Chapter Text
As of late, Gunsmoke remained the vast desert of a wasteland as it always had been. Amber-yellow sand and painfully blue sky for the 34,057 iles of the circumference of the dry planet. Vash watched the sandstone structures change shape and form as Wolfwood roared the motorcycle over the endless great dunes.
Noon sun beat down his neck, the heat to be dissipated throughout the rest of his body– only 3.2 hours had passed since they left the itty-bitty plantless town of Fuckass Nowhere towards the slightly bigger, still plantless town of Fuckass Somewhere-else. Fuckass Nowhere barely had a hotel, if you could call it that, with mold in the drains, bedsprings as sharp as daggers, and door hinges that could be heard from Augusta when opened. It ranked to high heaven with People Fluids and mothballs and thank god Wolfwood only reserved the rooms for 1 night.
They had shared a bottle of Worm Wine which, quoted from Wolfwood, was “disgustingly sweet”, but the bottle was empty at the end of the night. Wolfwood had triumphantly beaten him 3-2 in Hearts, which had been the third night in a row he had won the nightly card games. Vash called him a cheater and was hit with some hoity-toity fake Bible verse, which then dissolved into a very odd hair-pulling competition which, when Vash remembered in hindsight, was totally silly.
They were sleep-deprived and in a junk of a hotel, but at least they had separate rooms. After his crushing defeat and Wolfwood had retreated to his room, Vash had dragged his flesh suit to the bathroom and started his night routine. With a little water from his flask, he used the washcloth to wipe himself down, over his face, in his ears, the crooks of his skin, down the massive scar that spanned from the V of his sternum to the top of his pubic symphysis. When satisfied, he took the old squeeze-bottle of oil and applied it over the metal dotting his body as a preventative measure against (one of) his mortal enem(ies): rust. He brushed his teeth afterwards. The Vash in the tiny smokestained mirror had bubbles foaming all down his chin.
From there, his night routine shifted. One by one, Vash checked over his terminals, looking for error messages, missed colons, faulty hardware, regular levels. His system was operating normally, flowing correctly, no tangles or kinks. He closed any windows he could as he settled into the Very uncomfortable bed, booted up Nightwatch.exe to keep a portion of his brain alert if by chance something were to happen, and navigated to System Settings >> Power >> Sleep.
Nightwatch.exe kept prodding him, letting him know that the bedsprings were, in fact, sharp and an owl’s nest was right outside his window and the temperature had plummeted to 61 F°, which automatically kickstarted the rickety space heater beside his pancreas that had Vash tasting burning dust the entire night.
The morning was no better. Neither of them slept well, with Wolfwood looking like he took the brunt of it. When Vash went to check in on him, he was pretty horrified with how badly the room smelled like ammonia. Wolfwood smelled like ammonia too. His breath was worse, if that was even possible.
“You smell exactly like worm guts,” Vash told him. “You can shower first in the next town, I promise.”
Wolfwood smacked him hard upside the head which rattled his brain. “Never having that shit wine again.” However, the cigarettes he was chainsmoking as he packed their things into Angelina’s sidebags kinda helped. They pulled off at 9:32 and it was now 12:43.
With the wind whipping against them, all smell was gone, save for the fine sand kicked up by the bike as they drove on down a particularly large dune. Vash sighed, resting his head on his knees. The sidecar was not meant for limbs as long as his and he tried to shrink himself down but it still wasn’t enough.
First the Uncomfortable bed and now the Uncomfortable sidecar. At times like these Vash was a little glad he never got regular joint pain.
Folded against the rattling sidecar attached to Angelina, he continued to watch the environment beside him, now at a 90 degree angle.
“Wanna break, Spikey?” Wolfwood asked over the sputtering engine. “I’m hungry as all Hell.”
“Sure,” Vash replied too quietly, but Wolfwood already angled the bike towards a shallow ravine with shade about 354 yarz away and rapidly approaching, estimated ETA 13:17 minutes. Stretching his legs was certainly first on his list of Things To Do once back on the ground, and getting a little snack didn’t sound too bad, either.
