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Men like us, Livio, die young and die alone. It's not just because of our unique physiology, but because of our personalities and our lifestyle.
We're reckless. And, with our time ticking down ten for every second, we have a death wish. It's simple arithmetic that, given such parameters, we'll alienate everyone and end up some place where not even accelerated healing will save us.
And I was mostly okay with that. With dying, that is, alone and forgotten.
Until I met a man with needles rooted in his brain, like spiked electrodes buried deep within, pulsing madness and joy. Like bleeding antennas broadcasting an SOS and a blessing to anyone who cared to listen. And, Livio, know that I did not care to listen and ended up listening anyway. That's the kind of man he is.
You really should meet him. He'll make you cry, I think, but afterwards you'll feel better. I'll have you know I haven't cried once since before the orphanage, though just between us two, I've really wanted to. That's one of the powers of this Needle-noggin.
For short, let's call him Spikey.
You see, the funny thing about Spikey is that he’s just like us, Livio, if you probe deep enough. He's certainly reckless. And he's got a bloody death wish. But somehow, he's yet to die and I firmly believe that he won't die alone. And that’s not because I’ll try to be there, every step of the way, till I run out of gas and he drives me off some cliff. He’s a shit driver, did you know? He can’t even ride a Thomas, which basically drives itself since it’s a bleeding animal. But I digress.
He won’t die alone because no matter how much he pushes people away, he draws them in just as close. He fascinates us mortals and captivates our attention like nothing else. I guess it’s a mixture of him being a Plant and him being who he’s become, that is to say, an antennae-head that broadcasts joy and madness and boundless, endless hope.
Yeah, you heard right. After the Eye of Michael I thought I’d lost the meaning of the word, though I surely preached it (for a spare double dollar or two). I thought maybe I knew what hope was because I never forgot the kids back home, you know? I call them ‘kids’ even though technically I rank among them, because they can’t fend for themselves. Even Aunt Melanie’s a kid in my head, though she’d swat my head with a ladle if she heard me say it.
At least, she’d try. I’m a bit too tall, now, even with the ladle.
* * *
“Wolfwood, what are you doing?”
He looks up, snapped out of his thought-daze, but there’s no one there. Vash is still locked up by that maniac Legato, same as he has been for the last three months, and there’s no one nearby but himself and Double Fang and that bloody Chapel. He should’ve severed that man’s head alongside his spine, all those years ago.
Wolfwood runs a hand through his hair, and then rests his face on his palm. He’s not supposed to get migraines, not with his enhancements, but lately everything’s been tits-side up. Every day, Chapel sends him and what used to be Livio on missions to systematically cripple No Man’s Land’s standing army. More like fallen army, now. Wolfwood shoots for the ankles but Double Fang goes for the jugular and there’s only so much Wolfwood can do to practice what he used to preach when there’s two murderers at his side to finish the jobs he leaves undone. Now it’s self-loathing and wretched guilt that keep him up at night, whereas before he slept like a babe.
Fucking Vash. If it weren’t for him, he’d be back in his place like a well-oiled weapon, ready to fire and ready to kill, with nary a thought to anything spare the gunpowder he’d have to replace. Life would be so much easier, if he could just do what he’d been made to do and do it well, like he used to. There wouldn’t be a constant string of threats about the Orphanage being obliterated by fucking “Master Chapel”, if he didn’t have to constantly feel like disobeying orders was the right thing to do.
Easier. Hah. Everything about Spikey is about making things harder than they need to be.
God, what is he doing? Moping in his room like some pubescent child, whining. He may be seventeen but he’s no teenager. Chapel may be far beyond his ability to save, and Livio may be too far gone to salvage, but Vash is his ticket to salvation and Wolfwood didn’t get this body just to kill. He got it to protect. And he wants to protect the kids just as much as he wants to protect Vash, now. It’s a kind of love ingrained into his bones, through debt and gratitude. He owes them both his life and his sanity, and Wolfwood’s never been one to leave his checks unpaid.
