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The plan had been to stop for a night’s rest in this small, backwater town with only one functioning Water Plant about three days ago, but as is often their luck, the town was laid siege to almost immediately upon their arrival. In the end, Vash was able to defuse the conflict, but not without the inconvenient appearance of his feathers (as has been happening more and more often lately) and they’d had to hit the road somewhat expeditiously.
Wolfwood didn’t complain. They’re in a hurry, after all, even if he’d sort of been looking forward to a night’s rest in an actual bed. It’s hardly a luxury he can afford to be picky about these days in the first case (and furthermore he was built to withstand worse) but all those practical and personal reasons aside—including the fact that Wolfwood just doesn’t like to complain when it’s something that could really faze him—Vash had been so contrite after the fact.
It’s been that way lately. Wolfwood likes Vash the best when he’ll get a little mouthy—when Wolfwood pushes the line too far and he can tell Vash’s feathers (unfortunately apt choice of metaphor) have gotten a little ruffled. He likes when Vash will scowl and complain, will drag his feet along the sands and grumpily self-advocate, or at least argue whenever Wolfwood has some kind of criticism to impart. Since the fight with Hoppered, Vash has been a solid wall of silence on that front. Wolfwood kicked sand into his lap while they were making camp last night to try and provoke a reaction out of him and Vash had just smiled sadly and tipped the front of his coat so it went sliding back to the ground. Shit like that. It’s like someone punctured the side of his neck so all the air would whistle out of him.
Not that Wolfwood can blame him considering what he’s dealing with. If Wolfwood had any say in it—well, better not to go there in the first place. He’ll drive himself crazy thinking about something that infeasible right now. In any case, he’d hoped for a place to crash for the night not just for his own achy bones but for Vash’s, to give Vash the opportunity to get some privacy and time away from Wolfwood, to lick his wounds and re-gel his hair and whatever it is he does when he has access to running water and a toilet.
They make it to the next town after almost three straight days of pushing it, as Wolfwood had been frustrated and unwilling to stop for very long. Vash is still blinking the haze from his eyes as he picks his head up from the sidecar, gaze darting back and forth. His fingers creep out and uncurl, and then he slowly unfolds his limbs from the small compartment. It’s a methodical, almost robotic motion that makes Wolfwood wonder for a moment if Vash might be nursing an injury or something, but when he places his boots in the sand, Wolfwood watches him roll his neck and decides that he’s probably just sore.
No helping it, unfortunately. They’ve been on the road for well over a week by this point, and as Vash still can’t steer that well, usually Wolfwood relegates him to the sidecar. He hadn’t even thought of offering to switch while they were travelling—he’s been wanting, increasingly, to do nothing but make this last stretch of the trip as easy on Vash as he can, as foolish of a venture as that seems considering his role in this—but now that Wolfwood’s looking, he wonders if he wouldn’t have been doing Vash a favour by asking, even if it would’ve meant that Vash couldn’t sleep away most of the journey.
Vash catches him staring. Their eyes meet for a short moment before Vash starts to smile, and Wolfwood grumbles, dropping his eyes to the ground.
“Your hair’s sticking up at the back,” Wolfwood lies. Or, well, it is. It usually does. Vash uses gel, but when his hair is this length, it also just naturally tends to stick up a bit like he just came back from snorkelling in one of his Electricity-producing sister’s tanks. “Look like a moron.”
“I think that’s just my face,” Vash offers, but pats his hair down flat and smiles again. He obviously knows that Wolfwood had just been making an excuse (has probably already figured out that Wolfwood was worried) but if Vash’s softness had rankled before, it’s excruciating now. Wolfwood scoops his cross off the back of his bike and shoulders past him, muttering under his breath.
They’d stopped sharing for a while, but Vash doesn’t commentate this time as Wolfwood slides across the fare for a night’s stay in a single room. In the first place, Wolfwood hadn’t wanted to begrudge Vash a bit of time to himself, but once Vash was done with the bulk of his drinking and crying after nightmares, he quickly started wanting to share beds again. The guy can be sort of clingy if you let him—although that’s largely when the lights are off and they’re both too drowsy to think any better of it. Nobody to convince if there’s nothing to be seen, that sort of thing. In any case, Wolfwood would cling too if he had just an inch less self restraint, so he doesn’t have any room to complain about it. It’s not like he minds.
