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scoundrels-in-love · 1 year

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What can I give that is all for you? These arms are all I have (But I hold you like I do love you)

The only thing half alive in this town is the water pump and purifier that jankily works when the wind rips and shrieks through the valley, spinning its back-up wind generator. And even that bleeds out every time anew from a hole in its side.

Still, it is enough to set in motion a frantic chase that ends with Vash splayed in Wolfwood's lap and holding on for dear life as the definitely-not-fever shakes him while they barrel toward next town.

They should have seen it coming. (He should have.)

It starts when they come across the small town in the early morning hours, when the suns hasn’t grown biting yet. The marks of the massacre are already sanded down - the bodies that haven’t been devoured entirely have been picked clean by worms and other scavengers. The room that once held the plant gapes ripped open in the central building, sand already filling it like a grave.

The only thing half alive here is the water pump and purifier that jankily works when the wind rips and shrieks through the valley, spinning its back-up wind generator. And even that bleeds out every time anew from a hole in its side. There's a murky pond at the base, where the desert hasn’t been able to devour every drop from the last time fast enough. The top of it seems to be covered in some kind of inky substance, perhaps some oil from the machinery.

He and Blondie finish their quick and empty search for any survivors, before meeting up with the other two in the city center. Shortstacks looks green around the gills, but has been taking photos, for whatever she is compiling for that hack magazine of hers. Grumpy’s hands shake a touch more when he takes a swig and she doesn’t even scold him about ‘being on the job’. Blondie seems to be straight up disassociating, blankly staring at the once-plant room as if he could will the time to reverse. Closest thing this place will ever get to five minutes of silence, he supposes.

But that, too, isn’t meant to pass and he has to rapidly change his assessment of what’s still alive in this graveyard. It starts as a quiet buzz on the edge of Nicholas’ hearing - later, he’ll realize that Needle noggin had tensed up even before him - that grows rapidly in volume and, in the blink of an eye, the black, shiny coating of water has lifted off the water’s surface, devouring the sun and moving onto them as the next target.

“Run!” Grumpy yells, yanking his baby reporter along, and they follow suit. Wolfwood tries to pull his jacket over his head to protect his face and eyes from being consumed, and with the corner of his eye sees Vash pulling his hood up and trying to close up his coat. They all pile into the car haphazardly, rolling the windows up and swatting at the mosquitos that are stuck to their skin. The incessant buzzing presses through the metal and it doesn’t feel like it’s enough to deter them at all.

“Drive, God damnit!” he yells at Shortie, as if she isn’t really hitting the gas pedal so hard the whole car seems to jump before launching ahead.

“I’m trying, I can’t see shit!” she yells back, windscreen wipers smearing black across the glass.

It’s nothing short of a miracle that they don’t crash into anything. Maybe he’s not given enough credit to her driving skills before, but it’s hard to feel anything positive about it as she sends them bouncing around the interior, literally trying to shake off the black cloud as soon as they’re out of the immediate vicinity of any buildings. Nicholas’ face gets to know the back of the front seat a little too personally and there will be several bruises on his legs where Blondie accidentally kicks him.

It seems to work, though, or they just get far enough from the swarming place. Most of the mosquitos take off in unison and the world seems to finally quiet down, other than a few watery hiccups from Little lady, who is shakily trying to get more of the buggy remains off her with one hand. Her white jacket looks worse for the wear.

“There should be a town half a day’s drive in that direction,” Grumpy shares, pointing a little to the west from their current direction.

“You know the area, Roberto?” she asks, nosyness beating whatever bug-horrors she’s going through.

“Had family around these parts,” he says and the past tense accompanied by the solemnity leaking through sinks any further conversations to be had among them. Nicholas tries not to think too much about the small remains he’d stumbled upon in one of the nearby buildings, a decayed hand still clutching what once must’ve been a plush tomas. About the body that had been trying to shield it from whoever mowed them down.

(He wonders if Livio was here, trailing behind Millions Knives or Chapel. It shouldn’t matter. It does.)

Maybe it’s because of that, that he doesn’t notice Vash slumping at first. It’s a soft thunk that alerts him, the other man crumbling into the car door, pressing temple to the glass. The car bounces a few times and there’s more of a vibration of groan that resonates than a sound as Vash sinks back into the seat.