He flipped through his mental note of their food supplies. 1 bag of instant coffee, 2 pieces of dried tomas jerky, one smoked and peppered and one BBQ-roasted, 1 can of unopened biscuits they were saving for when they got a can of gravy, 3.5 pieces of cornbread, 1 can of red pinto beans… they had eaten the last of the rhubarb pie Vash received as a gift last night for covering a shift as a dishwasher, and he sighed again because he wanted more of it.
Stretching out would be good enough. They didn’t get a map because of how tired they were coming into the town of Fuckass Nowhere, and were all too ready to get the hell out. Wolfwood had just continued in the vague direction (about 17.2 degrees off) from whence they came and left it at that.
Sun burned hot. Hot hot! Vash hid his neck in the collar of his jacket and slunk further into the sidecar, his hair and sunglasses the only thing visible. The sun was good, great even, but Vash’s coolant was being used up a little too quickly to be sustainable before he could get a refill. He watched the ground beneath them swish by and it was a little hypnotic.
That is, until the shadows shifted just enough for him to spot the exactly-sand-colored rock exactly 5 yarz away from Angelina’s front tire.
“GAH–” Vash yelled, jabbed his finger, to no avail because Wolfwood didn’t see it in time and hit the giant rock smack-dab in the center at 75 iles an hour.
Angelina went airborne for a sweet and loving 2.14 seconds. Both of them screamed.
The bike crashed back against the hard sandstone and the wheels escaped Wolfwood’s control and careened harshly to the left, swinging the sidecar in a 180-degree arc and trebuchet-launching Vash straight into the ground as the sidecar slammed down directly on top of him.
His vision bluescreened as the rim of the seat of the sidecar shattered Ribs 3, 5, and 8 and all the hardware beneath them, snapping his scapula clean in half, tearing out the wires through his infraspinatus, Teres minor and major and they sparked, sending electric ripples across the remaining flesh of his arm. The gate over his heart caved in and drove into the skin. Two bolts holding his prosthetic came loose. His engine rattled and steam escaped his gritted teeth as he ripped himself free from the sidecar’s hold, the sandstone sawing through his flesh and jacket as he finally rolled to a stop, and heard the upturned motorcycle screech to a halt some 11 yarz away from him.
[01101111 01110111 01101001 01100101 owie owie owieee]
EMERGENCY REBOOT… 0%
EMERGENCY REBOOT… 38%
EMERGENCY REBOOT… 89%
He blinked back into staring at the overhead suns and coughed out a throatful of internal fluids. Thousands of error messages careened into his optic nerve, alarm bells and sirens blaring warnings of disconnected parts, crushed metal, loss of nerve feelings, and pain pain pain pain all the pain ever now throbbing from his thorax. All systems were open and running at a minimum 10 gbps, shoveling lines and lines of information through his cerebral cortex faster than he could register Wolfwood’s distant words.
Wolfwood was calling for him. Wolfwood 138 bpm 128/87 mmHg 99.1 F° (3.7, -4.9, -19 ascending) he’s limping Wolfwood. Vash shakily sat up, clawing at the [SiO2] [Al2Si2O5(OH4)] [CaCO3] beneath him, organs dislodged out-of-place settling with the force of gravity and he fought the urge to vomit. His vision failed to auto-focus on the man approaching him slowly. He was badly limping. He left a trail of highly oxygenated blood.
“%#5*(#+{\\<2!” Vash called, haywire, frazzled, senses mixing and settling – sand: SiO2 KAlSi3O8 NaAlSi3O8 CaAl2Si2O8 13,063 individual grains under Left Hand–
“Vash!” Wolfwood’s blood pressure was rapidly rising. “Vash, oh Jesus.” He had a nasty sandburn on his right leg, from his Peroneus longus to the center of his Rectus femoris, his slacks having done nothing to lessen the blow. Bits of rock and blood dripped out behind him.