They make the trip upstairs in silence. Vash pauses again once they’ve tucked into their room to repeat the earlier motion of rolling his head, this time with a sigh. His fingers flex along the column of his neck, and he’s frowning when he drops his arm, at least until he catches Wolfwood watching again. Waving two fingers, Vash crooks his lip in a smile, and this time it’s such an eyesore that Wolfwood grabs for the first thing he can find (a bottle of lotion on the nightstand) and throws it at him.
Even tired like this, Vash’s reflexes are too sharp to be overcome in a hurry, and he snags the bottle from the air before it manages to hit his face. He looks contemplative as his eyes dart over the label.
“...You uh,” Wolfwood clears his throat when Vash doesn’t speak for a moment, “you never used lotion before, Tongari?”
“Hm? Oh, no, sorry…” Vash sets the bottle down. “I mean, yes, haha, of course I have. You’ll have to go easy on me, Wolfwood, I’m a little out of it…”
As he’s been for weeks, but Wolfwood keeps that bit of commentary to himself too. He doesn’t mind Vash acting somewhat deflated. If anyone’s got the right to, it’s him, and Wolfwood would sooner smash his own head in than try and give him shit for feeling demotivated. It’s just not right that Vash doesn’t have the time to honour that and sit in his grief, that he’s the only man alive who stands a chance against the freak of nature who waits for him at the end of their journey… No matter how much Wolfwood reminds himself that there’s no use in complaining, he can’t help but begrudge the circumstances. It makes him sick with how unfair it all feels.
Shaking his head, Wolfwood sets his cross down and feels around in his pocket. His nerves settle once he’s gotten a cigarette lit. Vash is arguably a bit more out of it than usual, even for the past couple weeks. It’s got to be a combination of exhaustion and sore joints, but it’s always so hard to figure out how to help him when things like this come up… or how to get Vash to think about accepting the help, even if Wolfwood had a solution ready at hand. A shower will help, so Wolfwood moves to the other end of the room to crack a window. No balcony in this room (which is honestly barely larger than a broom closet, at least it has an adjoining bathroom) but Wolfwood’s not in the position to be picky.
“You take first shower,” Wolfwood suggests. It’s a mark of how well Vash knows him by now that there isn’t any argument. Vash gives a small, grateful smile, then scoops his bag off the floor and disappears into the bathroom with a faint click. He’s not bothering to walk heavily, his footsteps nothing more than the faintest of brushes against the carpeted floor. Wolfwood still has the nerve to find that unsettling when his own gait is barely any louder. He’s heavy, of course, built to last rather than for agility, but stealth is still a necessary quality of any good assassin. Let alone one on Wolfwood’s level.
Thinking about that, it’s like Wolfwood is trying to depress himself. Aside from a bed and nightstand, this room also has a chair by the window, so Wolfwood drags it closer and chews on the filter of his cigarette. It makes a bitter taste spread over his tongue, but he doesn’t bother to stop, leaning back in the seat and gazing up at the taupe ceiling.
He’s sore, too. Stiff. The back of his neck aches. It’s a manageable ache and the cigarette is helping, but if Wolfwood tried to impose his help on Vash, he doubts he’d be able to escape the conversation without his own tiredness being pointed out. It’s one of Vash’s most insufferable qualities, his propensity to care about Wolfwood. Even with people who Wolfwood respects and admires, he’s largely been able to fade into the background when needed, let the others in his life focus on themselves while he also focuses on them… With the exception of Melanie, that is, nobody in Wolfwood’s life has ever cared so much about making sure that he’s attended to.
Vash is different. And the worst thing about that is that Wolfwood can’t entirely write off the quality as an irritant; it makes his heart squeeze in all the most unbearable, impossible-to-ignore ways, yet it makes Wolfwood want to stay close to him… want never to stray too far from his side. He’s known for a while now what word to put to that feeling, what he’d call it if he had the privilege of vocalising or articulating his feelings, and of course there’s nothing he can do about it so no point in actualising it, even in the comfort of his own mind… but while Wolfwood does want to be useful to Vash, he also wants to honour the person that Vash is. The care he puts into everything, the love he feels towards those around him. The grace he gives to Wolfwood, again and again and again.
When Vash exits the bathroom, he’s shivering faintly, arms curled around himself to preserve warmth in his thin, sleeveless night shirt. He gives a bracing smile and heads for the bed, and Wolfwood considers asking a stupid obvious question like “did you shower with the heat off” but the lack of steam is enough of an indicator.
