Chapter Text
Vash has lived more lives than most, he knows. Most of it was spent in a flurry of motion, but there have been quiet parts too, knit in between, carefully and always with intention. He knows he’s lost more than he’s had to give, but he keeps moving forwards anyway.
(There’s an apple tree in the backyard of the farm house he’s been staying at; he sits underneath it when the weather’s fair and the chores are done, and he tells himself this is quiet only because he’s waiting.)
The planet has not had the need for wars or monsters in a long moment— they’ve been given a chance for something else at least, for now. It’s less often he feels the need to strap his gun to his side, there are less holes to patch and sew.
The farm he tends to is owned by an elderly couple, whose children moved out to the bigger cities decades ago. It’s isolated and still, they trade with the marketplace two towns over and make do through the winter, but they’re happy. It’s enough; it’s temporary, he knows. The winds are blowing wilder to the West than ever, there’s rumors on the airwaves that prickle his ears in the room over. If he stays for too much longer, trouble will seep under the sunsets and drag apart the boards nail by nail, the way it always does.
(They’d asked him once about the bag at his bed’s foot, about the fact his closets in the guest room are empty, about the fact there’s a jacket in his bag he never wears even when it’s cold enough to send chills through the house. He doesn’t know how to quantify the changes that have always rolled through him, about the way tomorrow has always been a given but that it was owed to someone else. He talks about a friend he had around the fireplace and smiles wider.)
He would feel restless in any other world, but here he finds himself content with waiting most of the time. It’s been about twenty or thirty odd years, he thinks— he has so much to tell him about, things about technology and new feats, about the small ways humans are finding ways to be impossibly kind as much as they are cruel. Thirty years is enough for rises and falls of events; humans are busy.
(When you last saw it, December was half as large. Did you know? There are ferns now, they’ve started planting things in the earth. I grew a carrot as large as my head last week.)
(Did you miss it? Wherever you were, did you miss it?)
(He’d lost him on a cold day, tucked away in a building that creaked and nestled in a collection of blankets that had grown soft with use. Vash had pushed back his bangs carefully, slowly, and talked about all the ways the world could be new the next time around.
“We could have a home like this,” Vash had whispered. “A yard and a field. A dog…”
“You and dogs,” he’d groused, faint and reedy.
Vash smiled. “Your favorite brand of cigars, liquor to stock up all the shelves.”
A hand found his, not strong enough to squeeze. Clammy and colder than it should ever be. “Just enough,” he’d managed. “Don’t need the whole world.”
Vash had cried then, pushing their foreheads together and squeezing for him. “Just us,” he agreed. “Just like this.”)
The suns hang full and heady on the horizon before Vash moves, shouldering his bags with an ease he isn’t sure is deserved— he’s had years of this to slow him down, soften his lines. Some parts of him can’t be changed though, he supposes. Twenty seven years is as short as anything.
“Been a while since I’ve seen May City,” Vash hums to himself. “Maybe we can grab a drink.”
(He’s lost him almost more than he’s had him, it should feel cruel. It had, somewhere in the middle. Vash had cursed and cried and tried to tear down the stars from the sky for all the good it would do; he’d given up and rebuked and felt the deafening emptiness of the uncaring constellations for a long while. He’d never been able to pretend he wasn’t endlessly, endlessly grateful, though.)
May is different, which makes sense. Vash hasn’t been by in decades. He’s half expecting bullet holes and caved in walls, the same as he’d left it. The same way he seemed to have left most places back then. The city has shifted from bars and saloons to something more stubborn— something that feels like it wants to plant itself and stay, with sturdier buildings, more alleyways and metallic glowing things. Flora, too, which is a miracle of a surprise that catches Vash a little funny around the chest.
There’s lots of flora and things nowadays, there are crops and trees and grasses like the books had always talked about, like Rem loved. It never stops being a gift, it never stops feeling like a dream.
“Hello,” he says, to a tiny blue flower sprouting from a carefully placed barrel. Its petals feel lush and happy under his fingers, soft and alive. “Know a good place to get a night's rest?”
“Mister?”
Vash turns to see a kid, frowning and light haired staring at him. He’s got both hands on his hips and a quirk to his jaw that hits him just as hard as everything else here.
The kid squints, eyes tracking to the flower and back. “Are you talking to me?”
Vash grins, scratching his neck instead. “Course. That would make more sense, only good recommendation I’d get from this guy would be the dirt anyways.” He laughs, and then laughs a little more genuinely when the kid’s expression twists further.
“Looking for a place to crash,” he explains. “Not from around here.”
“I know that, ” the kid scoffs, eyes on his arm. It’s less uncommon to see tech nowadays, but he supposes May City might be too far out for his arm to blend in. “Only inn is this way.” He rolls his eyes, starting off down a side alley and forcing Vash to squeeze in behind him.
“Place is pretty big for one inn,” he can’t help but remark. Kid is rolling his eyes again, still with the grumpy tilt to his mouth, a sure even line to his tiny shoulders. Vash imagines a different time, a different face— a gruff comment thrown backwards.
