Work Text:
They make it to the old familiar house well past sundown. Vash, cognisant of the hour, is hesitant even to knock on the door… but Wolfwood surges forward and does so, on account of both the fact that his hesitation is stupid and they’ve been on their feet for well over a week and he could really use a sitdown on a real couch. The door is flung open almost instantly by the kid Wolfwood remembers from over a year back the first time he saw her. She looks near-identical to how she did back then, except she’s shot up about half a foot and her face has hardened at the edges, wear present that wasn’t there the first time, undoubtedly brought about by the Age of Chaos.
All of that age drains out of Lina’s face when she lays eyes on Vash, though, and he catches her readily when she pitches herself at his chest. It’s a natural conclusion that the two will stay with her and her grandmother for the duration of their stay in this part of town. They can’t stay for long, of course; Vash still has a generous bounty on his head thanks to those damned Earth Federation soldiers, and even with his hair black and tied out of his face with a ribbon, he tends to stand out in a crowd. Maybe something to do with the fact that he easily towers over most humans, stands even a couple inches above Wolfwood when his posture is at its best…
It’s not trouble they’re exactly keen on bringing to Lina’s doorstep, inasmuch as they’d already done so by showing up in the first place. But it’s been so long since Vash has seen Lina and Sheryl, tacit reassurance in the form of letters and telegrams hadn’t meant much next to the physical weight of their presence, Wolfwood knows. So it’d seemed only right to make their house a stop on their journey back across the continent.
The mercenary that Vash had threatened into acting as their protection is nowhere to be seen around the premises. Not that Wolfwood had especially been looking forward to reuniting with the guy, but Lina explains when asked that he hadn’t ditched voluntarily—that he’d been one of many casualties in the last age, and that they’d done him the courtesy of a burial in the backyard marked by a stone that reads ERIKS IV. Which raises questions about—the name, actually, that Lina gave Vash, whether that’s the name she’d give to any pet or human or friend who comes onto her doorstep, but Vash doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that Lina resumes calling him it, so Wolfwood tries to hold his tongue, as difficult as that always is for him.
It’s late, so they leave the majority of catching up for the following day. Wolfwood wakes up well into the afternoon when he eventually does rouse again, aching all over the way he has since the fight in December. He’d survived, miraculously—thanks in no small part to Vash bursting onto the scene, the colony ship at his heels, Luida and the rest of his family there and ready to protect him—but he hasn’t touched a vial since that day. His heart probably wouldn’t survive it after everything it’s been put through these past six years; his hair’s more grey than black these days. He doesn’t mind that part so much, is grateful to be alive, but the mornings are the worst part.
He carefully levers himself upright. The mattress he shared with Vash last night was comfortingly soft, but less easy on his sore joints without the Stampede himself to act as additional structure. Presumably, Vash was out of bed at dawn, regardless of how long they were in transit… Wandering from the bedroom to the hallway, Wolfwood finds that only Sheryl is still present in the dining room, listening to the news on a pocket radio and tearing up the pages of magazines. Wolfwood’s step isn’t quite as light as it had once been; the elderly woman lifts her gaze when he enters the room and smiles at him.
“I’ve gotten into collaging,” Sheryl explains. “Are you looking for Vash?”
Wolfwood notes the use of Vash’s actual name, but shakes his head. He snatches the seat next to Sheryl and eases his elbows against the table. “Mind if I help you out here?”
It’s tactile. Wolfwood’s always liked hobbies like that. It’s part of what drew him so much to wood carving in the first place. What really feels like an indulgence about it is getting to spend time with Sheryl, who is stern and no-nonsense and had clearly held a grudge against Wolfwood back then for being the one to take Vash away from them… but doesn’t seem to mind him now. She chats genially about her morning, the breakfast she made (and the leftovers still on the stove, for Wolfwood’s perusal when he gets hungry) and fills Wolfwood in on all the local gossip. Sheryl is well-informed, a staple of the community, as it turns out. Wolfwood is just glad to know that she survived the Age of Chaos. Getting to bask in her presence is more than he could ask for for the afternoon.