“Hey, time to roll those windows down. Blondie over here’s melting,” Nicholas taps on the driver’s seat, while opening his window with the other hand.

“Vash?” Shortstack is immediately inspecting him in the rearview mirror and when there isn’t a response, leaning back around the seat to look at Vash directly.

“Eyes on the road, rookie,” Grumpy says and is promptly ignored.

“Vash, are you okay?” Damn, there she goes with that tone of voice, again. That ‘I am distressed but you are the primary concern right now’ one. Why does everyone here gotta be so generous with their discomfort for the sake of others? Two peas in the pod, this pair, and Nicholas is the rot crawling up the vine toward it. Or however plants worked.

“Of course, it’s just a little headache,” Vash responds brightly, but it’s more of a faint glow from his usual sunshine act.

Nicholas can tell she saw through it as well, the way her hands tighten on the steering wheel. They can’t go much faster than they already are, flying from one top of a sand dune to another. Every time they land, Vash tenses. Might as well be yelling from the top of his damn lungs.

“Can’t ya stop trying to take off with this thing and use the damn road?” he snaps at Shortstacks, after the fourth or fifth one.

“As if there IS a road here!” To her credit, she does get the hint and slows down enough to even out some of the bouncing.

In another half an hour, he has had to move and prop Vash against his shoulder because he can’t stay upright without help anymore.

“That’s the fastest I’ve seen anyone succumb to the fever,” Grumpy says in a tone that belies more of his concern than he usually permits himself to.

“But I’m not feverish at all. Kinda chilly, actually,” Vash says just as their driver asks: “What fever, Roberto?”

“Those things, they carry some kind of disease sometimes. Usually it hits a few hours later, not this immediately.” This makes something float to the surface in the back of Nicholas’ mind and he curses under his breath. Of course not even the few rare times water comes to the surface it can really be safe on this hellhole of a planet.

“Are you saying we’re going to get sick, too?” Meryl practically squeaks; it’d be funny in any other situation. It’s actually still a little funny.

“Who knows, depends on your immune system. I should be fine with a few drinks and extra sleep. Been exposed before.” That’s comforting, Nicholas thinks to himself sarcastically. But if worst comes to worst, he can tip back a vial and purge the toxins from his body within minutes.

While they talk, Vash has given up on the fight of staying upright entirely and slips into Nicholas’ lap, curling up and grabbing onto his knee, as if that will somehow stabilize him. It’s too tight to be comfortable, but he doesn’t say anything, and instead brushes a hand over Blondie’s forehead, the way someone long ago did for him. (Odd how natural it comes, this mockery of care that he’s almost entirely forgotten.) It’s sticky and warm, too warm even for someone like Vash who seems to run at a high heat setting constantly. One of the few things he can’t conceal - sitting next to Vash when their shoulders brush just so is like enjoying that perfect early morning warmth before it turns scorching.

“How much longer?” he asks and gets a noncommittal shrug in response.

“Hour or two, I’d assume.” The older man lights a smoke and damn, there’s that almost physical itch in his fingers to grab one, too. He’d probably get ash on Vash’s face accidentally, though, so he’s gotta bear it until they’re in town.

Meryl is staring at them in the mirror and he can tell she thinks that’s not quick enough, too. “I’m sorry, Vash, just hold on,” she says and goes into the breakneck speed again.

“S’kay, Meryl. We got to get you medicine before you get sick,” Vash smiles and gives her a feeble thumbs up with the hand that isn’t currently trying to turn Nicholas’ knee into bone meal.

“Medicine for you,” she corrects him.

Vash opens and closes his mouth a few times, as if trying to figure out if he’s going to swallow or spit something out.

“C’mon, Needle-noggin, if you got nothing smart to say, keep your mouth shut and try not to throw up on my shoes.”

For once, he does as told. It’s a nice feeling. Would be even nicer under different circumstances.

The rest of the drive goes by mostly in silence, they communicate through glances and shared sighs of relief when the town appears on the horizon. They skid to a halt in front of the saloon and Nico grabs onto Vash, so the blonde won’t fly out of his lap.

Meryl’s already rattling off the action plan before they’ve entirely stopped: “I’ll book the rooms. Roberto, please see if you can find some medicine somewhere, since you know what this fever is.”

