Archive of Our Own

Late Spring

When Wolfwood finally makes contact with his target, Vash Saverem is on one knee, speaking softly to a distraught child.

“It’ll be alright, let’s take a look,” he’s saying, pushing blonde hair back from his eyes. Nodding, face tight, the child scoots a potted plant toward him. 

Wolfwood pretends to browse, watching out of the corner of his eye as Vash spreads out a small plastic tarp, then coaxes the plant out of the pot, dirt falling through his fingers. 

“It’s going yellow and sad,” the child says plaintively. She looks to be about six? Maybe as old as eight? 

“I’m sure we can save it,” Vash replies with a warm smile. He gently disentangles the plant’s roots from the soil, humming softly. “I think it’s been getting too much water.”

The kid’s face falls, and she says, “Mama told me I wasn’t watering it enough and I needed to be more responsible .”

“Hey–don’t feel bad,” Vash says, “Overwatering really just means you’ve been loving it too much, right?” He reaches into the pocket of his red jacket and emerges with a pair of small shears. “Think of it like… do you like gummy bears?” When she nods, he continues, grinning. “Me too. But if I eat too many at once, I get a bad case of gummy tummy, right?” 

She giggles at that, and Vash says, “Your plant can get sick from too much water, too, and its roots can start to go bad.” He points at something, and the girl leans in. 

When Vash reaches behind himself to grab a clean plastic pot, he catches Wolfwood’s eyes, and Wolfwood realizes he hasn’t been as subtle about watching the exchange as he thought. Vash holds up a finger and grins apologetically at him, then turns back to the girl. 

In the interest of subtlety, Wolfwood retreats a few tables, touching leaves here and there, but keeping an eye on Vash as he and the girl re-pot the plant, speaking softly, though he can’t make out the words from here.

He does make out the last bit, as the girl enthusiastically thanks Vash, holding her plant to her chest.

“Of course,” he replies, “Come back sometime and let me know how it’s doing, okay?”

Nodding, the girl leaves, and Vash stands up, brushing dirt off of his knees and gloves before turning back to Wolfwood.

“Sorry about the wait; how can I help you?” He asks, his tinted glasses slipping down his nose a bit so that, for a second, startlingly blue eyes meet Wolfwood’s.

Straightening his spine to cover the jolt of pure electricity he’d felt, Wolfwood smiles and answers, “Didn’t mean to stare–I was just taking notes. Unfortunately, I’m your next patient.” He gestures vaguely to the sign that reads, ‘The plant clinic is open!,’ then glances down at the nametag pinned to Vash’s jacket. Vincent Eriks, it says. This is his first time meeting Vash Saverem, but he knows he’ll never be able to use that name. It just feels wrong to him. Too mundane by half.

“Oh yeah? Who have you got for me” Vash asks, tilting his head.

“First you have to promise not to get mad,” Wolfwood says.

“This is a judgment free zone,” Vash assures him, putting a hand over his heart and smiling. 

With that, Wolfwood reaches into the cloth bag he’d brought with him and pulls out the houseplant he’d bought from a big box store on the other side of town last week, specifically for this meeting, and sets it down on the counter.

In horror, Vash gapes. “What did you do to it?” He demands.

“I thought this was a no judgment zone!” Wolfwood replies.

“Judgment free zone rescinded! This calathea looks like cooked spinach! I don’t even know how you do that to a plant!”

About forty-five seconds in the motel’s awful microwave, actually, so the comparison to cooked spinach is more apt than Vash knows. But his crimes against potted plants have accomplished their goal–he’s definitely left an impression. Now he just needs to turn it around and make it a good one.

“I wish I could tell you; I was hoping you would know,” Wolfwood lies. 

They spend several minutes, Vash troubleshooting, Wolfwood giving fabricated answers. At no point does Vash ask ‘did you stick it in the microwave?’ Likely, because that is not a thing a reasonable person would do.

Finally, Wolfwood lies, a tone of resigned finality, “I’ve got no idea. I’ve just had it in the motel windowsill since I got to town.”

And with that, the trap is baited, and sprung immediately, as Vash asks, visibly pulling himself away from his appalled curiosity, “Visiting? Or new in town?”

“New,” Wolfwood shrugs. “Just moved here, the motel is just til I can find somewhere better. I actually work right across the street.”

They both look out the greenhouse’s open door to the other side of the road, where September’s tidy cemetery sprawls. 

“You’re the new caretaker?” Vash asks. “The old man mentioned something about bringing on help, now that he’s getting up in years.” 

“That’s me,” Wolfwood says. It’s his cover story, at least. The best-slash-worst kind of cover story, where he actually has to do the job that’s masking his real one.

“Well, welcome to town. I expect we’ll be seeing more of each other if we’re work neighbors,” His smile is polite more than genuine, but still fucking gorgeous , as he extends a gloved hand, and Wolfwood has to take a breath before he take it and shake. He’s sure it doesn’t show on his face, though–he is a professional, after all.

“Thanks–I’m Nicholas, by the way,” he says. “Nick, to my friends.”

“Vince,” Vash replies, and yeah–it just doesn’t sound right for him.

Withdrawing his hand, Wolfwood picks up a plant from the table, thinking it might actually be nice to have something green in the musty beige room.

Vash’s smile twists into a grimace. “Ethically, I’m not sure I can sell you another plant.”

“Aww, come on.” Wolfwood puts on his best pout. “If it happens again, maybe you’ll be able to figure out what happened.”

“If it happens again, I’m banning you from the store.”

“I’ll be good. I’ll treat the plant like a goddamn princess.”

This smile is more genuine, and Vash shakes his head before gesturing Wolfwood over to another table, prominently labeled ‘low maintenance houseplants.’

Fifteen minutes later, Wolfwood leaves the garden center with an attractive leafy vining thing–he’s already forgotten what it’s called. More importantly, he leaves with a read on his mark. This job is only just getting started, and he has a lot of work to do.

Late Winter

Wolfwood is escorted into the compound. He’d spent the car ride there blindfolded–a security measure he’d thought was entirely unnecessary, given that they’d beaten him halfway to unconsciousness , but the man in the driver’s seat didn’t budge, barely even acknowledged him, other than the aura of seething distaste he radiated, palpable even with his eyes covered.

The feel of the road transitions from hard pavement to dirt, the bumps jostling every bruise and injury on Wolfwood’s body, but he grits his teeth and refuses to show any signs of discomfort, fantasies of the blue-haired bastard driver having to scrub his blood out of the upholstery later giving him the strength to remain stoic.

After a subjective eternity, the car stops, and without a word, the door opens and he’s grabbed by an arm that’s been through enough today, and pulled out into the frigid air. 

“Hands off, shitwipe,” Wolfwood growls, snatching his arm back.

“You’re in no position to make demands.” And he’s grabbed again and marched bodily…somewhere, boots crunching on snow. The darkness and the general state of his head have him too disoriented to try to keep track of his position relative to the car, but eventually they stop, and his escort rips off his blindfold. 

Wolfwood blinks his swollen eyes, blinded by the snow, but as his vision clears, he sees that he’s in front of an imposing steel door. Gesturing to it, the blue-haired man growls, “He wants to see you, for some reason.”

“Wants to kill me himself, I expect,” Wolfwood says, spitting a mouthful of blood and saliva onto the trampled snow, inches from his driver’s shoes. Point made, he lets himself in before the blue-haired bastard gets to reply.

The office is sparse, minimalist, all white enamel and brushed nickel, a perfect match for the winter day outside–except for the old books that fill the shelves.

The man occupying the room fits in that space like a puzzle piece, also dressed in white and palest blue, blonde hair trimmed severely. His eyes are down, looking over something on a tablet, and he doesn’t say anything to greet Wolfwood.

Wolfwood had been researching them–and him specifically–for a while, since he’d gotten his last contract. Of course, everyone knew about The Flood, the eco-terrorist (some would say eco-fascist) group that had been operating, and dodging arrest, for over fifty years.

And, well, Wolfwood has never been one to beat around the bush. “So, want to gloat before you get your revenge?” he asks, glancing around for a chair so he can sit down before he dies. Not seeing one, he slouches against the wall instead, crossing his arms on his chest. His body still aches, his head swimming.

“Don’t flatter yourself. People try to kill me every day. You got closer than anyone has in decades, though. Killing you now would be a waste. I have a job for you,” the man in white says, his voice too cold and disinterested to even be disdainful.

“Huh,” Wolfwood replies eloquently. This was not how he’d expected this to go. Why the hell does Millions Knives need a hitman, anyway? His people don’t shy away from committing their own atrocities. Wolfwood’s fingers are itching to take a cigarette and light it, and for a moment he’s tempted to, for something to do with his hands as much as for the hit of nicotine.

For all of half a second, the man looks up from his tablet, and his eyes are like ice. Despite himself, Wolfwood almost shivers. There’s something about that face that sucks the warmth from the room, from his very bones.

After a long pause, the man deigns to speak. “I need you to find my brother.”

“You want me to kill your brother? ”

Another glance up, and there’s a flash of something in those eyes. Not fire, more like steel. Like a knife, and even through the pain of his bruised body, Wolfwood feels the sharpness in that look, infinitely more dangerous than anything he’s faced so far. His research didn’t do the man justice, and suddenly he believes the things that hadn’t made sense, before.

In the few images of him that existed, Knives had looked to be in his twenties or thirties when The Flood had started their activities. If he were to still be alive–which direct evidence points to–he should be ancient. The man behind the desk doesn’t look a day older than Wolfwood himself, and he’s thirty-three. Younger, if he’d had to guess. What about the other, even stranger stories? 

He doesn’t have time to dwell on that, though.

“My brother is not to be harmed,” Knives says, voice gone quiet with menace.

Wolfwood, speaking before he can think, replies, “Then I think you’ve got the wrong guy. You know what I am.”

He shakes his head, finally setting the tablet aside. “I haven’t, and I do. My people looked you up. I know your modus operandi. You get in close. You really understand your targets. You’ve never been caught. In over eighty-five percent of your kills, the authorities never even suspected foul play. You’re exactly who I need for this.”

“Thanks for quoting my CV back to me and all, but I still don’t exactly understand what you want from me.”

He doesn’t lower himself to roll his eyes, but there’s something in the man’s face that communicates that he’s beginning to get irritated nonetheless. Good to know it’s even possible to get under his skin. Slowly, deliberately, as if speaking to a particularly dull child, he says, “I need you to find my brother. I need you to keep me apprised of his location. And I need you to keep him safe until I’m ready to bring him back into the fold.”

“I’m not a bodyguard, much less a babysitter,” Wolfwood protests, and he can’t resist the itching in his fingers anymore, reaching into his shirt pocket and grabbing his pack of smokes, tapping one out with a practiced motion. 

Pale fingers barely twitch on the desk, and before Wolfwood can even get his lighter out, the cigarette in his hand explodes–no, not quite. It blooms, shredded tobacco leaves leaves unfurling, reconstituting in the blink of an eye, until they’re as fresh and whole as the day they were picked. He’s left holding a handful of verdant stems between his fingers, blinking in a disbelieving stupor.

Knives does not acknowledge the impossible thing that just happened, other than to say, “Smoking is not permitted here.” With that, he returns to business. He’s so blase about it that it actually keeps Wolfwood from losing his shit–at least externally, and he manages to pay attention as Knives says, “You will be paid half again your usual rate, as I’m aware this is an atypical job for you. My little brother isn’t good at much, but one thing he’s skilled at is turning tail at the first sign of trouble, and going to ground. He knows my people, and how they operate. But he doesn’t know you. ”

“Uh-huh,” Wolfwood says intelligently, wondering how he can get the fuck out of here. 

“Moreover, I’m not the only one looking for Vash. He cannot be allowed to come to harm before I finish the projects I’ve got in the works, and can dedicate my time to re-acquiring him. You understand?”

He does. He’s about to say whatever he needs to so he can get out of here, then go to ground. Unfortunately, Knives is again one step ahead of him.

“The Hopeland sisters would very much like it if you agreed to my terms.”

At that, all of the blood in Wolfwood’s veins turns to ice and vinegar, finally fully re-engaging him in the present. “You bastard,” he hisses, but his hands are tied, now. The three nuns were his family, and they were his. They were not part of this . He’d gone to great lengths to keep them that way–specifically to avoid them being used as leverage. Just like this. 

Knives just looks at him, level, bored, not even having the grace to seem like he’s enjoying this power play.

Through gritted teeth, Wolfwood says, “Fine.”

“Excellent. Bluesummers, bring the documents,” he replies, raising his voice slightly for the last part. Within seconds, the blue-haired man from before enters, holding a folder. He sets it on the desk, then hovers. Knives gives him a sharp look, though, and he turns to leave, shooting Wolfwood a heated frown on the way.

“Come,” Knives says, opening the folder. “Records of my brother’s last known movements and locations.”

Reluctantly, Wolfwood crosses the office to stand on the other side of the desk. He flips through the papers–police calls, transcripts of radio conversations, tips from informants. It’s not much more than a trail of breadcrumbs, and it went cold a year and a half ago.

He doesn’t ask what Knives wants with Vash Saverem, or what their history is that he’s on the run from his brother. It’s not his business to know what his clients’ reasons are. But he does have other questions.

“How will I know him when I find him?” Wolfwood asks, at length. The few photos in the folder were poor quality, usually distant and blurry.

“That’s why I met with you personally,” Knives says, a cruel grin finally breaking his stern expression, like cracks in a frozen lake. “You know what I look like, so you know what he looks like.”

“An identical twin?” Wolfwood asks, deadpan, skeptical. 

“Almost. More like a mirror. He is… my other half, you might say.” He taps at the mark under his right eye, gesturing to the left. “He might have changed his name, hair, and clothing, but he can’t change his face.”

This is seriously creepy. He almost wishes Knives had just killed him in revenge for his botched assassination attempt after all. Gathering up the papers and putting them back in the folder, Wolfwood says, “Got it. I should get to work, then.”

Knives doesn’t stop him as he turns, merely saying, “Bluesummers will escort you out. Do not fail.”

With that ominous command ringing in his head, Wolfwood all but flees the office.

Spring

It hadn’t been easy to track Vash down, but he’d managed it in a little over two months of following the breadcrumbs he’d been given. The trail had led here, to September. It’s a good choice on his part, Wolfwood thinks, for all that it hadn’t worked to deter him . September is nestled into the foothills of the mountains, on the edge of the high desert, one of those towns that’s big enough to be anonymous in, where it’s not suspicious that a new person moves in. At the same time, it’s not so big as to really be ‘on the map’ in a major way. If he were trying to hide, Wolfwood might have picked this place too, or one a lot like it.

He’d spent two weeks in September scoping the place out, establishing himself, insinuating himself into the fabric of the town, and subtly into his mark’s life. Vash has a job at the town’s garden center, Project Seeds, so he got a job across the street. Vash lives alone in a shitty apartment building down the road and walks to work. He doesn’t seem to have a cell phone, which is–again–a smart move for someone in hiding. 

