure. God, he’s so bad at this. He fishes for something to say but everything slips between his fingers, he’s a drowning man left to sink.
“If there’s one thing I just can’t seem to do, it’s die,” Wolfwood manages eventually. He huffs out an awkward laugh. “You’re not gonna get rid of me that easy, Stampede.”
If anything, you make me want to live.
Vash looks up at him then, something complicated flitting over his expression.
“Don’t say that, I’d never get rid of you.”
If it were up to me, you’d get to live forever.
So Wolfwood doesn’t say anything else. A companionable silence falls over the room, and Wolfwood lets himself drift back to sleep. Vash will brief him later: where they are, how they got there, where they’re going, and the little details in between. But until then, Wolfwood gets to rest. Needs to, really, for the journey ahead. It’s not gonna get any easier from here.