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Wolfwood had to wonder, sometimes, what people assumed about him and Vash.
Considering them individually, he knew the answers easily enough. Wolfwood liked to think he’d settled into his somewhat paradoxical role of the sleazy priest rather well. And people generally regarded Vash as a friendly, if eccentric, traveler on a fool’s errand for love and peace or some such nonsense. These surface-level impressions only held as long as no one actually recognized what the Punisher was, or matched Vash’s grinning face to the old, tattered wanted posters they still occasionally saw posted outside saloons, of course. But all things considered, they each had a good understanding of how they came across.
He had no clue what people must think of them as a pair, though.
It wasn’t a huge concern, really. Wolfwood had been forced to give up caring what people thought of him years ago, as long as it wasn’t the sort of thing that could compromise his grim assignments. He and Vash were clearly acquaintances, associates, partners of some sort. And even if they seemed like a mismatched duo, most people probably didn’t care what they were to each other much past that. Especially if the two of them didn’t cause a ruckus and always paid their bar tabs.
But still, he was curious what people might think if they could take a closer look at his and Vash’s interactions. Because Wolfwood knew what they were individually, and he knew what they were in public.
But when he woke up with Vash wrapped in his arms again, feeling utterly content in a way that he simply didn’t in any other setting, he couldn’t exactly deny that some of the lines were getting blurred.
---
It had all started three weeks earlier with Vash screaming.
Wolfwood was awoken in the middle of the night, heart pounding, his feet slamming to the cold wooden floor of their hotel room before he’d even registered he was moving. He lunged for the Punisher on reflex and was across the room in the span of three strides and a few short seconds. The massive weapon was already in his arms, poised at the ready, when his eyes and brain caught up with what was actually happening.
They were alone in the darkened room. No one was banging on the door, and there was nothing terrifying to see out the second-story window. Vash was… unharmed, and quiet now, but he appeared to be shaken.
Wolfwood heaved a deep, slow sigh. He set the Punisher back against the wall and rubbed at his eyes with both hands. His heart rate started to calm on a delay, as if it wasn’t quite convinced there was no danger, even if Wolfwood himself was. He padded back across the room to stand by Vash’s bed, having put two and two together by now.
Vash was sat bolt upright, shivering slightly as he took controlled breaths of his own. His hands were fisted in the top blanket, and there was a sheen of sweat over his face and neck, visible in the pale moonlight cast through their single window. The priest caught his wild eyes as he approached.
“Nightmare?” Wolfwood murmured, gesturing vaguely in Vash’s direction. He kept his voice low and quiet. He’d not seen Vash in this particular state of distress before, but it was clear enough what had happened. Wolfwood had already experienced more than enough horror and tragedy to fuel his own nightmares for the rest of his life. Their circumstances weren’t the same, but he could only assume that after 150 years and all the combat he’d been caught up in, Vash would be plagued by them, too.
The gunman nodded, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. He huffed a breath and looked away from Wolfwood. Slowly, he released his white-knuckled grip on the blanket and clasped his hands tightly in his lap, instead. His voice was thin and distant when he replied. “Yeah. Sorry, Wolfwood. Didn’t mean to worry you.”
The priest tutted and shook his head. “Don’t be. I get it.” He watched Vash reposition his hands restlessly a few times before speaking again. “You need anything?” he asked. His voice was still quiet—concerned, but close to neutral. He didn’t want to embarrass Vash by coddling him if he could help it. “Water, maybe?”
Vash chuckled softly as if the offer wasn’t necessary, even though he was obviously uneasy. “No, that’s okay. I should be fine now.” He turned his gaze to look out the window, even further away from meeting Wolfwood’s eyes. “But thanks.”
After a moment’s pause, Wolfwood grunted in response. If Vash didn’t want to engage, he wasn’t going to push it. “Alright… g’night, Spikey.”
He returned to his own bed with no more words exchanged.
---
Considering they had spent many nights sharing a room, and Vash had only woken up screaming on one of those nights, Wolfwood didn’t necessarily expect it to become a pattern. A possible occurrence he should be aware of, certainly, but probably not a common one.
So he’d been surprised when it happened again the very next night. He got halfway across the room before déjà vú kicked in, and he turned on his heel to see Vash sat straight up in bed again. He’d made the same offer to his companion as the first time, been turned down just as quickly, and gone back to his own side of the room.
