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It's long past midnight when Wolfwood wakes from his impromptu bar-to-cheek slumber, blinking the sleep from his eyes and rolling what stiffness he can out of his neck. Cornflower blue moonlight brushes over the room from the window slats, the dingy overheads having been mercifully shut off at some point between when he conked out and now. The old lady must have turned in for the night, leaving the lot of them to sleep off their booze down here on the first floor.
About to resign himself to another night of fitful floor sleeping, he notices a sheet of paper, wet with fading condensation, peeking out from the corner of his glass. Handwritten (in frankly impressive calligraphy), it says, "If you wake before dawn, you and your friend are welcome to the first room on the right upstairs. Sleep well." Huh. Sweet of her to not wake them, he guesses — though the crick in his neck would say otherwise.
Standing quicker than he ought to, he ambles over to Vash's sleeping form at the table, alcohol still weighing heavy and leaden in his veins. He's learned the hard way how it goes if he rouses Vash too suddenly (occuptional hazard from many unkind wakings in his life, even for a yellow-bellied baby like Vash), so he opts instead for the gentler approach this time. With a wide splay of his fingers, he rests his hand onto Vash's shoulder, firm but easy, like he's patting the flank of a nervous toma. The gesture lifts him up from whatever dreamland he's sunken down into, stirring, half-blonde half-black eyelashes dragging themselves reluctantly upward. Seaglass-blue eyes meet Wolfwood's before any other part of him moves, "Hm?"
Wolfwood's woken up plenty of people in his day — in the orphanage, he often had the thankless job of dragging the little ones up and at 'em for breakfast. Most times, you have to pry kids from their rest with a quickness: don't let 'em feel the siren song of 'five more minutes' lest they become a petulant dead weight in your arms. Others, though, seem to greet the world with an almost cherubic bliss, delighted to see the face of whoever woke them and greet the new day ahead. (Miss Melanie almost always woke those ones first, insisted it was because they made such good little helpers in the kitchen. It just pissed Wolfwood off that he got the hard job, no matter what she said.) Looking down at Vash now, though, the yielding slip of his smile and the crinkle of his mole into his eye, it's hard not to think of those soft little ones again and grimace.
With that, he lifts his hand, gives Vash's back a good thwack, and says, "Old lady said we could use one of the rooms. You can break your neck down here if you want, but I was thinkin' I'd shoot for a good night's sleep for once."
"Mmmnngh," Vash grumbles, rubbing the back of his head with his gloved hand, nevertheless rising to the occasion to follow Wolfwood up the rickety stairs. He'd wondered if Vash might try to rope his new buddies up with them, make a slumber party of it, but seems like he's either feeling selfish today, or just too sleep-addled to think of it.
Thank Heavens for that, because when they enter the room, it being big enough for two is already a stretch. The two of them have long since passed beyond the anxiety of sharing a room in the interest of double-penny-pinching, but usually they've got a bigger mattress to work with than this. It's larger than a twin, he thinks, but certainly not by much. Could maybe fit two average-sized adults decently, but neither of them are exactly what one would call average-sized.
They're almost to the end of the road now, he reminds himself. It's been a long journey, and Wolfwood keeps thinking they're closer to Knives than they are, thinking "this is it" only to end up on the road together another few weeks or more. This time, though, there's no doubt in his mind. There's a finality in the air; the calm before the storm while clouds twist at the horizon. Despite his supposed profession, he's not really the faithful kind, not anymore, but sometimes life's pacing does seem to have a thread of narrative design woven through it, and he supposes he'll take what he can get.
With where he's leading Vash, he figures he should let him take the bed; save up that energy for whatever bullshit's on the other side. Floor-sleeping up here, with a locked door at his back, still beats downstairs, at least.
Vash, for his part, has already lowered himself onto the ledge of the mattress, kicking off his absurdly thick layers one-by-one. He starts with his gloves, then his boots, unfastening each of the straps with a measured, steady speed, freeing his long, lean limbs from their leathery confines, before tossing the boots unceremoniously to the side, just outside of foot traffic. Next, he undoes each of the clasps of his coat, sliding it down, down off his newly-bared shoulders, tensing his arm muscles and angling his head sharply to the side with a hiss, the rope of his neck pulled taut with the motion.
Wolfwood only realizes he's been staring when Vash, mid-stretch, peeks one eye at him, asks, "Somethin' up?"
Like a cat that's been caught tripping mid-hunt, saving its dignity with urgent grooming, Wolfwood busies himself with a quickness, shucking his own jacket to toss over the chairback by the window. "Nothin', ya just seem stiff. Did ya pull anything?"
"Nah, just slept stupid," he answers, pressing one hand to the side of his neck and doing fruitless arm-circles with the other.
"Need a rub?" Wolfwood asks despite himself, kicking his shoes into the same pile as Vash's.
"Huh?" Vash blinks. "Since when are you a masseuse?"