“:::::40.” Vash tasted motor oil and blood which is a horrible terrible combination. His bones felt like rubber which meant they wouldn’t conduct against his electric insides but bones aren’t supposed to be floppy. As he held himself up, his arms trembled. “#*57<+*4-&& fine, Wolfwood.”
He was still sparking inside, he could hear the kkshht ksschhhtt as his wires tried to find their way back together. Muscle strained against sharp metal. His good arm still had a little fine control so he took his glasses off, realizing the lenses had broken, realizing shards were lodged firmly into his cheek.
“Hey, Spikey,” Wolfwood said, now 0.2 yarz in front of him. “Oh, man, shit. I saw the car go down on top’a ya, Holy Jesus– agh, yer face–”
“Hah. [153 bpm] fine,” Vash said without moving his lips. “[]’[] [][][][], [][][][][][][][].”
“Oh, shit. Shit.” Wolfwood was frantically saying, pitched up high, “Shit. Your pupils– I– okay, shade, let’s get you to shade, oh, shit–”
“It’s okay, gimme a second.” Vash wheezed out and swallowed [blood] [plasma] [oil] [interstitial fluid].
“Don’t– don’t move your head,” Wolfwood loudly snapped, ringing in Vash’s overloaded ears. His vision focused for just enough time to see the [Worry] and [Fear] etched into the lines of his face. “I got you.”
“Why [Fear]?” Wolfwood’s outline was covered with a sudden unskippable Reboot for the reconnection of his Legs. 0%, 43%, 68%.
Wolfwood barely touched his [T4 T5] to pull him up and all of that dispersed pressure had pinpointed in the facet joints which finally gave in, Rib 4 breaking right off of both the Transverse process and Superior demifacet as white dots exploded like fireworks around them. Wolfwood must’ve heard and felt the pop, because he withdrew back as fast as Vash yelled out “aaAUUGH!” and went limp, caught and pulled into the crook of Wolfwood’s neck.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry–” he gasped, hot [like sun] on Vash’s cheek. “Fuck, okay, here, move up a lil’.”
“Can’t,” he rasped. The white dots were gone.
“Can’t?!”
72%, 75%.
“Ribs hurt. Legs hurt.”
A spike of washed-out red from Wolfwood 171 bpm. “Can–” he started, spit lodged in his throat, Vash could hear it, “can ya feel yer legs?!”
“In a sec’.” Error message from his prosthetic and he closed the window. 5:17 minutes until Leg Reconnection. Wolfwood 173 bpm [sun] [cigarettes] [sweat] [hand over C6 C7 T1] activated involuntary Endorphin release and Vash took a shuddering breath. 86%, 90%.
“In a sec’?! I– okay, shit– whatever, I gotta get you outta the sun, God, you’re burning alive,” Wolfwood muttered, metallically humming ultraviolet purple. “Can I– I gotta carry you.”
“Hurts.” Vash whispered. 94%, 98%. 98%. 98%. Body already shutting down, down, down, endorphin levels 16.4% above average. “#[]<%1*&.”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” his words so husky so comforting. He held Vash’s neck as he scooped him up under his butt like he weighed less than a bag of rice which, compared to the Punisher, he might as well have been, careful to avoid touching his back even though all the pain was in his ribs. Oh Wolfwood, kind caring Wolfwood. Vash let himself be limply carried the 40 yarz to the shaded ravine, and during that entire time, his Leg Reboot was stuck on 98%.
Wolfwood set him down so gently Vash hadn’t realized he was already on the ground until the window closed by itself at 100%. Both his legs reconnected to his brain on maximum sensitivity and with a scream, Vash came to know that his right knee was, in fact, extremely hyperextended.
“Spikey!” Wolfwood 165 bpm called from (4.21 decreasing, -14.60 increasing, 2.05), dragging his right leg behind him but was soon there, hovering over him. “What? What now?”