When it happened for the third night in a row, Wolfwood jolted awake yet again. His feet thudded to the floor, and he was ready for a fight. But he froze where he’d landed when he saw Vash upright in bed, his chest heaving, upset but unhurt.
Wolfwood let his posture relax, standing up straighter and shifting his stance as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t angry. Really, he wasn’t. He knew by now how much Vash hated for anyone to know he was in any kind of pain, so there was no way he wasn’t doing everything in his power to prevent this from happening. But they couldn’t keep it up every night.
He crossed the room on unhurried feet to pick up a chair next to their small table, carrying it one-handed to set it by the head of Vash’s bed. He sank down onto it backwards, folding his arms across the top and fixing Vash with his best detached, non-intrusive expression.
“You okay?” he asked evenly, eyes scanning over what he could see of Vash on instinct, even if there was no reason to think he was physically injured.
The gunman made a frustrated sound, roughly digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Yeah. Sorry,” he said curtly. “I don’t know what’s wrong lately.”
Wolfwood’s bottom lip went up thoughtfully. He had been wondering about that. They’d gotten pulled into a fight with some local goons a few days prior, and his leading theory was that it must have drudged up a bad memory for Vash. The brawl hadn’t been too intense, by their standards; thankfully, no one was killed. But Vash had seen so many fights that it was hard to know what scene or circumstance might trip a buried memory of something worse.
Instead of sharing any of his thoughts aloud, he opted for a different approach. “I’m not mad. But we both have to sleep, y’know.”
Vash scoffed. He was clearly irritated with himself. “Yeah, I know,” he replied flatly.
Wolfwood studied him for a moment. Vash wasn’t looking at him again, instead directing his attention to picking at a loose thread on the blanket. The priest would never know what made him say what he did next.
“Do you trust me?”
That got the other man’s attention. Vash rearranged the bedding in his lap again, but then turned to give Wolfwood a puzzled look. He nodded, only appearing to be slightly wary.
“Of course.”
It was the answer Wolfwood had wanted, so he bit back his instinct to chastise Vash for it. “Good. Then move over.”
Vash looked at him wide-eyed for a moment. “Y-you’re not…”
Seeing that Wolfwood was entirely serious, Vash could only stare at him blankly. But he didn’t reject the idea. And when Wolfwood’s expression didn’t budge, he did as he was told after only a handful of tense seconds.
Wolfwood stood and nudged the chair out of the way with his foot, then pulled back the blankets on Vash’s bed. He motioned for Vash to lay back down, sliding into the warm space next to the gunman before he could think too much about what he was doing.
Vash turned away from him without Wolfwood having to ask. His nose was nearly pressed to the wall next to his bed in an attempt to leave space between them, but Wolfwood put an arm around Vash’s middle to draw him back. He twitched, surprised again, but he didn’t push Wolfwood away. His back was warm against Wolfwood’s chest, the heat bleeding pleasantly through their sleep clothes. Wolfwood tried not to dwell on it.
“You okay like this?” he asked gruffly.
Vash nodded, his stiff body relaxing slightly when he seemed to realize Wolfwood was done moving. “Yeah. S’fine.”
Wolfwood swallowed as the still quiet settled back over them, his actions starting to catch up with him. He didn’t really know why he’d gone for this as a solution, except that hugs from the ladies at the orphanage were what had comforted him when he woke up from nightmares as a kid. Still, Vash was an adult—this was a different situation from all angles. Surely he could have come up with something better.
Well, it’s too late now.
Wolfwood could ruminate over his choices some other time. For now, if this managed to calm Vash down, he’d count it as a success. Nightmares were undoubtedly isolating experiences, so maybe being close could help Vash feel less alone, if nothing else.
He adjusted his hold on his companion just slightly, settling in for the night. “Good. Try to get some sleep, Spikey.”
---
They both woke up late the next morning. Wolfwood couldn’t say who shifted first, but he recognized that Vash was awake under his arm by the time he was fully conscious. He resisted the cozy, unexpected urge to pull the other man in close again.
“Sleep alright?” he asked after a minute of quiet, doing his best to keep the uncertainty out of his voice. Vash was still facing away from him, so he couldn’t read the gunman’s mood. But in the light of morning, their position seemed even more nonsensical than it had in the middle of the night. He felt foolish that he’d even considered suggesting this. What the hell had he been thinking?