After making contact via the microwaved plant incident, he’d made a point to make himself part of Vash’s life–inconspicuously, but memorably. He’d gone back to the garden center a few times, ostensibly to buy a new set of hedge trimmers for the cemetery, then a new rake, then just because he was ‘bored’ on his ‘lunch break.’ Each time, he’d exchanged a few friendly words with Vash, making sure he was leaving a good impression.

He needed that for the next step in his plan.

The way Wolfwood figures it, if he’s supposed to watch this guy and keep him safe, he needs to be close. Closer than just working across the street from him. 

It had a few calls and a bit of manipulation to get Vash’s apartment building condemned, but a hacker he’d worked with once owed him a favor, and one fabricated inspection report showing that the place was full of black mold and asbestos later, the city had put out the order. The residents were all unceremoniously handed notices to vacate for their own health. It had barely been a stretch, Wolfwood thinks. The place really is a shithole. 

But either way, it’s done, and now it’s time for him to make his move.

He stops into Project Seeds on his day off from the cemetery–Vash isn’t visible, but he must be around; the “The plant clinic is open!” sign is out. He only has to wait a moment for Vash to appear, brushing soil off his gloves.

“Hey, Nick,” he says, smiling, but subdued. “I’ll admit, it always scares me when you’re at the plant clinic counter.”

“No plant crimes today,” Wolfwood assures him, “That viney guy you recommended seems to be doing great.”

“Good to hear,” Vash says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Then what brings you in today?”

“Invasive weeds infesting the southwest part of the cemetery–I think I remember you saying something about treatments that aren’t as hard on the native plants?” This is technically true, as all the best lies are. 

“Ah–yes, let me show you a few things from the landscaping department, though that’s really more Luida’s area of expertise…” Vash walks him around, indicating a few products and strategies, and Wolfwood listens, though he’s much more focused more on that crease in between his brows and the softer pitch to his voice than usual.

“Hey, blondie, this may be none of my business, but is everything alright? You seem kinda down today,” he interjects into a lull in the talk.

Vash starts, then grins, an expression that might have convinced someone else. “It’s nothing–sorry.”

“You sure?” Wolfwood asks, the very picture of friendly concern. “You look almost as sad as that plant I brought in before…”

That gets a small, halfhearted laugh. “Sorry, I must not be handling it as well as I thought I was.” He hesitates, but the show of sympathy proves to have been effective as Vash admits, “My building got condemned, and I have to find a new place to live by the end of the week. I don’t really have the money or time for that right now…”

“That’s terrible!” Wolfwood exclaims, and Vash gives a little shrug as if to say ‘it is what it is,’ but his face is still flat, guarded.

Time to spring the trap. “Say,” he begins, “I know this is weirdly forward since we barely know each other, but I really can’t afford to stay at the motel any longer, but I can’t quite afford my own apartment on my salary. I was going to put up an ad to find a roommate on Craigslist later, but I’d rather live with someone I know, and if you’re in a tight spot as well…” he trails off, painting his face with a bemused grimace. “Anyway, I still don’t really know anyone in town,” He pauses for effect. “Except you, a little bit.”

Vash goes still, and Wolfwood is afraid he’s overdone it. But then, he smiles, a real smile, and goddamn it’s beautiful, like the sun breaking through the clouds after one of September’s brief but violent afternoon thunderstorms.

He’s had to come to terms with the fact that he finds his mark painfully attractive. For all that Vash does have the same face as his brother, they don’t really look anything alike. Vash isn’t ice and steel, he’s warm and bright, even with everything he’s running from–and Wolfwood knows he’s only scratched the surface of what that may be. From just about the first time he’d seen Vash, Wolfwood had wanted to take him apart, see those blue eyes trained on him, pupils blown, as he watches him come undone.

Which doesn’t have any bearing on this plan for them to become roommates, he tells himself. This is just thoroughness, prudence, he tells himself. It’s part of the job, he tells himself.

“We should talk about this some more when my shift is over,” Vash says. “But it would be a huge weight off my shoulders if it works out.”

“Mine too, blondie,” Wolfwood says, returning the grin. “What time should I come back?”

They make plans to meet at the cafe down the street that evening, and Wolfwood heads back to the motel, terribly pleased with himself–his plan is going off without a hitch so far.

Late Winter - Early Spring

Bluesummers had escorted Wolfwood exactly as far as the nearest bus station: a rusty, damn near dilapidated shack along the icy road. He’d never have noticed it among the massive trees, but maybe Bluesummers is used to unceremoniously dumping his boss’ hostages here, or something. Whatever. Wolfwood is just glad he has enough cash in his pocket for fare back to December, when the bus arrives. He has his bike, a change of clothes, and a motel room where the staff won’t ask questions waiting for him there. Most importantly, the room has a fucking shower, which he’s never wanted more badly in his life–and being covered in dirt and his own blood is only part of it.

The wait for the bus in the unheated shelter is fucking miserable. The cold seeps into his bruises, stings at the cuts and scrapes. He has to breathe shallowly–he’s fairly sure he’s got a cracked rib–so the icy air scorches his throat. When the bus finally does come, sheer luck brings him a driver who only raises an eyebrow, then quietly accepts his fare (plus a bit extra) and doesn’t make a fuss about the state of his clothes. Every bump and jostle along the road to the city is yet more agony, but Wolfwood grits his teeth, itching for a cigarette, but not wanting to further antagonize the driver. 

As the last shades of violet are edging into indigo-black on the western horizon, the bus pulls into the station on the outskirts of December, the largest city on this side of the mountains. It had been where he’d planned–and planned to execute–the whole Knives job. Normally, he’d be getting out of town by now, if he hadn’t already, but nothing about that job had gone to plan. Either way, given how things had shaken out, it’s probably safe for him to lay low and recover for a bit. 

And maybe start figuring out how he’s going to find Vash. 

That thought occupies his mind as he limps back to the motel–he doesn’t have enough money left for a cab, if one would even take him. Sheer serendipity that his motel is in this part of the city, eight or nine blocks. Even in his state, he can walk that far. 

Something about the documents Knives had shown him had bothered Wolfwood, had been circling the back of his mind since he’d left that office. The intercepted police comms seemed to imply that Vash had some sort of warrant out for his arrest, but Knives hadn’t mentioned it beyond the cryptic ‘I’m not the only one looking for him’ nonsense. Deliberate omission? Some sort of test? Could he possibly not actually know the details? Or had it just not seemed like important information to Knives?

Well, whatever the answer, it’s the best lead Wolfwood has to start looking into, he thinks as he opens the door to his motel room–untouched, and blessedly warm after the frigid night air. One thing is for sure, though: he’s not doing jack fucking shit until he’s had that shower.

-

Wolfwood stays in the motel for a full week, until he can walk without worrying about his legs trying to fall off, and he can take a full breath without feeling like he’s being stabbed. That’s a good sign, he thinks–ribs aren’t broken after all. That would have taken a lot longer to heal.

And all the rest and recovery has left him plenty of time to research his target–though he should really be thinking of Vash as his mark, he supposes, since he hasn’t been called in to do a hit, this time. Wolfwood’s not a hacker any more than he is a bodyguard, but he’s picked up a few tools and shortcuts that can usually sneak past firewalls. And what he’s found is…

He opens up the PDF again, needing to see it, to permanently fix the image in his head. There are always these rumors floating around about The Flood, conflating their strikes with acts of god. Impossible events. A strip mining site gone from a barren pit to a green, lush pool overnight, murky water swallowing all the equipment, as well as the workers. Divine retribution enacted on sinners, some would say. It’s the kind of thing the government and the cops always try to hush up, but between fifty years of activity and the internet, things leak. Theories abound. It hadn’t much mattered to Wolfwood until he’d been hired to kill Knives, and even then he hadn’t put much stock in miracles. Now he can’t deny his own firsthand experience, so he’s having to recontextualize everything.

Still, even with that in mind, he’s never seen anything quite as grim as the images in the classified report he’d gotten from the government server. A couple months ago there had been a very contentious oil pipeline approved to begin construction through some wetlands or some other bullshit; Wolfwood didn’t pay attention that closely to the news. The significant part was that it had never actually begun construction. Where they had set up the staging grounds, and been set to begin digging the very next day, they had received a visit from The Flood. And in the aftermath… The images in the report show the temporary buildings encased in a riotous growth of vines, each thicker than a tree. There were bodies impaled on saber-like thorns, left out in the sun. For at least a couple of days, by the time the photos were taken. No survivors, the report says. And there’s more. Dozens of incidents associated with The Flood, all as horrific as the first.

Wolfwood kills people for a living and these are… bad to look at.

But that doesn’t have anything to do with his mark, with Vash, at least not directly.

Not to say that he’s come up empty-handed on that front, it’s just that… he doesn’t know what to make of this. A black and white security camera photo, a bit grainy, but one of the faces in the image is definitely Knives. The other figure is mostly turned away from the camera, but they’re of a height, the curve of his cheekbone and jaw matching Knives’ exactly. It’s not a hard conclusion to draw. 

The time is stamped as 12:48 PM. The location is July City. By 4:30 PM of the same day the photo was taken, July City would no longer exist.

Now, just over two years later, the desolate pit where the city had been is a highly restricted zone, though, as with The Flood, it’s impossible to keep something on that massive of a scale secret. Millions of people had died, and no one knows how. No known weapon could have caused such massive destruction without leaving any trace. No chemicals, no radiation. Just an absence.

And what does it mean that Vash had been there just before it happened? Had The Flood been involved? That doesn’t make sense; they’ve never made any attempt to claim the July incident–and they always sign their work, so to speak. 

Wolfwood shakes his head at the screen. He’s not actually getting paid to solve a mystery that the world’s leading experts haven’t been able to. The relevant thing here is that this image came from an arrest warrant, federal, highest priority level, for Vash Saverem. Multiple counts of suspected terrorism in association with the events at July City. 

Well, it seems like the Feds, at least, think that his presence isn’t a coincidence. Maybe they’re even right. It doesn’t actually matter. For the sisters’–his family’s–sake, he’ll play bodyguard to the alleged terrorist.

He just needs to find him.

Late Spring - Early Summer

Dinner is fine; the cafe isn’t winning any awards for its food, but Wolfwood has had worse, and he’s hungry. It’s not bad enough to stop him from trying to sneak chips off of Vash’s plate, at any rate.

“So, there’s a bit of a complication,” Vash is saying as he smacks Wolfwood’s hand away for the third time. His face is a mix of amused and nervous, mouth curving into a smile and twisting into a grimace all in one motion. 

“You found a better roommate in the past four hours. One who isn’t trying to eat your dinner,” Wolfwood joke-guesses.

A laugh that’s no more than a breathy exhale, then, “Not quite, though that idea is growing increasingly tempting.” He bats away Wolfwood’s hand again. His tone more serious, he says, “I don’t have, uh… a valid legal ID? Or any sort of documentation, for that matter. The owner at my place had been letting me pay my rent under the table.”

“Well that explains why it’s not easy for you to just find a new place,” Wolfwood says, popping one of Vash’s chips into his mouth while he’s distracted. And why he’d been living in such a garbage dump of a building to begin with. “I can cover that part, though.” He has an array of IDs to choose from, in fact. Right now he’s using Nicholas C. Blackwood. He likes to keep them close to his real name–easier to keep track.

“It’s not a problem for you?” Vash asks, playing with the fabric of his glove.

Wolfwood shrugs. “All sorts of reasons someone might not have ID, blondie. As long as you pay your half of the rent, it’s not my business, unless you’re some sort of weirdo serial killer, and honestly? You don’t strike me as the type.” Unlike your brother, whose whole deal screams weirdo serial killer.

“Well, that’s how the weirdo serial killers get away with it,” Vash demures.

“I’m a good judge of character,” Wolfwood insists, leaning across the table and setting his chin on his laced fingers.

“If you say so.” 

“You sure seem set on convincing me that you are, in fact, a weirdo serial killer, or some shit.”

Vash scoffs, and snatches his chip out of Wolfwood’s hand, popping it into his own mouth. “What am I getting myself into?” He asks.

“A hopefully-decent apartment with a devilishly handsome seminary school dropout who will do the dishes, but makes no promises about remembering to clean out the bathroom sink after shaving?” Wolfwood suggests. This makes Vash laugh for real, and it feels like winning the lottery. 

“Alright, okay, you don’t have to keep trying to win me over,” he says. 

I do, Wolfwood thinks, and he’s afraid that it’s not just because Vash is his mark. Aloud, he says, “Anyway, I drove around a bit earlier looking at places for rent nearby…”

With that, there’s a natural segue into logistics, and other safe topics.

-

By the end of that week, all the paperwork had been signed, and Brad and Luida from the plant shop had taken one of the landscaping trucks to help Vash move his meager belongings out of the condemned building. 

He doesn’t have much, just a basic bedframe, a few dishes, and the rest had fit in a single suitcase. Vash has been living in September for just over eight months, so it’s kind of sad to see. It makes sense, though. The less he has, the easier it is to leave if he needs to run. Wolfwood himself packs light, and doesn’t have a ‘permanent’ home, so it’s not like they’re so different. He’s got his duffel bag with necessities, his bike, and his guitar, with the false bottom in its case hiding his hitman’s gear. That’s it. Oh, and one potted plant, still valiantly clinging to life. He’ll have to pick up an air mattress, for that matter, at least in the short term, he realizes as he un-shoulders his guitar case and gingerly sets it down on the otherwise bare floor of one of the two small bedrooms. This job is really a pain; he can’t remember the last time he’d had to go shopping for furniture. 

Brad had grumbled the whole time, at the state of the place, at the situation, at the heat, but he had refused to let them rent a moving truck, and had insisted on personally helping them carry everything up to their top floor unit–and upon seeing how bare it was, had promptly driven home to pick up an old but solidly built wood table, matching chairs, and some metal shelves from his shed. 

For Luida’s part, she had convinced them to take her couch–it’s design a bit dated, but clean, soft, and comfortable. She’d been meaning to get a new one for years, she said, laughing brightly when both Vash and Wolfwood had tried to decline the gift. They were really doing her a favor. 

It had been nice to see how much they seem to care about Vash. Genuine, honest, affection. Wolfwood wonders how much they know– if anything. Something he’ll have to look into.

-

A few days after they’ve fully moved in, Wolfwood is on the small apartment balcony, leaning out over the railing and looking out at the mountains, a deeper void against the starry black sky. Smoke trails from the cigarette in his fingers, then dissipates into the night. His thoughts are about as coherent, a formless writhing thing, then nothing at all. A headspace he’s worked very hard to be able to fall into, and one that’s becoming increasingly hard to achieve.

The uneasy peace pops like a soap bubble when he hears the door open behind him, and reality rushes back in.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Vash, still warm and damp from the shower, his hair lacking its usual volume. 

