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“Ugh, I don't see anything out here,” Meryl complains for the third time in two hours, folding her hands over her eyes, then slumping in the early evening light.
Roberto just shakes his head and pulls out his flask, content to leave the three of them to figure out where to head. (Or rather, the two of them, because Meryl is the most competent driver, yes, but without her trusty satnav she's plain lost.)
If they're being extremely honest, it's up to Vash at this point. Wolfwood is no stranger to orienting himself if the need arises, but he hasn't been out free roaming the desert as long as Vash has. And with all the back and forth across dunes and then the winding canyon Vash led them into and back out again, he hates to admit, he probably can only vaguely point towards the direction they came from. The only redeeming quality of this unplanned trek have been the small moments of Vash just being so…Vash.
Tilting his head as he looks at the compass and baring his nape just so when he points out how to read it to Meryl.
His eyes closed, facing the sun serenely, when Roberto decided a break was in order to rest their legs.
The way his shoulders release just that last bit of tension when Wolfwood presses a water bottle into his hands, his expression is so unguarded and quietly brilliant that it almost knocks Wolfwood over, even with his excellent sunglasses.
It's been driving him insane.
“Yeah, I bet, we'll check back in once we get up that next dune crest – better view up there! I promise you Fool's Hill is right around here somewhere,” Vash says, full of optimism and gentleness as always. He's been bearing Meryl's mounting frustration, saintly, and Wolfwood is impressed. If he didn't know better, he'd read it as the patience of an older sibling, built and built over many years of exercise. Though, with Vash as old as he is, it's probably like that. Humanity’s big bro, ain't that nice of him.
Meryl lets out a sound that's half whine and half thoma screech, but she straightens up all the same. Roberto follows at a more sedate pace.
Up ahead, Vash is scaling up the steep dune in large steps like the dune is just a normal stair, and the way his long legs stretch and bend and his achilles tendons flex with each alternating step makes Wolfwood’s mouth go dry. There's a reason he's bringing up the rear – safety, yes, but also so he can stare uninterrupted. The conundrum that is Vash is so fleeting and yet so all consuming that he can't really point his eye elsewhere, not for long.
For all the grace Vash carries, he is also the clumsiest person Wolfwood knows, and the peak of the dune nearly topples him over with one awkward foot placement. He saves himself from falling onto Meryl, who jumps to the side just in case, by pinwheeling his arms in a way fit for a tightrope walker.
It's this that makes Wolfwood snap, finally. Not much, not very noticeably to the untrained eye, but his legs get wobbly enough for just long enough that he has to set down the Punisher, the weight thumping into the hot sand.
He reshoulders it right away with his other hand, under the guise of just needing to redistribute the weight.
“Weight of that thing getting to you, huh, Preacher? Scoliosis catching up to you?” At least Roberto seems to buy it.
Wolfwood scoffs. “Yeah yeah, laugh it up, old man, now make sure to get your drunk ass up there in one piece. Lord knows I ain't catchin’ you,” he gripes, and Roberto starts making his way up with another huff of barely suppressed laughter.
As long as someone's laughing at him, they probably haven't noticed the reason for his momentary weakness, Wolfwood prays, but as he trains his eyes back forward to where Vash is waiting in the sand, he knows he is being Seen in the most intimate way.
Backlight by orange light, Vash looks at him, piercing blue muted through amber lenses, there is no doubt that his own heartbeat betrays exactly what made Wolfwood falter. It makes him wanna turn around and bury himself right under his stupid ass cross, though at the same time being seen, being known like that when he constantly wears a mask of aloofness is one of The Feelings Wolfwood Has Experienced Of All Time, and he is addicted.
The thing with being made in God's very own image by horrifying means and being in close quarters with an angel, however, is that being known is a two way street.
He can tell that Vash's own heartbeat has picked up, can tell the way his pupils get ever so slightly wider even against the dying evening suns, can tell the giddy elation on Vash's face stems from the knowledge of having that kind of power over Wolfwood. That's equally as addicting.
They have a brief stare off, Wolfwood's sure smirk vs. the blush creeping up Vash's neck, until Vash pulls out his compass once more and turns away to the side.
“I knew it,” he cries out, gesturing large and exuberant (sure, what's one more Vashism to Wolfwood's poor heart) to the small pinprick of a lit settlement in the vicinity.
He shoots Wolfwood another Look as Meryl begins ranting full of relief and Roberto sighs but picks up the pace. It’s one that means he can probably prepare himself to be teased mercilessly later in their conveniently single bed room, but if Vash does it with all of his little manners that make up his grandiose self and letting Wolfwood stay around for the ride, it's oh so worth it.