Vash nodded, but gave no verbal response. Wolfwood’s nerves ticked up.
“Any more nightmares?” he asked, feeling a tad desperate as he stared down the back of Vash’s messy hair. He wanted to know he hadn’t put them in this situation for nothing.
“None,” Vash said softly. His voice was tinged with amazement. He stayed perfectly still, aside from touching a hand to the arm Wolfwood had around him. “Thank you.”
Wolfwood blinked. It wasn’t that Vash thanking him was particularly strange. Even if his methods were unorthodox, he’d at least been trying to help. And apparently, he’d succeeded in doing exactly what he’d intended, so he was glad for that.
But Vash’s tone and the gentle hold on his arm struck him. He sounded relieved, like Wolfwood had spared him from some awful fate. He didn’t know any of the specifics of Vash’s nightmares, but he had to presume they were some level of agonizing, from the sounds of them.
Maybe he had saved Vash from something, after all.
Wolfwood felt his throat constrict. All at once, he needed to move. The first sun was peering through the window, Vash was safe from his nightmares, and there was no reason for him to be here any longer.
Wolfwood slipped out of the other man’s loose hold and rolled over to get out of bed. He emerged from their cocoon of blankets without looking back. The air of the room quickly chased away any of Vash’s residual warmth he’d carried, like it was never his to begin with.
He pushed both the chill and the sentiment aside and cleared his throat, already moving towards his bag to start the day. “Of course.”
---
Wolfwood hadn’t expected or intended what he’d done to become normal. It had been a shot in the dark, a Hail Mary to solve their problem at the time. And while it seemed to have worked, he certainly wasn’t going to insist on repeating it. Besides, Vash had only been waking up once per night to begin with. So really, setting aside Vash’s comments, he had no proof his intervention had changed anything.
He’d slept better than he had in ages, but that was mostly beside the point.
But when Vash glanced at him the next night after sliding into bed, his crystal blue gaze somewhere between inquisitive and expectant, Wolfwood had a good hunch what he wanted.
“You sure?” he asked carefully. He’d already taken a step in Vash’s direction before catching himself, pausing.
The gunman nodded, looking only moderately embarrassed as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “If you’re sure you don’t mind.”
Wolfwood waved a dismissive hand, keeping his face slack. “Nah.”
Just like that, they’d fallen into a routine.
---
Three weeks later, they showed no signs of making any changes. Wolfwood didn’t know how long Vash’s night terrors would have persisted if he hadn’t done anything, but it seemed likely they would have been over by now. He also didn’t know how often Vash had had nightmares in general before they started sleeping together—he hadn’t wanted to ask. But it was entirely possible that what he was doing was overkill at this point.
Wolfwood himself had suffered nightmares frequently before they’d started this, unpleasant concoctions of distorted memories from his training, treatments, and missions. But he hadn’t woken up in a cold sweat once since he started climbing into bed with Vash. He couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t a coincidence, but he suspected it wasn’t.
No, sharing a bed with Vash had him sleeping better in more ways than one. And he never would have pushed his luck if the other man didn’t want him there. But Vash settled into bed and gave him that same hopeful look every night. It was always mixed with hesitation, like he thought Wolfwood might have finally decided to call off whatever this was. But Wolfwood had no plans to do so, and even if he hadn’t already wanted to go to Vash—which he did—that look could’ve gotten him to do most anything.
It was just very important that Vash never found that out.
In Wolfwood’s defense, Vash at least faced away from him every night. And it wasn’t like anything ever happened when they shared a bed, aside from sleep and brief, mundane conversations they could’ve had anywhere. They were always both dressed. But even so, Wolfwood had to wonder if this whole thing should have felt less natural, less easy, less right to him than it did.
Even if it was objectively nice, he knew it was… odd. But they were both sleeping soundly through the night at last, so what was the harm?
As long as he didn’t think about that question too hard, he saw no reason to go back to his own bed.
---
Wolfwood awoke feeling well-rested in another new hotel, another new town. It was a common occurrence recently that had been near-impossible to come by a month ago. Vash was an armful of familiar, lanky muscle in his embrace, the undeniable catalyst for the change.
He kept still, feeling the metered rise and fall of Vash’s ribcage and listening to his slow, even breathing. He must have been the first to wake up today. Vash was almost always the earlier riser, dedicated to his morning training routine, but it hardly mattered; Wolfwood didn’t need to get up yet. He let his eyes slip shut again, fully intending to enjoy the rare, quiet morning dozing right where he was.