“Wolfwood, what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to save you,” Wolfwood grinds out, annoyed.
“What?”
Wolfwood turns, surprised. Ah. Figures. It’s Livio at the door, looking about as full of emotions as a paper bag. A paper bag with someone’s puke in it.
“Just what I said,” Wolfwood mutters, annoyed at being caught dilly-dallying unawares. He stands and makes to leave, but Livio’s still at the door, his huge body blocking the entrance like a misshapen doorstop. Wolfwood looks up—and up and up and up. Livio’s a freaking gigantor.
But he’ll always be younger than Wolfwood. Shove it, snot-face.
“What did you mean by that?” Livio asks slowly, like he’s been ruminating on the thought for ages. He’s always been slow, this brat. Slow to stop crying. Slow to stop killing.
“Use your God-given noggin, dumbass,” Wolfwood says, and presses Livio aside. Livio steps back easily enough, and Wolfwood clears the room. “I’ve got something to do and men on a mission just can’t be derailed, yeah?”
Livio eyes him coolly, like he’s assessing Wolfwood as a threat. Everyone knows Wolfwood’s not on board with this, the whole Eye of Michael thing, not like he used to be. You’d be stupider than crybaby Livio to not notice it.
“You aren’t taking your weapon?” Livio eyes the Punisher that's leaning casual-like against a corner of the room, polished and clean, but clearly forgotten.
“I ain’t dispensing my brand of mercy on you folks just yet,” Wolfwood jokes, but Livio’s face says he doesn’t find it funny. Heh. Hell of a thing, losing your humour. The Livio he remembers had about the sense of humour of the abovementioned paper bag, but at least he used to smile politely when Wolfwood said something that was supposed to be amusing. Now all he ever does is frown.
“Not yet, anyway,” Wolfwood casually lights a cigarette and walks away, leaving Livio to stare at his back. He’s got better things to do than babysit Double Fang the Chipped Tooth of Prepubescent Intelligence. He’s got some coordinating to do with the girls, if he can find them in this mess of a planet, and some more planning to do before he throws logic to the wind and takes reign of his life and gets his spiky moral compass back.
Wolfwood’s busy scheming and walking so he misses the look entirely, but Livio stares at Wolfwood’s back like a man torn apart by an extreme, unnamable emotion. Wolfwood’s left his back wide open for shooting, or stabbing, or any manner of dismemberment. It’d be easy to take care of him now, like Master Chapel has been bitching and itching to do.
Instead, Livio watches him go, finger off the trigger.
* * *
I wanted to kill him, Livio. That spikes-for-brains martyr. And not just because Knives ordered it, though the order itself was quite an eye-opener. Because, guys like him? There’s only two, and both of them are weapons of mass destruction.
Though Spikey I’ll have to grant is more like a weapon of mass distraction.
They’ve got powers we humans will never be able to possess, even if we augment our bodies with Plant-derived serum like you and me have done. I don’t know if you saw it that day at Jenora Rock, but a single thumb of theirs has enough power to smite us heathens in an instant. And half of the threat is actively trying to destroy us all, while the other half tries not to and still manages to cause a veritable ruckus wherever he goes.
You do the math and the answer is clear: either they go, or we go. Right? That’s the kind of thinking I was doing then.
So, I pointed a gun to his head, like I’d done to his brother not three years prior, and later I realized that even if I shot him through the skull I’d be shooting myself. Not because he’s me, or because he’s become part of me (though he has), but because he’s the only hope we’ve got. Humanity itself hinges upon his back, and he knows it. It’s a bloody huge burden, and the guy has shouldered it like a pro. I’ll let the drinking slide because honestly, if I were in his place, I’d be chugging every bottle of Bride I could find, too.
I used to think that making him kill was the answer, because that man simply won’t kill. I thought that if I stripped him of his virginity – the killing kind, you low-minded moron; the other, I’m sure, is long gone – he’d be able to do what I could not. Not for lack of trying, as I got into this mess because I tried my best and failed, but because there’s no realm on this dying planet or in our scorched up sky wherein I or any other human can win without him.
