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True love is possible.
Neither Wolfwood nor Vash had ever believed in it. For Wolfwood, ever the pessimist and never one to regard the “red string of fate,” true love wasn’t something he ever gave thought to. You lived, you hoped life didn’t give you a particularly hard go of it, and then you died. Simple, routine, and relatively the same for everyone else. Sure, some went out quietly and others with a bang, but every human was the same. Birth, life, death, repeat. If you were lucky enough, you’d get into Heaven. He himself certainly wasn’t going to.
For Vash, there was something deeper and much more self-loathing in his disbelief. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in love, no, not at all. He believed in love, saw it in every single being he passed— he saw a mother and her child sharing food on the bench in the town he was staying in, saw young lovers quarrel, saw the elderly take care of each other when they couldn’t take care of themselves. He saw love in everything, no matter how loveless it seemed. He’d spent enough time observing where he could, after all, always fascinated by the very lives he could never afford to live. He believed in love, yes, just not for himself.
But even then, Vash couldn’t help but love others. He loved his friends, the remnants of his family, and the memories of what once was. He loved his sisters, suspended high in their glass enclosures, serenely observing. He loved every mundane action, every little movement. He loved humanity, he loved everything that made them tick. He loved everything, and everything rarely loved him back.
But sometimes, things did love him back.
Wolfwood wasn’t sure exactly when he realized it. Not consciously; maybe not at all. Maybe it was just a lingering feeling in the back of his mind, an annoying little nag that wouldn’t go away. Wolfwood paid it no mind during his travels. There was no label between them, just whispered voices in a dark hallway and the indirect kiss of a shared whiskey glass. There wasn’t anything beyond just Vash and Wolfwood. That was all he wanted, anyway.
And yet, Wolfwood’s chest still ached. It ached with guilt throughout their travels. It ached when he saw Livio again, ached as they fought. It ached as bullet ripped through flesh. And, by God, it ached when he saw Vash again. It ached when he fought by him and it ached as he realized that this, this wretched sentence, was his path. It ached as Wolfwood realized he was never destined to leave this place. That Vash was.
Despite the ache, he thought it was a rather robust ending. What a story, what a life he’d lived— he’d just gotten to hoping it’d last longer, but he supposed that’s what believing in life got him. Disappointment. It was alright, though. He was with Vash, and Vash was with him. That’s what they were, right? Vash and Wolfwood. That’s all he ever wanted.
Still, though, he’d watched Vash’s eyes during the fight. He’d seen the way the vibrant blue went cloudy when Wolfwood stumbled and his breath rattled like a broken voice box in his chest. He’d watched as Vash realized, with unwavering certainty, that Wolfwood’s sins had finally caught up with him.
They sat for one last drink. Wolfwood watched the cloudless sky, watched the airship floating by. A barrage of colors fluttered down in its wake, one final merciful sendoff from above. He could almost hear the children’s laughter like the damn ringing bells of Heaven calling him home.
True love is possible.
Only in the next world— for new people.
It is too late for us.
Vash realized only moments too late that he believed.