She turns to him and points: “Stay with Vash, don’t make him move until we have to get him to the room.” Just this time, he’s inclined to do as she says. And then they’re off, leaving Nicholas with his burden. He goes to remove his arm from where it's wrapped over Vash’s chest and straighten up, but the man grabs onto this limb as well.

“Getting clingy is reserved for second date onward, Spikey,” he jokes, because he’s not good with any of this shit, because this is the only way he can deflect without Punisher in hand.

“Remind me of that later, Wolfwood,” Vash mumbles and, briefly, Nicholas wonders if he’s not suffering from the fever, too, with the heat that seems to go straight to his neck and face.

Little lady’s back in what has to be record time for room booking - she’s been into haggling lately as their funds are drying up - and pulling the door on his side open. “How is he?” She kneels and peels some sticky strands away from Vash’s face with a tenderness that he can’t imagine his hands performing.

“Same as before, clammy and boneless.”

“I got all my bones,” Vash protests. “Well, except the ones I’m missing. Uh. The ones I was missing before. Already.”

There's a mix of exasperated fondness shrouded in her worried expression and she seems to bite back a sigh. (Must be nice to be able to be this honest all the damn time.)

“Sure, let’s get all your bones inside, then,” Meryl tells him instead and then they’re extracting the gunslinger out of the car as gently as they can. He insists on standing on his own immediately as his feet touch the ground and almost topples down along with Shortstack not even a moment later. In fact, they would have, but Nicholas manages to wrap an arm around both of their waists and haul them back up at the last second, just as he was grabbing the Punisher with the other.

It takes them a tick to find their balance and then he pushes her away. “Not gonna carry you both up the stairs, Spikey’s handful enough.” She looks like she’s going to argue (of course she is), but Roberto’s return saves him, as she has to interrogate him about the medicine.

With some effort, he manages to bring Vash into the room and have him seated on the bed. Roberto has brought some glasses, a jug of water and a bag of some powdery substance that he’s now distributing evenly.

“You’ll have to keep him drinking, medicine and water both, until he’s sweated all of the illness out. Maybe puked, too, so keep a bucket close. Or two, in case you get sick, too.”

Meryl thanks him, ignoring Vash’s continued insistence that he’s fine, and then Roberto’s off, saying he’ll check in a couple of hours if he’s awake and if they need anything, they can yell.

“We should get him out of the coat and boots,” she says when the door closes.

Vash pulls the garment tighter around himself in response. “It’s cold.”

“It’ll be warm under the blanket,” Meryl reassures him, “and it could get dirty if you keep it on.”

That seems to do the trick and they peel a wobbly Vash out of his coat with his permission. Nicholas folds it as neatly as he can and puts it on the chair where the gunslinger can see it, along with his gun. Meryl has gotten his boots off in the meantime. It’s not the first time he sees it, they’ve shared a room before, but it really hits Nicholas how much smaller Vash currently looks without his outerwear. The black fabric clings to his frame and outlines some kind of geometric shapes beneath it.

At least he saves them the debate and begins to fumble with his prosthetic without being prompted.

“Tight, tight, tight,” he says with mounting frustration, as he can’t seem to find the right way to detach it. Annoyed, Nicholas pushes his hand aside and tries to replicate what he has seen him do before sleep. The angle is different, but with a soft click it finally comes off. Immediately, Vash starts to tug at the neck of his shirt with the same chant.

“Is it uncomfortable? Would you like to take it off?” Meryl asks, having fussed about the room and with the pillows while Wolfwood disarmed him.

“No!” Vash responds with probably the most conviction displayed in the last few hours and Meryl winces.

“Alright,” she says soothingly and brings him one of the glasses with the murky liquid. He drinks it without complaining, though he asks her thrice if she’ll take the medicine as well and he needs some help in holding the glass and a few breaks. Afterward, he leans heavily onto Wolfwood again, eyes closing. Wolfwood isn’t sure he’s entirely aware of it.

“Here,” the woman hands Nicholas a glass, too. Or at least attempts to. “It doesn’t seem like you’re showing any signs, but just as a precaution.” When he doesn’t accept it, she scowls at him. “No article in the world will pay me enough to take care of two giant babies. Just drink up.” Then she bottoms-up her own share, making slight sounds of disgust, while wiggling the other glass in his face.

