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Vash is a helpful person.
That’s the general opinion of most of the people who reside in Southdale. Despite the name, they’re just east of December, and Vash the Stampede strolled in one afternoon seven months back now.
He comes by every morning to check on the tomas and help her water the garden. Her hands hurt and carrying the pail makes her bones ache in a way it never used to. She’s been grateful to him, and is glad to have him keep her company on the rare days he does accept her offering of tea.
So when a group of bandits stroll into town and ask if they can set a trap in her garden for sweet Vash, she doesn’t hesitate in whipping out her late husband’s shotgun and shooing them off her property. Troublemakers would do well to leave good people like him alone, lest they find themselves at the end of a barrel. She’s never hesitated firing in the past, and just because she doesn’t know the man very well, she wouldn’t hesitate blowing these guys away for trying to sell him off.
“Vash dear, do be careful. There’s some troublesome people lookin’ for ya.”
He didn’t look the least bit scared, if anything he only looked worried for her. “I’m sorry for the scare, Rosie. Did they give you any trouble?”
“Not at all, but they were armed. Don’t think they care much for me, but for some reason they were after ya.”
She knows why, knows at least what the papers used to say about him. It’s hard to believe much of any of it, but she knows him well enough by now to know he wouldn’t do any harm if he could avoid it.
“I’m sorry about that, I used to have a bounty, but it’s been rescinded for a long time. I can try to stay away if—”
She waves him off. “Absolutely not, you come by whenever you please. I’m always glad to have yer help.”
He nods and resumes watering her garden. It’s a blessing to have such luxuries now, good soil to grow plants is a miracle they’d never have expected. She knows they have him to thank for that, no matter how impossible the stories seem. She wants to get it out of him someday, but for that, she might have to coax him in a little more often for tea.
—
“Can’t figure for the life of me what’s wrong with it.”
Gerald’s Mechanic shop is the only of its kind in Southdale. Gerald is the only employee and for all his hard work, he doesn’t know as much as he should about the different kinds of vehicles that travel across No Man’s Land, but he can get by with most things.
“Don’t think you have the part. When I’m in December this afternoon, I can pick it up for you.”
That’s where Vash comes in, lad is always willing to help and is constantly making trips into the big city. He’s been a lifesaver for his business, and Gerald’s starting to feel like he’s learned enough from him that he can someday get certified by one of the big city mechanics.
Gerald tried hiring him last year when he strolled into town, but the lad just stops by on his daily run and helps him with anything he’s confused about. His repairs have been honest and better than ever, whereas before he was mostly rigging things up best he could.
“You’re a lifesaver kid, feel free to take the bike if you want,” Gerald offers for the hundredth time now.
Vash smiles and he knows the answer that will come out of his mouth before he says it.
“Maybe another time, one of these days I’ll take you up on it.”
“Suit yourself.”
Kid gets a strange look on his face whenever he looks at the bike. He knows he wants to ride it, but Gerald is smart enough to piece together that he has some kind of hesitation with it. He won’t push him, it’ll always be there waiting for a rider.
“Thanks for yer help today, why don’t you stay for dinner?”
He knows the answer to this one too, but there are some days he gets a different one. “Thanks Gerald, I can’t today, but say hi to Lisa for me.”
His wife loves when he invites Vash over, on the rare days he accepts. Likes how talkative he is, Vash does seem the type to have endless things to ramble on about. Gerald just has his cars, can’t seem to find the words for much else these days.
“Have a nice time visiting yer friend over there, when is he comin’ to visit you, huh?”
Vash’s face does something strange, Gerald isn’t quite sure what to make of it. He wishes this friend of his would treat Vash a little better and make some effort, it’s obvious to him he’s taking advantage of his kindness.
Vash doesn’t answer, he’s too nice to criticize a soul. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Gerald waves him off and gets back to work.
—
Southdale’s bar is a simple place, nothing fancy.
Impossible for it not to be. There’s not a whole lot of the population left on the planet, and only some of the remainder ended up here. The town’s residents haven’t been around long, a few years after the near extinction that befell the human race.
However, her most interesting customer must beat any other place across the planet. For one, he is the most recognizable man around and a major figure in the near destruction that took place.
If she could call him a man, now that she knows he’s a plant.
“Hey Donna,” he greets, friendly as ever.
“Hey Vash.”
It’s hard to believe a man like this could kill much of anything. She’s seen him pissed, so she can almost picture it. Vash is obnoxiously polite and helpful to the point of self-sacrifice. She wonders if he feels like he has to atone for something, but everything she’s read tells her not much of the things he was involved in were his fault, just trying to make it through like the rest of humanity.