The kid deftly weaves around a broken pipe, jumping on top of a stack of crates and through a gap in a rickety fence. Signs of being lived in , Vash thinks about all of it, the dirt and the mire of it all, signs of staying. It’s still surprising. The spot he drops down in through the fence is dingy, too. Sort of a gap between rusted buildings, enough to see the sky through several juts of roofing. There’s no obvious door, until the kid kicks aside a wooden plank and shuffles through the wall. Vash has been around the planet nearing on three hundred years now, it still amazes him consistently how much remains the same, even when it reforms and grows and destroys itself over and over. He ducks through after the kid dutifully.
He’s expecting the guns pointed at him, frankly. He loves his silly humans but they are predictable.
He reacts well before a regular human's eyes would have adjusted— he has his hands up before the call to freeze even rings through.
“Gotta ask,” Vash smiles with a shrug. “Curiosity’s sake and all— what gave me away?”
The guy on the other end of the gun frowns, there’s the faintest trace of a wrinkle forming on one side of his mouth like he’s often displeased. Maybe he smirks regularly, it would be a nicer thought. He’s standing just outside of the pool of light, just out of reach to where a human’s eyesight would fail— presumably shrouded in darkness. Vash can see the way his words hit him, catch him by the chin and change his posture.
The kid is hiding in the corner, behind a desk table or what remains of one, and he doesn’t look afraid, either; like he trusts this to go the way it's supposed to. There are always simple things Vash finds that stay the same. A kid looking up to someone who takes care of them back, a place to go, a familiar face.
“The glasses,” the guy gruffs, to his credit rolling with Vash as best as one could be expected to, probably. The posters calling for the humanoid typhoon nowadays are at odds with each other, seemingly undecided if he’s still the blond explosion of spikes like the legends, or if he’d adopted another wardrobe entirely. He sometimes has black hair, sometimes a red jacket, sometimes he’s more figment than person. Vash isn’t as often recognized; he likes to think it’s because most people have more important things to worry about now, different legends to share.
His posters never have glasses anymore, though.
Vash lowers his arms slowly, the guy makes a point of clicking the safety off in retaliation. “Interesting choice of gun there,” he throws in, which is most definitely a bad idea but he’s never been one to resist his vices, really.
There’s a process to this, and he always goes off script. It works out in the end, because it's Vash. Because it’s—
The man is scowling now, not that Vash is supposed to be able to notice that. He’s probably not supposed to see the gun either. Humans had a funny way of constantly improving, of adding more and more to things and then shrinking them again. There were things that always carried over though, if you looked.
“It’s a family heirloom,” the man says. “You’re awfully chatty for someone about to get his head blown off.”
“Aww, come on,” Vash laughs. “Couldn’t we at least do the whole coffee and a date thing first?”
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen.” The man steps closer, light cutting across the metal now in what’s probably meant to be a dramatic reveal. “You’re going to shut up, and tell me why the hell you’re in this city, and maybe I won’t remove your stupid head from your shoulders, hm? Or I can end it right now, get the bounty I know is trailing your ass around, and we can both be happier.”
Vash pouts. “You’ve got a seriously interesting definition of happier, buddy.”
“And you’re already fucking up.”
“How do I shut up and tell you why I’m here? I’d have to break one rule to follow the other, got me in a bit of a bind.”
There’s a part of him that thinks he should maybe be worried— less so that he’ll get shot in the underbelly of some backstreet dilapidated building, but more that he will get handed over to some form of city police. That it’ll take another something odd years to shake out of that and find his way back here again. That it’d be too late by then.
(It had happened once. Their lines didn’t intersect quite right. Vash got there just in time to see the lights fading out, to watch that trail of smoke. He’d missed the next overlap entirely.)
Vash is here, though, where he’s supposed to be. All he’s ever needed is that.
The cold point of metal presses into his temple— he knows, like he knows the two suns are slightly more out of sync than they had been 200 years earlier, like he knows Rem’s favorite flower, like he knows he’d run for the rest of this planet’s existence if it meant he could keep having moments just like this— that he won’t pull the trigger. He feigns a gulp regardless, though. Better to reassure him out the gate that he’s got Vash cornered.
“Answer the damn question, smartass.”
Vash weighs his options. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Uh huh. And who are you lookin’ for exactly.”
The man scoffs, leaning closer. It’s been a long time since anyone was this close to Vash, actually— his skin all over thrills, he has to tamp down the welcome sigh that sings through him. It wouldn’t be helpful, it wouldn’t fix anything, but he wants anyways. Vash can’t stop the lopsided smile that creeps up on his face— it’s just funny, it’s always a little funny.
“Not sure yet! There’s a really great coffee shop I keep hearing about around the corner from here though, thought maybe I could get someone to join me.”
“You must think I’m some kind of idiot—”
Vash leans closer in, hands back up placatingly. He practically bumps his nose against the man’s, can see himself all warped and distorted in his shades. Playing at being nervous, poorly, he laughs. “Not at all! Just the truth. You know, they used to make absolutely amazing donuts around here, have you ever tried them?”