He doesn’t really think she or Roberto has the guts to poison him and keep a straight face all the while (and it wouldn’t stick anyway), but it’s hard to trust any supposed medicine that someone gives him. The sensation of tubes and wires going in and out of his body, down his throat, briefly seizes him. It must be briefly, it-

“Wolfwood,” Vash says - when did he get so close, so close that their noses almost touch and he is staring directly into blown pupils with thin blue halos around them? Meryl is staring at him, too, the kind of stare someone has when they’re trying to track a worm beneath the sand surface, gauge how much shit they’re about to get in. “Wolfwood, you shouldn’t get sick.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he pushes Vash away a little, hand to chest, and the other man just flops onto his back. Meryl seems to give up on her quest and places the glass on the rickety bedside table before heading into the tiny bathroom and he hears water running.

“C’mon, let’s get you comfortable and maybe then I can get the bug guts off of me, too.”

Getting Vash under the blanket properly turns out to be the easy part. The hard part is leaving. Vash grabs onto him again, strength that seems to be otherwise sapped by the fever coming back enough to hold Wolfwood in place.

“Too cold. Stay.” And then he says something that sounds a lot like please.

Using force, he could pry Vash’s hand open and pull away, but he doesn’t. They need him to have at least one functional arm, at all times. (At least until Millions Knives decides otherwise when they meet in JuLai. But that’s beyond his contract. Doing whatever it takes to get him there isn’t. Anything beyond that is.)

“Fine, I’ll be your heater for a bit. Don’t think I won’t write up a check when you’ve come back to what little sense you have tomorrow,” Wolfwood relents and toes his shoes off haphazardly before crawling under the blanket with Vash.

Vash immediately drapes himself across his chest, presses his face in the crook of Nicholas’ neck as if even that had been freezing and he can finally warm it up. In reality, it’s him that is scorching hot against Wolfwood’s skin. A sigh shudders through his whole body and then Vash seems to settle.

At this proximity, Wolfwood can smell something sweet on him, almost sugary, and it takes him a moment to realize that it must be the scent of Vash’s sweat. Way to remind him that what’s clinging to him isn’t human. And yet.

Wolfwood has no illusions - it’s not some sweet and tenderhearted moment of connection. It’s simple and needy. And it’s so fucking good to be needed. For something other than aiming the Punisher, for the blood he can shed, for tracking down some fool who got his wits about himself a little too late.

He wraps his arms around Vash - holding them otherwise would be awkward - and counts the seconds between the blonde’s shivers.

In a couple of minutes, Meryl comes out of the bathroom. Her face is scrubbed to the point of being red and her hair is a little damp, too, curling at the ends. Seems she’s left her jacket in there. She brings a couple wet towels with her, one of which she hands to Wolfwood. “So you can try to clean up. I guess he won’t be letting you go anytime soon.”

Wolfwood gives a half-shrug and wipes his face the best he can. He’s too exhausted to care at this point and this is frankly on the lower end of the scale of disgusting things he’s been covered in.

Meryl sits down on the other side of the bed and places the other towel on the back of Vash’s neck. He shrinks away from the damp cloth, throws a leg over Wolfwood’s and burrows deeper into his chest, but doesn’t throw it off.

“It should help with the fever, even if he doesn’t feel hot at the moment. I think,” she explains, a little sheepishly.

Sounds as plausible as anything to him. Vaguely, he remembers that sometimes something similar was done when one of the kids at the orphanage got sick, but that was several lifetimes ago.

“I’m not fever,” Vash mumbles into Nicholas' shirt, before his head springs up in alert. He turns back towards her with a distraught expression, glasses hanging off one ear. (He’s refused to take those off, too.) “Your hands ‘re very hot, Meryl. You need sleep.” Wolfwood lets him go and pretends his arms suddenly don’t feel empty and cold.

“I will, don’t worry about me and just rest,” she waves Vash off as she shifts to get off the bed. Vash reaches for her faster than Wolfwood can even process, hand clinging to her puffy shorts, which makes Meryl let out an undignified squeak.

“Where you going?”

“Uh, there,” she points to the chair.