And part of me still thinks that, but I’m starting to lose steam. Is killing the answer? Has killing ever really been the answer?
* * *
The era of Knives’ never ending genocide has been dubbed ‘The Age of Chaos’. Fancy words. Pretty damn accurate ones. No Man’s Land’s communication systems are like a headless chicken — still running, but threatening to collapse at any moment.
It’s because of this that it takes Wolfwood about a month to track down Vash’s primary surrogate family. Spikey’s got loads of families scattered about, so it’s hard to keep track of who the heck is who, but this one in particular is composed of “Stern-Face” Luida, “Pigtails” Jessica and “Bad Hair Day”…what was his face? Brad, whatever. The ones aboard the SEEDS ship, with the satellite that had been beaming SOS messages to Earth for the past hundred years without end. The one that Knives destroyed oh-so-easily, along with all the other satellites on this God-forsaken planet.
They’re so well hidden that Wolfwood feels guilty jacking into one of their signals to say his piece when he finally finds them, like he’s exposing them to intimate danger by contacting them. Especially with himself so close to Knives, what with being one of the remaining henchmen allowed to live aboard the Ark. But, just as he knows he cannot defeat Knives without Vash by his side, he knows that he cannot save Vash on his own. He’s ready to die but he won’t let it be a suicide mission with no chance of success. That’d be stupid, and Wolfwood doesn’t have time for stupid.
Unfortunately, no one does, if they want to live.
And that’s why they don’t trust him for a second. Luckily for Wolfwood, the Insurance Girls — no longer Insurance, it seems, with Bernardelli down the drain along with the rest of civilized society, but he likes the sound of it regardless — are present and they vouch for him. It takes some convincing, and he wastes more time on the airwaves than he intended, but they get their shit together eventually.
Wolfwood tells them everything. About himself and his role as the Eye of Michael. As Chapel the Punisher, number five in the list of baddies. About the other remaining Gung-ho Guns, and what he knew of them. About Legato, and his mind-bendy powers currently tasked with keeping Spikey docile. About Knives, what little he knows of him. Of Vash. But, importantly, what he plans to do about it.
“How…how is he?” Short Stuff asks, once the planning has been planned and Stern Face has gone off with Bad Hair Day and Pigtails, something about fixing up some flight-capable Lost Technology to help with the counterattack.
He thinks about being obtuse and asking ‘how’s who?’, but even he’s not that cruel. “I don't know,” Wolfwood responds honestly.
“What do you mean?” She says, loudly. There’s a hitch in her voice that is unmistakable. “How do you know we’re not rescuing a d-dead man?”
“Do you think he’s dead?” Wolfwood asks, seriously.
There’s silence, for a moment.
“No.” Short Stuff’s voice crackles through the speaker, quiet but determined. “No, I know he’s still alive. I saw…I saw his memories. I know him now, better than I did before. And I know…he’s still fighting. For us, if not for himself, he’ll always fight.”
“Well, there you go,” Wolfwood says, and lights another cigarette, exhaling quietly. “You do your part and I’ll do mine. Spikey will be back to his usual stupid self before you know it.”
“Thank you, Mr Priest,” Big Girl’s voice pipes in, heartfelt and genuine. There’s some shuffling and Short Stuff’s sniffle and then Big Girl’s voice is muffled, like she’s hugging Shorty close and burying her face in her hair or something. Or maybe it’s just Wolfwood’s over-romantic imagination. It makes a cute image, anyway. “Thank you so much.”
Thanks for what? For being so good at murdering that Knives took interest? Well, Wolfwood’s always been one to prioritize the now over the past. No time to dwell.
“Save your gratitude for after the show is over. I’ll contact you in a week again, make sure everything’s going well. All right?”
“Take care of yourself, Mr Priest.”
“Always do, Big Girl.”