“The usual?”
He hesitates, every time. “The usual.”
It’s a strange ritual, but sweet in a way. It's a little heartbreaking, if she’s reading it right. He orders two shots, clinks them together like he has someone to share it with. He always mutters something under his breath as he does. She can guess it’s his way of honoring someone important.
She’s tempted to ask. He’s come to her bar enough, stopped enough fights here enough, that maybe they could talk about it. Donna doesn’t want to see any of her patrons so miserable, but she’s pretty familiar with people bringing their misery here.
She decides to go for it today, “Friend? Lover?”
His inhale is a little shaky, but he manages a smile. Doesn’t bother looking at her when he replies either, which tells her enough. Vash is polite, it must be hard to talk about still, even after all this time.
His finger rotates around the lip of his glass, his eyes lingering on the untouched one. “My best friend, I guess.”
He downs his in one go. Usually, he savors it. Donna can realize when she touched a nerve.
“That’s tough stuff, Vash.”
“Yeah,” He takes his friend’s drink and downs that too.
“You headin’ to December again today?”
He finally meets her eyes. Still sad, but it’s his usual look. Vash is the rare sort of person who can be tough and soft at the same time, she’s seen first hand how that sweet nature of his can turn rough real fast. “Yeah, right after this.”
“Be safe, don’t drink and drive, know you can handle your liquor, but the last thing I want to hear is how you died crashing into a dune.”
Vash laughs, and pays double for his bill. She gave up a long time ago trying to get him to take the money back. “Thanks Donna, I’ll be just fine. You know these two drinks won’t do much to me.”
She does know that. He got drunk here just once, nearly drank the place dry and caused enough damage that she nearly turned her gun on him. It wasn't all his fault, but it was a pain in the ass. He has made a point to help out ever since.
It wasn’t pretty, but her other patrons have done far worse and Vash has more than made up for it, more than paid his dues.
“Be safe,” She says and he gives her a wave as he leaves.
—
Meryl doesn’t visit December enough.
She knows Vash moved just outside of town, somewhere out of the way, a few miles outside of a small town called Southdale. She wishes he could move with her and Milly, but that’s her selfish wish, and at this point she doesn’t know if it would help anything. If she was as selfless as he was, she’d just move her homebase here, but her and Milly keep getting turned down every time they try to move their insurance work here.
“Vash?”
He spaces out a lot these days. It worries her like crazy.
He’s been through too much, Meryl’s known that since she met him. Recently, how he’s coped has been an erratic and stressful game. A blend of great days and miserable days.
They stopped going to bars after Milly told her that Vash was already drunk before they even started drinking. It was a bad night, she doesn’t aim for a repeat. It’s been a few years since then, and she hasn’t caught him drunk like that since. She’s mostly sure he’s fine now, but she doesn’t want to tempt him towards the bottle if she can avoid it, so they mostly meet in restaurants now.
“How’s the latest job, anything interesting?” Vash says around a stack of pancakes. He always gets something sweet.
“Nothin’ interesting. Our jobs are boring now, no Humanoid Typhoon to chase around,” Meryl says and Milly nods in agreement.
“Honestly, I kinda miss our adventures. We had a lot of fun! But I’m glad it’s not as dangerous,” Milly adds and she mimics Vash the way she shovels in a few bites of the sweetness overload on her plate.
He laughs a little, and Meryl is glad to see it’s mostly genuine.
“Do you like it out there?”
Vash leans back and stares out the window. “It’s nice, I get to help, and I can be close to the orphanage and help there still too, you know?”
He keeps busy, so busy that Meryl’s been wondering if it's any good for his health. There’s lines of exhaustion around his eyes that were never there before when they were travelling. She knows he’s not at full plant power like he used to be, but the tiredness on his face is something more human than it’s ever been.
“Are you getting enough sleep, Vash?” Meryl asks him, and his answering smile reminds her painfully of Wolfwood. Something he said, he always could read Vash best.
He always grins like that when he’s trying to hide, ya know? Like he just got punched in the gut. He’s always carrying the weight of the world.
“I’m trying to sleep better,” he admits in a rare form of honesty. Meryl was prepared to fight him on it, but if there’s one thing to be glad about, it’s that he’s not hiding anything.
“Can we help at all?”
He shakes his head and bites his lip. Vash looks vulnerable like this, like he’s not doing so well. It goes to show that he’s in a real slump. He’s never admitted it before.
“If you want to talk about it—” Meryl starts, and stops at the look he gives her.
Milly has no issues bulldozing through to the heart of it. “You should talk to us Mr. Vash. It’ll help, I promise! Better to let things out than hold them in! If you hold them in, they’ll attack you from the inside, that’s what my cousin always told me!”