Without looking, he offers his cigarette. To his surprise, instead of waving it away, Vash takes it, licks his lips, and takes a drag. 

“Didn’t know you smoked, spikey,” Wolfwood comments.

Vash, handing the cigarette back, says, “I don’t. Hate the smell.”

He snorts and takes a drag himself, the smoke a pleasant burn in his throat and lungs. Letting it out, he says, “Good. These things’ll kill you.”

Vash doesn’t respond, just leans forward, his elbows resting on the railing. Wolfwood does a double take. Scratch that, make it elbow, singular.

“Hey, blondie, did you, uh, forget your arm in the shower?”

Blinking, Vash replies, “I don’t like to wear it when I’m at home,” Seeing Wolfwood’s face, he grins. “Did you never notice it was a prosthetic?”

“I did not.” Trying not to sound defensive, he adds “You’re always wearing long sleeves and gloves.” Of course, he had known. Even if the arrest warrants hadn’t described Vash Saverem as missing his left arm above the elbow, it’s his job to notice these things–the way Vash did all his fine motor manipulations with his right hand, mostly using the left to stabilize or brace, even though he was very practiced at making it look natural.

 A shrug. “Yeah, well… people like to ask kind of invasive questions.”

It’s a warning, a request, and a statement all in one, so Wolfwood doesn’t ask what happened. He’s a little afraid of the answer, anyway. Afraid that the reason would have something to do with his brother, and why he’s on the run. That the answer will have something to do with what Wolfwood’s been hired to deliver him back to.

“Speaking of invasive questions,” Vash says after a long moment of quiet.

“Shoot,” Wolfwood says, when he hesitates to continue.

“Were you serious about being a seminary school dropout?” 

He’s not sure why he’d said that the other day, but he doesn’t have to come up with a story. In this, the truth, or at least part of it, will work just fine. In a voice more sober than before, Wolfwood says, “Yeah. I went to seminary. Made it through the first year, too.”

“You just… don’t seem like the type.” 

“To drop out or to go in the first place?”

“The second one,” Vash confirms, gesturing vaguely at the cigarette, the empty beer can by Wolfwood’s foot.

“You know there’s no prohibition against priests smoking and drinking, officially.”

“It’s less that and more that you added officially to that sentence.”

“Fair point.” But he knows he hasn’t actually answered the question, at least not satisfactorily. More seriously, he continues, “I was raised by three nuns. From the time I was thirteen, anyway. They’re the reason I’m alive now. Figured I owed their boss something, as thanks. But in the end, he and I just didn’t quite get along.”

That last part is a half-truth. Wolfwood had been thinking that the priesthood might not actually be for him, but there had been more. Of course there had been. How else had a twenty-year-old wannabe priest gone to being a hitman in just five years?

He holds the cigarette out again, an offering. This time Vash holds up his hand in refusal.

“There are a lot of ways to do good,” Vash says, kind enough not to ask any follow up questions, just craning his head back to look at the stars. Wolfwood echoes the movement, and they stand there for what feels like hours, but must just be moments, a comfortable silence between them as thoughts roil in Wolfwood’s head. It’s a complete inversion of the empty peace he’d been floating in just a few minutes ago.

God won’t forgive him. Not after what he’s done, what he’s doing to Vash right now. There are a lot of ways to do good, but not for him. He picked his path long ago, and now he has to live with it.

They’ve been standing still long enough that the balcony’s motion-activated light goes dark, and even then they remain for another moment, blanketed in darkness. But the spell is broken.

Leaning down and picking his can up off the ground, Wolfwood puts out the stub of the cigarette, and drops it into the empty can, the light coming back on.

“Got an early shift tomorrow,” he says to excuse himself.

“Goodnight,” Vash says, “I think I’m going to stay out here a little longer.”

“Night, blondie.” On impulse, he puts a hand to Vash’s shoulder as he turns to go, just a quick pat in passing, but his hand feels like it’s burning long after he withdraws and goes inside.

Early Summer

Vash had fit uncomfortably into Wolfwood’s daily life at first, and it had been mutual, he’s sure. Both of them are so used to being alone that the presence of another person feels intrusive. But within a month, it’s beginning to feel natural. And that’s part of the problem, actually.

Knives had been right in his assessment of Wolfwood’s skills–this is the kind of thing he does. He gets in close to his targets. Gets them to trust him, and they never see the betrayal coming. 

Wolfwood is very good at what he does–he doesn’t like being a contract killer, but he thinks that anyone who actually enjoys this kind of work is exactly the kind of person who shouldn’t be doing it. Kind of like politics, really. Power is power, and he’s not a fan of people who get off on power. Not that he’s really any better, given all the blood on his hands.

Anyway, this sort of long-term job is increasingly uncomfortable for Wolfwood, even knowing he’s not supposed to kill Vash. At least not directly, he thinks.He doesn’t know why Vash is running from his brother, but in the short amount of time he’s known him he can tell that he’s terrified of something. It’s not Wolfwood’s job to ask questions, to understand why his contract-holders want someone dead (or not, in this case). But he can’t stop feeling like this one is different, more so every day he spends with Vash, and he doesn’t like it. Getting in close is a two way street.

-

The kitchen is dim in the pre-dawn hours, a hazy rose-gray glow coming in from the small window. Wolfwood doesn’t want to turn the awful overhead fluorescent light on and deal with its weird buzzing, so he makes breakfast in the half-light. 

He’s got an early shift at the cemetery today, and he knows Vash has one at Project Seeds too, so he should be up soon. 

As if summoned by the thought, the door to Vash’s bedroom creaks open and he stumbles out, oversized tee-shirt, flannel pants, and gravity-defying hair all signs he’d reluctantly rolled out of bed seconds before.

When he comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later looking marginally more awake, if no more put together, Wolfwood calls, “Eggs?”

Vash comes over, leans across the counter, squinting into the gloom, rubbing his chin to really sell the bit. Wolfwood grits his teeth, knowing what’s coming, already regretting his extremely kind offer.

“Yep, those sure are eggs.”

“I hate you.”

“If you were having trouble seeing them, you could have turned the light on.”

“You’re not funny. Make your own breakfast.”

Vash pouts, fully leaning his chin across the counter to most effectively look up at Wolfwood through his lashes.

“Not working. Starve,” Wolfwood says.

“I’m wasting away. Shriveling. Turning into dust before your eyes.” Vash’s voice is plaintive, narrating this as he slides over the counter to collapse dramatically on the floor with a soft thud .

“Good,” Wolfwood retorts, cracking three more eggs into the bowl. “Now I won’t have to deal with your shit sense of humor. Scrambled okay?”

Popping back up with enough vivacity that his hair bounces like he’s in a goddamn shampoo commercial, Vash answers, “Yes, please!”

Wolfwood focuses on beating the eggs, and Vash pulls up one of the chairs to the bar to sit, leaning forward with his chin resting on his arm.

“Thought I remember you saying you weren’t much of a cook,” Vash comments as Wolfwood tips the mixing bowl into into the saucepan, where butter sizzles and foams. 

He scoffs. “You don’t have to be much of a cook to be able to make scrambled eggs, blondie. Besides, my brother liked them a lot, so I used to make them just about every day.”

Smiling, Vash leans his head, looking sideways at Wolfwood. “I get the idea that you like to take care of people.”

“I get the idea you’re not as good as reading people as you think you are.” Wolfwood rolls his eyes. 

“Mmhm,” Vash intones, skeptical. “How old is your brother?”

A normal, simple question for most people, basic small talk, but Wolfwood is wondering what in the hell possessed him to bring it up. “Foster brother, but we were close. He’d be twenty-nine, now.”

“Not close anymore?” Vash asks.

That’s one way to put it. He’d cut off contact with the sisters, with Livio, with all the other kids, around the time he’d started taking more dangerous… extracurricular jobs while he’d been in seminary. They had really been struggling financially, and Wolfwood had wanted to help. It hadn’t seemed like that big a deal at first–delivering packages from one building to another, or loitering in an alleyway with a number to call if any cops came around. The money was good, it was fast, and it was in cash. And it was something he could do at night, not interfering with his classes. Sister Francisca had been so proud of him for being a seminarian, and surely God understood–he wasn’t hurting anyone, at least not directly, and it was for his family.

But he was good at the jobs, discreet, and reliable. That didn’t go unnoticed. It escalated. Both in frequency, and in scale. And in parallel, so did his family’s need for money when Sister Bernarda was diagnosed with bone cancer. 

The first time he was given a gun and asked to shoot someone if they made a wrong move, he made a decision: no more visits, no more calls. He’d drop out of seminary–it was past time for him to quit pretending God was calling him to the priesthood, anyway. The money from the jobs would still get to them, but not directly from Wolfwood’s hands. It would hurt, but this way, they would never be used as leverage against him. Or so he’d thought. 

The last time he’d talked with Livio, he had invited Wolfwood to his high school graduation with quiet pride. Wolfwood doesn’t like to think about how disappointed his little brother, alternately sensitive and darkly moody, must have been when he didn’t show up.

“Not so much,” he finally answers Vash’s question. “Went different directions in life, I guess you could say.”

He’s quiet for a moment, long enough that the eggs are nearly done when he says, softly enough that it’s more of a comment to himself than to Wolfwood, “Yeah. I know how that goes.”

Wolfwood’s sure that he does, at that.

-

“Do you even know how to play that thing?” Vash asks. Wolfwood looks up from his phone, follows Vash’s line of sight. They’re in the apartment’s small living room, both sitting on the couch. Wolfwood’s bedroom door is open, his guitar case leaning idly against the wall just inside. Golden evening sunbeams are hitting Wolfwood’s window at exactly the right angle to highlight the battered case, making it glow, so it’s no surprise it caught Vash’s attention.

“What, you doubting me?” He replies.

Vash shrugs, his face composed in such a perfect picture of guileless innocence that it wraps right back around to smugness. Little shit. The expression makes Wolfwood want to slap him. Or kiss him. Maybe both. Instead, he just rolls his eyes when Vash says, “All I’m saying is that I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you take it out of the case.”

“When I started learning, I swore to myself I’d never be like those guys who show up to a party with a guitar. You know the ones.” Despite himself, a note of self-conscious defensiveness creeps into Wolfwood’s voice. While this isn’t… a lie, per se, a greater truth is that he’s simply never played in front of anyone before. One unexpected facet of a professional hitman is that an excruciating portion of the job is just sitting around and waiting–staking out locations, observing targets, or just passing time until a plan can be put into action. The guitar is really an elegant solution, Wolfwood thinks - its case is custom made, deeper than typical, but not enough to be obvious. A false bottom conceals several small, nasty weapons. Strapped to his back, it doesn’t immediately read as a weapons case, even if it does make him look obnoxious. And as for the instrument itself… well, it had given him something to do with all that waiting-around time.

Seemingly incognizant of any subtext to Wolfwood’s statement, it’s Vash’s turn to roll his eyes, as he says, “Forcing a captive audience to listen to you play Wonderwall and practicing in your own home are not the same thing, Nick.”

“I’m going to learn how to play Wonderwall now. Out of spite. I’ll play it constantly. You’ll be begging me to stop.” He grins at Vash, too many teeth showing for it to be an entirely friendly expression.

“Do it, coward. You’ll get sick of it before I do.” When Vash grins back, the smugness isn’t concealed this time.

Not one to be called a coward idly, Wolfwood gets off the couch and retrieves his guitar, warm familiar scents of rosewood and cedar drifting out of the case when it creaks open, with just a hint of gunmetal and oil lurking underneath. 

He returns to the couch, and Vash slides to the floor to give him more room, settling in front of the couch, beside Wolfwood’s feet.

The guitar is dreadfully out of tune, but that’s more easily fixed than Wolfwood’s clumsy, out of practice hands. But muscle memory comes through, his fingers begin to remember what they’re supposed to do, plucking the strings more confidently.

While he plays, Vash idly works on something he’s got spread out all over the storage bin they’re using as a makeshift coffee table. The weight of his shoulder against Wolfwood’s knee grows, first feather-light, then heavy as Vash leans against him. He has no right to enjoy the closeness but… It’s nice.

“That’s nice,” Vash says when Wolfwood pauses his playing, an eerie echo of his own thoughts.

“It’s pretty rusty,” he dissembles. “You seem interested. Play anything, blondie?”

Vash hums softly for a second before answering. “Piano, though not recently. My brother was always better at keeping up with practicing, but I fell off.”

Wolfwood goes very still. It’s perverse of him to ask, given what he knows, who he is, why he’s really here. But the words leave his mouth, like sewage from a broken pipe: “You have a brother? Never mentioned him before; you two close?”

Vash doesn’t look back at him, so there’s no way to tell what he’s thinking as he replies, voice tight, “Not for a long time. How’d you put it the other day? We went different directions in life.”

Wolfwood sighs. He has no right, he thinks again, as he puts a hand in Vash’s hair, ruffles it, then lets the hand fall to his shoulder and rest there. “It’s tough. I know.”

He doesn’t think he knows even half of it.

But he wants to. And that scares him a little.

-

“Spikey, you can’t keep doing this.” 

“Nick. Nicholas. My favorite roommate.”

“I’m your only roommate.”

“And that makes you my favorite!” Vash’s voice and eyes are bright, irresistible, so Wolfwood rolls his own, taps a cigarette out of the pack, and gestures for him to get on with it. Vash continues, “I can’t just leave them. I can fix them. They were going to get thrown out. Look at them, don’t they make you sad?”

Lighting the cigarette, Wolfwood does look at the box of deeply pathetic plants in Vash’s arms. Brown tips, yellow foliage, missing leaves, the works. The potted plant equivalent of one of those animal shelter commercials with the puppies that look like they’re crying. Unfortunately for Vash, Wolfwood is a man who recently microwaved a plant and felt no remorse. Unfortunately for Wolfwood, it’s very hard to deny Vash anything when he’s looking at him like this.

He turns his head and blows out smoke, then asks, “Where are you even going to put them?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Vash answers briskly, knowing that he’s won.

He gently sets the crate full of plants at Wolfwood’s feet, where he’s leaning against his bike, and goes back into the garden center, now closed for the evening. When he’s definitely out of earshot, Wolfwood takes a drag of his cigarette and looks down at the sickly houseplants. 

“If I find any of you on top of the stove when I need to make dinner– again– it’s the microwave for you,” he tells them. Maybe a breeze picks up as he’s speaking, but they appear to tremble at the threat.

After a moment, Vash reemerges victorious, a couple of bungie cables clutched in his fist.

“Can’t believe I’m letting you subject to my bike to this indignity again.”

“If you’d just get a sidecar, we wouldn’t have to do this,” Vash says.

“Sure, I’ll get one tomorrow, and then we’ll go for a nice drive up into the mountains so I can leave it and you there,” Wolfwood replies with knife’s-edge cheer, as he uses the cords the crate to the rear of the bike and resigns himself to driving home at a crawl so they don’t go flying out if he hits a bump.