They appear to be as grimly determined as he is to get Vash back, which is good. No Man’s Land has truly earned its name, now that Knives has begun his genocide full-throttle without Vash there to stop him. It’s been just four months and already millions of souls have been lost to Millions Knives’ self righteous vengeance. Desperation is so thick in the air that a potentially fatal suicide mission has become the most logical option, if any of them want to survive.
It will take another month or three to fully plan and organize, but Wolfwood feels lighter just by having done something.
Hold tight, Spikey. The next drink’s on me.
* * *
Do you remember, Livio? The Good Book was taught to us both through the actions of our betters and the kindness of their throats. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. It’s not as if we ever read the original because it’s long been lost, and the copies that circulate now are derived from the memory of people who were frozen for years and years and years. You can trust human memory up to a point, but for me, pseudo-babble coming out of the mouths of melted popsicle-sticks are not the words of God.
People preach passed-down tradition like a game of telephone, and what was once undoubtedly God’s own dictation has surely become a sad, garbled distortion. The true meaning can only be found by living it. So what I’m trying to say is that the original teachings of God should not be transmitted by words only but also by action. And Spikey? He embodies that, Livio. He’s no more a god for his wings than he is inhuman for being a Plant, but I wholeheartedly believe he’s a living and breathing and working Good Book. You never have to read a single scripture if you get to know this guy.
So get to know him, will ya? I promise, you won’t be sorry for very long.
* * *
The rescue mission goes better and worse than expected.
It starts early, because the impulsive remains of the military launch a surprise attack. But, thank God, it succeeds. Casualties are uncountable, but not crippling. Vash is bare as bones and about as skinny, but he’s alive, conscious, and relatively sane.
Unfortunately, Wolfwood gets his innards shot to shreds five times over and finds himself having to down vial numero tres. His entrails go back to where they belong—that is, inside his body and not hemorrhaging everywhere—but the state of his body and mind are less than ideal. An augmented human can only consume six total in a lifetime, lest he become a shrunken old dead thing in the space of a week, and Wolfwood’s countdown has accelerated to the speed of his healing. He doesn’t need a mirror to feel the wrinkles.
Three left. One, two, three. Little vials of immortality at the price of your life.
The stress is building. He can’t think properly, each time he drinks one. It used to muddle his brain for an hour, then a day. Now it fucks him all week long, like a lover taking more rounds than you got to give. His joy at having Spikey back relatively safe and unsounded by misery is overwhelmed by his body wanting to eat itself raw. His brain feels about as dry as a raisin, and about as logical.
That’s why he makes the unlogical decision to leave.
There are two things in Wolfwood’s short, stupid life that he’s ever truly cared about. He could lose everything else and still manage to pull ahead. These two things are Vash the Stampede, and the Orphanage he was raised in. He’s saved Spikey but he hasn’t saved the kids, and the kids are in danger. Chapel’s been threatening him with their demise these past seven months and he has no doubt in his raisin-shriveled mind that Master fucking Chapel really would stoop so low as to kill twenty kids far out of his way, just to get back at Wolfwood. The man is obsessed with loyalty. He shot himself in the gut to bind Livio to his bones. The outskirts of December will never be far enough away to escape Chapel’s vengeful lunacy.
Wolfwood smokes himself into a stupor, those six days after Vash’s rescue. His body feels like gelatin and filling it with smoke seems to make it sturdier than filling it with air. He chats with Vash and smiles and laughs and it’s like he’s dying, ripping half his heart to save the other.
On the seventh day, he leaves without saying goodbye.
* * *
I don’t want to die, Livio, but I’m only human. We’re immortal only when we’re remembered, and even then it’s not really us, since memories are mostly fabricated recall. But through him I feel like I’ll never really die, you know? In any case, if I go, please keep close to Spikey for me. You won’t regret it. He’ll change your world, and maybe you too will find an end you’re satisfied with.