Sleep was just creeping back across the edges of his consciousness when he felt Vash stir. The gunman stretched and let out a contented sigh. Languidly, he moved to get out of bed.
Before he made it far, Wolfwood drew Vash’s body in towards himself on instinct. They’d gotten more comfortable sharing space over the past several weeks, and Wolfwood had learned that Vash was remarkably tolerant of his handling. He found himself overthinking far less often.
The movement sealed the warmth of Vash’s back to his chest once more. Vash gave a sleepy grunt in response, but predictably, he made no move to resist Wolfwood’s pull. “Thought you were still out cold, Wolfwood,” he mumbled, nestling his head back against the pillow.
Wolfwood chuckled. Vash sounded like he was just barely awake, his voice rough from sleep. “Yeah? I thought the same thing about you,” he replied mildly.
Vash hummed, relaxed, and pushed his back against Wolfwood. The priest wondered, not for the first time, whether his companion actually ran hot because he wasn’t quite human, or if it had just been so long since he’d been close to anyone that he’d forgotten what was normal. Either way, Vash always felt like a furnace to him. On chilly desert nights, he couldn’t say he minded.
“Thought you would’ve preferred to have your own bed while I got a shower,” Vash said, his groggy voice lilting slightly with amusement.
Wolfwood frowned at the back of Vash’s cowlicked black and blond head. Maybe he’d not made how he felt about their set-up as painfully obvious as he’d thought. “You know I wouldn’t be doing this every night if I wasn’t okay with it, Spikey.”
Vash made a sound of agreement, shifting his legs under the sheets as he stretched again. “Of course. But tolerating it and preferring it are two different things,” he said simply.
Wolfwood blinked, suddenly feeling more alert. It was the first time in a while they’d had anything approaching an actual conversation about this, and “tolerating” was the wrong word entirely. The idea that Vash thought he was doing this out of obligation or with any reluctance got under his skin, especially considering how far from the truth it was.
Maybe the hesitant look Vash fixed him with every night wasn’t for nothing, after all.
He tightened the arm around Vash’s middle and spoke bluntly. “Your problems may have been what started this, but you’re not the only one benefitting, y’know.”
“Oh?” Vash cocked an ear vaguely in Wolfwood’s direction, sounding genuinely curious now. “How do you mean?”
Wolfwood bit the inside of his cheek, debating. He could’ve told Vash that he hadn’t had too many positive or affectionate touches in his life. He could’ve shared how the past six accelerated years had been a montage of pain, violence, and deceit that had left him jaded, bitter, and untrusting. He could have said that he felt safe like this with Vash, in a way he hadn’t felt around anyone in a long time and hadn’t thought he ever would again. He could have confessed that getting to hold Vash like this every night almost—almost—made their harsh scrap for survival under the hot suns every day seem worth the struggle.
But Wolfwood didn’t consider himself an idiot, so he didn’t say any of those things. Instead, he heaved a long sigh and adjusted Vash in his hold. The gunslinger put his own arm across Wolfwood’s wordlessly, perhaps sensing his hesitation.
“Nightmares bothered me, too,” he admitted at length. “But they don’t anymore.”
His main goal had been to help Vash. He’d told himself that his own relief was just a lucky side effect. But then again, maybe his offer to join Vash so quickly hadn’t been entirely altruistic, he realized. Maybe his subconscious knew he needed a non-threatening touch just as badly as Vash did. Hell, maybe he’d just been waiting for an excuse to pursue it.
Vash responded by snuggling back against Wolfwood, pushing harder into his chest. “Well, I’m glad,” he said quietly.
Wolfwood exhaled and let his eyes slide shut, shifting his hand from where it was laid across Vash’s stomach to splay on his chest in a moment of unguarded affection. He was grateful that Vash didn’t push further. For reasons he didn’t quite understand, he kept talking. “Can’t believe it’s you of all people who ended up being comforting,” he mused aloud.
It was too much, and he knew it as soon as the words left his mouth. They didn't say things like that to each other. His expression twisted into a grimace, and he briefly considered biting his own tongue off.
“You’re usually just a pain in the ass,” he tacked on brusquely.