Vash laughs at the empty threat, and Wolfwood climbs onto the bike’s seat, bracing himself for the next part. 

The apartment is just too far away to reasonably walk, so Wolfwood has been driving Vash to and from work for the past month and a half. He tells himself it’s just convenience, since their schedules largely overlap. But as Vash straddles the seat behind him and settles in, his thighs pressed in close, his coming around to hold Wolfwood’s waist, he’s flushed with more than just the heat of a summer evening, and he has to admit that he loves having this man on his bike. He loves it as much as he’s disgusted with himself for enjoying it - he’s only here to betray Vash. Drooling over him like a dog in heat just adds a layer of indignity and grime to what’s already a gross situation. 

And yet, Vash leans forward into a more secure position, his breath ghosting over Wolfwood’s ear, and as he starts the bike he thinks, ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to… something, something, and the strength to not pop a boner right this second.’

Figuring God doesn’t exactly owe him any favors, though, he goes for a distraction as well, as he cautiously pulls out of the parking lot and onto the empty side street that will take them home. “So what’s the deal with all the charity cases, huh? Don’t you get enough of dealing with dying plants at your little clinic? What makes you want to bring your work home with you?”

Vash makes a soft humming noise, something he often does when he’s thinking before answering. Normally, the road noise would be too much to hear him, but since they’re going so slow, it’s quiet enough. Finally, Vash answers, “When I take the ones that have been stressed out and mistreated, and then see them putting out new leaves in my care… it makes me feel like I can do something right, you know? That I’m more than a walking natural disaster.”

July City, a desolation . Vash, photographed there hours before. Fuck, Wolfwood hasn’t thought about that in a while. Vash is so… he’d never hurt anyone willingly. 

“I guess I see that, but not why,” he says, trying to translate his thoughts into something safe to say. “You’re a goddamn boy scout. Can’t take you anywhere without adding an extra thirty minutes because you’ll inevitably stop to rescue some old lady’s cat from a telephone pole or something.”

“That was one time. Anyway, it doesn’t exactly, I don’t know, come naturally? The plants, at least. My brother’s the one who’s just intrinsically good with them; I’ve always had a natural brown thumb. Used to practically kill them just by touching them. I had to work hard and learn to take good care of them.”

Wolfwood doesn’t doubt he’s literally talking about the plants, but there’s something about the way he said that that makes him think that Vash meant it more expansively, too. 

“Well,” he says, “I see the appeal, then. But I’m not going to stop complaining about the fact that there’s literally not a horizontal surface left in the apartment that’s not covered in plants.”

“You know, your room has great light in the afternoon–”

“Nice try. No. My one plant will get jealous if it has to share with any of yours.”

Vash chuckles, his chest shaking against Wolfwood’s back even over the soft rumble of the bike’s engine and he’s very glad that they’re nearly home, even as he wishes this could last forever.

High Summer

The discomfort he’s feeling over this job comes to a head on the hottest day of the year so far. 

It had been quiet, the past month or so, sometimes even mundane enough to pretend that this is just his life, that he’s nothing more than a caretaker with a gorgeous, sweet, funny, and sometimes infuriating roommate.

He’s at the cemetery now, clearing brush and weeds from some of the oldest, most neglected plots, deeply regretting his choice of a cover occupation as the high desert sun beats down on his shoulders, when his phone rings.

He doesn’t immediately recognize the number, but the area code is local, so he answers. He doesn’t even get a chance to say, “Hello,” before Brad’s gruff voice comes through.

“Thank fucking god you picked up. Can you come over here right now?”

Wolfwood, hearing a note of real fear in Brad’s voice, is already on his way. “Yeah. Something happen to spikey?”

“You could say that,” Brad says, annoyance and concern leaking out of the phone’s speaker in equal measure. “But he insisted I call you instead of an ambulance. You’re his fucking emergency contact, anyway, so–”

Wolfwood doesn’t learn “so” what, breaking into a run, and interrupting to say, “Be right there. One minute.” He hangs up, his jog morphing into a sprint, dashing out the cemetery gate, across the street, and through the entrance of the plant shop. Not seeing them, he keeps running through the store, dodging an unattended child, and through the door that bears a “staff only” sign.

He’s greeted with sight of bloodstained rags on the floor–a lot of them–and Brad holding another one to Vash’s forearm.

“Holy shit, Vash, what happened?” he exclaims, out of breath, half out of his damn mind.

With his prosthetic arm, Vash waves, a shitty, embarrassed grin on his face. “It’s nothing, Brad is worried over nothing .”

“Like hell I am,” Brad growls, and blood soaks through the new rag, staining his hands. “Idiot sliced his arm open on some pruning shears.”

“I was sweaty and my hand slipped!” Vash protests, “It looks worse than it is.”

“With the amount it’s bleeding, you really should get to a hospital. It’s not like you have a spare arm.” Wolfwood says. “I can drive you, let’s go now.” He’s nearly in a panic over all the blood, and it’s not even because he’s supposed to be preventing Vash from getting hurt–he just hates seeing it.

“Fucking thank you, ” Brad says, at the same time that Vash says, “ No,” very firmly. Too firmly, almost, and they both look at him.

“I can’t afford a hospital visit,” Vash says, a weight to his voice that makes Wolfwood think he’s not talking about money, and again he wonders–how much do Brad and Luida know ? He has to know something; employment paperwork typically requires documentation.

“I think you can’t afford not to go; this needs stitches,” Brad insists, in a similar tone.

“And yet,” Vash replies, finally showing some sign of pain, wincing as Brad moves the rag.

Wolfwood sighs, hands Brad a clean rag from the pile. Their eyes meet, and Brad gives him a look, heavy, significant. They both know, at least, that it is dangerous for Vash to go to a hospital. Possibly more dangerous than the wound.

“You’ve known him longer than I have, so you know how stubborn he is. I know some field medicine. Let me take him home and I’ll stitch him up,” Wolfwood says, breaking the eye contact.

Brad looks between them skeptically, then, to Vash, he says, “You’re okay with this?”

Nodding vigorously, Vash manages to grin insolently at having ‘won.’ 

“Fine. If you die, I’m kicking your ass.” He looks at Wolfwood. “And yours, enabler.”

Wolfwood shrugs, and says, “Either we do it his way, or he’ll bleed out right here.”

“Yeah. Yeah he will, at that,” Brad grumbles, and Vash’s face twists into something between indignance and pain.

With that, he tightly wraps the cloth around Vash’s arm and secures it with tape from the first aid kit open next to him, and the two of them are helping Vash up, Wolfwood putting an arm around him to steady him as he wobbles. 

It doesn’t stop Vash from waving nonchalantly to Brad, who yells after him, “You keep your ass home for the next week; not having you make that worse by trying to work.”

As they walk toward the exit, Wolfwood asks, “Are you going to be able to hold on, or should I call a cab? You know the bike isn’t the smoothest ride.”

Vash grimaces, and says, “It’ll be fine. It’s not far.” The first concession he’s made to the fact that he must be in agony .

He makes it a short drive. Vash is all but dead weight against his back, the injured arm cradled against his chest between them, his prosthetic wrapped around Wolfwood’s waist. There’s no guilty pleasure in this ride, though, just laser focus on getting home as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

Vash doesn’t raise his head from Wolfwood’s shoulder when he parks and turns the bike off.

“Come on, pretty boy, we’ve got to go,” he says, gently moving to get up.

Vash makes a sound, but complies. 

“I got blood on your shirt,” he whimpers, “Sorry.” 

“It’s seen worse,” Wolfwood assures him absently, and supports Vash with an arm around his chest. How they make it up the concrete stairs to the door, he’s not sure, but finally, he manages to get Vash seated on one of their old wooden chairs. 

“Give me a second,” he says, and ducks into his room. He doesn’t travel with much, but a medical kit is one of the things he always keeps in his duffel bag. Returning to the common area, he sets it on the table, washes his hands, and lays out the wound care supplies.

Wolfwood coaxes him into laying his arm on the table. The wrap is soaked through with blood, and Wolfwood almost wishes he had just taken Vash to the hospital after all. 

Nevertheless, he unwraps the makeshift bandage. Vash winces and hisses when the cloth pulls away from the cut, then says, “Sorry sorry.”

“The hell are you apologizing for, blondie?” Wolfwood asks absently, finally getting a good look at the cut. It’s deep, but straight and clean. Not as bad as it could have been. He makes note of the other scars, deeper, older, on the exposed arm, which is almost always covered by a jacket, even with the miserable weather, even here at home. 

“Making you have to leave work and take care of me,” Vash answers. Wolfwood just scoffs, and sprays iodine onto the cut, which makes Vash wince and apologize again.

“Hey, none of that,” Wolfwood tells him as he opens one of the suture kits. He warns, “This is going to hurt.”

It does, clearly, but Vash holds remarkably still despite the tears that run down his face, only whimpering occasionally. 

“You’re doing great; that’s it, beautiful, almost done,” Wolfwood says, part of a stream of thoughtless encouragement as he closes the wound. 

When he actually is done, he inspects his work. Much neater than the stitches he’s had to give himself over the years. He wets a clean cloth, dabs the blood from Vash’s skin, then hits it with another spray of iodine, for good measure. A bandage to keep the stitches clean and dry, and he’s good. Unable to stop himself, he reaches up and swipes a tear from the corner of Vash’s eye, before it can fall, then covers the gesture with a nonchalant pat on the shoulder.

With that done, he gets Vash a glass of water and four tablets of painkillers, both of which he accepts gratefully.

“Will you let Brad know I’m okay, and that I’ll be in tomorrow?”

“Like hell you will,” Wolfwood replies, “You heard the old man. No work for a week. At least .”

“He and Luida really need the help,” Vash protests.

“Don’t make me tie you to your bed,” Wolfwood threatens.

“Promises, promises,” he retorts, and Wolfwood is surprised to see that Vash has enough blood left to blush at his own words–a reaction that Wolfwood will file away to deal with later.

“Well, I think that’s proof that you need to rest. Come on. Up. At least to the couch.”

With a groan, Vash lets himself be helped up, but takes the few steps over to the soft old couch on his own. 

“Hey, Nick?” he says, as Wolfwood turns to go clean up. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Wolfwood replies. 

-

Wolfwood gets back to the apartment as the sun is setting. Once he’d been sure that Vash was comfortably sleeping and that his arm wasn’t going to spontaneously combust or something, he’d snuck out to run a few errands. He’d needed to go apologize to his ‘boss’ for leaving his ‘job’ without saying anything, and pick up extra medical supplies. He’s expecting to find Vash still asleep, but he’s awake, scrolling through the Netflix account of someone named Meryl, the blue light of the TV in the dim apartment making him look spectral.

“What are you still doing up?” Wolfwood asks, in lieu of a greeting, as he turns on the overhead light.

“Still? It’s like. Not even dark outside yet,” Vash replies mildly.

“Idiots who stab themselves with gardening scissors don’t get to sass me. Sass privileges revoked.”

Rolling his eyes, Vash drops that and says, “Anyway, I’m glad you’re back. I need your help.”

“What’s up, blondie?”

A hesitation. Then, “Can you help me with my arm?”

“Shoot, did the stitches pop?” Wolfwood unceremoniously drops his things on the counter and moves to Vash’s side.

“No, they’re fine–the other arm. It’s really uncomfortable to sleep in, and I’m worried I will pop the stitches if I try to take it off myself,” he admits.

“Oh,” Wolfwood says. “Yeah, of course. What do you need me to do?”

Gingerly, Vash levers himself to sit up straight, rolling his shoulders and wincing. “This isn’t going to be pretty,” he says, turning his back to Wolfwood before peeling his t-shirt off.

“Holy shit.” The horrified words pass Wolfwood’s lips before he has a chance to think. The scars on his arm had been a prelude, nothing compared to the marks that litter his back and shoulders. Pale, shiny burn scars. Dark, fibrous abrasions. Jagged, sunken spots that look like the flesh was torn away in chunks. Perfect circles and stars; bullet holes, entry and exit. Hardly an inch of flesh left unmarred.

“Yeah,” Vash says unhappily, a flat tone that speaks volumes.

“Right. Invasive questions, huh?” Wolfwood says, and leaves it at that. 

A moment later, a miniscule fraction of the tension goes out of Vash’s shoulders. “Thank you.”

“Haven’t done anything yet,” Wolfwoof grunts, focusing on the buckles and clasps that fit around his shoulders and connect to the prosthetic arm. It’s his first time seeing it up close, uncovered. It looks old, worn, the style antique with straps and buckles holding it in place. “This one first?” He asks, touching the buckle just below Vash’s shoulderblade. 

“Yeah,” Vash says again, but his tone is softer now. “Then the one on the other side. I should be able to get it from there.”

Wolfwood does as he’s told, and after he’s loosened the second strap, Vash painfully reaches up to work on the final buckle, over his chest, with his injured arm, hissing in pain, and Wolfwood has to stop himself from reaching up to try to help.

The apparatus loose now, Vash murmurs, “Can you…?” And Wolfwood complies, lifting the harness and the arm up and over Vash’s head. Out of the sleeve of his jacket, it’s surprisingly light, a blue-black metal with a leather cup to fit over the stump of the arm. There’s an audible sigh of relief from Vash, and Wolfwood, looking back, can’t help but note the red, raw skin where some of the straps had rubbed against the lines of old scars.

Again, before he can think about it, his fingers are brushing against one of those tight, shiny scars, as gentle as he even knows how to be. His thumb brushes over one of those red marks, the roughness undoubtedly unpleasant on already chafed skin.

Vash doesn’t pull away or tell him to stop, though. He’s barely breathing, uncannily still.

It’s enough to bring Wolfwood back to reality, and he mutters, “Sorry, must be sore. Where should I put this?”

Vash slips his shirt back on, clumsy with just the one arm, and that arm sore and bandaged. “Anywhere’s fine,” he answers halfway through this ordeal.

Wolfwood nods, and sets it on the kitchen table.

Later, after he’s sent Vash to bed, Wolfwood turns the shower on as hot as he can stand. Shirtless, in front of the mirror, he inspects his own reflection. His skin is nearly unmarred under the dark hair on his chest and stomach. Faint lines here and there, but he’s always scarred well, wounds healing to a shade that’s barely distinguishable from his skin.

There’s something deeply, profoundly wrong with the world, he thinks. Wolfwood doesn’t meet a lot of good people in his line of work, but Vash Saverem is one of them. That he should bear the marks of violence, while Wolfwood, perpetrator of violence, doesn’t, isn’t fair. That thought makes him snort out a ghost-laugh, as the mirror fogs up and blurs his reflection. He grew up in the foster system, and now he kills people for a living. He’s always known the world isn’t fair. 

But Vash makes him feel like it should be, and he doesn’t quite know how to deal with that.

Stepping into the scalding spray, he embraces the burn. A penance for the sins he’s yet to commit, a paltry offering to balance whatever new scars Vash gets from this.