The man frowns, leans back with a grit of his teeth. There’s nothing between them, Vash notes, which feels wrong.
“Getting real tired of you trying to yank us around, especially when I’ve got all the playing cards, blondie.”
Ah.
There it is.
Vash drops his hands, tilts his head— lets his smile fade genuine, softer in the type of way he can only get around him. His hair has been jet black for a hundred odd years by now. “That's an interesting nickname,” he says, gently. Sometimes his head hurts, when it clicks, so Vash always tries to be careful.
The man squints, shakes his head, falters back a step. Vash doesn’t move— sometimes it doesn’t click right away at all and he gets grouchier; took a whole week, once. He gets there, though. Vash just has to play along until then.
(There’s a part of him that worries that he won’t this time. That the seconds it takes for him to come back tick longer and longer, and eventually will stop completely. He always worries it doesn’t all come back either, or that it does and it’s too much. He wonders if there’s enough loss and life packed in between the two of them that it would be better to never find him at all. He’s had more time than he was ever meant to, maybe it’s supposed to be enough.)
“Trick of the light,” Nick says, because it is Nick, Vash knows it’s him down to the stupid cross emblazoned on his overly rectangular gun. Somehow a mix of the Punisher and his own Peacemaker, funny that.
Vash lets it go, shrugging easily enough. “What would it take for you to believe me, then. Really, I’m just an honest traveler! Hassle everyone that stumbles through, do ya?”
Nick’s face shifts back to its default guarded grumpiness— he’d looked vaguely gobsmacked behind it all for a second. A bit like Vash had rattled up something loose in his mind. “Just the ones that blow up cities.”
Ouch. “Come on, do we have to keep bringing that up.”
Nick arches a brow at him, levels the gun closer to his forehead. “We do. Here I am thinkin’ you oughta be grateful I haven’t pulled the trigger.”
“Sure,” he nods, slowly. “Plenty grateful. Why are you letting me stand here all pretty then?”
It’s gotta be the bounty he thinks, it’s usually the bounty. Just once he’d love for Nick to wake up in a world that wasn’t scrambling so hard to get by, that he’d have all he wants right from the gate. He’s not sure what cosmic series of divine wiles have decided Nick’s starts and ends— they’re far too often the same.
Universal constants seem to be that Wolfwood always, desperately needs money, that the money is for someone else, usually kids, and that he never gets to turn gray before his time is up.
Vash had gotten angry about it, once. Thrown an almighty fight in as much as he is capable these days— the unfair cruelty of it seemed to swallow him up, the fact that Vash be allowed to live like this, missing, and that Nick never get a chance to rest. Always a cross to bear, always a burden. Always a horrible goodbye.
It’s more time than he thinks he’s supposed to have though. He reminds himself that it’s always been more time than they were ever meant to have.
Nick growls, he guesses he’s taken too long. “Waiting on an explanation, jackass. You’re real good at dancing around one.”
Vash weighs his options, discards all of them. “I really am looking for someone, promise. I think maybe I’ve found him, though.” Risky, probably a bad play. He’s never been very good at poker.
Nick’s gun trained on him wavers— Nick never wavers. “Is that supposed to not make me want to shoot you?”
“It’s supposed to be the truth,” Vash says, easily.
There’s a sigh, Nick bites at the stub of a toothpick between his teeth. Cute. “Why would Vash the Stampede be looking for me? Why would that be a good thing?”
“You’re protecting the kids here, s’what the rumors say.” Vash gestures at the one hiding behind the desk, who ducks down instantly out of sight. “I just wanted to help.”
There weren’t really rumors, is the thing, just faint hearsay about a makeshift orphanage, and a man who took only what they needed to get by. It had been enough, though. There were always footprints if he looked.
“Help?” The gun presses against his temple again as Nick grits out the word. “From what I hear about you, tends to be a whole lot of the opposite following you around.”
Vash concedes this. “I know there’s also a gang after you. That you’re holding up here so you can try to stand them all down— could use a bit of a local legend in your corner, right? Might scare them off.”
Nick sneers. “I have plenty of help.” His face twitches at the words though. Ah, Vash thinks. Years of knowing this man, across many lifetimes and faces, flare through all at once— there’s a way to read him, the way guilt sits on his brows and lips. The way he’d endlessly jump in front of a bullet for anyone he loves, despite what he thinks of himself and his habits. Wolfwood’s a man with a death sentence, he always is. It’s easier to see when it’s one of his own making.
Vash wonders if it’ll still be the church— there’s a certain horrific comedy to it every time; when the Eye, all but dust at this point, manages to weave itself somewhere into Nick’s story. Nai would have thought it poetic, Vash thinks of confession booths and crosses and knows there’s not enough faith left in the universe to absolve him of any of this anyways. A coffin, a contract signed in his own name— Vash has long given up on trying to change this part of his story. He hopes he can save him from it this time, though. The same way he hopes every time.
Vash looks up at him, smiling. “Think about it this way, you let me crash somewhere safe, get me a box of donuts, and I fight with you. I can guarantee whoever's coming will be so focused on me they won’t even aim at anyone else. No collateral, just me.”