He’d cuff Vash’s head if he wasn’t already in pain. “Don’t go to sleep,” Wolfwood grouses, getting to his feet. “Need to talk to you after I’m done.”
“Just shake me if I dose off,” Vash says into the pillows, already face-down on the bed. He’s curled his body as if instinctively making space for Wolfwood on the mattress. Nice of him, even if it’s a little pointless when Wolfwood still needs to shower.
Without seeing the point of self-flagellation for the sake of it, Wolfwood takes a quick, hot shower. He has a thin long-sleeved t-shirt shirt he doesn’t recognise at the bottom of his pack that he must’ve pilfered from Vash, and thinking about it, he pulls it on after he brushes his teeth. Going through the motions of getting ready to sleep makes Wolfwood drowsy just habitually, but he shakes his head and forces his eyes back open as he returns to the bedroom.
Vash has turned onto his side, eyes half-lidded and hazy. He’s staring out the window, but it’s hard to say if he’s actually seeing anything, or if he’s sleeping with his eyes open. He does shift minutely when Wolfwood approaches, so odds are comfortable that he’s still at least somewhat conscious. Wolfwood lets him be, scooping the bottle of lotion from the nightstand and dropping onto the bed next to him.
It bounces, a little. Vash’s nose wrinkles with irritation as he turns onto his back. “Welcome back, jackass.”
“That’s me,” Wolfwood grins with more satisfaction than the jab really warrants. It’s just nice for Vash to insult him after weeks of toothlessness. “You mind doing something for me, Needles?”
“Mm?” Vash’s eyes fall open the rest of the way, some of the awareness returning to his expression. Wolfwood wonders at times if it’s in Vash’s instincts to be helpful, or if he’d trained himself to respond that way, if it’s only second-nature after a lifetime of throwing himself into the face of danger. He supposes it doesn’t really matter; at this point it’s engrained in the core of who Vash is, and part of why Wolfwood would probably do anything for him.
…Dangerous thought to have at any point, but particularly while he’s sleepy and at risk of blurting it. He shows the bottle.
“...I’m… sore,” Wolfwood eventually says, sounding out the word tentatively. Vash’s eyes widen, and he bends his arm, already beginning to lever himself upright with his elbow. “‘S fine—we were just on the road for a while longer than I planned is all.”
“Wolfwood, I’m s—”
“If you say you’re sorry to me I’m gonna hit you,” Wolfwood warns. Vash shuts his mouth, looking suitably chastised. That isn’t exactly what Wolfwood had wanted, though, so he breathes out and looks away. “I just—I’d feel wrong askin’ you for a massage without offering anything in return, so I thought we could trade off. You do me and I do you.”
The apologetic look vanishes from Vash’s face, leaving something more assessing in its place. He tilts his head, arguably with a neutral expression, but his eyes are so intense it’s hard to feel anything about him is ‘neutral’ in the first place. Wolfwood shifts his weight and swallows. As if he knows what to do with himself when Vash looks at him most of the time, but he feels weirdly exposed having laid his cards on the table, like Vash could just pore through the innermost contents of his mind and read them all out. What’s scarier about the thought is that he doesn’t think Vash would be disgusted by what he found there… Even before regaining his memories of the destruction of July, Wolfwood is sure that Vash had had some idea as to the truth of him, had chosen to call him a friend regardless.
Eventually, Vash smiles, and Wolfwood knows he’s been had.
“You’re worried about me.”
“Don’t be gross about it,” Wolfwood groans, dropping his head into his hand. “I just—I’m offering, so you don’t get all up in your head about—what gave me away?”
“First of all, you’d never tell me if you felt sore.” Vash sits up properly and scoots closer, his smile broadening into a toothy grin. “Second of all, you’re a terrible liar.”
“Am not,” Wolfwood retorts with a huff. “To you, maybe, since you’re older than Christ, but that doesn’t mean I’m bad. Just means you’re weird.”
“Mm, granted.” Vash’s hands drop to rest over Wolfwood’s wrists, and it’s embarrassing how fast all the hot air blows out of him. He lowers his shoulders and sniffs, thinking about the best way to go forward from here, how else to convince him, but Vash is speaking again before he can come up with anything tangible. “...Are you really that worried?”