-

Brad, Luida, and Wolfwood have to join forces to keep Vash at home until the end of the week.

“Nicholas, are you right in the middle of something?” Luida had said on the other end of the phone.

Wolfwood had sighed. “He’s back again, isn’t he?”

“He’s back. And he keeps trying to help the customers.”

“Never met anyone who actually enjoyed customer service before,” Wolfwood had muttered, already having abandoned his pruning shears under the tree he’d been working on. “I’m on my way.”

That had been an hour ago. Wolfwood had retrieved Vash, Luida helping to bully him onto the back of the bike. He’d dropped Vash off back at home, gently threatened him with severe reprisal, and turned around to head back to the cemetery.

Luida is waiting for him when he parks his bike, though.

“How’d it go?” she asks.

“He’s sulking. I told him I was going to ‘water’ his favorite plant with bleach if I caught him here again.”

“Cruel, but probably more effective than appealing to his self-preservation, I’ll grant.”

It’s the first conversation they’ve had without Vash present, and Wolfwood can tell there’s more that Luida wants to ask him. Might as well, since he’s been looking for an opportunity to interrogate her too, after all.

So he tilts his chin toward the private office, and asks, “You got a minute? Brad, too. Been meaning to talk to you without Blondie around.”

The look that she gives him is more knowing than suspicious, and she nods. “Let me lock up, just a moment.”

Luckily, the store is empty, so she locks the front gate and flips the sign to ‘back in 5 minutes.’

With that done, she calls out, “Brad, meeting.”

Brad emerges from the back, looking sweaty, vaguely annoyed, and notably more suspicious than knowing when he sees Wolfwood there.

But he doesn’t comment, and the three of them pile into the office, where just a few days ago Wolfwood had found Vash on the floor, bleeding profusely. No sign of the carnage now, but he knows they must all be thinking about it.

“So, what’s this about?” Brad asks

Wolfwood doesn’t want to tip his hand, so he answers vaguely. “Wanted to find out how much you know about your darling employee, Vince .”

Outwardly, neither Brad nor Luisa move, but they go tense, Luida still, Brad clenching his jaw. So, they do know something.

Wolfwood puts up a placating hand. “No aspersions on his character. I want to know if we’re on the same page is all.”

Marginal relaxation, but Brad asks, “Well, how much do you know, then?”

A fair question, given how he’d phrased the request, but annoying. He’ll start somewhere relatively benign. “I know the apartment lease is under my name because he doesn’t have an ID. And that his refusing to go to the hospital had nothing to do with money.”

There’s a long, tight silence as they appraise his words. It feels like dogs sizing each other up before deciding to fight. 

But Luida breaks it, deflating slightly. “Do you know who he’s running from?” Another very delicately phrased sentence, Wolfwood notes, designed to not give anything significant away.

“Family matters, as I understand,” he replies in the same vein.

Brad huffs at that, a sound too pointed to be a laugh. “Putting it lightly, huh?”

That breaks the tension entirely, and they speak more open, though still cagey. Wolfwood finds out that they know the whole story, just with gaps. Gaps you could drive a truck through, but still. They know Vash’s real name, they know who his brother is, that he’s laying low, and that there’s a warrant out for his arrest.

“I just don’t think he’s capable of terrorism,” Luida says, shaking her head.

“He cried when we had to throw out a bunch of philodendrons last week,” Brad agrees. “Doesn’t seem like something someone who’s neck-deep in Flood business would do.”

Wolfwood nods his head, while inside he’s thinking about the scorched crater that was once July City again. “No, no, I agree,” he says, and he’s not sure if he believes it or not.

Luida goes on, “We gave him a chance, and he’s proven himself a hundred times over. He’ll work himself to death trying to help people.”

“Even after losing half his blood,” Wolfwood says, scowling.

“So we’re trying to help him back, as much as we can,” Luida continues. She looks up, her dark eyes meeting Wolfwood’s. “Are you?”

His fingers twitch to hold a cigarette as he meets and holds that gaze. “Of course I am,” he lies.

“You better fucking be,” Brad says. “Don’t know exactly what shit he’s gone through, but it’s enough for five lifetimes already. Don’t need anyone adding to it.”

Wolfwood nods solemnly, the weight of all the shit on his own soul feeling immeasurably profound just now. Like he could drown in it, choke on it. Like he should.

Instead, he just clears his throat, and says, “Amen to that. Glad to see we are all on the same page.”

And with that, he extricates himself from the conversation, the cramped office, and the building altogether. Being under the open sky again doesn’t make it any easier to breathe, but at least there’s no one around to see that he’s clenching his teeth so hard his jaw aches.

Nothing for it, he thinks, reaching for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He’s here to hurt people, he reminds himself. It’s the only thing he’s any good at, anyway.

-

“I want to check on those stitches before you go back to work tomorrow,” Wolfwood says.

Vash splutters, and ineffectively covers his reaction by ducking behind the plant he’s holding. “It’s fine! Everything’s looking great! Nothing to worry about!”

Wolfwood raises an eyebrow. “Alright, that’s beyond suspicious, spikey; what don’t you want me to see?”

The fuzzy silvery leaves are no shield, as Wolfwood gently takes the pot and sets it on the nearest shelf, then takes Vash’s wrist, blocking his attempt to slip, eel-like, past him.

“It’s nothing, ” Vash repeats, an eerie echo of the last time he’d said that, with blood pouring down his arm.

“Uh-huh,” Wolfwood says, and gently pushes the sleeve up, then blinks. “Well. I guess you were right.”

It is nothing. A red line of new scar tissue, but other than that, no sign of the deep laceration that he’d gotten only four days ago.

“I heal fast?” Vash offers weakly.

“No one heals that fast,” Wolfwood counters.

A shrug, and the sheepish grin congeals, slides off his face, leaving something much more tired… Too old for his youthful face. The same kind of hollowness his brother had had in his eyes. 

Sometimes, it’s so easy to forget that they’re related. Twins, even. A matched set.

“I do,” Vash says, resigned, flat weariness in his voice.

Still holding Vash’s wrist, Wolfwood can feel his pulse speed up. This time, he can’t reign in the invasive questions. “How?” Wolfwood breathes.

A shrug. “I don’t know. It’s something we’ve always been able to do.”

We.

Wolfwood traces the shiny scar with one finger before finally letting Vash’s wrist go, steps back so he’s not bodily trapping him into the corner anymore. 

Vash takes the escape, but doesn’t go far, just sinking into the couch and pulling his knees up to his chest. How can someone look so small and so unfathomably old at once?

“We?” Wolfwood asks aloud, echoing his earlier thought, though he knows the answer. He needs to know more, needs to hear it from the source, needs to know what Vash is willing to tell him. 

A pained twisting expression, not a smile, not a grimace, not quite a scowl either. “My brother, too. Ever since we were found as newborns, we’ve been… different.”

“The healing.”

“No… well. Yes. But there’s more.”

Wolfwood remembers his cigarette blooming into crisp, fresh tobacco leaves in his hand, back in Knives’ office. The images in the file, bodies with thin, black branches sprouting from their mouths, ears, eyes... Could Vash do the same thing? It’s all been attributed to The Flood. What had Vash’s role in the organization been, before his escape? Luida was so sure that he couldn’t possibly be guilty of the crimes on his arrest warrant, but she hadn’t seen that blurry photo of Vash and Knives, present at July City, moments before the city and everyone in it ceased to exist.

Ruthless now, Wolfwood asks, “More?” He hates this, hates seeing Vash curl in on himself even more. But he needs to know.

“No, no…” He says, and Wolfwood is… almost relieved until he realizes that Vash is talking more to himself than he is to Wolfwood. When he does look up, it’s to say, in a voice like the night-black bottom of a well, “I might as well show you.” 

Without meeting Wolfwood’s eyes, Vash goes to the shelf, retrieving one of his plant charity cases. 

“Sorry,” Vash says, and Wolfwood is about to ask what for, that he’s the one who should be sorry, but Vash appears to be talking to the plant. “But you weren’t going to make it, anyway.”

Only then does he look back at Wolfwood, makes sure he’s watching, and… well, he doesn’t look like he’s doing anything, but in a matter of seconds, remaining green leaves on the plant go yellow, then brown, shriveling into themselves. There’s a brief dusty odor that wafts past Wolfwood, and when Vash tilts the pot toward him, there’s no evidence that there was ever anything growing in the soil there.

Utter annihilation. His mind refuses to accept it for a moment–matter cannot be created or destroyed. He remembers that much from school. But what Vash and his brother can do is the nearest thing. Entropy. Decay, exponentially accelerated. Wolfwood swallows, his heart pounding in his chest. His vision swims for a moment, and he becomes absolutely certain of one thing: Vash Saverem’s power is responsible for the destruction of July City. Knowing this, wouldn’t he be doing the world a favor if he took matters into his own hands? Damn the job, damn the contract, damn his own family and his own feelings… He could shoot Vash right here. 

As sure as he is that Vash’s power was the force behind the disaster, he’s equally sure that Vash himself did not intentionally massacre millions of people. But does that matter? Would it matter to the families of the victims?

And yet. He steadies, his vision and his mind clearing, his dark eyes meeting Vash’s watery blue ones. These thoughts can’t be anything Vash himself hasn’t thought a thousand times over. Wolfwood’s hardly a saint, let alone a hero. 

“Now I know what you mean when you said you have a natural brown thumb,” Wolfwood jokes weakly.

Vash doesn’t laugh.

Wolfwood doesn’t either.

Late Summer

In the days following the incident, Wolfwood and Vash tiptoed around one another. Not quite avoidance, but lacking the easy camaraderie and banter that had been developing between them, silence just as smooth and effortless as jokes. Part of it was on Vash’s end, his downcast eyes, his shoulders hunched in as if he could make himself smaller, swallowed by his jacket. But part of it was Wolfwood. It was… hard for him. With time and distance, he’d been able to put his uncanny experience with Knives out of his mind. The human mind is resilient like that and shit. But he is, after all, only human. And whatever Vash and his brother are, they’re… more. Different? He doesn’t know. He’s not sure they know the source of their healing, their longevity, the… other things they can do.

It had been a lot to wrap his mind around, to reconcile this with the Vash he knows, the one who is a friend to every stray cat and old lady he meets in the street, who rehabilitates sickly potted plants and sometimes cries watching bad TV dramas because he bleeds such an overwhelming aura of empathy that it seems like every hurt in the world cuts him too.

 It’s on a hot, cloudless afternoon about a week later that Luida approaches Wolfwood as he’s doing some maintenance on the cemetery’s wrought iron front gate. She doesn’t look like anything’s wrong, so he relaxes the tension that had crept into his spine seeing her coming his way.

“Hey,” he says, half waving.

“Hey yourself,” she says automatically, then dispenses with the small talk. “You doing anything this weekend?”

Wolfwood gestures vaguely at the pile of weeds and other tools. “Just this.”

“Good, so you’ll be free in the evening on Friday.”

Planting his shovel in the dry earth and leaning against it, Wolfwood asks, “What’s this about?”

“Well, it’s Vash’s birthday…”

“It is?” Wolfwood can’t hide his surprise. “He’s never mentioned it.”

“That’s what I thought. He doesn’t want people making a fuss. But he’s seemed a bit, I don’t know, down the past few days, so I thought taking him out to celebrate might cheer him up.”

Wolfwood doesn’t reply for a second, knowing full well that he’s the reason for Vash’s subdued demeanor. Which will only be compounded if he refuses to attend his goddamn birthday party, undoubtedly.

“Well, it certainly can’t hurt,” he says at last. “What do you need from me?”

“All you need to do is show up at eight on friday,” Luida says with a smile, “I’ll text you the address.”

-

Luida was as good as her word, and had texted Wolfwood the name and address of a small bar in town. He had taken the time to vet it in the intervening days, making note of the security, the clientele, and the overall vibes of the place.

It was fine. Kind of a typical neighborhood joint. No red flags. No reason to convince Luida to cancel the event this evening, and he’s trying very hard not to be a little disappointed at that.

He and Vash are still edging around one another like two badly socialized cats, and he’s afraid that will put a damper on the mood tonight. He doesn’t want to ruin Vash’s birthday.

Which, as he thinks it, is a bit of a lightbulb moment in and of itself–if his mind and heart were set on seeing Vash as a monster, he wouldn’t care. But he does care. An infuriating amount, really.

So, as steps out of the shower after his shift at the cemetery, he figures that he can make an effort. He dresses, one of his nicer shirts, pants that haven’t been stained with dirt, boots. He runs his fingers through his hair and figures it’s about as good as it ever gets. With that, he’s out the door and into the balmy evening.

The clock reads a few minutes after eight when Wolfwood arrives. Brad spots him and waves him over–he’s got a table with Luida and Vash, plus a couple of people Wolfwood doesn’t know, but has seen around the shop. 

He takes the open seat next to Vash, who, without looking at him, says, “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

“And miss your birthday? Of course not,” Wolfwood replies, aiming for cheerful and breezy in his tone–and not sure he quite hits it. To make up for that, he puts a hand around Vash’s shoulder,  lightly squeezing and pulling him in. The tension that goes out of those shoulders at the gesture is more telling than the weak smile Vash shoots in his direction.

“So how old are you now?” Brad asks, after a couple of drinks.

Vash pretends to demure before answering, “I’m twenty-seven.”

When Wolfwood has a moment alone with Vash, the music drowning out anything that might be overheard, he leans in and asks, “How old are you really? ”

“One hundred forty eight,” Vash answers immediately.

Wolfwood looks at him, searching his face for any twitch that might let on that this was a joke. He doesn’t find one.

So he grins, and says, “You know, I’ve always had a thing for older men.” He means it as a joke, but Vash goes red. 

He doesn’t get to follow up; Luida returns with another drink for Vash. Soon after, karaoke night ramps up, to Vash’s delight and Wolfwood’s disgust. After another couple of drinks, though, he does end up on the stage. It is… not good. But Vash cheers for him nonetheless. 

As they stumble up the stairs to the apartment after being dropped off by Luida, who had sternly refused to even entertain the idea of Wolfwood driving himself back, Wolfwood asks, “Good birthday?”

“Best one in decades.”

Early Autumn

The contract that Wolfwood had signed with Millions Knives had stipulated that he locate, report on, and protect Vash Saverem. So far, that hadn’t involved much beyond the initial locating and a weekly text with a bare bones status report. The money landed in his secure account on the last day of the month, as agreed upon, and as always, he immediately and anonymously transferred eighty percent to a nonprofit that provided funding for the Hopeland sisters, and others like them. The foster system was broken beyond repair, but there were good people trying to do their best for the kids stuck within it. And he’d use his blood money to make sure that they could keep doing so.

That would all end if anything happened to Vash, of course, as would Wolfwood’s life, in all likelihood, but he had begun to wonder if he was waiting for something that would never come. The garden scissors incident notwithstanding, It had been months, and there hadn’t been so much as a breath of conflict in sleepy September as the town entered its namesake month.