“Leg leg leg leg,” Vash cried out, clutching his right thigh. “Owwwieeeeee!”
“Figured so,” he said, dropping beside him. “Got the bandages from Angelina.” A hand on his shoulder. “Hold still, I’ll set it.”
Oh Wolfwood, sweet kind caring benevolent Wolfwood. If Vash didn’t have tears in his eyes from every single pain receptor sending signals to his thalamus every nanosecond he might’ve told Wolfwood that it was okay and the machinery would fix itself here soon and he just had to grit his teeth to wait it out but there were so many vital parts of his system not working because of how the sidecar landed on his left side of all damn sides, that even he didn’t know the extent of the damage, he couldn’t read all the error windows because of how many there were.
“It’s insane that you ain’t paralyzed.” Wolfwood commented, his mind hidden behind clouds of stress-induced haze, fixing bandages tight around the joint. “Really, you sure you’re okay–?”
“Not paralyzed,” Vash echoed, sparking sparking sparking finally getting his vision to calibrate correctly. Blue sky, brown ridge, the mussy top of Wolfwood’s hair.
Suddenly Wolfwood paused without warning, looking directly in Vash’s eyes. They both froze. Wolfwood resumed wrapping the bandage. “Your eyes look a’ight now. I swear that left one was blown out.”
“Ah. Ha ha.” Vash said, heart rate jumping even higher, thanking the heavens for getting the calibration done in the nick of time. “Nope. Totally fine. Maybe just a trick of the shadows, ha ha.” Kksshht went the uncapped wires behind his broken ribs.
“Heh,” Wolfwood bared a snaggletooth at him, yet the light hadn’t come back to his cloudy eyes. “You sound better, at least. You were makin’ all those terrible noises earlier I thought you had landed on your throat.”
“Ha,” Vash said. FUCK. ErrorErrorErrorError. Something ka-chinked in his chest and he coughed to cover the noise. The gears under his heart were straining, his coolant levels decreasing rapidly! All he could taste was exhaust and a billion and two lies he was running diagnostics on to check their potential validity just in case Wolfwood asked about anything further. Anything else regarding internal mechanisms. Thank god he himself healed freakishly fast; his frame of reference for how beat up the [Human] body could take was already skewed.
Wolfwood stood up shaky, his sandburn already beginning to close up yet it still leaked into his shoe. “You good for now?” He asked, hands on his hips.
“[Y]” Vash selected.
“I’m gonna get Angelina,” he said. “ Bring ‘er into the shade so she doesn’t fry up. Sit tight, cool off; I’m still fuckin’ hungry.”
Vash wanted a donut so badly. O sugar C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ + G3P → C₃H₄O₃ → acetyl-CoA → 3 NADH 1 FADH2 - 4e- → 30 ATP his system craved ATP snarling at his empty stomach oh right they didn’t have breakfast this morning the town was too small… he was so hungry. Wolfwood 123 bpm (4.68 increasing, -60.44 decreasing, 3.40) can we open those biscuits ppplleaasseee.
Angelina’s motor revved and revved and spluttered off. He heard Wolfwood blast out a long-winded string of rainbow-colored profanities. Damn, Vash thought, the bike’s down =u=3:::..#^*@&{{}}”>,???!!!7&
[System Restarting…] [WAIT NOT NOW COMMAND:CLOSE WINDOW]
[Restart Failed.] [CLOSE WINDOW]
[WARNING: System Overheating.] [WHAT THE SHIT]
Internal Body Temperature: 138.9 F° [INCREASE:CAPILLARY SIZE REBOOT: RADIATOR]
Unable to find connection to: Radiator. [WHAT THE HELL]
Steam was wafting out of his nose, mouth, and ears in long, thick streams and he had to spit out the majority of it before Wolfwood returned. The capillaries along his ears, hands, armpits, and inguinial folds swelled to the surface, helping cool his bubbling blood as he lay spread eagle against the shaded sand, feeling like a deflating balloon.