Don’t throw your life away, Livio. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the false words of mice and men, like we were before we were rescued. There’s not a single strand of hair in you that isn’t worth salvation. Well, maybe a few strands. You really should cut your hair, that gung-ho-hawk fits you about as well as my bugger up your nose. Haha! Yeah, I’m a man of foul language. But you get my gist.
Don’t you?
* * *
The ride to December is mostly uneventful, except for a few roadblocks. With Angelina III holding sturdy between his legs and his Punisher shooting straight, he clears them all without trouble. Yeah, yeah. He can imagine Spikey raising an eyebrow at the wording. You compensating for something, Wolfwood? Naw, Needle-Brain, just getting my point across.
Wolfwood frowns to himself. The real Spikey – not the one in his head – would probably not take it as a joke. The real Spikey is probably angry somewhere, or disappointed somewhere. Or maybe he doesn’t care? He’s certainly got bigger things to worry about than Wolfwood getting the hell out of Dodge and straight into Chapel’s nicely stirred frying pan.
The image of Chapel in a chef suit makes him smirk. Aunt Melanie’s ladle in his hand, trying to swat Wolfwood’s head. Hah! But the humour fades, soon enough. It’s hard to find anything funny with his heart up his throat and his palms sweating bullets faster than Punisher can deal them. What if he’s too late? What if he arrives, and like Spikey arriving home, everyone’s been turned to honeycombed marionettes? He doesn’t know what he’d do. He’s not strong, like Vash. Just the thought of it is enough to make him want to howl and die.
He slips on his sunglasses to avoid the glare of the twin suns. Not because he tears up or anything. He hasn’t cried since he was seven years old. It’s seven iles to the Orphanage. Just a bit more, now.
It’s almost been a day of non-stop driving and the stupidity induced by the vial has begun to fade. A feeling not unlike deep regret has settled in his stomach. He should have said goodbye. At the time he’d felt like Spikey would have stopped him, but now he knows Spikey would have come with him. Vash wouldn’t have let him fight alone.
But Wolfwood, as always, has never been one to dwell on the past. He’s a man of action, a man with his own idea of the Good Book, and no better way to preach it than to do it. He drives on, and on, and on.
This time, Livio the Double Fang has his finger firmly on the trigger.
Chapel’s got a couple of kids and Aunt Melanie hostage. He brought an army of mercenary cyborgs with him, as if the asshole needed the backup with Livio by his side.
No, not Livio. Wolfwood can’t afford to think of him that way. Not when he’s a one-man army.
Double Fang is loyal to Chapel in action, no matter what his eyes say. Because Livio’s in there, somewhere, Wolfwood knows. He saw Livio save Cactus from the idiot cyborgs, right before he arrived. Cactus, who was small enough to walk underneath the table six years ago without bumping his head, who is now up to Wolfwood’s waist and braver than most adults ever will be. And didn’t Livio also stop the missile from hitting the Orphanage, when Wolfwood cried out? Even with Razlo tearing Wolfwood to shreds now, he knows Livio is in there, somewhere inside that perpetual idiot, crying.
But Wolfwood doesn’t have time to try to save him, does he? Alone, he can barely save himself. He doesn't have time.
Spikey would find time, if he were here. But he’s not. He’s not, because Wolfwood left without saying goodbye.
Oh God, he’s running out of time.
He fights.
* * *
There’s something I never told him, you know? We were never big on talk. We didn't need to talk, because we understood each other.
Or, at least, I thought we did.
I never did tell him. But, somehow, I think he knew. If you talk to him, Livio, surely you’ll come to understand him, just as I did. I don’t think we can ever forgive ourselves fully, for what we’ve done. But he’ll forgive us. He’ll forgive you, Livio.
Ah… I really wish I’d told him. That thing I never said.
* * *
When Vash appears to Wolfwood, he immediately imagines an angel. It’s corny enough that, even bleeding out places he’d rather not mention, Wolfwood feels embarrassed at the thought. He hopes Vash never realizes how much he admires and idolizes him. It’s unfair to them both, really, for him to rely on Vash this much. But, nonetheless, he is grateful. Thank you for being my friend, Spikey. Thank you for coming here. I should have asked you to come with me, from the start. I should have said goodbye.