“No, no, no, you’re sick, you need bed,” Vash tries to sit up and pull her onto the bed at the same time, but doesn’t get it quite right - he does get Meryl back on the edge of the mattress, but tumbles forward and ends up partially sprawled in her lap, looking up at her with a slightly dazed expression bordering on a smile, before continuing his efforts to wrangle her into the bed from his new and not advantageous position.

They struggle for a couple seconds, back and forth, before Wolfwood reaches and half-heartedly restrains Vash and pulls him off Meryl. “I don’t think he’ll give up, Little lady. Guess you better get in here, too.”

“But the bed hardly fits you two as is!” She’s flushed red to a whole new degree and he guesses it’s only in part from the exertion and the fever. He supposes she’s not immune to close-contact Vash, either.

“We’ll have to make do. It’s not like you can take up much room.” That gets her bristling enough to try and prove him wrong.

“Scoot over,” she nudges Vash who seems more than eager to oblige and practically crawls on top of Wolfwood. Even so, Meryl ends up having to sandwich him from the other side, if she doesn’t want her leg hanging off the side of the bed. For a moment, she lies there stiffly, staring at the ceiling and probably questioning her life choices, before turning to her side, facing Wolfwood. She fixes the damp cloth back to Vash’s neck and tosses her arm over his waist and then ducks her head down, into his back, in a rather futile attempt to hide her face.

“‘S nice. Not so cold anymore. And you guys can sleep. Get all better,” Vash says with a relieved sigh and it feels like all tension he’d held in some secret, carefully locked compartment finally leaves him. Odd that it somehow leaks an ache into Wolfwood’s chest, though. But there’s nothing he can do about it, except hold Vash to him as the blonde’s breath evens and the shivering becomes more spaced out.

He can feel Meryl shudder now and then through Vash and where her hand touches his stomach, even though she seems to try and fight the shivers and every time it comes out almost like a brief convulsion. Still, she keeps checking on the wet towel and changing it through the hours as the evening sets in, drinking sunlight out of the room.

“Hey, just a thought - maybe Spikey had a point and you should try to get some damn sleep,” he finally snaps, as quietly as he can, and she briefly lifts her head to meet his gaze over Vash’s head. Wolfwood expects her to argue, but then she just slumps back down.

“Wake me up if either of you need anything,” she says and in a few minutes she’s asleep, too. There's an odd calmness to the quiet room now. One that should feel odd, at least. Wolfwood focuses on listening to their breaths instead of thinking about what’s and why’s that spin in his head like dustmotes.

He must have drifted off at some point, too, because the glow pulls him out of the darkness that goes beyond the physical one filling the room.

It takes him a moment to realize where he is, but less to pinpoint the source of the ethereal light. After all, he’s holding it. Him.

Vash’s skin looks even paler next to the light blue lines running like tears, like wires, like roads down his face and neck, arm and even fingertips where he can spot them peeking from beneath the blanket, still clinging to Nicholas. He can feel they’re cooler than his skin, can trace the patterns through their thin shirts, damp with Vash’s sweat.

It’s alien and it’s beautiful. He doesn’t have better words for it. It’s like holding a star that doesn’t consume you. It’s like something he’d want to find the words for, if only he had the time. He wants that time.

There’s a soft gasp somewhere in the darkness.

Meryl.

The bed creaks as she sits up abruptly and he can make out her shape in the gentle ebb and flow of the light Vash emits. One of her hands is slapped over her mouth, as if to catch any other noise.

“Either save the scene for later or get the fuck out of here,” he growls low, instinctually holding Vash tighter to him, as if that could protect him from the fallout that always follows truths like an insatiable scavenger, ready to rip into and through any flesh. At the very least, Wolfwood’s voice seems to snap Meryl out of whatever trance or fear spiral she’s caught in.

“I’m not going anywhere. It’s still Vash.” There’s conviction woven in her tone and he wonders if it’s really that simple for her, the essence of Vash that she’s witnessed in these months overriding any other common sense or even survival instinct she possesses. Worst is, he can understand why.

Meryl’s hand is trembling as it enters the light, but it presses gingerly to Vash’s forehead nonetheless, lingers there as if trying to absorb and understand the glow through that.

“He’s cooler now, I think… I think he’s healing?” Her guess is as good as his, but it’s a relief to hear, somehow.

