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Too much, too bright, too loud, too fast.
Everything is happening all at once and then not at all and it is as if his body isn’t getting the memo. Some sort of messaging system has gone rogue within him and every single signal that is being sent from his senses to his brain is being translated wrong. It feels as if he is going to die, as if he is already dying, and nothing can be done to stop it. Every breath he takes feeling closer to inhaling fire and ash, cloying in his lungs like the very air that is supposed to sustain him is instead actively seeking to choke the very life out of him.
It had been so close, too close. Their merry little band of misfits had gotten ambushed and if it wasn’t for Vash willingly acting like a fucking decoy , distracting their assailants for long enough that they could find a way out of the canyon they had been trapped in, things could have ended up far worse. In the end, no one had gotten seriously hurt besides the bandits that had been hunting them down, but for some reason he just can’t shake the thought that it could have .
His mind continues assaulting him with flashes of Meryl and Milly, captured, beaten and broken. No matter how much he fights the constant train of mental abuse that his fractured psyche keeps conjuring up, he is powerless to staunch the unceasing flow of images of the two of them being put through the worst things imaginable.
It’s no rarity for him to see Vash get hurt and no matter how much he loathes it every time it happens, he is well aware of the borderline limitless capacity of his body to heal himself and bounce back from injuries of all sorts, shapes and sizes. There is blood spilling from a bullet wound or two, which is barely more than a regular Monday morning for The Humanoid Typhoon and yet it makes Wolfwood feel like he is about to lose himself completely. Flashes being conjured up of torn off limbs, spilling guts and the broken remains of the only person who has ever gotten truly close to understanding and accepting him so completely. The light and life fading from those piercing eyes as he lays there, lifeless, in an ever expanding pool of his own blood.
WHY WON’T MY MIND STOP DOING THIS?
STOP IT! IT ISN’T REAL!
I CAN’T HANDLE THIS!
STOP!
…please…please stop…I don’t want to see these things.
Fuck…
They are escaping the scene of the fight, all four of them worse for wear but alive and breathing, so why won’t his body get the goddamn memo?!
His every nerve feels like it’s on fire, sparking like live wires that are running with an electrical current that is so far beyond what his body should be able to handle. Breathing hurts so fucking much and if it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t get hit in the chest today, it would almost make him think he broke all of his ribs and punctured both of his lungs during the fight.
Something glints in the light, refracting off of some surface or another to their right. It’s instinct, automatic responses of his body before his mind even has the barest of a moment to process what is going on, survival kicked into high gear.
The unmistakable sound of gunfire fills his ears and violently reverberates inside his skull, as if someone shoved his head inside of the barrel of the weapon before firing. Meryl screams at the unexpected and explosive display of violence, Milly immediately reaching out to shield her. Someone is shouting his name but it sounds so far away, as if his ears are temporarily too overwhelmed by the firing of a gun right besides his head to process the input properly.
“Wolfwood!” The voice sounds a lot like Vash.
“Nicholas?” Yes, that is definitely Vash, calling his name with so much painful concern in his voice that it makes him want to violently throw up because of his own self-loathing.
Reality fades back into focus. Nicholas looks at his own hands and sees them clutching the Punisher in a grip so tight it has his knuckles going white. His hands are trembling, both from the force of his hold on the weapon as well as from the sheer amount of adrenaline that is still pumping through his veins.
This space is too open, there could be enemies hiding everywhere. What if he won’t see them on time? What if they get ambushed again.
What if the others get hurt beyond what they can recover from?
What if he is too late?
He won’t be able to stop them, he can’t protect them like this.
He will fail, it will all fall apart, this has to stop, has to stop. Stop. STOP!
His head is spinning so badly, the whole world fading in and out of focus.
He knows he’s hyperventilating but his body won’t listen to him anymore, his breath keeps getting stuck in his throat, hooking into his burning, heaving chest like jagged ends of barbed wire. He hears the others talking, words coming out rushed and filled with worry. He wants to shout at them to shut up, to move before things go wrong again, but the words die before they ever reach beyond his mind.
It’s like he’s caged and there is no way out, the key has gotten buried along with their blood in the sand of the endless desert.
Someone has moved into his line of sight, a stain of bright red and black filling up too much space in his hazy vision. Vash’s voice barely reaches him, barely enough to guide him out of the frenzied haze that his body has him trapped in. He fights with all his might to cling on to this small, petering ray of light, begging for the man in front of him to drag him out of this hell he can’t seem to find any reprieve from.
Vash says something to the girls and Meryl points at something in the direction that Nicholas fired his gun in. Vash nods, agreeing to something Nicholas has no idea of and he hates it . He hates being left out of the loop, hates that he can’t get his body to stop collapsing under the sheer magnitude of panic that is screaming through his veins. He loathes the disgusting pity that he can see in Vash’s eyes when he looks at him again, it makes him feel fucking pathetic. Weak, insignificant and broken. Worthless.