So, something was fucked with his radiator too. Not good. Not good at all. He needed propylene glycol above everything or he’d overheat and melt. He needed gasoline and witherite, it was easy to make it himself, and he promised himself he’d never touch Angelina for parts but… Blearily, Vash opened his eyes. He needed her antifreeze. Maybe a mouthful wouldn’t hurt…
Wolfwood (3.20 decreasing, -25.87 increasing, 1.41) appeared over the dune, unsteadily driving the unmoving bike with one hand with the Punisher hanging off the other, limping. Jeez, Vash thought. That’s 961 lbs he’s lugging right now, and he’s injured. He tried to rise to his feet but his knee was so shaky–
“Siddown, Spikey!” Wolfwood bellowed. Vash sat.
Once in the shade, he tossed the Punisher to the side which landed with a great cloud of sand, the low boom of the 220 lb weapon echoing off the short ravine walls. With some difficulty, he shuffled Angelina’s totally-busted kickstand out to hold the 545 lb bike upright. Then, like he was made of lead, Wolfwood collapsed his 196 lb body next to Vash with a wince and a groan.
He was wheezing, Wolfwood 99.7 F° 185 bpm covered in a sheen of sweat, showing through his white collared shirt, hair sticking to his neck and forehead. “God,” he exhaled, and fumbled inside his coat pocket. “Fuck.”
Gunsmoke once again, settled into silence, and Vash hoped no one could hear the clickclickwhirrrrr of his radiator trying and failing to get to start. Unfortunately, Wolfwood was right, and there was no way he could’ve stood up in this state. This wasn’t something he could just walk off, like usual. Even the best restorative code was useless in the face of a hardware issue, and damn if this was the biggest crash Vash had found himself in.
Shit. Well, about 80% of motorcycle accidents result in injury or death, compared to the 25% in cars or trucks. It was bound to happen at some point.
At least Wolfwood was okay. Or, becoming okay, as the sandburn along his leg started to waft up the lightest curl of healing steam. Vash was fine with personally adding to that statistic. Technically, they beat the odds!
Luckily, in this heartbeat of dichotomous stillness, Vash’s automatic sensory input had worn off and he was no longer tallying exactly how many molecules of oxygen he was breathing in. The pain still throbbed through his tendons but the world started to look a little more normal.
“Hope our food’s still intact,” Vash muttered, poking at the sand.
“Food!” Wolfwood sprang to his feet at that, his excitement glowing pink, his earlier exhaustion and sandburn forgotten. “If it ain’t, I’m taking you down with me, Spikey.”
“What do I have to do with this?!” Vash lamented, but felt the exact same way.
Wolfwood slowly unzipped Angelina’s sidebag. Tension was high. The ravine held its breath.
He turned back to Vash, his face completely blank. Vash’s heart sunk to his stomach.
But then he held up the completely intact tin of biscuits and broke into his toothy grin and they both cheered.
“It’s all fine enough,” Wolfwood said, digging out the stove (which was slightly bent) and the cooking pan (which now turned up concave), “Nothing’s exploded, not even the propane.”
“I think that’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
“Cheers to that.” He tossed Vash’s canteen of water his way.
H2O. One of the best chemical evolutions, in Vash’s humble opinion, as he guzzled the flask down, hissing off of hot metal, dousing his wilted cells. He broke off with an exaggerated aaahh as Wolfwood returned to his side, carrying the biscuits, the can of beans, and the tomas jerky along with all the hardware needed for the stove.
He screwed the propane tank to the stove and clickclickclicked on the burner. He then popped open the biscuit tin and set out all of the biscuits onto the barely-warmed pan. He glanced over at Vash, who glanced back, calculating the angle between his eyebrows to be 165 degrees.
“Uh,” Vash said, feeling blood through his enlarged capillaries pump faster.
“You know you’ve still got glass in yer cheek,” Wolfwood said, both a question and a statement.