“I’ll get new towels,” she whispers again and Nico grabs her wrist before she can pull away. It feels as tiny and brittle as a bird's in his hand, even though he knows it can pack a powerful punch. (Seen it knock a man out cold when he wouldn’t stop pestering Vash in the saloon a couple towns back. There might still be bruises on her knuckles. He doesn’t remember very well how quickly humans heal.)

“Don’t. He might wake up and I think he needs whatever this is.”

She nods mutely and Wolfwood releases her. Meryl settles back down on her side of bed, but she is restless, as if she’s suddenly become extra aware of every lump and crease in the mattress. It’s a wonder Vash doesn’t wake up from all of her wiggling, but then again he seems to be more than just asleep right now. Eventually, she stills and her hand very cautiously comes to rest on Vash’s hip.

Soon after, he feels his eyelids grow heavy, too, though he tries to fight the sleep, remain in this quiet moment with the Humanoid Lighthouse in his arms.

Wolfwood comes to at the brink of dawn. Vash isn’t glowing anymore and he feels a lot cooler, too. Nicholas’ shoulder and most of his left arm is dead and gone to the world, though, and it brings a certain kind of sobriety to his mind, even with the headache trying to tear his skull apart seam by seam.

He looks around to assess the situation, where their weapons are (reachable with little effort, but not as close as they should be). That Vash has somehow shifted to be mostly diagonal across the minimal space they have, back and head on Nicholas’ chest, but his lanky legs are hanging over the side of the bed and Meryl is curled up partially on top of him. There are dark circles around her eyes standing out against pale and sweat-covered skin. The fever (her or Vash’s) or whatever she’s come to realize about Vash must’ve taken a toll on her. Both, probably.

Wolfwood also feels worse for wear. Though Vash isn’t sleeping on his arm anymore, it is now pinned beneath Meryl’s head. Worse yet is his headache and that his mouth is dry as the sand outside and the last filled glass in proximity is the medicine left for him. One Meryl had been so insistent that he took. And he hasn’t had a smoke in ages.

He licks his dry lips pointlessly, feels a split and sighs. Wonders if he could wiggle one of the vials out from his suit’s inner pocket without disturbing Vash too much. His gaze falls onto the medicine again. It’s not like it seems to have helped these two much (but they are alive).

It’s just water, Nico tells himself. It’s just water with some substance that didn’t hurt even if it didn’t help, it’s just water that was brought to him with good intentions, as rare a breed as those are. He can already picture the nagging and fussing both Vash and Meryl will give him if they catch wind of him feeling under the weather and medicine untouched. It makes his headache worsen just thinking about it and a certain pinch comes behind his eyes.

Faint memories of Livio insisting that he drinks the entire bottle of cough syrup to get better instantly (because that’s how medicine works, clearly) comes to mind and how he’d been about one third in before they’d been caught. The pinch turns into a tingle in his nostrils, almost as if…

Fuck it, he can’t afford to go insane from dehydration. The drink is unpleasantly room temperature, the medicine added has bitter and sour taste all at once and he feels a little queasy afterward. It’d be nice if they made these things tasty, once in a while. That syrup had been nice, he recalls. Probably why he’d been fine with chugging it.

Nicholas pushes the thought away, focuses on adjusting the other two bodies so they’re not as likely to fall out of the bed and break a bone. Would be stupid to be delayed any further because of that.

At the ministrations, Vash sighs and tucks his head under Nico’s chin. A moment later, Meryl reaches for something in her sleep, gets a hold of his jacket’s lapel and seems to be content with that.

Would be stupid to pretend that’s at all why he cares. Would be stupid to wish for a few more hours of this. But in the privacy of his fever-singed thoughts with hazy morning light as the only witness, maybe he can let himself be a little stupid, before he inevitably has to repent and drown in the shadows cast by Eye of the Michael.

Tomorrow he will be smart and vicious and pious again. Tomorrow, he will be a wolf in sheep’s clothing again, leading them to the sacrificial altar. Tomorrow.

Nevermind that tomorrow is already today.

#trigun #trigun stampede #tristamp #mashwood #rainy writes stuff #my fic #this was intended as vashwood but apparently my brain only has one track so here we are

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