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It was a bad fight.
Not that there’s such a thing as a good fight, really, but some fights are worse than others, worse than average, and this one was definitely one of the bad ones. Long, bloody, miserable, completely zero-sum. Nothing accomplished, blood and bullets wasted under the burning suns.
Vash and Wolfwood walk back to their hotel when it’s done, exhausted and bruised.
At least they don’t have to flee the town, this time. Small mercies.
Usually, Vash has noticed, Wolfwood will argue with him after a fight that goes badly. Not with any intent behind it, not that Vash can tell. Just to do it, to blow off steam.
Vash doesn’t blame him. It feels good sometimes, a rousing argument after a long, exhausting day. Like a hard workout or a lengthy sobbing fit. Exhausting, overwhelming, achy and verging on unpleasant, but… good.
But tonight, Wolfwood doesn’t argue.
He doesn’t say anything at all.
Not until it’s late, after they’ve both showered the day’s blood and sweat from their skin and fallen into their beds.
Then, finally, Wolfwood speaks up, his voice strained and ragged.
“D’you do that shit just to fuck with me?”
Vash freezes, barely daring to breathe. There’s a razor-sharp edge to Wolfwood’s voice like he rarely hears — raw and bloody and hurting.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Vash says, at last. Maybe this is the argument he was waiting for, just a little later and more bitter than usual. If it’ll make Wolfwood feel better to lash out, Vash can take it.
Beside him in the dark, Wolfwood scoffs. “Of course you don’t,” he mutters. “And butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, either.”
Vash waits, placidly, for the point.
“You just… let him hit you,” Wolfwood says, after a long pause. Even more strained. Curling at the edges like burning paper. “I’ve seen you move. You could have gotten out of the way. But you let that fucking drunk beat the shit out of you.”
“He wasn’t hitting me that hard,” Vash lies.
Wolfwood makes a noise that’s almost a laugh. “Liar.”
Vash bites his tongue, caught.
“You know I know you don’t have to take hits like that,” Wolfwood goes on. “But you make me watch it happen anyway. Can’t do shit to help, ‘cause I know you’ll hate me for killing for you. Is it some kind of power trip?”
“It’s not about you,” Vash says without thinking, a little too sharply. Then, softer: “I wouldn’t hate you.”
Wolfwood takes a sharp breath. Then the bedsprings creak, and Vash watches his silhouette rise from bed and pace over to the window, shoving it open and letting a waft of cold night air in, bracing himself against the sill.
Vash sits up. “I’m sorry,” he tries. “I really don’t… think about it like that. That’s just how I do things.”
Wolfwood’s shaky exhale clouds the cold air. Barely illuminated by the moonlight, his hands curl into fists against the windowsill. “So you just don’t give a shit, huh?”
“What?” Vash slides his legs out of bed, then stills as Wolfwood flinches. This conversation is getting out of control, and he needs it to stop. “Wolfwood—”
Another flinch. Wolfwood’s shoulders spasm. His voice pitches high, caught in his throat. “You really don’t give a shit about us, huh? We’re just… things to you. We’re either there to hurt you or for you to protect, who cares how we feel about anything—”
Vash opens his mouth to tell him to stop, that it’s not like that, he isn’t like that, he isn’t like Knives, but then—
Wolfwood starts to cry.
It’s quiet at first, just the hitch of his shoulders and the shudder of his breathing, then the first sob cracks from his chest, and then he can’t seem to stop them, doubling over against the windowsill, face buried against his forearms, breaking down into stifled sobbing.
Vash feels like he’s been split open.
“Wolfwood…” he repeats. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… think it would bother you. Seeing me get hurt.”
Wolfwood turns his head just enough to reveal one wet, red-rimmed eye, narrowed in a glare. “Why the fuck not?” he rasps, voice so broken it makes Vash’s heart clench.
The truth comes spilling out before Vash can stop it. “Because I deserve it?”
Wolfwood lifts his head, turning away from the window to look at Vash straight on. His face is wet with tears, expression shadowed with distress.
“You and me both, huh?” he asks wryly, a terrible smile twisting his tear-streaked face.
Vash shakes his head. “No—”
“Just you?” Wolfwood pulls the window shut and leans back against the sill, tears trailing steadily down his cheeks, dripping from his chin. “C’mon, Needle-noggin. What makes you deserve to bleed more than a murderer like me?”
Vash feels like he’s falling. Like the planet’s been pulled out from underneath him, and he’s tumbling through space. Lost, untethered.
He needs to explain it, needs to comfort Wolfwood with the truth, with the reality that this is what he’s for, this is why he survived everything that’s tried to kill him over the last century and a half, to bleed and bleed and bleed, to even the scales…
But the words won’t come.
Instead, he just shakes his head, breathless and heartsick, while Wolfwood stands by the window, weeping like he’s forgotten how to do anything else.
Maybe he has.
“I’m sorry,” Vash chokes out. “Please come here.”
Wolfwood crosses the room slowly, like a prisoner toward a firing squad. Head lowered, the moonlight turning his tears to drops of quicksilver.
Vash can barely look at him. The grief on his face is… overwhelming. Unmaking.
“So what’s the secret?” Wolfwood’s voice is almost drowned with tears, but he forges on regardless. “What makes you deserve to get your ribs kicked in more than me? Or was I right the first time? I just get my punishment in a different package?”
Vash shakes his head again. “It’s nothing like that,” he manages. “I promise, I don’t — I don’t believe in punishment.”
Wolfwood sways on his feet, and Vash reaches out to catch him by the forearms, steadying him as he sinks to his knees at Vash’s feet.
“Just for you?” Wolfwood asks. Something’s returned to his voice, some spark of the defiance he always carries, the bite. The stubborn refusal to acquiesce to anything. Holding on long after he’s burned his hands.
“It’s a bad habit,” Vash admits. “It’s not… it makes me feel better. About everything I can’t do, everyone I can’t save.”
Wolfwood scrubs his hands down his face. He’s barely wiped away the tears on his cheeks before more are falling, undoing his work in a moment. “Fucking hypocrite,” he murmurs.
Vash tries to laugh. It comes out a painful, hiccuping squeak. “Yeah.”
“Makes me sick,” Wolfwood keeps scrubbing at his eyes, hard and insistent. “The way you talk— you’d think…” he trails off.
Vash reaches out to catch his wrists, stilling his hands before he can hurt himself. “Think what?”
Wolfwood lifts his head, meeting Vash’s gaze through his tears. “That you just like it to be up to you. Who suffers and who gets to walk away.”
It is up to him, is the problem — whether he likes it or not, he’s still stronger and sturdier and longer-lived and more powerful than every human on earth. He is judge, jury, and executioner.
But Wolfwood’s right, too — Vash forgot one vital part of public trials.
The audience.
Watching him bleed, whether they agree that he’s guilty or not—
“I’m sorry,” Vash says again. He lets go of Wolfwood’s hands to cradle his jaw, thumbing tears from his cheeks. “Wolfwood, can I hold you?”
Wolfwood hesitates, then nods. He leans into Vash’s hands, eyes almost closing.
Vash shifts off the edge of the bed, settling on the floor, and pulls Wolfwood into his arms, holding him tight as he trembles.
Maybe they’re both trembling, now. Both crying.
He doesn’t know.
It doesn’t matter.