Something in Nick’s face twists, the part of him that’s all facts and brutal logic and unceasing rationale beaten down by the world at odds with his heart. The part that knew about glasses and said blondie without thinking. Vash’s chest squeezes.
“Why would you do all of that just for a donut? That makes no damn sense.”
Vash shrugs. “Dozen donuts then.”
Nick stares, frowns. “Why.”
Vash whistles. “Not a very trusting guy, huh? I’m telling you, that coffee shop was my favorite. It’s that good.”
A twitch, a pause.
He takes a shaky breath, lets some of the authenticity in him roll through. “You can call all the shots, yeah? I know these guys, the ones after you. I know they won’t be okay with just shooting up an old building. And there's kids here. I'm not about to let that happen.” Nick tilts his head at that, an acquiescence. He knows them too, apparently– Vash wonders if the story of the small outpost left in ruins from a few years ago fits in here too.
“What makes you so sure you can stop it from happening?” Tell me there’s a way to do it, he means. Tell me there’s a way everyone wins.
Vash pushes his luck. “I’ve lived this long, haven’t I? Tell you what, I know a really good bar around here, too. Get me a drink? I’ll call it even after.” Let me talk to you, the real you.
The gun lowers, Nick looks furious. “You can’t be him. There’s no way you’re him. What kind of idiot jumps into a firefight for donuts and a glass of whiskey?”
“Kind of idiot that really likes donuts.”
He looks angry still, also baffled. There’s just a hint of a flicker in there but it’s enough— its always been enough. “Fuck me,” Nick grouses. “Fine, whatever. You fuck up and I’m putting you down, no hesitation, you got that? Won’t hesitate to throw you at them and get out of dodge if it comes down to it. If there’s something else you’re after I will figure it out, and I will end you. Got it?”
Yeah, you will, Vash remembers a desert and an orphanage and a thousand million things in between, his smile shifts. “Got it, loud and clear.”
The kids name is Ray, Vash learns. There’s a few more of them, tucked deeper inside the building. Most are too spooked to come out, which makes Vash think about the opulent streets and fancy buildings at the entrance of the city. Makes Vash feel like shaking the whole place upside down. Mostly he’s warmed by how close knit they are, how they watch him with guarded eyes all huddled up like they’ve coordinated— mostly he thinks about how they light up when Nick gets closer, how he smiles a little at them like he doesn’t notice at all.
Ray is the oldest of the kids, and has been hanging around with Nick for a few years— he tells Vash conspiratorially once he’s warmed up more that Nick had been nearly half dead from heat exhaustion, and that Ray had given him all his water and best blankets until he woke up. He says this like he’s very proud of himself, Vash tries to feel a normal amount of gratitude towards him for it.
“You’re staying near me,” Nick grouses. “Don’t get too cozy, I’m keeping a close eye on your jumpy ass.”
He stares at Vash like he’s lost it when he grins wider. “You’re not staying, don’t look so sappy about it.”
Vash nods, amicably. It doesn’t matter, there’s time and not enough time in spades, but he has to let Nick decide when.
“He’s pretty funny, actually,” Ray whispers again to Nick’s turned back. “I think he could stay if he wanted. Just a little longer.”
Vash pats his shoulder, Nick scowls. “Lesson number one kid,” he bites out, glaring. “Never trust anyone who’s nice for no reason.”
There’d been one lifetime he’d had, where Nick had grown up with a brother in a house, where he’d had a few more years to believe in tomorrows with a little more faith before he’d lost it all. One lifetime where he hadn’t quite built the idea of jagged edges and brutality first. It’s almost more heartbreaking to have known that version of Nick, to know that he learnt the same thought in a hundred more.
Ray frowns up at him. “You’re plenty nice.”
Vash, briefly like he’s been overcome by visions in a desert, an oasis on the horizon line, entertains the thought of buying a house. Somewhere to put this kid and Nick and any of the other eyes that stare out from the walls and catch all the sunlight like he can refract it back outwards to all of them— he’s so full of unnameable emotion it nearly makes him stumble.
Nick looks grumpy at this, biting at the toothpick in his mouth again like he wants to spit something scathing back out. His eyes flick over to Vash for a half moment— whatever thought in his head trails elsewhere and Nick’s shoulders drop with an annoyed huff instead. Softie, Vash thinks, immeasurably fond.
“Ain’t it time for bed?” He throws over at the kid. Ray’s smart, it seems, or just good at reading Nick, and scurries off instead.
Vash whistles loudly, tilting his head at Nick. “They listen to you.”
Nick’s nose scrunches. “Survival instincts.” Vash thinks about the soft way his hands ruffle messy heads of hair, the way he always used to bend down to smile eye to eye.
He nods anyways.
“So, let’s say I believe you,” Nick flicks open a lighter from his pocket, taps out a cigarette with practiced hands.. “I don’t, to be fuckin’ clear. How do you even help in this scenario? From what I hear you’re more of a ‘head for the hills’ type of guy.”