Fuck…FUCK!
“Nicholas, I’m going to take the reins of your Thomas, okay?”
Don’t look at me like that , he wants to scream at him instead.
Don’t look at me like I’m weak and fragile! Like you care !
Instead, somewhere inside of himself, Nicholas finds a fleeting vestige of strength and presence of mind, just enough to nod his head and watch with bleary eyes as Vash takes the leather straps in his hand and starts guiding both of their birds towards…somewhere. The girls are following along besides them.
His hands won’t stop shaking, why can’t he get his eyes to focus properly?
Why is he so goddamn weak?
Leave me alone, I can’t handle this.
There is too much space, it’s too big, too bright, too loud.
Leave me already so that I can bury myself in the sand and stop existing like this.
Please don’t leave me alone. I’m so, so afraid.
They skirt over the top of the dune and an abandoned cluster of buildings looms up in front of them, half covered in sand like the bleached white bones of some ancient grotesque animal. One of the windows in the nearest building has recently been shattered, uncountable fragments of glass glittering in the sand besides recently fired bullet casings. He wants to scream and cry but instead he simply holds on to the Punisher even tighter, ignoring how shame and guilt are vying for dominance now alongside the panic that is still wreaking havoc inside of him.
Christ, why can’t he get his heart to calm the fuck down already. He needs to get inside somewhere .
He needs to feel safe.
He will never feel safe again.
As soon as the group halts in front of one of the larger buildings, Nicholas wrests himself away from his Thomas and his companions alike. Still holding on to the Punisher, to his very own personalised cross that will bring no redemption for him, he storms into the building.
Four walls surrounding him, it’s better like this, maybe now he can breathe again. Maybe, in here, it will finally be possible to stop jumping at shadows and the demons in his own head. A floorboard creaks under someone’s foot and the noise that violently claws its way out of Nicholas’ throat barely sounds like anything resembling human. A feral snarling thing that belongs to the monster that lurks inside his veins, rather than the person he is still pretending to be.
Belatedly he realises that he was about to shoot one of them. His instincts are still kicked up into overdrive and for a split second his mind had not been able to distinguish friend from foe anymore.
There is still too much space, too many corners and shadows where enemies could be hiding. It’s too open. Too empty. Too big and too bright and even though there are no other sounds besides his own hyperventilating breath and the howling of his blood inside his ears, it still feels like everything is just too loud .
His eyes catch Vash’s and he sees how he stepped in front of the girls. His expression is filled with a sense of sorrow and worry that fills Nicholas’ throat with bile, burning his insides raw with acidic fire. Vash is still bleeding, a thick and viscous stain slowly spreading wider along the fabric of his coat.
Nicholas is a liability like this. He can see it in their eyes. He can feel their worry and their judgment on his tongue, it tastes like ash and blood and rot.
He runs.
He hides.
Like a coward he flees their accusing gazes and he can feel them drilling into the back of his neck even while he has long since moved out of their sight.
In the end it is a broom closet that does the trick. It’s barely big enough to fit both himself and the Punisher inside of, but he manages. It has no windows and only a single door for entry, which he bars with the sheer heft of his cross. The small space is barren, the shelves devoid of anything but a pervasive rot inside the wood that constitutes their frames.
With a heaving sob, Nicholas slides down along the wall that is the furthest away from the door and curls in on himself. Finally he feels safe enough to let go. Nothing can harm him now, while he remains locked away in here. Like the cell in which he was held for so long. At least, while surrounded on all sides by those walls of metal, he couldn’t get hurt.
Nothing happens for quite some time. Nicholas just sits there with his legs pulled up to his chest, his face hidden between his knees as he falls apart in bitter, yet welcome, silence. No one there to judge him or call him out, to blame him or accuse him of all the weaknesses he knows damn well he has.
For a split moment, the sound of heavy footsteps approaching his hiding place threaten to send him into another fit of spiraling panic. Then his brain catches on and he recognises the reverberating echoes as they move closer through the otherwise empty hallway. The heavy thud is unmistakable, paired with the soft swishing sounds of a coat he knows to be bright red. It’s Vash.
He feels some of the fear drain out of him again at the realisation.
Even though he desperately does not want the other man to witness him like this, he still finds it within himself to be grateful for his presence outside of the door. With Vash there, things are relatively safe. He wouldn’t leave the girls alone if he didn’t trust the situation enough to do so.
There is a rustling sound, accompanied by a soft thud as Vash sits down on the floor just outside of the door. Nicholas can hear some more sounds of shifting fabric and a slight noise of discomfort but the thought of calling out to the other man, to ask him if he is okay, to break the fragile safety of this barely existing barrier between them, sends his mind into a renewed surge of frenzy. He doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want Vash to hear in his voice how he cried and screamed it raw inside his self imposed little cell.
