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Now, Nicholas D. Wolfwood might not be the most cultured or polished guy around, but Miss Melanie at least taught him bare bones manners. You don't talk with your mouth full if you can help it, you try not to cuss around kids, you say please and thank you and wash your hands before dinner, and you don't ask people what they are, that shit is just plain rude.
Still he can't help but wonder... what the hell is Vash the Stampede?
The obvious answers are exactly that – damn obvious. Vash is an idiot except that he's a genius, kinda clumsy except that he's not at all, and the biggest most pathetic bleeding heart Wolfwood has ever met.
He's also not a whole bunch of things, as Wolfwood has been discerning over the months they've somehow become... whatever they are.
Despite being pale as hell, Vash is not a vampire. Wolfwood hasn't caught him drinking from people or cattle or anything like that and last week they'd both gone through a damn window in a scuffle at a bar and the blood hadn't bothered him one bit. He also soaks up the sun like he's been locked in a cave for a few hundred years... and judging by his table manners, maybe he has.
He's also not a werewolf – which is the accusation Wolfwood himself usually faces, probably because his name attracts every dumbass in the neighborhood with the obvious question to ask on a full moon. But no, they both remain no furrier than usual when the cycle rolls around, even if sometimes Vash eats like a wild animal.
Wolfwood struck witch off the list a long time ago, just because Vash's handwriting is such shit he'd never be able to make a glyph the way he needs to, and he fumbles ninety percent of the songs he sings so spellcasting is definitely out for him. For a while he wondered if he was maybe someone's familiar with the way he's always all up in his personal space like a lap cat, but no... just clingy.
Vash isn't a selkie either. Can't hardly swim more than a doggy paddle, which Wolfwood found out when they took all the kids to the community pool and the mermaid lifeguard thought he was drowning because his efforts to tread water were so godawful clumsy. That one had proved particularly embarrassing, but at least it gave the littles some company in their swim lessons – it can be awful to get some of them in the pool in the first place, but it's not so bad when their favorite playmate is in floaties there with them.
For a while he thought maybe he was an ent – the treefolk that come down from the forests every so often, but they're all real... tree-ish. And Vash is soft from his fluffy hair to the sweep of his eyelashes and all the way down. Even his scars couldn't be described as gnarled, vicious as some of them are. He also just moves too damn fast for it. Walks fast, talks fast, thinks fast – and thank the gods for it because if Wolfwood had to wait for one more person dawdling around after spending twenty minutes getting everybody's shoes tied he'd start screaming.
He hasn't ever really ruled out angel... part because his twin brother is the damn devil himself, and it would make sense to cleave that whole thing in half and give the good twin the pearly feathers, but Vash laughed so hard he snorted beer out his nose the one time he'd made a joke about it, so probably not. He also had no problem sinking his sharp little fangs into the back of Wolfwood's neck last week as he rode him hard into the mattress, and he's fairly certain angels are celibate and all that. Vash not so much.
His appetite for everything is voracious, even when he's denying himself. And lord does he love denying himself. First Wolfwood had thought that maybe he was some type of siren, the way he felt compelled to follow him, utterly ensnared by those eyes and lips. But Vash had been shy about it, denying them both for weeks, needing to be convinced of... what, Wolfwood was never quite sure. He'd tease and flirt in circles but never do anything, like arguing with a sphinx, until one day, he apparently got whatever he needed, and they'd fallen together so hard and fast that he'd had succubus on his list for a while too.
Now Wolfwood finds himself all but devoured, filled with thoughts of the forever kind. Vash fills his head and heart and waking moments, and fills his own pockets with various trinkets of Wolfwood's, like he can't bear to be without some talisman. It's an intoxicating type of attention, to have the weight of a guy so intense that it feels like they're the only two people in the world. A guy who promises the world, stroking Wolfwood's cheek as he whispers about protecting him and the orphanage, like Wolfwood isn't the scariest thing around there most days. Probably a good thing though, because if Vash wasn't so set on sticking around and helping him, he's ashamed to say he might've followed him off on whatever whirlwind threatens to catch him, and anybody with eyes knows it.
Liv teases him that he's given away his soulstone, but he's got two different brains up there and still doesn't know shit, so Wolfwood doesn’t pay him a lick of attention.
But... maybe he would, if Vash wanted it. Not like he couldn't put it on a chain, or in a ring, or...
He's gettin' a little ahead of himself here. Can't be binding yourself to anybody without even knowing what they are.
Though it's not like it really matters. Like he said, he kinda does know everything he needs to. He knows that Vash takes his coffee with way too much sugar, and teethes on Wolfwood's shoulder in his sleep, and snores like a freight train if he's on his back, and is sweet to the kids, and helps old crones, and is even nice to the local lich even though that guy is a total asshole. He can't fuckin' swim, and he's always getting into trouble, and he'd probably have his ass in jail most days if he wasn't so slippery avoiding handcuffs like the plague and talking his way out of trouble with his silver tongue and-
…
Ah.
“Hey Spikes?”
“Yeah?”