Wolfwood gives him a bit of a bewildered look. He can’t help it. Of course is the obvious answer in this situation and he can’t even muster the breath to say that. He’s been worried about Vash since Dragon’s Nest, since before that, since the first time he laid eyes on him on the bus to Augusta and saw him all caught up in his own head and plastering a smile over it like that should trick everybody—worried when he realised Vash had never been called on it before, and thus that shoddy attempt at deception really was working out for him. Wolfwood doesn’t just want to satisfy Vash idealistically, or stay close to him and bask in his presence; he wants to be something to him. Someone to him. He wants to take care of Vash and know that Vash is allowing it because he is the one doing the caretaking. He wants, if it would make Vash happy… to let Vash in closer and allow himself to be cared for in turn.
It had been a mistake not to put his sunglasses back on, even fresh out of the shower, because Wolfwood thinks his eyes are misting up and no matter what he doesn’t want Vash to give in to this just because he started crying about it. He’d have to disappear forever if that happened, maybe drop dead just for extra measure. After a deep breath, the threat of tears has abated, but it’s obvious that Vash has noticed, so Wolfwood hastily responds with words to distract him.
“‘S that so bad?” Wolfwood’s hands twitch beneath Vash’s and he turns away. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, still, under the weight of Vash’s gaze. “Just… want to make things easier on you, right now. You got enough to worry about already.”
Vash’s smile has dropped. His own eyes are welling now, and it’s much harder to stop him from crying than Wolfwood, so the tears go ahead and drip off his angular cheeks. Sighing, Wolfwood frees one of his hands and crooks a finger to catch a bit of that moisture on his knuckle.
“Sorry,” Wolfwood mumbles. “Didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I know,” Vash croaks, and sniffles. “It’s just that you’re really sweet, and I—”
“Don’t you start.”
That coaxes a smile out of him. Vash presses into Wolfwood’s hand, and Wolfwood takes the liberty of patting his cheeks dry with his sleeve. When Vash draws back, he’s more or less recovered.
“It would make you feel better to massage me?” Vash asks, raising an eyebrow.
“You got the weirdest way of rationalising shit,” Wolfwood mutters. “How about, it’d feel better on my poor ancient muscles and I want that. You ever think something like that or is it genuinely over your head?”
“All that about making things easier to me, and you’re still so mean…” Vash sighs, shoulders drooping performatively. “All right. Then yes, please, I’ll take a massage, Padre. You’re so generous.” He grins and wiggles his eyebrows, and Wolfwood rolls his eyes. He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek so he won’t smile back, shifting away so Vash can pull back. It’s been years—about six—since Wolfwood last massaged somebody, largely Melanie, and mainly her hands, where she often dealt with bouts of carpal tunnel from hours spent mending and knitting and chopping vegetables, but the practice itself isn’t so difficult to apply to other areas.
Vash is stiff as a board, as you’d expect, but he still relaxes quicker than Wolfwood entirely feels is right, in the presence of someone like him. He knows that Vash is powerful, could level him (level entire cities) to the ground if he so much as got a little emotional, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that Wolfwood shouldn’t be touching him with these hands at all. Vash might be considered a ‘monster’ by many and that isn’t a conception that Wolfwood has been able to shake so easily, much as he hates himself for othering Vash the way any other lousy human would do… but it’s obvious just to look at him that he’s so much better than any of the other sorry souls living on this planet. Worms and kids and Knives Millions included.
Beyond that, Wolfwood is nasty even as far as humans go. His hands stick out, a stark contrast against Vash’s scarred skin, not just on account of the obvious differences in complexion and muscle formation, but because Wolfwood can intimately remember the amount of blood that’s poured through his fingers, and he doesn’t even have scars to show for it. His hands heal over soft every time, no matter how hard he’s worked to build callouses. Vash’s shoulderblades are sharp and angular like the rest of him, and the way they meet when he flexes his back, it’s so easy for Wolfwood to imagine white wings stretching out from them. Not like it’s a sight he hasn’t seen before.
He works his way down Vash’s biceps, first the right, then the left to where his prosthetic attaches. There, Vash pauses a moment, his right hand drifting to the port, but Wolfwood stops him with a gesture.
“Could I…”
“Oh, um,” Vash looks faintly embarrassed, but he nods. “Go ahead.”
Wolfwood shifts around to sit in front of him for easier access. He’s seen Vash go through the motions of removing this arm countless times, and can easily replicate the process himself, but he skips over the step for now, rather focusing his attention on the arm itself. It’s an impressive piece of technology, not that he’d expect anything less from Vash’s family on the colony ship. The way the elbow bends and his wrist turns, the motion is all so fluid and the skin exterior looks and feels so convincingly real you’d never know Vash was wearing a prosthetic at all. Like this it’s obvious with the port exposed, but even so, Wolfwood doesn’t see any reason not to treat it like its twin.