"Since never," he answers. "But it's not exactly a hard science." No use pushing it, just felt like the polite thing to offer — he'd certainly appreciate it himself, the state his neck is in. And if it soothes his guilty conscience just a smidge, that's not hurting anyone.
"I guess…" he trails, doubt and suspicion evident. Well now he's just pissing him off.
"You questionin' my credentials?" he asks with a puff of his chest.
"Huh? No, what? Just didn't peg you the type—"
"Alright, Spikey, lose the shirt," he insists, unnecessarily competitive now that his honor's been threatened. At the back of his mind, a memory scratches: him and Livio battling to help Miss Melanie when she had a foot cramp, needing her nicest and most helpful little one to help her out. But he can't think about that right now, for reasons straddling both 'too sad,' and 'too wire-crossing,' that he'd rather not mentally get into right now. "Massage parlor's open."
It takes some bickering and squabbling but ultimately, Wolfwood wins out, and Vash is sat bare-backed facing away from him, his weird alien tank-top discarded, while Wolfwood has his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, ready for business.
"So where's the problem at?" he asks, cracking his knuckles.
"Why are you talking about it like you're repairing a bike?"
"And why are you stalling?"
"I am not— ough," Vash starts protesting, before being cut off abruptly by Wolfwood's hands squeezing at his trapezius.
"There good?" he asks, pulling at Vash's skin, admittedly, not unlike curling his grip on the handlebars of his bike. Vash doesn't need to know that, though.
"Little, mn, to the left, if you can." Wolfwood follows the direction, and gets rewarded with a soft, "Mn, yeah, yeah, there."
He's tense, obviously, but not quite as bad as he'd expected. The scars make it a little hard to get a grip in some parts, and he has to be mindful avoid the hunks of steel protruding from his flash here and there, but there's a give to his muscles that makes it easy to follow the pain points, urging affirmative sounds from Vash's lips.
Which. Might be more of a problem than Wolfwood had anticipated it being.
He's not an idiot — anyone with eyes and a pulse could tell you the sexual tension between the two of them is thicker than honey on a cold morning. They don't touch much, but when they do, it's electric and lingering, and he can tell it's not just his breath that catches on it, sees the way Vash looks at him before he realizes he's been caught staring. There's been more than a handful of times he's considered biting the bullet and making a move, finally temper the heat that feels like it's surrounding them at all hours. But, also, being that he's not an idiot, he has solidly elected to not act on it thus far. There's more than enough problems weighing on them without adding dick-touching to the mix, thanks.
Vash sure as hell isn't helping matters right now though, head thrown back, moaning like the star of a peep-show. The moonlight from the window lights his silhouette indecently, making him glow soft and cool under Wolfwood's calloused fingers. For the sake of his own sanity, he tries to focus his ministrations on the scarred parts of Vash's skin, dragging rough under his thumbs, hoping they'll have less sensation and so make his customer just a tad less vocal. Unfortunately, it just serves to desentitize him and then catch him by surprise when Wolfwood's thumb slides onto more sensitive skin, pulling out sharp gasps in place of groans. Lord have mercy on his sinning soul this eve.
"Quite the pipes on ya," he teases rather transparently, knowing when it's better poke at your opponent directly than to bluff through a losing hand. Still, he certainly doesn't loosen his grip on Vash's shoulders. He's a professional, after all.
"Sh— shut it, mgh," Vash breathes, shoulderblades pinching back to angle further into his grip. "Never been touched like this before… that's all," he manages to keep his voice clear, but hell if the phrasing isn't raunchy enough on its own.
Heat's already coiling tight and unwelcome in his core. Adjusting his seated position behind him, legs wide, Wolfwood says, "Did you have to say it like that?"
"Like what?" Vash asks, sounding like his eyes are rolling back into his skull, likely only half-listening.
"Like a blushing virgin I'm deflowering," he huffs. Then, because he hates himself, he asks, "You're not, are you?" Before Vash can answer proper, he gives an upward push on his neck, earning another sweet hum.
"Can't say I am," he answers, confidently but somehow too buttoned-up about it, putting on airs. Guess he's playing at cool and comfortable too. "That's different though, different parts." Leaning his head back, upside-down and peering upward, he makes eye contact with Wolfwood. "Been a long time, in any case."
Maybe it's the alcohol clinging to his bloodstream. Maybe it's the guilt eating away inside of him, demanding he give Vash at least one more good thing, even if it's got a knife's sharp edge to it. Mostly, though, it's just the fact that Vash maintains eye contact while he gives his shoulder one more solid squeeze, and his eyes go half-lidded with another god-damned gasp, and so Wolfwood breathes, low and raspy, "Yeah? Lookin' for a last hurrah?"
"That okay?" Vash asks, because he's an angel and devil all in one, and Wolfwood forgets all reason like he always seems to with this idiot.
By way of answering, he leans in close, lips pressed to Vash's ear, and instead of saying anything just bites on his lobe. That's when he learns that yeah, the sounds he makes this way aren't different after all.