It’s cute that he doesn’t smoke inside, that he had to take Vash all the way up to the old bell tower before he ever moved for the pack in his breast pocket. The night air around them is still— crisp in a way that lights up Vash’s senses. Imprints this in his mind, files every detail alongside a thousand others exactly like this. He remembers when the air was dry and thick every day, where the bite of humidity was a made up, imagined concept of a world they’d supposedly all moved on from. He can see it now, storm clouds way off on the horizon.
“Thought I was the ‘death danger destruction’ type,” Vash glances sideways at him, curling his arms on the dilapidated railing with a drawn out sigh. Nick scowls.
Vash lets his head hang for a second, a breezy laugh sliding out somewhere between their feet. “You knew who I was, even without all the usual get up. They’ll know too. Bounty on me is more important than whatever reason they want you, pretty sure.”
Nick hums, tilts his head up to let a stream of silver float away into the dark. “Be real with me. Whatever you are, it can’t be a martyr. What do you want from this.”
Ha, Vash thinks. The ways Wolfwood has always been able to slide between Vash’s ribcage like this, it almost hurts. It’s a good hurt, though.
He’s never been a saint. Stained all the way through with things he should have done better, done differently. He’s always been on the back foot, on the catch up and he could never make his wants big enough to hold onto, is the thing.
As always, Nick knows.
“This person you’re looking for—” he starts.
Vash stands up, grinning. “Heard there was an undertaker around, is all. Got some work for him.”
If he’s happy here, Vash tells himself. It’s the same routine: if Nick’s happy, I’ll leave. I won’t intrude, I won’t make a mess.
He always out stays his welcome.
Nick grits his teeth, flicks the cigarette from one side of his lips to the other. His eyes are so dark like this, in this time. “I should tell you to walk your ass right back out of town.”
“You should,” Vash agrees. “I am pretty handy with a gun, though.”
The silver of cigarette smoke floats around them, there are storm clouds on the horizon that dance at the tips of Vash’s fingers like static building. Like a television just barely picking up on a signal. Nick is frowning in a way that used to mean he was hiding a squint, in a way that meant a migraine. Suddenly, Vash is more afraid.
“We can cut them off at the pass, you and me,” Vash offers, turning away. “Saw their tracks on my way in, they’re hanging around pretty close. If we can settle this away from here, none of the kids have to see.”
Nick looks more pained when Vash glances back at him, he hides it well.
“Why am I not telling you off.” There’s a pleading edge to his words, a statement in the shape of a question, it makes Vash’s fear grow teeth. Why do I trust you, why do I know you. It ends the same way every time, maybe Vash is the one who’s not ready.
“It’s been said I just have one of those faces. Listen, if I show you where they are, you have to promise. We’re not killing them.”
“Really? Their whole plan is to blow up an empty building full of street rat kids. We’d be doing the world a favor.”
Vash’s lips pull into a smile despite himself, a fond one. “No killing, promise me.”
Nick’s scowl is back, stronger. “I’m not promising shit. If you want to give them a free therapy session before they shoot you apart, fine by me. If anyone shoots at me, I’m taking their head off.”
The funniest thing about Nick has always been what he doesn’t say. The in between's Vash loves so much.
“Got it,” Vash shrugs amicably. “I’ll take you there tomorrow morning. You can show me the donut place on the way back, deal?”
“This is insane. This is so stupid, I should shoot you right now.” Nick grouses, his hand feels like home in Vash’s anyways.
Vash sleeps on a tiny mattress tucked away behind a row of pews, he’s pretty sure Nick sacrificed from his own quarters.
He stares up at the dark, dark cave of the ceiling, hears the chorus of snores echoing up and around him, and misses Wolfwood with an ache that swells and crashes in the rafters. It’s always like this— the ebb and flow of their constant tumble. Vash has gone too many years without Wolfwood at all, he’s too filled up with all the Missing for it to stop even when he’s there.
Vash hasn’t felt the pull of sleep in years, maybe longer. The stretch of dark into purple hues greets him the same every day; he thinks of stars and moons and many ancient things, spinning and rising and feeling the weight of past collapsed stars pressing in more and more every moment.
He feels old. He sleeps.
The hideout is an obvious one. He’d seen the trail of motorcycles leading across the desert on his way into town. It didn’t even really warrant the usual level of stakeout and reconnaissance— a pub half run down, populated by gruff folk, weathered in a way people were becoming less and less these days. Vash had seen millions of days exactly like this, had had millions of fights in the same places. He’d passed by only because the thread of a far off once lived profession seemed to always haunt Nick more when Vash handled things for him.
“No killing,” Vash reminded him, hiking his bag up higher on his shoulder.
“I told you, no promises,” Nick flipped the kickstand down on his motorcycle— it was nice, actually, that he had one this time around. Once, Vash had found him with a cat he’d named Evangeline, once it had been a sturdy backpack; this Evangeline was rusting on one side in ways she couldn’t help and worn thin on the handlebars, it was more familiar than anything. Nick’s hand trailed on the leather seats with a fond pat as he moved away, unthinkingly, and Vash had to swallow around another unnamable ache before he could speak.
“I can handle this without needing to kill them, I’ve had a lot of practice.”