Vash perks up from where he's been coloring away on a page from little Beth's coloring book – the one she insists Mr. Vash help her with ‘cause she has trouble staying inside the lines. No matter that she's down for nap time right now, the man is taking his job seriously so she'll have a masterpiece when she wakes up.
Fuck, but he's in deep.
“What's my name?”
There's a beat where the crayon pauses and Vash cocks his head, hypnotically blue eyes blinking at him.
“Nico... why, did you bash your head and forget?”
Nico. Nick. Wolfwood. Always one of them, not too suspicious, not like anybody but Miss Melanie ever uses the whole thing.
“I mean my real name, the whole long one, you know it don'tcha?”
Those pretty lips pull to the side in a puzzled sort of pout.
“I do,” Vash concedes, slowly going back to his coloring, “You introduce yourself that way... really shouldn't.”
The last part is muttered, like a private little complaint, and Wolfwood is thinking he just about knows why.
“Haven't had any issues with it, Mr. The Stampede,” Wolfwood teases him, feeling like he's circling round the right ring now. “Seems to me if it mattered I'd know by now.”
Vash cuts a sharp look back up, squinting at him, calculating. The crayon is placed gently onto the mostly finished page as he straightens up slowly and pins Wolfwood with a predatory tilt of his head, like he can see clean through him to the dumb squishy heart. “It matters.”
Wolfwood shrugs, a fool making a confident wager in the face of what he's getting the inkling is, in fact, the actual scariest thing around here.
“Well, seems that if Nicholas D. Wolfwood had something to worry about from one Vash the Stampede he'd-”
“Saverem.”
… well he'll be damned… again.
“Beg pardon?” Wolfwood blinks at him, jaw dropping as Vash shivers through a grimace like he's going to war.
“That's my name,” Vash tells him through the crackling air. “Vash Saverem.”
“You're fuckin' with me.”
Vash quirks a grin at him, one little fang making an appearance. “Well, I am fucking you... but I'm not fucking with you... this time.”
“You sonofa-” Wolfwood cuts himself off, growing a little woozy at the implication of who he almost just called a bitch. “No... really? Nah.”
“I... thought you might have guessed already?” Vash cringes, holding up both hands in a shrug. “Nai isn't very subtle, and well...” He gestures to himself in general, and okay fine yeah, maybe Wolfwood is blind.
“I introduced myself to you with my wholeass name, and this whole time you've been-”
“Vash Saverem of the Seelie Court, twin brother of Millions Knives? Yeah... don't... do that.”
Wolfwood can't help but lean back in his chair, utterly dumbstruck. He's done a lot of stupid shit in his life, but fuckin' the crown prince of the fae, who he gave his goddamn true name to half drunk on their first meeting, might be the dumbest.
… the crown prince of the fae who just gave him his goddamn name.
Wolfwood whips his head around to check the kitchen for little ears, slumping in relief when he realizes they are in fact alone for once.
“Don't risk that shit, dumbass,” he grumbles, passing a hand over his face. “Don't want anybody doing anything to you with it.”
Vash makes a silly little humming noise, and when Wolfwood peeks through his fingers he's smiling at him like an idiot with his chin in his hand. “Aw Nico, you're sweet.”
“Can it. A fucking moron is what I am... can't believe I thought you might be a succubus.”
Vash's answering laugh is too fucking dorky to be somebody who needs to entice dick for a living, but it makes him smile all the same.
“Aw, really? You flatter me.”
“You damn near sucked the soul outta me last night.”
“Well, I do have my own tricks you know,” Vash simpers, fluttering his eyelashes and yeah, that's fuckin' glittery pollen coming off him, and Wolfwood may not be the smartest guy but he sure as hell knows what fae pollen does to a man. “Wanna see how deep you can get into my fairy ring?”
Nevermind, he's never getting hard again.
“That was the worst fuckin' line I've ever heard, Spikes... finish your goddamn coloring page.”
“Aww, really? I thought that was a good one.”
“Awful.” He can't believe he loves this idiot. “Absolutely terrible.”
“What about pollination jokes? No? Baby your ass must be enchanted, cause I'm about to break it-”
“Don't make me get the irons, Spikey, I swear to god I'll do it-”
That fanged grin gets just a little sharper, “Don't threaten me with a good time, what do you think this earring is made of?”
“And people say I'm the demon,” Wolfwood wheezes, passing a hand over his eyes. “Fine, you win. But we're going to your place, I don't need the littles hearing me screaming your name or begging for god in the middle of the afternoon.”
And Vash, that bastard, is up out of his chair in a whirl of the magic he's obviously been keeping under wraps, one arm around Wolfwood's waist as he leans in to nip at his lips with a grin, glittering pollen sporing off him and fizzing like champagne on Wolfwood's tongue.
The world starts to swirl away around them as he leans in and whispers, “You better beg with the right name, Nicholas, or I might never let you leave my domain.”
Jokes on him, Wolfwood's gonna bind his soulstone to this idiot the second he can walk again, cause he knows exactly what Vash is now.
His.