Well, as is usually the case, there’s nothing until there’s something.

Wolfwood makes a habit of keeping an eye on patterns of behavior, looking for anything out of the ordinary, and the car that drives along the street that passes the cemetery–and therefore the garden center–at about the same time every evening–has got him suspicious. It’s not a car he’s seen in town before, which makes him doubly so. He’s seen a couple of drones flying around, hovering, cameras swiveling, and that was the final straw. Something is up.

On a Thursday evening, Wolfwood tells Vash that he needs to run some errands after work, not to wait up for him, and he’s on his bike, camouflaged by shadow and the smoke-stained brick wall of the alley when the car passes his location. For the first time since arriving in September, he’s carrying his heavy, familiar pistol, instead of the dinky little revolver that’s easier to conceal.

Patting the gun, Wolfwood follows, turning out of the alley after the car. He doesn’t try to keep his distance or be subtle. This is going to end in a confrontation one way or another. 

The car goes to a weird shitty little house perched on a hillside that Wolfwood knows looks over the road to the garden center, and he watches a weird shitty little man in a weird shitty little hat get out and go inside. Wolfwood parks his bike a ways down the street and checks over his shoulder.

There’s a drone watching him. Suspicion confirmed. Good thing he hadn’t even been trying to be sneaky, because this also means he knows that Wolfwood’s here.

Well, might as well get this over with, then, he thinks, lighting a cigarette.

Wolfwood approaches the house at a brisk walk, and nonchalantly kicks the door in.

He dodges the first gunshot, then grabs the man’s wrist and twists it until he drops the weapon.

“None of that, thank you,” Wolfwood says, teeth clenched around his cigarette, kicking the gun away.

A drone rushes at his head and he has to drop the man’s wrist to duck, and whips his own gun out to smash it against the door frame with the barrel, glaring after the man who’s scrambled back to try to retrieve his weapon.

“Nope,” Wolfwood says, leveling the gun at him, stepping inside and closing the door. A glance around. The blinds are closed, the curtains drawn. Good. “Unfortunately for you,” he says, “I’m a lot better at my job than you are. Spit it out. What are you doing here? Who sent you?”

Instead of answering, the man goes for the gun. 

Wolfwood sighs, and almost lazily shoots him in the hand before he can reach it. His pistol is silenced, but the shot rings out in the room, a dull, blazing crack of violence.

“What did I just say?” He demands, no sympathy for the man now cradling his mangled hand. “Now talk.”

“You’re going to kill me anyway,” he says, breaking his silence at last, “Why should I?”

“Well, as I see it, I can kill you quick and easy, or I can leave you to suffer for a day or two before your body finally gives out,” Wolfwood says, his voice clinical. 

A grimace, a surprisingly calm, calculating look: weighing Wolfwood’s sincerity, his brutality, and then the shitty little man in the shitty little hat answers, “There is a group of us within The Flood who believe that Vash is holding Knives back.”

Of course it would be something stupid like that. Genuinely, he’d expected that when trouble inevitably came, it would come from the feds, not from some sort of splinter faction within The Flood. That would have been more annoying, in its own way; killing a cop is almost always more trouble than it’s worth, but this is a very special kind of annoying.

“Great, you’re too much of an ecofascist for the other ecofascists so you’re going to kill Vash about it, got it, makes total sense,” Wolfwood says, rolling his eyes. “Who’s in charge of your little faction? I bet it’s that Bluesummers guy.”

The startled, alarmed look on the shitty hat man’s face tells him he’s actually guessed correctly. Instead of responding to that comment, though, he says, “You may also be interested to know that The Flood has welcomed a new member… someone you know, Nicholas D. Wolfwood. Does the name Livio ring a bell?”

That wipes any smugness he’d been feeling off his face. “You fuckers.”

“Wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, right?”

Wolfwood levels his gun and shoots the man in the head. 

He lets out a deep breath, puts out the stub of his cigarette, and immediately lights a new one, sinking down onto the floor, his back against the door, as blood pools on the carpet, inching toward his shoes. He’s really in it now, a delicate tug-of-war of power, with the only people that Wolfwood cares about in the entire world being used as collateral.

If Knives doesn’t get his way, he’ll come for the Hopeland sisters.

If Legato doesn’t get his way, Livio will undoubtedly have some sort of ‘accident.’

And Vash is in the middle of both of their schemes. 

They’ve got you well and truly trapped, Nicholas, he warns, admonishes himself. 

Mid Autumn

Things barely have a chance to slow down before the next disaster looms. Certainly not long enough to lure Wolfwood into anything like a sense of security. In the couple of weeks since he’d shot the shitty hat man and hidden the body in the back corner of the cemetery–finally, working there had been useful–it had been fairly quiet, but off. Maybe it had just been the reminder of the reality of the situation, the feeling of having his hands tied. 

But when the feds come to town, he knows he’d been right to stay vigilant.

Like all cops, they think they’re being a lot more subtle than they really are, in their nondescript not-too-high-end, not-too-shitty cars with their tinted windows, but Wolfwood knows what to look for.

And apparently so does Vash, Wolfwood discovers as he comes home early and catches him in the middle of packing.

“Nick! You’re back early,” he announces, voice high and thin.

“You going on a trip?” Wolfwood says instead of acknowledging the greeting.

With a nervous laugh, Vash replies, “I, uh. Yeah. Something came up. Very suddenly.”

Shooting Vash a skeptical look over his sunglasses as he removed, them Wolfwood thinks quickly. He has a job, and that job is to stay by Vash. If he runs, Wolfwood will have to come up with some excuse to go with him. It will be a lot easier if he can just convince him to stay put. Besides, Wolfwood can deal with a couple of feds.

So, he takes a breath and a risk, and lets them both out as he says, “Is this about the undercover cops that have been driving around town?”

Impossibly, Vash’s voice goes even higher and tighter. “What! Why would I be worried about that?”

“It’s not that hard to put together,” Wolfwood says, and begins counting on his fingers. “No ID. Refusal to go to the hospital. Weird magic or whatever the fuck it is you can do. Dodging cameras like its your job.”

Switching tactics, Vash replies, “Well, if you can figure that out, then you know why I have to leave town now.”

“Easy, pretty boy,” Wolfwood says, holding up his hands placatingly. “You’re not sticking me with the full rent that easily.”

“I’d come back when they were gone,” Vash lies.

“Sure,” Wolfwood agrees, his tone making it just as obviously a lie. “But I don’t think you need to. Let’s think about this. You don’t want to make those nice folks at the garden center worry, right? And cops, even feds, aren’t that hard to shake.”

Vash gives him an unreadable look, and Wolfwood knows his cover is paper-thin, at this point. But just like he didn’t ask exactly why Vash is on the run, Vash seems to let this go.

Instead, he sighs, sets his bag down, and leans against the arm of the couch. “I’m listening.”

“How’d they find you anyway?” Wolfwood sits in one of the rickety chairs facing him, 

The blank expression twists into a scowl, and Vash admits, “I don’t know. I think I might have ended up in a photo when we went out for my birthday. It’s the only day I’m not sure I didn’t dodge cameras like it’s my job, as you put it.”

“Well, if that’s the case, we can work with that,” Wolfwood says, and takes out his own phone. “Let’s stage some pictures,” he continues, and starts outlining a plan to falsify some social media posts that will make it look like Vash is halfway across the country.

-

By the time night cloaks them, Vash has mostly calmed down. They’re sitting on the balcony, lights off, Wolfwood blowing smoke out into the darkness. The leaves of Vash’s plants make a cocoon, almost entirely blocking the view of the trees and the mountains beyond.

Lightly tugging on a stem, he says, “Were you really planning to leave me with all of these? You know my track record.”

“I know you wouldn’t have let them die. You’re a good man, Nick.”

“You don’t know shit,” Wolfwood replies automatically before taking another drag on his cigarette, its cherry-red tip the only light in the velvety night.

“I wasn’t thinking much at all,” Vash admits a moment later.

“What else is new?”

Another long pause, and despite them being close enough for Wolfwood to feel the warmth from Vash’s shoulder beside him, he sounds very far away when he speaks. “You can ask, you know.”

“Thought we had agreed to not ask those invasive questions, blondie?” Wolfwood replies, more as a formality than anything. 

“After all this, I think you’ve earned this one.” Vash wants to talk.

Wolfwood still takes his time. He already knows, to some degree. He’s seen the arrest warrant, the reports. He’s put some of it together himself. But he doesn’t have Vash’s account of things. So, at last, he simply says, “Tell me.”

“I lived in July City for almost a year. I loved it there, the people, the energy…” Like foulness draining from a wound, Vash talks, his voice barely above a whisper. He tells Wolfwood about his life in the city, how he’d gone there to try to blend into the crowds, hoping his brother wouldn’t be able to find him. He tells Wolfwood about how, eventually, he had. How Knives had come in person, and when Vash had refused to ‘see reason’ and come back with him, they had fought. Injured, frightened, and furious, he had lost control of his pent-up power. Wolfwood accepts this like the priest he might have been, the warm darkness wrapping them like a confessional. At length, Vash concludes, “I don’t know exactly how it happened, or why I’m still alive. I don’t remember getting away… there’s a gap in my memory. But it was definitely me. Do you still want to help me, Nick?”

Wolfwood’s cigarette had long gone out, so he puts it in the ashtray and taps a fresh one out of the pack, partially to stall, but mostly just to have something to do with his hands.

Vash waits while Wolfwood lights the cigarette and takes a drag, his face turned away, but even in the dark, Wolfwood can see the tension.

“When you were a kid,” Wolfwood begins, “Did your brother ever do that thing where he would grab your arm and use it to hit you, while yelling ‘stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself?”

“What?” Vash is looking at him now, his brow furrowed.

Wolfwood continues as if he hadn’t interrupted, “But obviously you weren’t really hitting yourself. Your brother was the one moving your arm. You’d have to be a real dipshit to think any bruises you got from that were your own fault.”

Vash sighs. “That was a terrible metaphor, and I think there’s a difference between… that and mass murder.”

Wolfwood turns his head now too, and despite the deep shadow, he unerringly locks his eyes with Vash’s. “And you would have never done that if it were up to you. No, don’t argue.”

Vash closes his mouth where he’d begun to open it, presumably to do just that.

Before he can decide he would like to argue, actually, Wolfwood says, “We have a long day of laying false trails tomorrow. Get some sleep, blondie.”

The stillness and quiet sits on them long enough to become heavy before Vash gets up.

“You coming?” He asks.

“I’m going to finish my cigarette,” Wolfwood answers.

Vash opens the balcony door and turns the light on inside, the glow illuminating Vash’s face in stark relief. “You know,” he says, “One day you’re going to owe me a question, too.”

Wolfwood doesn’t answer, and after another moment, Vash goes inside and shuts the door with a soft click .

Blowing out smoke, Wolfwood puts a hand over his eyes, rubbing his forehead. Yeah, he owes Vash some answers alright. But the balance is too delicate, his family, Livio, and The Flood all pulling at him. He can’t tell Vash the truth, as much of a relief as it might be. Not right now. That’s another debt he’ll never pay off, Wolfwood thinks. Not til the devil himself calls him home.

Late Autumn

With the approach of winter, rain comes to the high desert. And when it rains, it seems, it pours. Literally–the sky opens up, releasing torrents that pelt, sting, threaten to bruise. But also metaphorically, Wolfwood sees when a message from an unknown number makes his phone buzz in his pocket.

He looks at it in dismay, something approaching despair. The plan to get rid of the feds has just worked, and now this.

The time is near. Prepare an exit strategy.

It’s not the number he’s been communicating with so far. Wolfwood is certain this comes directly from Knives himself, for all the message’s carefully oblique phrasing.

He’s nearly out of time. Over the past weeks, he hasn’t been able to come up with a single idea that guarantees the safety of the sisters and Livio, let alone Vash. Though that was never an option–he knew that going in.

He has, however, hatched a hare-brained scheme that may just work. More likely it will blow up in his face and everything will go wrong. He’ll be the first to die, if he’s lucky. But it may work. It all depends on Vash. It’s been creeping toward this for months. Maybe since the first time he laid eyes on Vash, even. He’d just… hoped he’d have more time.

He stews on this all day, almost wishing for the pure, mindless emptiness that manual labor at the cemetery gives him, sometimes. It’s a mud pit right now, so he’s been given time off until rains die down.

He picks Vash up from work as usual, and they’re both soggy and shivering after the short ride back to their apartment. By that time, though, he’s so amped up that he can’t even take pity on Vash long enough to let him change into dry clothes.

“Hey, spikey. You got a minute?”

“Is this about what’s got you so tense?” Vash asks, a furrow in his brow.

Wolfwood doesn’t answer directly, but he can feel his face settle into something cold, hard, more resolute than he feels. 

In response, Vash’s face also shifts, recognition, realization, and he takes a deep breath before saying, “I see. So you’re finally going to come clean, Nicholas D. Wolfwood?”

Wolfwood’s jaw drops. “How?” is all he manages to say.

Vash half-laughs, no warmth in the sound. “It’s not that hard to put together,” he says, an echo of what Wolfwood had said to Vash before.

Wolfwood drops onto the couch, boneless, no regard for the his wet clothes on the upholstery. There’s no point in lying anymore. He might as well rip off the bandaid, see what all Vash knows. “If you know my name, then you know what I am.”

Vash creeps nearer to him, perching delicately on the opposite arm of the couch, tense. “An assassin,” he answers softly, a mixture of sadness and distaste in his voice.

“Please, assassins are politically motivated. I’m a hitman.” Wolfwood’s own voice is flat. He’s not enjoying this. “And don’t get any ideas about me being a noble killer who only takes contracts for human traffickers or some shit. I’m in it for the money.”

In his periphery, he sees Vash turn his head to look at him. There’s an expectancy in the look, eyes burning a hole in his head until he looks back, meeting that gaze. 

“You don’t enjoy it, though, do you?” Vash asks it a question, but he delivers it like a statement.

Wolfwood maintains that eye contact as long as he can before looking back down, eyes focusing instead on the water that drips out of his hair and onto the floor. “No. Have to be pretty fucked up to enjoy it. Even more fucked up than I am.” He doesn’t like this conversational turn. To change it, he asks, “Anyway, when did you figure it out? How long have you known why I’m really here?”

“A while. I’ve been suspicious almost from the start. You were way too casual about things that would be huge red flags for someone…” he waves a hand in the air, “Normal. Me having to be left off the lease because I don’t have any ID. Most people would want their roommate who they had literally just met to be legally bound to pay their half of the rent, you know? But you confirmed those suspicions back a few months ago, the day I cut my arm,” he absently rubs the scar through his sodden sleeve, “Called me by my name. My real name. I don’t think Brad noticed, but I did.”