For the first time from what she’s ever seen, he almost, almost, cracks. There’s a slight tremor to his mouth that breaks her heart.
He really is tired. In the human way this time, she’s glad they decided to visit.
“Maybe later. I gotta go pick up a few things, and then I’m gonna—” He cuts off, swallows heavily. “I’m gonna visit Wolfwood, I can meet up with you after?”
Visiting Wolfwood, even still. He goes there a lot, they’ve joined him a few times, but something about seeing Vash there feels strangely private.
He’s the one who buried him there, Meryl knows his loss is a bigger hit to him than they know. They’ve tried talking to him about it, but it’s hard to bring up.
“We’ll go to your place and meet you there, how does that sound?” Meryl says, watching his face closely.
Vash looks different today, on the cusp of some sort of big change. For as long as she’s known him, he’s been pretty constant. Meryl hopes this is for the better, even if it feels like he’s reaching his limit for how much he can take all by himself.
His smile is wobbly, his mask an unsteady fixture. It’s the most he’s ever let them see.
“Great. I’ll see you then.”
—
Vash is never sure what to bring when he comes here. Today, he brings cigarettes. Instead of leaving them, he might just smoke a pack here.
He doesn’t feel good, he thought he was getting better, but his mind’s been a mess and sleep is harder than ever. An impossibility at this point, he might die a lot sooner than he was expecting at this rate.
The girls wouldn’t be too happy with him. Wolfwood wouldn’t either, if he’s out there. He has a lot more time here if he can just get a little shuteye.
It still feels wrong, putting the cigarette between his lips and inhaling. Never really understood why humans grow so fond of these, but part of it is probably the addiction factor, something that doesn’t really work for him. He definitely gets it with alcohol, he just can’t seem to take to cigarettes the same way.
The awful smell is comforting though. Makes Wolfwood feel a little closer when he’s here.
Punisher sits still as always, looming with its impossibly heavy weight keeping it from jostling no matter the weather. No human could lift it with the same ease as Wolfwood, and he has never had to worry over it being stolen.
“Hey Wolfwood,” He starts,staring at the sand he dug up himself. “I met up with the girls today. They’re a little worried about me. I… I guess I decided to be honest with them for once, feels a little weird.”
He doesn’t know why he comes here to talk. Wolfwood isn’t really here, but it feels like he is, just a little bit. Especially when Vash blows smoke into the air enough that he can smell it, like Vash is pressed up against his old suit. The fabric really held the scent of his smoking habit more than anything.
The feeling of Wolfwood’s presence is even stronger with his gun just standing there, looming over him as if it’s staring down, providing him a little shade.
“I’ve…had a hard time being honest, about a lot of things.” Vash pauses, flicks some ash onto the sand. He imagines it sinking a few feet under, and Wolfwood reaching for the barest touch of warmth. “I had a hard time being honest with you, you probably knew that.”
Some days, it feels like he’s sitting in a confessional up here, facing this cross like this. He tells Wolfwood his secrets now, at least all the ones that have nothing to do with him.
His dreams lately come in one of two flavors, a bitter cold he can’t seem to shake, and the memory of sitting on that couch where he listened to Wolfwood’s heartbeat steadily dwindle into silence.
The memory steals his breath and leaves him gasping in the night. He wonders why now, why the dreams are so vivid when the memory has never been more distant. Almost like his body is trying to remind him, just so he won’t forget.
It’s not like Vash could ever forget. He misses him every day.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I—”
He still can’t say it. It still feels impossible to say it. Milly’s words struck a cord with him over their lunch, he’s kept a lot to himself. Always has, like if he spoke them aloud then they’d become even more real, even more heavy and impossible.
But even if he keeps it to himself, it doesn’t change anything. It’s still his reality, even without speaking them into existence. Wolfwood’s been gone, and spilling the secret to a grave won’t change that. Reality is what it is, and Wolfwood’s not here.
He’s tried not thinking about a lot of things. Not letting his feelings take the wheel, just let them simmer in the background while he keeps his hands busy.
Vash doesn’t know if telling his secrets to a grave will make missing him any easier.
Still, what he’s been doing hasn’t been working. Something’s gotta give, he’s got to change something. He’s willing to try anything at this point.
“Wolfwood, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I wanted—I wanted to spend my life with you. I wanted…I wanted the rest of my time to be with you. I’m sorry we didn’t get it. I’m sorry that—”
It’s not quite it, not quite the right words. If he’s listening out there, Vash knows he’ll get what he means anyway. Wolfwood always did know him best.