Vash only chuckled, seeing through Wolfwood’s attempt to temper the first comment immediately. After a few moments of silence, he replied. “I dunno if I’m the right person for it… but you deserve to have someone comfort you, Wolfwood.”
The unexpected words made Wolfwood’s chest feel tight, and they brought on a familiar wave of guilt that hit him hard. Without stopping to think, he pressed his forehead to the back of Vash’s neck in front of him. “No, I don’t, Spikey,” he muttered against Vash’s nape like a confession. “Least of all, you.”
Vash traced his fingers along Wolfwood’s forearm where it lay across his front, soothing. The gentle touch raised goosebumps on his skin, and he fought back a shiver. The gunman’s voice had softened further when he spoke again. “You do. You’re not as bad a guy as you pretend to be.”
Wolfwood squeezed his eyes closed. Vash didn’t have any clue what the hell he was talking about. He pulled the other man even tighter to him, all but shoving his face against the back of Vash’s neck. He needed to feel him close, but said nothing.
Vash tolerated Wolfwood’s crushing hold for a full ten seconds before he started to move. He grabbed the hand pressed to his chest and steadily pulled it away, despite Wolfwood’s resistance. Then, breaking their unspoken code, he turned over to meet Wolfwood’s eyes.
Wolfwood shifted back to maintain at least a tiny bit of distance between them, his pulse quickening. This was bad. He was already beyond tense, and he didn’t need to be confronted by his massively conflicting wants and future intentions right now. The situation felt volatile in a way that it hadn’t only seconds ago.
Wolfwood settled his displaced hand on Vash’s side tentatively, neither pushing him away nor pulling him in closer. He must have been giving Vash a pained expression, because the other man was looking back at him with a gentle concern that he surely didn’t deserve.
“You’re still insisting on playing the devil,” Vash murmured quietly, his eyes soft. “You don’t have to, you know.” The blankets shifted as he pulled his right hand out from under the covers, slowly pushing his fingers into Wolfwood’s hair and brushing it back from his face.
The priest’s jaw clenched. That was new.
“Vash… Spikey…” He swallowed thickly, forcing his eyes to stay open as Vash continued stroking his hair back, watching him. The simple motion felt so much better than it should have. Wolfwood struggled for a sensible way to respond, to ask Vash what he thought he was doing or tell him to stop it, but finally just spit out what he was really thinking. “If you cross this line, you know you can’t step back over it, right?”
He’d given away too much again. He knew Vash was going to snap to his senses and pull away. But somehow, he just kept on carding his fingers through Wolfwood’s hair, acting like nothing was wrong. Wolfwood couldn’t read into that stoic expression, but he was starting to have trouble focusing on much of anything other than Vash’s touch. “What line?” Vash coaxed softly, like he was trying to draw something out of Wolfwood.
The priest let out a breathy laugh, and his eyes slipped shut. No way was Vash that clueless, which meant he was playing with him. His body and brain had very different ideas of how to react to that. “I think you know.”
“What, this one?”
Wolfwood had scarcely ever imagined what it would be like to kiss Vash, even if some part of him knew he desperately wanted it. He wasn’t much one for that type of self-indulgence, especially considering how much it stood to scramble their already contradictory relationship. The few times it had played out in his mind had been quite against his will, when his subconscious served it up to him in heated dreams he couldn’t hope to control.
So when Vash did kiss him—nothing shy or tentative about it—he had no concept of how to even react, and his mind went blank.
Vash pulled back when he got no response, his lips audibly separating from Wolfwood’s. He all but pouted as he tugged a handful of his hair at the roots, and Wolfwood sucked in a breath.
“Do you want me to stop?” Vash murmured, looking at Wolfwood closely. The gunman gave his hair another pull to turn his face and examine it from a different angle, and Wolfwood bit back a groan at the sensation. “Or is this more of your self-punishing nonsense?”
“It’s not nonsense,” Wolfwood rasped, ignoring the first question. “I don’t deserve your kindness.” The quick drain of blood from his head was making him honest, apparently.
Vash’s eyebrows went up at his words. “Kindness? That’s not exactly what I’d call it.”
“What do you think it is, then?” Wolfwood asked pointedly, trying to narrow his eyes in a way he could immediately tell wouldn’t have the effect he wanted.
Vash bit his lip, contemplative for a moment as his eyes swept over Wolfwood’s face and down towards his chest. “Entirely selfish.”