I should have. Two vials go down his throat.
The change is immediate. It feels like his body is going to explode. No human should ever consume so much of this miracle serum in one go. The last vial had him wanting to die for a week. Two in a row? He feels like keeling over right now.
There’s bullets and blood gushing out and in, or is it in and out? Wolfwood can’t tell anymore. He honestly feels like his bones have transmuted into lead from all the bullets while his muscles have turned to gunpowder jelly. There’s steam coming out of every pore, his body overcompensating, overtaxed. If someone were to touch him now, they’d burn. The stench of gore and heat is foul. It’s like God himself has seared his insides with a healing fire. He feels like throwing up. He feels like throwing up so much his esophagus will just invert and spew out, alongside his stomach and intestines and everything else that comes with it.
Instead, he swallows. Unsteadily, swaying, mad with heat and despair and regret, regret, regret, he gets to his feet. He will not lose. He cannot afford to. It’s the end, now. His very own Last Run.
“Wolfwood!” Vash calls to him. He doesn't know, yet. Oh, why did you never tell him, Wolfwood?
Why did you never tell him that—
* * *
I wanted to spend my life with him.
Though I guess, with his uncanny memory, I kind of will. You won’t forget me either, right? But remember only the good parts. I want you to live! But I want you to live well. I’m not like Gauntlet, who wished Vash to live so he could suffer more.
Don’t die recklessly. Don’t have a bloody death wish anymore. Keep that noggin-head safe for me in my stead. My survival depends on it.
So don’t be unhappy. Smile! Everyone looks better with a smile, yeah?
* * *
The moment Vash touches him, he knows. His hand sinks down into Wolfwood’s back, as if Wolfwood’s skin and bones were as pliant as softened wood. Precious wood, so hard to find on this desert wasteland. Precious man, whom Vash now knows is a dead man walking.
Vash’s grip tightens, tenses. A hundred ticks for every second, counting down.
Wolfwood feels his body’s need to relax into that hold, to just give up and die. He resists it. Can’t die yet. He’s got to finish this, with his own two hands. Time’s ticking, Wolfwood.
The look in Vash’s eyes is almost like he’s dying with him. But Vash lets him go. It’s Wolfwood’s last wish, after all. Thank you, Spikey. I’m sorry. He’s got to fix this. He’s got to save Livio.
Time’s almost up.
* * *
Yeah…
* * *
Time’s up. The sky cries paper-cut confetti. A bottle falls, a bell tolls.
Livio, newly minted and still aching, looks up at the sky. He scratches his new nose, runs a hand through his messy hair. He doesn’t know what to feel. He’s been either Double Fang or Razlo for so long he’s half-forgotten what it is to be himself. Nicholas seemed to remember him just fine, though.
Livio supposes he should thank Nicholas. Wolfwood’s been saving him all this time, from himself, even from the beginning. He remembers crying, and a younger Nicholas throwing him a piece of bread. “Crybaby Livio,” he’d dubbed him, and smirked.
Livio smiles. He’d like to be that boy again. Maybe Wolfwood can help him remember, when he gets back with Vash the Stampede.
He hears thunder, and looks up, curiously. The colourful rain has stopped. Seems like it’s clear skies again today, too. Livio wonders if Wolfwood’s looking up at the sky, right now. A rush of gratitude floods him. Ah! This is what he remembers feeling, back then! Crybaby Livio feels like a new man, and not just because he’s had his face blown apart and regenerated. Wolfwood saved him when he didn’t deserve it, and Livio is grateful. He wants to repay him, somehow.
Livio can’t wait to look up to the sky with Nicholas, and thank him for everything he’s done. Hurry back soon, brother…! Livio smiles, and closes his eyes. He dozes off, then, blissful and unaware, among the fallen confetti.