Chapter Text
Liv,
I’ll be in December on 10/10. If you can spare the time for a meal, meet me at the steamer station. Don’t bother writing back, I don’t have an address. I’ll see you if I see you.
Love,
Vash
The letter arrives at Hopeland, addressed simply to Livio, Hopeland Orphanage, some iles outside December. It’s a miracle it made it here, but the postal system imported from Earth works miracles every day. Still, Livio thinks, he should talk to Melanie about getting a number for the house. And a name for their street.
The 6pm steamer from New Augusta is the only one scheduled to arrive in December on October 10th, and no follow-up letter from Vash announces a change in plans, so around 3pm Livio packs up some water and some cash, says goodbye to Miss Melanie, tells the kids to be good, and starts the trek to December.
A normal person wouldn’t dream of walking from Hopeland to December, but Livio likes it. It gives him time to think. A good three hours of silence, wasteland, and sky. It’s not too bad in the evening, either, now that Nomansland is entering its first autumn. ‘Autumn’ might be too generous a word for a 3.4 degree decline in average daily temperature, but it’s iles ahead of where the Earth federation’s terraforming project thought they’d be by now.
Livio arrives at the station as the sun begins to set, casting long shadows in the orange light at such an angle that even wearing his hat, he has to use his hand to shield his eyes to survey the crowd disembarking from the ship. Vash spots Livio before Livio spots him, giving a little shout and a wave from the gangplank. Coming off the sand steamer, he doesn’t look like the gunman of legend. He looks like a dark-haired, thirty-year-old man in Wranglers and a white button-down, carrying a big pack on his shoulder. Vash weaves his way through the crowd, picking up speed as he nears Livio, as if he suddenly can’t stand the wait.
“Livio!”
Vash reaches him with his arms spread wide and Livio quite literally sweeps him off his feet. Vash just laughs and lets it happen. Livio remembers the inhuman smell of him, though it’s been over a year. Underneath the gunpowder, sweat, and dust that clings to every soul on this planet is a weird green metallic smell, like coppery blood and grass clippings. It’s so strange seeing Vash again. It’s sticky, clogging. Like eating a whole mess of food and feeling it stuck in a wad halfway down your throat. It takes some chest thumping and patient breathing to get it down. His brother is gone. But Vash is here. That dam inside Livio that neatly stockpiles away his love and grief for his brother comes completely unstoppered, and that torrent of emotion funnels directly into Vash. With him here in the flesh, all that aimless love finds its direction.
Livio is shaking by the time he sets Vash down.
He won’t cry. He won’t.
He can hear the little servos whir in Vash’s mechanical arm when Vash pulls away to hold him at arm’s length.
“How are you?” Vash smiles. He looks tired.
“Things’re good,” Livio answers. And he’s surprised to find that it’s the truth. Things are not easy. Least of all seeing Vash again, bringing with him the impossible-to-address ghost that hangs between them. But having Vash back in his life feels right.
“Tell me all about it,” Vash beams.
“Food first,” Livio grumbles. “I’ve been walking for hours.”
“You walked here?” Vash falls into step beside him.
“We don’t got a car yet, and I hate taking the bike.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Vash says dryly. “Where’s dinner?”
“There’s a place on the east side that’s got the best steak ‘n’ potatoes I ever had.”
“Oh, take me there now,” Vash demands, fanning himself in a mock swoon like a girl being flirted with. “Do they have a bar?”
***
It’s almost dark when they get there. The place is busy, but not packed out. It’s a classic saloon-style joint – sticky laminated menus, smoke and steam filling up the rafters, the smells of cola, beef, and alcohol firmly settled into the wood grain.
Vash and Livio grab a little table near the back door.
“So where you been?” Livio asks.
“Oh, I’ve been all over.” A typical Vash non-answer. “Spent about six months in recovery, then mostly I’ve been checking in on the plants.”
“You, um,” Livio fidgets with his silverware. “You ever think about puttin’ down roots?”
“Oh, I think about it.” Vash says breezily, elbows on the table, chin on his palms. “There’s just too much work to do.”
“And you’re the only one who can do it.”
“Exactly,” Vash clicks his fingers. “Chronica just, umm, doesn’t really get how we do things here.”
“She’s a bit uptight?”
“You could say that.” Vash smiles.
Livio goes for it. “Well, when you need a break, you should stay with us. At Hopeland.”
Vash actually recoils. Despite the smile still plastered on his face, he looks stricken.
Livio rushes the words out before Vash can interrupt or decline. “I don’t mean permanent. You could just stay for a week, or a day. We would love to have you. The kids are gettin’ so big, and we just got a new baby, and terraforming worked really good here, with all December’s geoplants n’ stuff, so there’s grass out by–”
“How about that steak and potato dinner?” Vash interrupts cheerily, picking up a menu from the table and pretending to look interested.
Unbelievable.
Livio confiscates the menu from Vash’s hands.
“I’m serious. The kids ask about you sometimes. I tell ‘em you’re okay, cuz that’s what you’d say even if you weren’t. I figured probably you were stayin’ away on purpose. But we’ve rebuilt. We have a good life together. We’re family. We want you to be part of it.”
Vash’s face has been approaching something like dawning horror as Livio speaks.
“I can’t.” He pleads.
“Ever?” Livio demands.
Vash wrings his hands. “I don’t know!”
“Vash, look at me.” It’s like talking to one of the kids. “I want you to promise me you’ll come back. Someday. It doesn’t have to be soon. Everyone at Hopeland wants to see you again.”
Everyone. The living and the dead.
Vash presses his face into his folded hands. Thinking. Agonizing.
It’s a long minute before he says, “Okay” He swallows. “I promise.” He still won’t look at Livio.
“Do you mean it?” That’s probably a rude thing to say. But Livio needs to know it’s not a lie.
Vash takes a deep breath. “Yes.” He finally looks Livio in the eyes. “I’m done making promises I can’t keep.”
“Okay,” Livio says. “I’m gonna hold you to it. Y’know–”
“Anything I can get for you two?” A waitress interrupts, coming up behind Vash, poised with a notepad and pen at the ready.
Livio goes mute, staring past Vash in shock.
Vash turns around in his seat.
“Oh my god,” the words fall out of his mouth and plop onto the table.
Their waitress has blue hair.