Wolfwood scoffed, even if the way Vash was looking at him made him feel hot all over. “I’m pretty sure that’s the absolute last thing you are.”
Vash hummed, his open gaze locking with Wolfwood’s again. “Well, I was hoping you might want the same thing.” He released his grip on Wolfwood’s hair to trail fingers along the side of his neck, his thumb brushing Wolfwood’s jawline. He looked at the priest soberly. “Do you?”
Wolfwood swallowed, knowing he should resist. He’d meant it when he said the line couldn’t be uncrossed. He knew he was never coming back from it, at the very least. But Vash was offering him exactly what he wanted, right here and now. Wolfwood was strong, but he wasn’t that strong.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
“Yes,” he finally sighed, officially giving himself over to whatever Vash wanted from him. “Please, Spikey.”
Vash laughed softly, moving his hand to the back of Wolfwood’s neck and drawing him closer. His eyes were bright, filled with real, unmistakable happiness. “You know I would never make you beg,” he assured.
Wolfwood groaned. Vash’s mouth was hovering barely over his, and he ran his hand up the gunman’s muscled side through his shirt. “You could, if you wanted. It probably wouldn’t be difficult,” he admitted, his voice tight, once again honest to a fault.
Vash exhaled against his lips, driving him that much closer to madness. “I’m pretty sure you torture yourself enough, Wolfwood. I’m not gonna try to make it worse.”
Before he had a chance to reply, Vash’s mouth was mercifully on his again. It was warm and insistent, and Wolfwood didn’t hesitate to respond this time.
He let the hand on Vash’s side shift to his back, pulling the other man flush against him. Vash sighed into their kiss, pressing his mouth more firmly to Wolfwood’s and moving a hand up into his hair. He held Wolfwood close, nails scraping lightly against his scalp, and Wolfwood groaned again. Maybe he would have been more self-conscious about it if everything hadn’t felt so damn good.
Suddenly, being side by side wasn’t enough for him. He pushed Vash’s shoulder until the gunman rolled onto his back, moving so he was braced above Vash on his elbows and knees. He paused and gave the other man a silent, questioning look. Wolfwood could hardly believe what he was doing himself. But Vash nodded his approval quickly, pawing at the back of Wolfwood’s neck and bringing him down again.
With that response, Wolfwood stopped thinking and let himself run on instinct. He separated from Vash’s lips after only one kiss, turning and latching his mouth onto the tender spot below his ear, instead. “Ah, W-Wolfwood,” Vash moaned, apparently surprised.
Wolfwood hummed in question, breaking away to respond. “Yeah?” He breathed the word against Vash’s taut neck, his own voice gone husky. He’d been doing such a good job keeping himself in check until now, really. But knowing Vash wanted him back had his self-restraint unraveling.
Vash mumbled something Wolfwood couldn’t quite make out as the priest started mouthing soft kisses down his neck. He turned his head to the side, arching to give Wolfwood better access. “Hah... feels good.”
Wolfwood nipped at Vash’s smooth skin and felt the gunman tense up below him. “Good,” he murmured, satisfied with the reaction. He let his tongue lave circles against the spot where he’d bitten down, drawing a sharp inhale from the other man before continuing down his neck.
He felt Vash’s hands trail down his sides to find the bottom of his sleep shirt, sneaking them underneath the fabric to brush curious fingers against his skin. Wolfwood broke away from the base of Vash’s neck to look him in the eyes again.
“Still okay?” Vash asked, pausing with his palms flat against Wolfwood’s stomach and looking up at him uncertainly. Wide blue eyes were darkened by blown-out pupils, his breaths coming short and quick.
“Yeah,” Wolfwood confirmed, nodding. He was enjoying the feel of Vash’s hands under his clothes very much, in fact. And the needy, vulnerable look Vash was giving him with his lips slightly parted made Wolfwood want to devour him, all logic and consequences be damned. “Completely okay.”
“You sure?” Vash asked, letting his hands slowly start to move again. The exploratory touch was almost reverent, and Wolfwood knew it was wrong for anyone to touch him like that—like he mattered, like he was worth something—but he hoped Vash never stopped all the same.
Wolfwood breathed out a laugh. “No.” He cupped Vash’s cheek in one hand and kissed his mouth again, teasing his tongue against Vash’s bottom lip before pulling back to speak. “But I’m not complaining.”