Nick’s brow raises at him above his sunglasses. He’s got a stockier pair on, thick aviator style. Vash isn’t sure if it suits him better or if he’s too drowned out with nostalgia. “Say it like that, Spikey, sounds like I’m getting a front row seat to something entirely different.”
Vash grins at him. “No promises.”
Nick slides his gun into a holster on his thigh, tossing his jacket over his shoulder with two fingers. “So, what? We’re just going to walk right in the front door?”
Vash shrugs at him, “Like I said, we’re just talking. Know what the drink special is out here?”
He pushes through the swinging doors, relaxed smile already in place and eyes scanning. One of the beautiful perks of the last dozen decades or so has been that the vitriol around his name seems less confidently tied to a specific image— he’d already have been dodging bullets once. In the new world, one with more travelers and less bone barren scraping by, people don’t even look up as they stomp through. He’s proud of them, his favorite little stubborn aliens. They’re doing better and better for themselves every day.
“What can I get you?” The bartender leans towards them as they get closer, a burlier woman with a stack of prim curls behind each ear and a steady gaze. He leans one elbow on the counter, crossing his ankles despite the annoyed huff Nick lets out.
“What’s the special today?”
The woman gestures to a sign packed full of chalk written drinks and tiny exclamation marks. “Running happy hour until 11, take your pick.”
He purses his lips, humming appreciatively as he takes in all the lived in dents and stains around them. There’s a carving on the counter top in the shape of two people, an M and a C in a heart, scraps of bright paper on the tiny counter in the back. This is a type of place people make a home at, he thinks. The type to have regulars.
“We’re here for a meeting actually, can you tell me what those gentlemen in the corner usually get? Said I’d pick up their tab.” He smiles.
The woman blinks, squints slightly at him before turning her gaze to the group half tucked around the corner. It’s funny how predictable things can get, this many rotations around the sun. The way shadows still stick the divots and corners as best as they can.
There’s five of them, talking closely with their heads practically pushed together. Flickering light above their booth, the man on the end sprawled out with perfect eyes on the doorway. He looks downturned at every edge, hanging mustache and drooping hat pulling at the once sharp edges of a roughened life on the edges of survival. There’s something unkind in his gaze, even as it flicks towards Vash and away— something practiced, not inherited. Vash taps his gloved hand on his thigh absently.
The bartender looks guarded when she turns back to him. “Don’t think we cleared enough space for two more guests.”
“Mel, grab another round!” A woman crows from one of the larger tables by the door. The bartender looks over at them like she’s thinking about the distance between exits and doorways.
Nick pushes a stack of double dollars across the counter that he should not have. “That enough to pick up their tab?”
She eyes him. Something easing in her face in equal measure to her shoulders tensing. Her voice drops. “We– we don’t tolerate trouble here. I don’t know what they’ve done, but—” Vash is struck by how much he likes this Mel, on instinct if nothing else.
“No trouble,” Vash leans up, letting his expression drop into something more earnest. “Just talking.”
Her eyes flicker between them both. “They’ve been on hard times lately, that’s all. Whatever they did.”
Vash nods, heart aching. “It’ll be okay, Mel. We’re just talking, I promise.”
She swallows. “You’re him, aren’t you? The Typhoon?”
Nick growls quietly, swipes a drink off the counter and downs it in one go. “Thanks for your time,” he says, pushing back from the bar all square shouldered and determined.
They maybe should have gone for stealth, probably would have been cleaner, but, well. He is at his core who he is, Nick just doesn’t remember that part yet. The drooping man has gray-steely eyes that lock onto them both before they approach, and subtly leans up enough to nudge his metal toed boot into the shin of a larger man across from him.
“Birdy told me through the grapevine that one of you gentlemen was looking for me,” Nick drawls, leaning one hand on their table and cocking his stance. Fluid, casual. Loaded with tension— in another world, Nick had been a performer for a short while, complete with tricks and well placed grins on corners with an array of scams up his sleeve. Vash thinks there’s always been something like a spotlight shining just on the edges of him, something like an act he can pull up out of the dredges of himself. It’s always weighed on him all the same.
“For us, he means!” Vash chimes in, waving. “I’m Vash.”
Nick shoots him a glare— to be fair, Vash had said they were doing things his way from the start, so.
The steely-eyed man's expression blanks out for a second. Once, the name would have been enough to ring alarm bells— maybe it’s nice that it carries less weight now.
“Oh yeah?”
The larger man grumbles something low, gravelly— Vash sometimes pretends he can’t hear when humans do that. ‘ Freaks just walking right up to hand themselves over now?’ he mutters. Funnily enough, as the resident freak, it’s always been his play.
“We’re looking for a lot of people,” A man in the corner says, stretching out his arms around the back of the booth and sizing them up. “Can’t say either of you stick out.”
“Nicholas Wolf,” Nick says, grin that’s all empty threat and oh— Vash hadn’t realized he’d kept part of his name this time. Punches through him the same way it always does, fast and agonizing like lightning in his teeth. “Been told I stand out plenty.”