Wolfwood grimaces. “Fuck me, I don’t usually fuck up like that.” Vash really, really messes with him. He sighs. “If you knew, why’d you keep playing along?”

Vash doesn’t answer for a while, turning his head away to look out the window. “You may be working for Nai, but you’re not one of his people . You’re not a true believer… I have a friend in December, an investigative journalist… I asked her to look you up. She didn’t find much, but she did find that you were hired to kill my brother back almost a year ago. He’s still alive, and now you’re here. Something’s… off.”

Wolfwood goes to the window and cracks it open despite the downpour so he can light a cigarette. “Your friend’s damn good at her job if she found out that much. People get killed for leaking this kind of info.”

“She’s brilliant ,” Vash says with warmth in his voice at last, obvious pride in his friend.

Wolfwood sighs, suddenly restless, and gets up, pacing the few steps around the living room. The idea of just saying everything feels dangerous, even now. Finally, he begins, “You know how I told you I was raised by some nuns? Don’t give me that look, it’s relevant. Your brother is holding their safety over my head, in exchange for me reporting on your location. But that’s not all.” He explains about Livio and the faction within the Flood that wants Vash dead.

Vash takes this all in, watching Wolfwood intently as he listens, dripping and shivering minutely, which would have looked pathetic if his face hadn’t been so intent.

“And that’s it,” Wolfwood says in summary. “I may be a damned, irredeemable killer, but they’re good people, and they don’t deserve this. Not on my account. Not at all.”

Vash finally gets up from his spot on the arm of the couch and comes to stand beside Wolfwood, plucking the cigarette from his fingers and throwing it out the window.

Before Wolfwood can protest, Vash says, “I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit, Nick.”

Dumbfounded for the second time, Wolfwood doesn’t manage to say anything more than, “Did you miss the part where I kill people for money?”

“I didn’t. And I didn’t miss the part where everything you do is out of love for your family, either.” He turns, a look that once again demands to be returned. Wolfwood resists the near-magnetic pull as long as he can, but inevitably his dark eyes meet Vash’s blue ones. They’re standing very close, and an accidental brush of Vash’s hand against his forearm as he closes the window makes him shiver.

Merciless, Vash says, “You are a good person, Nick.”

Helpless, Wolfwood answers, “I really have no idea where in this conversation you could have possibly gotten that idea, pretty boy.”

That makes Vash break the eye contact, and he looks down, more at Wolfwood’s chest than his face. When he speaks, the words break from him almost viciously, ice finally cracking under too much strain. “Why do you call me that?”

For a brief moment, Wolfwood is confused–the nicknames are such an ingrained habit that he’s forgotten he can call Vash by his real name, now. Either way, it’s a question that demands an answer.

That makes Wolfwood look back at him. “Pretty boy?” He’s not going to spell it out. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“I have,” Vash answers quietly. A subtle look down at his own body, turning his flesh hand palm-up in the scant space between them, a gesture at the scars Wolfwood knows are there under the shirt and jacket. “That’s why I’m asking.”

He’s not about to say, in as many words, that he wants to fuck Vash so bad it makes him look stupid. Instead, he places a single finger under his chin to make him look back up, his eyes boring into Wolfwood’s again. He maintains that gaze, thrumming with tension, before he finally says, “Must’ve been something wrong with that mirror, then,” which, he thinks, means about the same thing.

Vash looks at him for a moment that feels like an eternity, then the cracked ice breaks, completely, and like a flash flood, he surges forward, fisting his hand in the damp fabric of Wolfwood’s shirt to pull him in, forcing closed those last few inches between them. It hurts when their faces collide, a violent, glorious clash of skin, noses, teeth. 

They get it right the second time, Wolfwood raising his hand to cup Vash’s jaw, tilting his face and kissing him deeply, not letting himself think too hard. They both have the ashy, acrid taste of cigarette smoke lingering in their mouths. It tastes awful. It tastes like heaven. Vash’s clenched fingers relax their vise grip on Wolfwood’s shirt, tugging at his chest hair where the collar gapes, running along his collarbones, down across his chest and ribs. The friction of the chill, wet cloth under Vash’s hand makes Wolfwood shiver again, though he’s not remotely cold anymore.

Wolfwood breaks the kiss, relishing the tiny, dismayed noise that Vash lets out, but it’s only so that he can nip at Vash’s earlobe and move his hands down to Vash’s hips, the backs of his thighs, turning them and coaxing Vash onto the window ledge. The blinds clatter behind him as he lets himself be maneuvered, nearly knocking over a plant, but Vash’s hand shoots out to steady it. 

“Careful,” he murmurs, tilting his chin up to give Wolfwood better access to his jaw and neck.

Lips against the soft skin underneath Vash’s ear, Wolfwood says, “Just determined to kill those things, I guess.”

Vash shudders under his lips, and moves to help Wolfwood push his jacket down over his shoulders. He hooks his index finger into the belt loops of Wolfwood’s pants, pulling him in, his legs slotting between Vash’s own. There’s no hiding how much he wants this, now. He’s been hard almost since Vash’s fingers first brushed the skin of his chest. 

One of Vash’s legs comes up, curling around Wolfwood’s thighs, trusting Wolfwood’s weight to keep him from sliding off the narrow windowsill. The glass creaks ominously under the weight, but holds steady as Wolfwood’s lips move back to Vash’s, hot, slick, overwhelming. Like the sick, greedy man he is, Wolfwood wants more, wants to be closer.

His hand slips down, teasing at the thin strip of skin exposed where Vash’s shirt has ridden up. Now he shivers, a stifled groan smothered against Wolfwood’s mouth. 

Moving back a fraction of an inch, Wolfwood says, “You cold? Maybe it’s time to get out of these wet clothes.”

Vash doesn’t answer, but the hitch in his breath is confirmation enough. One hand on Vash’s hip to keep him steady, Wolfwood mouths at Vash’s jaw, his throat, his clavicle where it peeks out of the collar of his shirt, and then he lowers himself down onto his knees, pressing his lips to that pale streak of skin below his belly button, his free hand brushing across Vash’s thigh and ass before coming up to the button of his pants. 

Vash’s prosthetic arm braces him in the window frame, but his other hand curls into Wolfwood’s hair, pushing him back gently.

“Nick, wait,” Vash gasps, and there’s a tension in his body that wasn’t there before.

Wolfwood stills, withdraws, looking up into Vash’s blue eyes, darkened, pupils wide.

“Change your mind?” he asks, carefully neutral.

“ No, ” Vash replies instantly, vehemently. “But…ah, you might not find what you’re expecting? You know, in there?”

“You got something in there I can put my mouth on to make you feel good?” He asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Um. Yes,” Vash answers, face flushed, apparent even in the dimness.

Wolfwood cracks his neck before answering, “Then I don’t care what I find.”

With no more words, he presses an open-mouthed kiss to Vash’s belly again, before fumbling, one handed, at the button, eventually getting it undone. Then the zipper, and Vash obligingly raises his hips, letting Wolfwood peel the wet fabric down, his hands rough on the cold skin underneath, gooseflesh erupting in the wake of his touch. 

The underwear go next, Wolfwood pausing, his fingers hooked into the elastic waistband. He looks up, raises his eyebrows. Vash doesn’t see him, his eyes closed, his mouth open, breathing hard. But he wiggles his hips impatiently, and Wolfwood grins, then pulls them down with agonizing slowness, his hands and the fabric dragging against skin.

Wolfwood follows them down, mouthing at Vash’s stomach, his hipbone, his thigh. He pulls back for a moment, giving himself room to tug the pants and underwear down and, with a little assistance from Vash, off, tossing them aside. He needs room to work. Unobstructed, Wolfwood presses his lips to the inside of Vash’s knee, applying just the slightest bit of pressure. Vash takes the hint, letting his legs fall apart.

“Beautiful,” Wolfwood murmurs, reverent, hungry. He can’t drag this out anymore, overwhelmed with the need to touch, to taste him. Feather-light, his fingers part Vash’s folds. Vash twitches, a full-body response to the touch, breathing in hard.

“Mm, sensitive,” Wolfwood breathes, pressing one more kiss into Vash’s thigh, just a little appetizer before the main course. And he dives in, a ravenous man presented with a feast. His tongue licks a broad stripe up Vash’s slit, and his buries his face, hot, wet, the musky, salty-sweet scent of Vash’s arousal flooding his senses. 

Vash makes a sound almost like choking, and wolfwood looks up to see him looking back. He maintains that eye contact as he mouths at the slick skin, his tongue probing and stroking. At length, he relents, moving up, lapping at Vash’s clit, teasing. When he closes his lips around it to suck, Vash makes another sound that would be pained in any other context, and his eyes slide shut as his head falls back.

The sound, the sight of the glorious column of his throat, the taste of him is overwhelming. Wolfwood thought he’d tasted heaven in Vash’s mouth, but this is religious ecstasy, worshiping on his knees. His dick is hard enough to be painful, confined in his pants like this. He shifts, trying to relieve the pressure, but even the slight movement sets his nerves on fire. He groans, feeling the vibration of his own voice move through Vash. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t come in his pants, at this rate.

Vash’s legs are shaking, from the effort of perching on the windowsill or from something else, Wolfwood doesn’t know, but he moves his hands, ghosting his fingers against Vash’s thighs before clasping them, supporting some of his weight as he continues sucking, alternating that with broad strokes of his tongue.

Vash comes hard, without warning, just a tiny, broken sound that almost sounds like Wolfwood’s name, and he’s pulsing, throbbing in Wolfwood’s mouth as his orgasm rips through him, violent in its intensity, and he doubles over. Wolfwood’s hands around his thighs are the only things that keep him from falling out of the window. 

Wolfwood keeps mouthing at him, enraptured, as Vash comes back down, shaking with overstimulation. When he thinks he can let go of Vash without him immediately sliding to the floor, boneless, Wolfwood finally stops torturing Vash’s oversensitized clit and lets go of him.

Getting back to his feet, he wipes his chin and asks, “How was it, blondie?”

Vash opens one eye, luminous in the dim room, and asks, “You fishing for compliments?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Wolfwood grins, unable to keep his hands off Vash, stroking his hips, his chest, shoulders. 

Vash breathes out a shaky laugh, and quietly says, “You are really good at that.”

“Yeah. I know,” Wolfwood grins.

Vash doesn’t reply other than rolling his eyes, instead pushing himself up to stand, kissing Wolfwood with no regard for the taste of himself in his mouth. Wolfwood kisses him back, digging his fingers into soft blond hair, trying to retain enough of his dignity not to grind against Vash’s hip.

He’s thinking so hard about this that it almost startles him when Vash rubs the palm of his hand against Wolfwood’s clothed erection.

“Hey,” Vash says into his ear, clearly waiting for a reaction.

Wolfwood swallows and says, “Yeah?” His voice is only a little shaky, which he’s distantly proud of.

“Do you want to fuck me?” Vash asks, and Wolfwood has to screw his eyes shut and briefly recite part of the catechism to himself to calm down. Just the imagined figure of Vash, spread bare beneath him, beautifully ravaged, had nearly been too much.

And yet. Reality crashes back into him, unwanted, and Wolfwood finds himself drawing away. They’re not just two people finding pleasure in one another. He’s Nicholas D. Wolfwood, professional killer, and Vash Saverem is… holy. Sacred. His own complex feelings about God are getting tangled up in this, but the fact remains. He’s filthy, and Vash is good. He doesn’t want to contaminate him.

“It’s alright,” Wolfwood finally says, subdued, “You don’t have to do that.”

Vash gives him an odd look. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want you,” He says, and proves that he’s always been able to see through Wolfwood, no matter his beliefs to the contrary. “Is this some Catholic guilt thing?”

“Hey,” Wolfwood protests, not liking the feeling of being seen and known. But he doesn’t have an eloquent rebuttal.

Vash shakes his head and sighs. “Nick, if you were to kill someone every day for the rest of your life, you still won’t come close to what I’ve done. Now will you stop having a crisis and put your dick in me?”

It’s not the same, Wolfwood wants to protest to the first part. One bad accident isn’t the same as the choice to kill in cold blood for money. However, the second part makes him turn his brain off and start thinking with his cock again.

“I guess I can’t argue with that,” he says, even thought he very much could, and lets Vash lead him to his bedroom.

It’s the only part of the apartment he hasn’t spent much time in, so he nearly trips over a plant in the dark before actually tripping on the low bedframe. He falls forward, taking Vash with him as they land on the mattress, Wolfwood on top. Vash laughs and holds Wolfwood against his chest for a long moment before reaching over to turn the bedside lamp on.

He’s beautiful in the velvety orange glow, edges softened, blurred. Magnetic. Wolfwood leans down to kiss him, slow and deep. 

Vash pushes lightly at his chest, and Wolfwood backs off.

“Get your soggy clothes off my bed, please.” The way his eyes are fixed on the sliver of Wolfwood’s chest showing where the collar of his shirt gapes makes the meaning of the command clear.

Wolfwood wastes no time, scrambling to his feet and stripping off his shirt His pants fall to the floor with a dull slap. He hadn’t made a show of it, but when he turns back to Vash, his eyes are glued to Wolfwood’s body, moving from his shoulders to his chest to his cock, hungry.

“You get to have wet clothes on the bed, but not me?” Wolfwood asks, gesturing at Vash’s shirt.

“It is my bed,” Vash answers, and after a pause, “But no.”

“Let me help, then,” Wolfwood says, and takes a step over to him, straddling his knees where he’s perched on the edge of the bed. He slips his hands under the hem of Vash’s shirt and slides them upwards, his palms flat, sliding across his skin as he lifts the fabric. He leans down, kisses Vash’s neck, jaw, his fingers drawing the shirt up and over his chest. He leans back and Vash raises his arms so Wolfwood can pull the shirt over his head. It falls to the floor near Wolfwood’s own. Scars and all, he’s gorgeous like this.

“Arm too?” Wolfwood asks, brushing his fingers over the roughened skin where the prosthetic’s harness has chafed his skin.

Vash hesitates. Then, after a breath, he asks, “It won’t, I don’t know, gross you out?”

Wolfwood rolls his eyes and pointedly looks at his own dick. “I don’t know, do I look grossed out right now?”

Half-laughing, Vash says, “Okay, point taken.”

“Not yet,” Wolfwood replies, grinning to show teeth, and begins helping with the straps, like he had once before. 

The moment the straps are loose enough to lift the arm over Vash’s head, he does so, and sets it on the nightstand by the lamp.

With that, they’re finally bare before one another, physically and emotionally. Wolfwood cups Vash’s jaw and leans down to kiss him, too much teeth for it to be soft or sweet, but Vash responds in kind. The nails of his hand dig into Wolfwood’s hip, pulling him down, onto the bed as he lays back. Straddling Vash’s hips, Wolfwood breaks off the kiss and leans back, taking in the lamplit sight of Vash spread underneath him. The sight is absolutely ruinous. He could look at him like this forever.