Vash and Lina return by dinnertime, both covered in dirt. Vash offers a lopsided grin before he disappears into the back room for a shower. Sheryl slaps Wolfwood away before he can rise to help her with dinner, so he finds himself still at the table when Lina slides into the spot across from him. He’s working on the finishing touches of Sheryl’s collage, but he passes the cardstock piece to Lina when she seats herself for her approval.
Lina studies it with wide green eyes. “You’re helping Granny with this?”
“Yeah,” Wolfwood admits. He pauses, then grins. “Gotten all boring since you last saw me.”
Lina lets out a huff. “Nothing my Granny does is boring.” She’s awfully good-natured for a rough and tumble little girl. There’s something more profound about the way she sizes up the collage, trailing calloused fingers over the corners of the cardstock. It’s only been just over a year, but she really does look so much older; her hair’s long enough now to tie back, her freckles are darker, and she’s grown a bit more into her features. She’s awkwardly proportioned the way most kids are at thirteen, but Wolfwood recognises the look in her eye because he saw it in the mirror every year at the orphanage once he hit the right age. He still sees it in those kids, saw it when he dared to go back a couple months ago…
Age, pain, loss. Wolfwood sighs and reaches into his pocket. He’s been trying not to smoke—nevermind in the presence of kids, but alone he’s been trying to avoid it, on account of the fact that he only has so many good years yet. To stifle the urge, he draws his switchblade and a wood block from his pocket and starts carefully chipping away at it, legs parted to catch the wood shavings over the bend of his thigh.
“I oughta apologise to ya,” Wolfwood murmurs.
“To me?” Lina repeats, her eyes snapping to Wolfwood. They’re wide again—still very earnest. Worn or not, she’s still a kid. “What for?”
Wolfwood exhales. The repetitive shhhk, shhhk, shhhk of his knife over the wood is soothing, and he focuses on that for a moment to steady his nerves. This has never gotten any easier for him.
“...Takin’ him away from you.” Wolfwood nods his head back to where Vash had disappeared into the bathroom. “Ain’t like it’ll ever be the same, even if he can settle down with ya again sometime.”
It would be a complicated notion for a lot of reasons. Those ladies who used to follow Vash around are working hard to get his bounty off his head, and Wolfwood is sure they’ll be successful sooner or later. If not because of Vash’s own luck, which is terrible, then by their sheer willpower… He’s never known Meryl Stryfe and Millie Thompson to be the sort of people who are unsuccessful in what they set their minds to. But Vash isn’t the person he was three years ago when he settled here under the pseudonym ‘Eriks’... He’s weaker, carrying the weight of the destruction of July on his shoulders. He lost his brother only half a year ago… He, like Wolfwood, only has so much time left.
There wasn’t another choice, Wolfwood knows. Vash was their only hope from the first; if Wolfwood had accepted his death in defiance and left him to his peaceful life here, doubtlessly, Vash would’ve set off anyway… and perhaps the journey would have killed him without Wolfwood there to watch his back. Who can say what would have gone differently? Either way, Lina would have lost him. But still, Wolfwood knows what it’s like to leave and to yearn for a home—not just for the four walls and bed you slept in, but the person you were when you lived there. Vash has had to step away from something he cared about countless times in his century and a half of existence.
Apologising to him is sort of a nonstarter if Wolfwood doesn’t want to get bit. But Lina is a kid. She deserves to hear the adults in her life say it outright, ‘I’m sorry’, even if it’s not often and even if the circumstances couldn’t have been different.
Lina smiles at him, though. “Why’re you sorry when I oughta be thanking you? You brought him back to me too.” Her hands fall and lace together across the table. Her lips purse. “...I was really angry… not so much at you, but at him for leaving… I mean, you saw it.”
“I sure did,” Wolfwood agrees, remembering the imprint of her shoe that’d ended up on Vash’s face in the aftermath.
“Yeah. So…” Lina’s thumbs trail over her own knuckles. They’re too knobby, despite Sheryl’s best efforts at feeding her. There’s not a single well-fed kid on this whole planet. “I get why you’re sorry… but don’t be. Thanks for comin’ by. You’ll keep taking care of him when you leave again, won’t you?”