“No?” Vash replied to the question, focusing back in on the [Yellow Ochre] in the very corner of his vision that he had completely forgotten about.
“Ya do.” It was supposed to be a statement. He suddenly reached out at him. “C’mere.”
Naturally Vash withdrew, but he was obstructed by several 502’s to move anywhere further back than a couple inches. “I can get it.”
“C’mere.” Wolfwood repeated, already holding an unwrapped gauze pad from? Somewhere? It appeared like magic in his hands. “Hold still.”
His hand, Wolfwood’s hand cupped his cheek and he was burning burning hot. Wolfwood 132 bpm carefully extracted all the glass with his fingers ever so carefully and pressed the gauze pad on the open wound[s]. “There,” he hummed [88 Hz], searching behind him for medical tape, still holding his face. “Surprised you didn’t notice.”
“I forgot.” Vash very lamely said.
Wolfwood chuckled [C₁₀H₁₄N₂ sweet familiarity]. “Adrenaline’s funny like that.”
Vash was buzzing. Mouth dry, brain wired, heart thrumming, endorphin levels breaking the scale. He was the alternator for a truck battery. He prayed that Wolfwood didn’t feel the static lacing under his fingertips as he gently tenderly delicately pressed the medical tape over his nose, over the gauze, to his ear. His eyelashes were long and dark and had a thin layer of dust over them, sticking together at the start of his barely-there crow’s feet.
2 miracles happened: 1) Wolfwood seemed like he didn’t notice and 2) Vash was able to stay still and not vibrate out of his skin like a revved V12 during the entire time Wolfwood’s hand was caressing his cheek. When he was done, he simply released Vash’s face like he thought nothing of it and lit another cigarette, and turned back to the stove. He flipped the now-golden brown biscuits over with just his hand, all six of them, three each.
“How’re you doing?” Vash asked, forcing his jaw to unlock and break the one-sided silence.
“How’re you doing?” Wolfwood parroted back at him. “I ain’t the one who got suplexed by a motorcycle sidecar. You sure yer fine enough to be sitting?”
“Fine, totally fine X-tra Fine.” He said, speaking more on the endorphin gate that had opened without his consent and not the shooting pain between his ribs. He hoped Wolfwood couldn’t hear the machine creak within him at this distance. They were practically touching shoulders.
“Right, uh-huh.” Dripping with incredulity and malice. Eek. The billion and two lies Vash had been processing were all coming up with less than 30% validity so there had to be some truth to his next statement.
How much did he want to divulge? How much could he safely tell him? Even Wolfwood with [The Liquid] in the ampoules in his coat pocket, being sandwiched between the ground and half a thousand pounds of metal at 75 iles an hour was truly enough to kill someone instantly. If it wasn’t for the literal metal plates, wires, and bolts holding him together, there could’ve been two halves of Vash for Wolfwood to piece back together and he shivered at the picture.
“My ribs are broken.” Vash blurted.
Wolfwood sighed with enough exasperation to single-handedly power a Plant. “Jesus, Spikey, no fuckin’ shit. So, the answer is no you ain’t ‘totally fine X-tra Fine’ at all.”
“Aha ha.”
“Don’t aha ha me, dickwad,” Wolfwood growled, grabbing a fist of Vash’s jacket and capital S Shoving him back onto the sand. “Lay down, stay down, and stop moving.” He burned a deep purple of conflicting, heavy emotions.
Vash tried a soft smile. “It’s okay, Wolfwood. I’ll heal up in no time.”
He tched, gnashing the filter of his cigarette with his molars.
“You know what’ll help me heal faster?”
“Biscuits’re almost done.”
His smile turned to a wide grin.
Only a few seconds later, Wolfwood halved the perfectly-tanned biscuit, steam curling out like the smoke from the cherry of his cigarette, and handed a half to Vash plain. He wasted no time tossing it back, hhaf–haff–ing as it scorched his tongue but it started to disintegrate as soon as it passed his larynx, each atom of the half-biscuit broken down to its constituent nutrients and distributed to the 32,620,887,348,129 cells inside his body with 99.95% efficiency. Ahhhhhhh glucose carbohydrates sodium chloride. Already, he felt eons better.