Working his way down, Wolfwood starts with the right arm, the non-prosthetic, massaging Vash’s elbow and then his wrist, then the bend of his palm and each of his fingers. When he moves back to the other side, Vash stiffens, his eyes darting back and forth.
“Wolfwood, I… can’t feel that,” Vash points out, and laughs slightly. “You don’t have to.”
“Thought you could feel like, temperatures and stuff,” Wolfwood points out, hands paused only because Vash looks hesitant, not because of the objection itself.
“Right, but it doesn’t hurt. Not the way the other does.” Vash smiles. “You don’t have to look after it for me.”
Practically speaking, Vash’s statement isn’t necessarily an ask that Wolfwood ‘neglect’ him. It’s not like he’s a mechanic, and if he was, there’s nothing scientific about his ministrations here. He’s effectively paying lip service to a piece of tech that doesn’t need it when his efforts would be better applied elsewhere… but it’s not like they’re in a hurry, right now. And…
“...I’m not doing this to fix the pain,” Wolfwood mumbles. He takes Vash’s prosthetic hand back in between his own and waits for him to draw back, starts carefully massaging his palm with both thumbs when Vash doesn’t.
The second half of the statement is too embarrassing, so he keeps it to himself, but he thinks it should be obvious, particularly to someone as astute as Vash. The reality is, Wolfwood isn’t someone who ‘fixes’ problems in the first place. He’s an assassin—a killer, and a monster too, both on a moral and biological level. He’ll die sooner rather than later, and if he’s lucky, that’ll be without taking anyone else down with him… but Wolfwood’s never had the luxury of ‘luck’, let alone the ability to count on even a bittersweet ending. He wants to hope that Vash will be able to defeat his brother, but there’s no guaranteeing any of it, and no way for either of them to change their fate.
All that is to say, if Wolfwood wanted to remove the pain… he couldn’t. If he wanted to ease Vash’s burden, it’d be nothing more than a—than a nice thought, ultimately a meaningless one. He won’t solve anything with a massage. He won’t atone for his sins by staying at Vash’s side until the very end of the line. Wolfwood stopped hoping for things like that ages ago.
It matters, though, to show care to Vash—to every part of Vash—because every part of Vash has shown care to him. In battle, Vash will casually use this hand to deflect bullets. He’ll let it get crushed and exploded and battered, had had it ripped violently from his arm by one of the nine lives back on the colony ship… In the end, Vash will never stop looking for parts of himself to use, to sacrifice. Even if it wasn’t in his nature at his conception, it’s become his nature now. That is the way that Vash the Stampede chooses to live his life.
And if that’s the case, then Wolfwood wants to honour it too. Both of his arms, all of these ‘tools’ he uses for the protection of others. They mean more than that to him. If he can’t muster the courage to say as much aloud, he wants Vash to be able to see that through his actions, if only in the quiet moments like this.
Unfortunately, Vash has begun to cry again. His fingers curl around Wolfwood’s hand, halting his ministrations, but it’s only a moment before Vash’s arms are thrown around his neck instead. Wolfwood idly thinks that he’d been smart to grab a sleep shirt tonight, since Vash’s tears can soak into the collar. He sets his hands on Vash’s back and sighs again, shuts his eyes.
“I made you cry again,” Wolfwood mumbles.
“It’s, they’re good tears,” Vash responds, his voice all choked up and squeaky. He does sound like he’s smiling a little though, so Wolfwood chooses to take him at his word, for once. “Wolfwood… I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be able to deserve you.”
For someone like Vash to say something like that, about Wolfwood of all people… Wolfwood presses closer against him.
“‘S not about deserving,” Wolfwood says, even as his chest tightens unbearably. “It’s about give and take. Just take, Tongari. I’m offering.”
Vash squeezes him tighter. The rest of their night isn’t very productive, in that Wolfwood doesn’t manage to finish his massage, and Vash doesn’t return the favour. It’s time well spent, nonetheless, even if they don’t do very much talking, or really much of anything, in the end… Wolfwood barely remembers most of it by the time he wakes up the next day, the blued light of pre-dawn cast over the room, Vash curled up tightly against his chest.
The warmth of the time they spent together remains, though, pulses through him like a chorus, and that’s more than enough, for the moment.