Wolfwood’s heart stutters in his chest. That’s not so uncommon, but considering his precarious health situation, he has to stop carving for a moment to make sure he’s not having a heart attack or taking his final breath. You just never know these days… Once he’s calmed himself, he swallows thickly and tries to consider her question. It is a loaded one, mostly because the time that he and Vash are spending together now—
Well, it feels habitual. Obligatory. When Wolfwood survived the ordeal and when he learned that Vash had as well, it felt only natural to track him down again like old times. They’ve travelled together because Vash is in danger, and because a man with a target on his back ought to have a companion at his side. Would Wolfwood stay with him forever, if Vash would only ask? Of course. Would he do so regardless? Naturally. But there is the question of Vash’s wants, his needs, whether he would actually…
Wolfwood swallows thickly. Vash the Stampede isn’t a remarkably ‘nice’ man by any measure, but he has boundless compassion and has allowed monster after monster to walk away from fights with him alive. That he allows Wolfwood this warm space at his side feels like nothing more than another mercy, an acknowledgement of the fact that Wolfwood doesn’t know how to feel human anywhere else, that he hasn’t yet mustered the courage to return to December again and fall into Miss Melanie’s arms where he’s yearning to be. If Vash wanted him, Wolfwood would abandon anything to give him anything and everything he could even dream of, let alone ask for…
But that is an if. And for as long as it’s an if, Wolfwood doesn’t know how to answer Lina’s question. He forces another tremulous swallow.
“‘Course,” Wolfwood manages, “I’ll try, but I—”
Before he can say anything else on the matter, a pair of arms slide around his shoulders from behind. It’s Vash—Wolfwood knows because Sheryl would never embrace him like that, and also because he smells like him, soapy from the shower and sweet like aloe vera. His skin is dewy, a little damp, and his hair is even more drenched where he presses it into Wolfwood’s cheek. Borderline unpleasant actually, but softer than usual since he’s washed all the product out of it.
“Eriks!” Lina says brightly. “That was a quick shower.”
“I’m efficient,” Vash responds with a toothy smile. “...Talking about me?”
“You—” Wolfwood feels heat flood his face. He seizes Vash’s face by the forehead and shoves him off. “Get off me, you dope.”
“Hey! Come on, I can’t even get a hug?” Vash whines like a sandstorm siren, high pitched and unpleasant. “I haven’t seen you all day, you know? Lina, he’s picking on me!”
Lina tips her head to the side. “Seems to me like you deserved it, Eriks. You startled him.”
“You’re betraying me too?” Vash wails. Through the dramatics, he peeks out at Wolfwood with one wide, almost vulnerable aquamarine eye. There’s a question in it and it’s obvious, because Vash has always been completely transparent, every thought or feeling that crosses his mind broadcasted easily across his face if you only care to look.
Wolfwood berates himself, because he was being a little ridiculous, really, sitting there and waxing poetic about what Vash might ‘want’ when he’s never once been ambiguous about it. Softening his grasp, he sweeps his thumb under Vash’s eye, against his beauty mark, and then pulls his hand away. Vash straightens and stares at him with his lips parted, almost awestruck.
The heat has crept up the column of Wolfwood’s neck, so he clears his throat. “Go help Sheryl with dinner, you spiky-haired lump.”
“I don’t know what you get out of it, honestly,” Vash sighs, shaking his head and nonetheless shuffling away while Lina giggles furiously. “Being so mean to me…”
Wolfwood doesn’t expect him to get it. He smiles though, because it’s one of the small pleasures in life, and because Vash peeks back at him before he’s disappeared into the kitchen, a tiny curl tugging at his own lips. They’ll have all night tonight to catch up on the lost time they missed during the day, so Wolfwood isn’t particularly worried about it… but he’s charmed anyway that Vash somehow manages to be so clingy. It’s impressive, really. Just not something to be flaunting in front of the kid.
Although from the sparkle in Lina’s eye as she ducks her head over Sheryl’s collage, Wolfwood thinks there are good odds she might already know.