The man in the corner's eyes flash— he must be the leader, Vash realizes and sidles closer.
“Hey, that’s a pretty neat antique you have there!” He chirps, gesturing at his hip where his jacket has ridden up enough to show off his weapon. Threats, bluffs, it’s all the same at the end of the day, really. A flash of a weapon at a hip really stops losing its glamor when you know scarier people wouldn’t have gone for the preamble.
“Wow,” Vash croons, leaning straight over steely-eyes, hands flat on the table and nudging Nick off balance with his hip all in one. “That’s, oh I think they made those back in the No Man’s era, right? Got the metal inlaid and all? Does it even fire anymore?”
The man’s brows twitch. “‘Does it even fire’, he says. Want a demonstration, pal?”
Vash nods, ignoring Nick’s angry snarl behind him. “Oh, yes! That would be great, really. Haven’t seen one of those working properly in…” he whistles, makes a show of leaning back and scratching his chin. “Too long, really!”
“This one works just fine,” the man drawls, trying to lay on an easy smug grin. He’s got bad eyesight on his left, Vash notes, with the way the space behind his eyes is duller. He’s playing it up for the other men at the table, but he’s tense.
Vash hums, nodding. “That would be really impressive.”
Steely-eyes shoves him back a step. “What, you want him to shoot you? Something wrong in that noggin of yours, buddy?”
Nick snorts, nervous behind the grousing. “Several things, I think.”
Vash lets his smile take over, closing his eyes. “I mean, he can try, but they haven’t made ammo that works for that sort of gun in four decades or so. I just think it might be a little tricky.”
The men around the table scowl, glancing over at their boss with a poorly hidden level of confusion. Boss man rustles, visibly— definitely not a trained gang, then. Perfect. “Listen,” Vash tries again. “You let me take a look at that antique, and maybe I'll buy you all a round!”
“With what money,” Nick grumbles— Vash’s chest hurts again, another echo. Vash always low on funds, spending it on drinks and Nick angrily shouting at him for it but joining him anyways. He shouldn’t know that, Vash hasn’t said anything about it, and yet.
“How the fuck would you even know—” the boss man starts. Vash wags a finger.
“Why isn’t the important question, is it? I think the free drink part is more interesting!”
Big buff man, closer to Nick, makes a move like he’s going to get up. Vash holds up his hands innocently.
“Two drinks?”
Boss snarls, and Vash figures there’s exactly two seconds before they try to pull the gun on him anyways and—
“You’re going to stay down, and everyone will be a lot better off for it,” Nick says, low and flat. Confident for a man hiding out in an empty church in all the ways he shouldn’t be. He flips his gun expertly between his fingers — Vash thinks about a much larger version, twisting across his shoulders with the same fluidity — and presses it flat against the table. “I know for a fact this one works, and I can guarantee I know how to use it.”
Boss man’s expression is cold and flat, he’s not intimidated but he— his eyes flicker to the man closest to Vash. The hangdog one. Ah.
“I heard about you all months back. Tracking after us. Thought you were subtle, probably, right? You group of sorry assholes have been chasing me halfway across the planet, and I want to know why,” Nick growls. “No, actually. I want to know what matters so much about one god damned kid so bad you’d cut through the rest to try to get to him. Even better question, why shouldn’t I end your miserable asses right now?”
That was— that was new. They were looking for the kid? Vash had only heard—
Hangdog sneers, tenses all over and gets a wild angry look to his eyes as he starts to push his chair back. Boss man smoulders, doesn’t signal to stop him and another piece slots together in Vash’s mind.
“I think,” Vash cuts in, quickly kicking his foot out to stop the chair from moving out any farther. “Everyone’s gotten off on the wrong foot here—” Pardon his own joke, really.
“You have the absolute, desert damned audacity—” Hangdog grits out, fury and clenched teeth, and Nick’s eyes widen slightly in confusion and reflexive anger as his hands clench—
Vash makes an impulsive decision. The old Nick would say he was made of nothing but impulsive decisions, so, it really should be accounted for.
He kicks the bottom of the table, jostling all of the drinks directly onto the laps of the men sitting around it, and pulls the seat of the closest man out from under him all in one. The boss and big guy stand up instinctively, and Vash pushes the table in closer with another kick, trapping the big guy’s legs with a startled grunt.
He holds his hands up again when all sets of eyes train on him at once.
“Sorry,” he squeaks.
“Spikey, what the fuck,” Nick complains.
“In my defense, you really didn’t kidnap that kid!” Vash pouts over at him. Nick’s eyes widen, and furrow.
“What—?”
“I’d say you’ll regret that,” Boss man cuts in, and oh— he’s holding the antique directly pointed at Vash’s forehead of course. “But you’ll be long dead before that happens.”
Vash laughs nervously, rubs the back of his neck. “Fellas, there’s been a big misunderstanding here, I think if you just heard us out—”
“You said there’d be just talking!” Mel’s voice joins in, from across the bar behind them. Vash realizes it’s fallen completely silent around them, enough that Vash can hear various safety’s clicking off and metal clinking.
“Shit,” Nick sighs.