“Okay.” Vash sounded relieved. “In that case, could you…” He trailed off, but the hands pushing up the bottom hem of Wolfwood’s shirt made what he wanted clear enough.
Wolfwood gave the other man a taunting grin when he realized. He seized the chance to put his mouth down by Vash’s ear, humming in mock thought and nosing against the delicate shell. “What’s got you tongue-tied, Spikey?” he asked lowly. He’d seen Wolfwood without a shirt dozens of times, after all. It was a natural consequence of sharing hotel rooms for months. And if Vash had been interested any of those times, he’d done an admirable job of not showing it; Wolfwood hadn’t caught him looking even once.
Did Vash really have that much self-discipline, or was he just that good at stealing glances?
Vash sucked in a breath at Wolfwood’s question and sudden closeness. He sounded flustered when he spoke again. “I—you know—I-I’m just trying to be considerate,” he defended weakly.
Wolfwood, despite his needling, had no intentions of denying Vash. “Well, ask and you shall receive,” he rumbled. He nipped at the gunman’s earlobe, then rose up on his knees for long enough to finally shuck his shirt off and toss it aside. Vash was making no attempt to hide his wandering gaze now, and Wolfwood didn’t mind it one bit.
He landed on all fours again, and Vash’s hands were on him immediately, skimming across his hips and circling around to caress his strong back. His fingertips trailed liquid fire under Wolfwood’s skin, the lines spreading and joining and bleeding outward to engulf him. Vash sighed, biting his lip as Wolfwood pressed back into his touch. His eyes were determined when they met the priest’s again. “Come here.”
Wolfwood dropped his mouth to Vash’s, kissing him hard and slow and having every intention to take this as far as Vash wanted. He curled a large hand around the back of the other man’s neck, the secure grip keeping Vash fixed in place against him. He’d just pushed the tip of his tongue past the seam of Vash’s lips, wanting to finally deepen their kiss, when they were interrupted by a loud stomach growl.
It was Vash’s.
Wolfwood pulled back, panting lightly, and raised an accusatory eyebrow at him. Vash chuckled sheepishly, his eyes crinkling in a way Wolfwood would never admit he found endearing under different circumstances. “Hey, uh… what time is it, anyway?” Vash asked, still slightly breathless as he twisted around to try to look at the clock on the nightstand.
Wolfwood sighed, his posture slumping a bit as his eyes flicked that way. They’d slept in. He knew Vash, and he hated that he knew where this was going. “Eight forty-three,” he said in monotone.
Vash sucked in another breath, this time for a completely different reason. He turned back to face Wolfwood above him. “We’re about to miss breakfast,” he said seriously, staring the priest down like they’d just uncovered a massive problem.
Wolfwood sighed again, letting his head hang forward. The hotel breakfast downstairs was just about the last thing on his own mind. “You really are one of a kind, Spikey,” he said, exasperated.
Vash’s hand found his on the mattress, light fingers tracing across the inside of his wrist. “Maybe we can come back after breakfast, though?” he suggested hopefully.
Wolfwood scoffed, glowering down at Vash with as much ire as he could muster. He really hoped the other man couldn’t feel his pulse pick up again. “You really just want to have it all, don’t you?”
“Sure. Why not?” Vash replied amicably, one side of his mouth tilting up in a teasing smile.
Wolfwood shook his head, at a loss. “You’re unbelievable. Like I said before, a pain in the ass.” He ran a hand back through his own hair, yanking at it in a meager attempt to ground himself and cool off.
It didn’t work.
“Fine, then,” he conceded after a moment’s pause, letting his hand drop. “We break for breakfast.”
Vash made a delighted sound. He rose up on his elbows so he could kiss Wolfwood hard, just for a second. He kept close after he pulled away, and his tone was different when he spoke again. “I’ll make it up to you when we get back,” he said quietly, his eyes locked on Wolfwood’s and full of intent. “Promise.”
Wolfwood felt his face warm as the rest of his body grew hot again. Images of how that promise might play out later invaded his mind before he was able to stop them. The temptation to pin Vash flat on his back and try to make him forget about everything outside their room was terribly strong.
But Wolfwood had already agreed to the intermission. He was just going to have to be uncomfortable through breakfast, apparently. Especially if Vash was going to say things like that to him.
He gave the gunman, who appeared to be rather pleased with himself at Wolfwood’s reaction, an annoyed look. Vash probably saw right through it.
“Just eat fast.”