Instead of words, the sounds of unwrapping bandages filter softly through the air. A breath or two being sucked in through slightly clenched together teeth, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a bullet casing falling to the floorboards underneath their feet. Vash is finally , quietly, treating his wounds while sitting on the other side of the door. Strange as it may be, it brings some sense of peace to Nicholas, knowing that his companion is looking after himself as well.
They both remain quiet for quite some time. Eventually Vash breaks the strangely comfortable silence that hangs between them.
“The girls are okay. We found a backroom that has only a small window and one entry point, so we set up camp there.”
Vash waits and listens, giving Nicholas time to respond if he so wishes. When nothing comes, he continues, his voice soft and gentle like a spring breeze that carries warmth and the promise of healing. He despises how much it makes him ache, how weak it makes him feel, how much he craves to be held and protected by him.
“I’m relieved to know that you found a space that suits what you need right now, so stay as long as you like. Whatever you need right now, it is okay.”
He hates how easily Vash pierces through all the protections and walls that he has built up around himself, around his fragile, aching heart. It makes him sick to his stomach with how exposed and flayed open it makes him feel. Yet he is grateful, so deeply thankful for someone who understands. Perhaps not entirely in the same way or on the same level, but he knows that Vash understands what he is going through. What he has been through over the past several hours. He is deeply certain that this sort of panic, the overwhelming dread and sense of complete loss of control, is not a foreign concept to the other man in the slightest.
It makes him all the more grateful to have him by his side. To not have to explain himself or make excuses. It doesn’t lessen the guilt and shame that burn brightly inside his chest, but knowing that he is not alone makes it just a fraction easier to bear.
“There is no need to talk if you don’t want to, I’m okay with just sitting together like this for a while longer, if you’d like.” There is a brief pause, sentences being crafted with a gentle care that Nicholas feels he hardly deserves yet is selfishly grateful for.
“If you’d rather I returned to Meryl and Milly, that is okay too.”
Nicholas opens his mouth to reply but finds that his voice is still frozen in his throat, no sound managing to make it past his lips besides the rough rasping of his own breathing. There are some more shuffling noises on the other side of the door and for a moment he grows tense again, the fact that he doesn’t know what Vash is doing is making him feel on edge. Then a piece of paper is gently slipped underneath the door, accompanied by the pathetic remains of what once must have been a pencil. Vash doesn’t speak, instead he begins to hum some sort of melody that is at the same time entirely foreign and deeply soothing to Nicholas.
It hurts to force his body to move. His limbs are angry and sore from being forced to sit in such a crumpled up position on the harsh surface of the floor. Every fiber of his being is feeling deeply and utterly exhausted, his arms filled with metaphorical lead as he reaches for the paper.
It’s okay if talking is hard right now. I understand. If you’d like we can use this?
Just a single word or anything that feels okay for you is enough. Do you want me to stay?
Nicholas refuses to let himself cry again. He doesn’t want Vash to hear it from the other side of the door and he knows full well that he will be able to do so just fine. Instead, he takes a few laboured breaths and with shaking hands he picks up the pencil, writes a single word and pushes it back out underneath the door.
Stay, it reads.
“Alright, I’ll stay right here then”, comes the reply and Nicholas sags against the wall beside the door, with relief. Right when he thinks that things are okay like this, it suddenly feels like this isn’t enough anymore. The small, cramped space in which he is hiding is becoming stifling instead of safe, the darkness oppressive instead of a blessed disguise for his tearstained face. His breath hitches again in his chest and he pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes with enough force to hurt a little.
“Nicholas?” Vash’s voice is tinged with concern again, still soft and gentle but clearly tainted once again with worry. Nicholas feebly thuds a clenched fist against the surface of the door, unsure of what exactly he means to convey with the gesture but feeling compelled to do so anyway. Vash apparently understands him though, understands the need that translates through the soft, dull noise.
When the door opens, Nicholas is ready to shield his eyes from an overwhelming flood of light but apparently night has fallen, because the inferno never comes to burn his overly sensitive eyes.
He was an idiot, thinking he blocked the door with the Punisher and failing to realise that it opens outward instead of in. Vash easily catches the weapon though and props it up again against the wall.
A soft touch to his shoulder pulls Nicholas out of his own head again and for a split second he is torn between leaning into it or ripping it away from himself. Vash doesn’t immediately move, giving him time and space to decide for himself what he wants.
He leans into it.
A gentle, strong arm wraps around his shoulders now and Nicholas is pulled forward, all the movements happening at a slow and even speed. Fuck, he loathes how he is being treated like a fragile, spooked animal but at the same time he is deeply relieved that Vash allows him to process all the sensory imput at his own pace.
His head comes to rest against Vash’s sternum, right over the sound of his steadily beating heart. Calm and safe, his arm remains wrapped around Nicholas’ shoulders and for the first time since the shootout from earlier that day, he feels like he can breathe again.