Wolfwood then tore the BBQ-smoked tomas jerky apart and pressed the biscuit around the meat like the World’s Shittiest Sandwich. He gnawed on that as he wrestled to split the the smoked-pepper jerky to give to Vash alongside the other half of his biscuit, who copied him and made the World’s Shittiest Hotdog. The remaining four biscuits balanced on Wolfwood’s knee as he stabbed open the can of beans with his pocketknife and poured the entire contents into the pan. It spat back, bubbling Bean Juice onto his undershirt and he swore down at the pan to the Ninth Circle. Vash giggled, a piston near his spine hiccupping.
“Shaddup,” Wolfwood snarled, with no real malice behind it.
“It’s okay, you can hardly see it.” He teased. “Against the rest of the brown.”
“I should’a left you out in the sun.”
“But ‘cha didn’t!” Vash sang.
His fingertips dented into the aluminum can. “So Lord help me I don’t toss you back out there. Leave ya to the tomases.”
“I think they’d be more interested in your flavorful undershirt than dusty ol’ me.”
Vash prepared for his ears to be blown off by profanities he’d never even heard of, or his good leg to get walloped so hard he’d have to Reboot the ankle, but neither blows came. To his further surprise, Wolfwood simply relented. He set the can down to break open another biscuit. “All they’d taste is sand and smokes,” is all he said, and handed Vash the half.
Calm Wolfwood was totally unsettling, especially as Vash was intentionally trying to push his buttons to ease up the Situation they were both in. He was so used to their hourly banter that Wolfwood’s aversion made him wonder if he hit his head when the motorcycle tipped over. From a 31 degree angle, he watched him sop up the warmed beans with the biscuit.
Maybe the situation was harsher on Wolfwood than he initially chalked it up to be. Vash also decided to drop it. “Can I have some beans?”
“Sure. Give.”
The biscuit was returned to him piled high with pinto beans. Vash quickly learned that trying to eat while laying down required a skill he surprisingly did not own. It didn’t stop him in the slightest; his terminals were begging for the lysine and phytochemicals.
“It ain’t going anywhere, Spikey.”
“Yeah it is. Into my stomach.”
That elicited a tiny half-grin from him. “Don’t look at me if you start choking.”
Vash glared at him. “Like you’d do anything in the first place. It’ll take more than that to kill me!”
Something unknowable flashed across Wolfwood’s face for less than a millisecond.
“... Too soon?”
“Jesus, stop talkin’ with yer mouth open, that’s disgusting.”
Wolfwood tore into his third biscuit. Vash watched him rip it in two, slather one side with the beans, and throw the whole thing back. Now who would be the one to choke?
He let his gaze wander back up into the infinite of the azure sky. “Thanks.”
“Took ya long enough.” Without missing a beat. Vash smiled fondly.
“I mean it.”
“Mm.”
“You’re really too kind to me.”
“A’ight, what do you want?” He asked, fake irritation falling short. “Water? Your bedroll? Don’t say a donut.”
“You know me too well,” Vash chuckled. “But I’m good. Just wanted to tell you.”
Wolfwood 99 bpm raised an eyebrow at him. “... Nothing else?”
Vash nearly sat up in indignation. “Whaddya mean nothing else? I can’t thank a friend genuinely for for carrying me to the shade bandaging up my knee picking glass outta my face and literally hand-feeding me? I haven’t done anything in the last four hours and six minutes! I feel like I should get you a “Best House-Husband” apron or something.”
Wolfwood 103 bpm suddenly loomed like a harbinger of Death over him, the can of remaining Bean Juice threatening to be poured right onto Vash’s face.
“Ack!” Vash threw his hands up to block the trajectory. “I’m kidding! Kidding! No apron for you!!”