Vash gasps on a hitch in his chest. “Fuck, this sucks. Why am I dreaming about you, huh? You’ve been gone a long time. You need to get your ass back here, I know you’re itching to give me a piece of your mind! I know you gotta be pissed as hell at me, wherever you are.”
The wind whips, throwing dust into his face. Vash actually finds a laugh bubble up past the lump in his throat. “That’s it! Kick my ass like you used to!”
The wind doesn’t continue to answer his demand this time, it dies down instead. The silence, the stillness, that hurts more than anything.
“C’mon, is that all you got?”
Vash waits, and waits, a sign, for anything at all. The tears eventually spill over. There are some days he feels like Wolfwood is listening, somewhere. He’s not so sure if he is today.
The tomas ride back to his place is long. An hour, and he doesn’t want to keep the girls waiting.
He stares at the Punisher for a long time. Burns through several cigarettes. There’s words still sitting there on his tongue, words that feel idiotic and not far off of madness.
Does it make a difference, if he tells someone alive?
Probably not.
“Wolfwood—I…”
His words are lost on the wind as it decides then again to whip at his hair and nearly knock him off his feet. Still, they are spoken and if the dead can hear, then Wolfwood surely heard them.
The admission is mortifying, he can’t imagine Wolfwood’s expression if he were to hear them in life. What would he have said even? It’s not like they could’ve been together.
He tries to picture it, and it wrenches something awful in his chest. There’s no point.
Still, as he throws his leg over the tomas saddle, his heart does feel the slightest bit lighter, even as it twists in his chest.
It feels even lighter thirty minutes into the ride, and he finally lets his thoughts wander through that admission. He’s never really let himself think about it, let alone speak it into existence.
Wolfwood is still clear in his memory. A few years are nothing to him, and yet they feel like some of his longest. He’s flip flopped between trying to forget his face and clinging to it like the memory alone will keep him afloat.
Grieving him has been so different from others, he never really let himself think of all the reasons why. There’s a lot of them.
Losing Rem was like a hole was blown through his life, a key part of his existence removed from the equation and Vash had to figure out how to live with it, like losing his arm.
Losing Wolfwood was like losing an entire future, one he wanted desperately. The only one he let himself want. This grief came in waves like the ocean he once watched old videos of, with small reminders bringing the tides in and time letting them recede outward.
In the past few months, the tides have been pulling him out to sea while he desperately claws for shore. He should’ve realized that he should’ve just let the feeling take him where it wanted to go.
Now he’s here, accepting rather than denying the feeling an audience. Finally, he lets himself grieve that miniscule of possibility that was there.
He loved Wolfwood. He felt loved by him.
They could have had a future together. He would’ve taken that in any way he could have it. Vash has been lonely for so long, and Wolfwood made him feel like he had someone he wanted to return to.
The tomas underneath jostles in its run and the motion shakes something loose in him. He lets himself cry, for the first time in years. It’s not the pretty kind. It’s full, explosive sobs and he knows he’s scaring the poor thing as he rides.
The sun sets, and he lets himself be loud, shout into the night. It’s the most unrestrained he’s felt in a long time. The sounds he’s making echo horribly in his own ears, and it just makes him cry harder.
It’s pitiful, he feels like a child.
He doesn’t stop, and it doesn’t get any better when he catches sight of his home. He sees Meryl and Milly’s tomas’ in the small pasture, and he doesn’t try to rein in the tears like he usually would. Instead, he walks through the door like that, all that he is on display to the only friends left who know him best.
“Oh no, Vash? Are you okay?” Meryl asks when she sees him. Milly just gives him a sad smile and goes to fill the tea pot on the counter.
“If—uh—“ his breath hitches, and the deep breath he takes is terribly needed. “If you are both okay with it, I’d like to tell you about… a few things.”
He watches their faces, their sad smiles as they settle him down and wrap a blanket around his shoulders. This might be simpler than he thought. They don’t have to understand.
Maybe the answer is as simple as anything else. He’s heard a saying from an old Earth poem, ‘the only way out is through’. He’s not let himself feel the enormity of what he’s lost. Hasn’t told a soul about the truth of it.
He thought he was fine. Vash had figured out some things. His days are easier when there’s someone nearby. When he’s there to help someone. Days are easier when there’s people around who care.
Wolfwood even taught him this. It’s easier, better, when there’s someone near who knows him, at his core.
In the same way, maybe sorrow is easier to carry when it’s shared. Maybe it’s easier, if he lets someone else know.
“You wanna finally talk to us about Wolfwood?” Meryl asks as Milly sets a warm cup of tea into his hand.
Vash smiles, of course they already knew.
“Yeah, I do.”