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Some of the crises they stumble into — inevitably, unrelentingly — don’t overstay their welcome.
A few minutes of gunfire, a holdup that takes hours to resolve, a single day of high-octane hide and seek.
Sometimes, they’re not so lucky.
At this point, Wolfwood couldn’t explain with — another — gun to his head what started this whole mess. He just knows he’s been awake for the last going on forty-eight hours, and his suit’s been caked stiff with blood, some of it his, for at least twenty of those hours, and he feels dangerously close to actually crying.
He might actually be crying, he wouldn’t know, with all the blood on his face and the headache pounding behind his eyes.
God, he’s so tired.
By the time they get the hell out of dodge, outlast their pursuers trekking across the desert for the whole damn night, and finally find a town they can get some damn rest in, Wolfwood’s shaking like a leaf, and he can’t seem to make himself stop.
He finds himself standing in the middle of their rented room, watching Milly settle comfortably at Meryl’s side in one of the beds, asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow, breath enviably even.
“Wolfwood?” Vash asks.
He looks like Wolfwood feels. They all do — eyes shadowed dark, hair tangled with sand and faces smeared with blood and sweat. Milly hadn’t even put her hair up before she’d laid down, a departure from routine Wolfwood immediately feels guilty for not noticing.
“You can sit,” Meryl says. “We made it, it’s okay.”
Wolfwood’s still in his clothes. Still holding the Punisher.
Still shaking.
Vash gives him a once-over, then rises from where he’d half-sat, half-slumped in a chair to take off his boots and crosses the room, footsteps almost silent.
He touches the back of Wolfwood’s hand.
When Wolfwood doesn’t object, he slowly, deliberately moves upward, unfolding one finger at a time from the strap of the Punisher, taking its weight, taking the burden of it away.
“You’re okay now,” Meryl tells him. Despite the scabbed-over split in her lip and the exhaustion in her voice, she’s sitting up, looking at him with a steadiness Wolfwood doesn’t know if he’ll ever feel again.
The world is moving under his feet, as Vash leaves his side, returns without the Punisher. He brings his hands back up. Empty palms, gentle where they come to rest on Wolfwood’s wrist and elbow, massaging gently at the swollen joints as they bring his arm down to his side.
Two weapons, those hands. But they’re so gentle. The arms that wrap around him, the hand on the small of his back and in his hair, they could kill him, sometimes he wishes they would, but they’re so gentle.
Meryl can barely keep her eyes open. But she’s gentle too. Her smile, her voice, her hand on Milly’s shoulder, protective as she sleeps. “It’s okay now,” she says. “You can cry, it’s okay.”
Wolfwood’s chapped lips part. “It is?” his voice rasps out. It’s so hard to breathe.
“It is,” Vash’s voice echoes, soft, right by his ear.
Something almost desperate tangled up in Wolfwood’s chest makes a last attempt to keep his fraying pieces together, but he can’t find a reason why.
It’s too late, anyway.
He can’t remember the last time he cried where anyone could see him, the last time he sobbed aloud. He learned young, it was easier if no one knew. Better if the children at the orphanage didn’t hear Nico-nii crying, better if Chapel—
Vash holds him up. Doesn’t let him fall when his knees buckle, doesn’t let him collapse under the weight of his own hurt.
It’s okay now, you can cry — not it’s over, there’s nothing to be upset about.
It’s okay now. Let it all go.
Meryl’s voice drips over him like cool water, but he doesn’t know what she’s saying — just that it soothes the thing in his chest squirming and thrashing with shame.
Wolfwood holds on tight to Vash and cries.
Just cries.