He sat back down and Vash relaxed. “That crash was… somethin’ else.” He simply stated, as if he started out wanting to push the topic, and then withdrew at the last second.
“But you’re doing all the work.” Vash insisted, like that changed anything. “I feel bad.”
“Feeling bad is the last thing you should be feeling,” Wolfwood replied, and then tsked like he didn’t expect to say that. “It’s fine.”
“Can I at least wash the pan?”
A sigh. “You really don’t give up easily, huh?”
“Neither do you. Please, Wolfwood?”
“Never seen ya begging to do dishes, this is a first for me.”
Vash stuck his tongue out at him.
“I’ve also never denied anyone offering to do them. This is also a first for me.” Wolfwood dug out the cleaning rag from the sidebag and started wiping down the sides of the pan.
“I only broke a few ribs! It’s not even that bad!” A big fat lie.
“We are not doing this right now, Spikey.” Words suddenly spiked crimson. Vash bit the inside of his cheek. Seemed like Wolfwood was much more on-edge than he let out, only made worse by the 92°F heat seeping under their skins.
“You don’t need to be worrying about me this hard. Really,” he said, in an attempt to diffuse and stress his point. “It’s kinda freaky.”
“I thought you were a dead man.”
He did Not diffuse anything. Wolfwood seethed red with complicated swirls of blue.
“And look now, I’m not,” he tried, adding as genuine of a smile as he could. “It’s okay now, Wolfwood–”
He slammed the pan down, a deafening bang like a gunshot blasting through the ravine.
“Okay? It’s just okay now?! Who was it who lost control of the fucking bike?!”
The sparrows resting inside the pockets of the cave walls all took off at once. Their fading chirps left both of them in utter silence. Even the wind dared not blow.
Wolfwood shook his head sharply made a noise of angered disappointment, directed at who, Vash did not know. He swallowed his words, and let the silence speak for itself. There was no need to press further. He made his point. Wolfwood made his.
But Vash was not about to leave this conversation as it was.
So he poked him with his foot. “Feeling bad is the last thing you should be feeling.”
Wolfwood stood straight up, the ash on his coat falling off. “Gonna work on her.”
He already had his back to him, rummaging in the sidebag for his toolkit before any other word could get out.
Without another town for at least 175 miles, a demolished Angelina, a broken Vash, and only enough food for another day, maybe Vash was underplaying their situation a little too much. But he really hated feeling useless like this, leaving Wolfwood to do, well, everything, and it seemed like he had been doing everything for his entire life. Traveling together brought his new reliance on each other, which was still new and uncomfortable, but if you got Vash drunk enough, he might admit that he wanted to be the one doing everything for Wolfwood, instead of vice versa. Sure, call him selfish for that desire.
He peeked out from under an eyelid to look at the motorcycle. Poor Angelina. Her sleek black fuel tank was now totally crushed in and a rear fender gone. Crumpled like an empty box of cigarettes. For some reason, he felt truly sad, and stared back up at the sky. Despite living for however long on this planet, he and gas/diesel-powered forms of transportation never got along (probably due to electrical interference) but Angelina was so lenient with him. One of his proudest moments still remained that he drove a full hour on her without crashing.
Maybe he finally had grown fond of a vehicle. Or, more accurately, he had grown fond of who that vehicle was associated with in his mind.
He hoped Wolfwood could work his magic.
It was too blue, it hurt his retinas. He closed his eyes.
“Hey, Wolfwood?”
“Yeah, Spikey?” Kschhht kscchhht kschhht went the ratchet.
“Can we go glasses-shopping in the next town?”
“Yeah.”
The breeze ruffled over his jacket, through his hair. Wolfwood was occupied with Angelina for the next however-long he needed.
The best time would be now.
Vash clicked System Settings >> Power >> Restart.
{Are you sure you want to RESTART? [2] Programs still running.}
{Y}
[RESTARTING… 0.00%] [00:59:59]
[00:59:58]
[00:59:57]
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