There’s two ways Vash ever handles problems, this doesn’t require the second. At least in this go around, Nick hasn’t learned how to instinctively elbow anyone that grapples him quite as well.
“It’s so hot out there, I’m so hungry! My legs are giving out,” He complains, drooping against the table. “Anyone know where a guy can get a good bite?” Before anyone can move, he’s sliding across the table, wrapping himself around the Boss man. Classic. “You have enough money for that kinda gun, you must have enough for me to get a snack, wouldn’t you?”
He’s worked on this whole thing for years, perfectly lining himself up in between all the other men so none can get a clear shot in without injuring their leader; he whines louder. “All we wanted to do was clear Nick’s name, and he said I could get a burger after. There’s not even any burgers here!”
“Spikey, what the fuck .”
“Is there something infecting that empty ass head of yours—”
He wraps his hand into the man’s lapel, even as he struggles to move Vash off. “He really didn’t kidnap that kid, I promise! Can’t we just talk after we eat?”
(He at least gets Nick out of the building before he catches a shiner across the eye.)
“So, that didn’t go the way I’d hoped,” Vash hedges.
Nick lights up a cigarette stuffed into the front of his shirt, pulling a match out of his boot in the same motion. His glasses are missing a lens, so Vash can actually see the eye roll in full technicolor glory.
“No shit. I’d ask what’s wrong with ya but I think that’d take all night.”
“No one got hurt, though!” He’d managed to swing that, despite everything. The antique guns really hadn’t worked, which was probably embarrassing for them— Vash swiping their extra ammo out of their pockets while talking probably had helped a bit as well, but. It had still been closer than he’d like— no stew for him later.
The look Nick sends him would be more scathing without the missing lens and his mussed hair, instead it looks mostly tired. He pokes at a tear in his shirt. “Yeah, cause that would be the worst thing. Those lowlifes deserved it.”
Vash tilts his head up. They’re camped out behind a billboard in town, on a rooftop with big vents and pipes all around that would make it hard to pick them out from afar. The sky really is beautiful these days, he thinks. There’s the constellations he’d made up as a kid, pressed nicely alongside all the ones humans whispered to him about— gunmen and plants and great strings of human-kinds scrambled together remade history. You can see less of the stars with all the lights, but it's somehow more striking. Less cold.
Less like there’s a grand nothing pressing down on every crawling inch forward through unwinnable odds, maybe.
“Ray ran away?” He asks, voice soft. “I figured he was from around here.”
Nick copies him, head clinking quietly against the metal behind them. “I dunno. He said he was. Told me he had nowhere else to be.”
“And you took him in.”
Nick lets out a quiet grumble, like the smallest hint of a compliment is frustrating inherently— same Nick, different bullet torn jacket. “Yeah well, what was I gunna do. He needed a place. This small thing on the road getting trampled on by cars and shit. Pulled his weight, so… Just wasn’t expecting all the other little demons to join in.”
The thought of Nick collecting scared, lonely, kids like some sort of unintentional shepherd is— Vash has to breathe carefully around the burn-ache of it. “I don’t think they’d be after him this much if they didn’t care,” Vash offers.
“Or maybe he has something they want,” Nick snipes back, which, true. And yet, the shape of it feels wrong, misaligned with the sad expressions and tense shoulders. The way Mel had stood up for them.
“Can we ask him? Ray, I mean?”
Nick shrugs. “If he doesn’t want to talk to them I ain’t interested in making him. He’s made his own life.”
Yeah, Vash thinks with the sting he always carries around the edges of his chest. Yeah, he has.
He sighs, listening to the hum of the electric venting system around them and Nick’s puffs of nicotine laced breaths.
“Are you going to answer me for real, now?” Nick says, gruffly, after a long few moments.
“Hm?”
“About why you're helping.” Nick tilts his head towards him, pushes his glasses up into his hair. Something in Vash’s heart leaps and plummets simultaneously, as much love as loss tangled up in the new— it’s always like this, every time it is and he can’t ever just— He can’t. He breathes slowly, measured.
Nick’s brows are pushed closer together, dark eyes scanning across Vash’s face and back. Before he’d have read all of it, before he’d have— it’s not before. It never is, Vash reminds himself. There’s just now. “You get nothing out of this, and yer stickin’ your neck way out for a bunch of nobodies. Nearly died back there, so. What’s in it for you? Don’t bullshit me this time.”
Nick’s hand is on the graveled rooftop beside him, scarred in strange places, smooth in others. Familiar in its unfamiliarity by now, the circles Vash drowns in endlessly. His own gloved hand, the same length and the same scars beside it. Carrying the divots from their camping trips, from their near death escapades, from Nai—
He swallows, letting his smile turn a touch more honest. “I guess I can just see it in you. In your eyes— you’re a good guy, Nick. You deserve help.”
The words hit Nick sideways, he freezes the way he always did. Blusters, gets angry, and then glances away. Tense. “Thought I told you not to bullshit.”
Circles and circles. “You did,” Vash concedes, leaning his head back up to the hazy stars. “Guess that means it must be true.”