Vash isn’t content with looking, though, apparently, as he takes Wolfwood’s cock in his hand, stroking it experimentally.

“Fuck,” Wolfwood breathes, eyes locked on Vash’s as he touches him. His hand is rough, calloused and chafed from hard work, strong, and perfect. “Fuck,” he says again, a moment later.

“Mm, that’s why we’re here, right?” Vash grins wickedly at him before giving Wolfwood’s cock a little squeeze, making him gasp.

“Yeah, God, yeah,” Wolfwood says eloquently, and he lowers himself onto his elbows, dipping his head to kiss Vash’s mouth, collarbone, neck. Vash takes his hand off Wolfwood’s dick to rummage for something in the drawer of his nightstand; Wolfwood doesn’t know exactly, he’s too busy with his face buried in the hollow of Vash’s throat, breathing in his scent, grinding against his hip. It takes Vash smacking his cheek with a crinkly packet for him to make a face and pull back.

“Little help?” Vash asks, waving the wrapped condom at him.

“You had these handy, huh,” Wolfwood grins, sitting back again and snatching the packet.

“I’m prepared, yes.”

“Had your hopes up, huh?” He teases, tears the top of the wrapper off.

“ You were the one all but begging for me to let you eat me out a minute ago, remember?” Vash laughs

“Trust me, I’ll never forget,” Wolfwood answers, and rolls the condom onto his cock perfunctorily.

“You’re ridiculous,” Vash says, still laughing, but proves himself no less eager, taking Wolfwood’s dick in his hand again and guiding it to his entrance almost the very moment Wolfwood’s done with the condom. 

Slowly, achingly, Wolfwood pushes inside, watching Vash for cues, seeing the barely perceptible wince. He slows down even more, agonizing, and sees the expression on Vash’s face turn to one of annoyance.

“I’m not going to break,” he says.

Wolfwood can’t bring himself to say that’s no excuse for not treating him gently, instead leaning forward to kiss the scowl off his face, one hand supporting his weight, and he uses the other to stroke Vash’s swollen clit, hoping to distract from the discomfort with pleasure.

Vash gasps against his mouth, slowly, taking all the time he needs, Wolfwood lets his body adjust. He’s so hot inside, so wet. The slowness is good for him too; it’s not going to take much for him to come.

“You good, blondie?” Wolfwood asks.

Vash nods, and Wolfwood begins to move. He tries to take his time, but he’s starving, desperate. He thrusts harder into Vash’s wet heat.

“Yes, I–Nick, like that,” Vash hisses, the last word turning into a sharp breath as Wolfwood takes the cue, changes his angle. He braces himself with a hand on Vash’s chest, feeling his heart jump beneath the skin, racing, racing like Wolfwood’s own pulse. 

“You’re so pretty like this,” Wolfwood says, in between harsh breaths, “You feel so good on my cock.” With his free hand, he touches Vash, circling his clit with his thumb.

He wants to make this good, make it last, but it’s been too long, and he was already so worked up–he’s close.

“Vash, I’m–” is all he managed to say before Vash interrupts him.

“Come for me, Nick.” He breathes the command, voice sweet yet gunmetal hard, and Wolfwood is helpless but to obey, his hips stuttering as the orgasm hits him like a freight truck. He might actually black out for a split second, which he’d always thought was just hyperbole. 

Wolfwood comes back to himself more slowly, shuddering, oversensitive as he pulls out, and takes the condom off, ties it, and drops it over the side of the bed carelessly. He lays back on his side, body flush against Vash’s, and kisses him, using the fingers of his other hand to keep stroking his clit until he, too, gasps, goes rigid, then lies limp, boneless in Wolfwood’s arms.

He keeps kissing Vash lazily, thinking how nice it would be to just sleep next to him, to hold him through the night, like they were two normal people, not a killer and a–

“Fuck,” Wolfwood says, sitting bolt upright. He’d forgotten the inciting incident in this whole ‘telling Vash everything’ scheme.

“Nick? What is it?” Vash asks, a crease in his brow.

“Your brother,” Wolfwood begins, but he doesn’t manage to string words together to finish the sentence.

Vash wrinkles his nose. “This your idea of pillow talk?” But beneath the joke, there’s an edge of concern, fear in his voice.

“Oh, shut the hell up,” Wolfwood growls, no heat in the words, the concern and fear coming through in his own voice. He reaches down to find his pants, hunting through the pile of fabric until he has his phone.

As he pulls up the text from the ‘unknown number,’ he says, “Earlier today. Your brother contacted me to say he wants me to bring you to him soon.” He shows the text as proof.

The anxiety in Vash’s voice reaches his face, his eyes ghostly wide, reflecting the blue phone screen. 

“And you didn’t think to mention this til now?”

Wolfwood gestures expansively. “I planned to! It’s why I started this whole… conversation. You just, I don’t know, gave me something else to think about for a while?”

Covering his face with his hand, Vash asks, “Well, is there any other world-shaking information you neglected to share with me because we were banging?”

“I microwaved that plant. You know. The one from the day we met?” He’s not sure why he says it, but in the spirit of honesty, it had just come out.

This distracts Vash enough to make him drop his hand and look at Wolfwood.

“You did not. That’s what happened to it?”

“I needed an excuse to talk to you.”

“I can’t believe I let you put your dick in me.”

“Oh, the plant is the final straw? The plant? ” 

Vash throws his arms up in exasperation, and falls back against his pillows.

After a moment, Wolfwood joins him, the two of them side by side, pressed close in the narrow bed.

“What are we going to do, Nick?” Vash asks, turning to him.

“I don’t know, blondie. I’m not about to hand you over to him for… whatever he plans.”

“For which I am grateful, don’t get me wrong but…” He goes quiet, his eyes still only inches from Wolfwood’s, but suddenly miles and miles away.

After the silence between them grows long, Wolfwood finally asks, “Hey, pretty boy. What’s going on in that needle-noggin of yours? Care to share?”

Vash blinks, and it’s his turn to sit up suddenly. “I think I need to play along with this. Have you pretend everything’s going according to plan. Take me in.”

Wolfwood raises an eyebrow. “Are you serious? Weren’t you ready to skip town just a couple weeks ago?”

Vash shoots him a distracted look. “That was the feds, not Nai. My brother… maybe I can stop him. Last time I wasn’t ready to really stand up to him.”

Sound way too risky to Wolfwood. “Isn’t your brother super gung-ho for the environment or whatever? How are you going to convince him otherwise?”

Vash shrugs, and lets himself fall back next to Wolfwood. “That’s the image he presents to the public, and to his followers, for sure. And there’s a truth to it, sure, but… But there’s more to it. Nai is… terrified. He’s spent a century and more watching people destroy anything they don’t understand, anything they can exploit. He’s seen the worst that humanity has to offer, and he knows what it means for him… for us…”

Wolfwood chews on this. Millions Knives, a source of unrestricted growth. Vash Saverem, an annihilation-class weapon. Both of them dangerous and valuable in the wrong hands.

“Maybe so,” he says at length. “But you’ve seen just as much as he has.”

Vash faces the ceiling as he answers, “I have. I guess the real difference between Nai and me is that I don’t believe humanity is beyond redemption.”

Wolfwood looks at Vash, his face so solemn in the golden light, and knows, without a doubt, that he’d throw everything away for Vash, follow him to the ends of the Earth and beyond. 

“So what’s the plan?” He asks.

Early Winter

The text arrives the same day as the season’s first frost, as cold and stark as the wind that makes the windows rattle in their frames, and just as charged with energy. No words, just a set of coordinates. Wolfwood doesn’t need further instructions. He knows what to do.

The alert on his phone had woken him, the room shrouded in the gloom of a winter pre-dawn. Vash hadn’t stirred, other than to frown in his sleep as Wolfwood had pulled away from him to look at his phone.

So, it’s time.

Almost a year in the making, it all culminates today.

Wolfwood turns back to Vash, his face still slack in sleep, and drinks the sight in, long, memorizing every shadowy contour of his face. He doesn’t want to put him through this. But it will be worse if he doesn’t. Vash knows what he’s doing, he tells himself. Tries to believe it.

At length, he reaches out a hand, smooths the tiny furrow between Vash’s brows with his thumb, then cups his face, stroking his cheekbone. 

Where the movement and the light hadn’t woken Vash, the touch does. 

“Nick?” he asks blearily, blinking. When he sees the room still shadowy, the frown returns, and he protests, “Too early.”

“I’m afraid it’s not, pretty boy,” Wolfwood says, resigned, his own voice rough and low with sleep.

Vash understands, the same way Wolfwood had immediately intuited the meaning of the coordinates. His eyes go wide and he sits up, the quilt falling away from his bare torso.

He’s shivering, and Wolfwood doesn’t think it’s just because of the chill in the apartment. Wolfwood reaches a hand out, squeezes Vash’s forearm, if not in reassurance, at least as a reminder that Vash isn’t alone.

Vash flinches, then seems to return to the present. He looks at Wolfwood, then, without warning, falls on him, crashing their mouths together in a kiss that has the force of a sledgehammer. Wolfwood cups his face again, responding with unaccustomed tenderness. By degrees, the frenetic, frantic quality of Vash’s movements softens, slows. But he never stops shaking.

Wolfwood can’t lose himself in the moment. How can Vash turn to him like this, when he’s the one who will deliver him to Knives? He’s collected his thirty silvers, betrayed him with a kiss. 

It’s that thought that makes Wolfwood pull back, breaking contact between them.

“We should…” he murmurs, having no idea how he’s going to finish the sentence.

Vash takes a deep breath, and his voice is almost steady when he says, “Right. Putting it off will make it worse.”

As much as Wolfwood hates it, he’s right.

-

The sun has still yet to fully rise when Wolfwood emerges from his turn in the bathroom. Vash is sitting at the table, fussing over the limp leaves of a plant. He’s wearing a black coat that Wolfwood has never seen before. It looks good, but Wolfwood misses the red–its vibrancy matched Vash’s energy. This one is dark, subdued… well, rather like Vash’s energy today.

“Is it okay?” Wolfwood asks, gesturing at the plant.

“Didn’t realize it was going to freeze last night,” Vash answers. “Should have brought it in.”

“Maybe it’ll bounce back?” he offers, sounding unsure to his own ears.

Vash gently sets the squishy leaf on the soil and makes a thoughtful noise. “Maybe. It’s not like I microwaved it. ”

“ Never letting that one go, huh?” Wolfwood replies, though inwardly he’s a little relieved–it’s the first sign of Vash’s usual spark that he’s seen this morning.

Vash smiles weakly, but it slides from his face quickly, and he sighs. Pushing the chair back from the table, he gets to his feet. 

“We’re doing this, right?”

“Just like we planned,” Wolfwood confirms. A shaky, hole-filled plan with dozens of contingencies, to be sure, but it’s the plan they have. “If the weather holds, we should get there just after midnight.”

Vash nods and walks to the door. Wolfwood follows, glancing over his shoulder at the plant on the table. He just hopes it’s not some sort of omen. 

They’re packing light. Wolfwood has a fresh pack of cigarettes, his lighter, and his pistol. Vash isn’t taking anything at all.

It goes unspoken that neither of them is counting on there being a return trip, so it feels pointless to take anything.

Wolfwood locks the apartment, more out of habit than any real concern, and turns to go downstairs to where his bike it parked. He sees Vash’s eyes linger long on the dingy, familiar door, like he’s committing it to memory–or maybe just hesitating, steeling his resolve. Either way, Wolfwood doesn’t interrupt, just waits by the bike. It doesn’t take long.

The day started off cold, and it only gets colder as the meager morning sun becomes hazy through the thin clouds overhead, and colder still as Wolfwood drives the bike up into the mountains. 

They don’t speak much; the road noise makes it difficult to hear, and Wolfwood needs to focus as the road becomes treacherous, slippery with snow and ice. Through it all, Vash’s body is warm against his back, arms firmly wrapped around his waist. His presence is comforting, and a constant reminder of what the trip has in store, when they reach their destination.

Night comes early, this far north. Shortly after the world narrows to the wedge of road illuminated by Wolfwood’s headlights, they stop at a roadside diner. 

Wolfwood doesn’t have any appetite, but he forces himself to eat the whole plate–it won’t do to have his mind and hands be shaky if worst comes to worst, and he needs to shoot someone tonight. 

Vash, meanwhile, picks at his food, despite Wolfwood’s cajoling. He seems far away, preoccupied, and Wolfwood would kill for even a brief glimpse at what’s going on in that beautiful head. 

Once he’s accepted that he won’t get Vash to eat or talk, Wolfwood pays their bill, and they’re off again.

The last leg of the drive feels the longest, cocooned in a void-like darkness, sharp-edged and chill, navigating tiny, winding backroads. Nevertheless, as predicted, it’s half-past midnight when Wolfwood has to stop his bike, a thick black iron gate framed by massive conifers blocking his way. 

Only seconds after he comes to a stop, the squeaky crunch of boots on pristine snow signals that their arrival hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Wolfwood doesn’t know the person who approaches them, and if Vash recognizes her, he doesn’t give any sign.

“Thought you’d have to knock him out to get him here,” she says, without introduction.

Wolfwood scoffs, playing his part. “Please. I have more sophisticated methods than that. ”

Vash, as per the plan, keeps quiet.

She doesn’t react to this, but takes another couple of steps forward.

“Hands up.”

Wolfwood rolls his eyes and complies, enduring the search. She confiscates his lighter and cell phone, but he had anticipated this. She doesn’t find his gun.

She doesn’t touch Vash.

“Alright. Let’s go, then,” she says. Wolfwood takes a moment to kill the bike’s engine, the blackness of the woods instantly smothering. Even the snow doesn’t reflect light, the moon and stars hidden behind clouds.

He can see just well enough to follow the silhouette ahead of him. At least she seems to know where she’s going.

After an objective five minutes and a subjective eternity, lights appear through the trees. Faint, ghostly, but growing brighter. 

Wolfwood risks a look back at Vash, who meets his eyes briefly. He looks terrified, pained. Wolfwood hates this. Hates his complicity, his lack of agency in this. Hates that he can’t even squeeze Vash’s hand or shoulder.

Before he turns back around, he smooths the futile grimace from his face, and walks into the compound.

It’s not the same compound he’d been taken to after his failed hit on Knives, but it’s cut from the same cloth, the same assortment of low, blocky temporary buildings jutting out of the snow like brutalist crocuses.

“They’re here,” their guide calls out as the three of them emerge into the pool of light.

A number of faces turn toward them, but who should step forward but Legato Fucking Bluesummers. His face is unreadable, but when he studies Wolfwood, who can’t help but scowl at the memory of their last meeting, he could swear the man smirks.

“He’ll be pleased,” Bluesummers says, “Now come with me.”

Wolfwood starts to follow, but he’s stopped with a hand on his shoulder. 

“Uh-uh, not you,” says the woman.

Vash sets his jaw. “He comes with me. He should see this through.”

Their plan depends on this.

“I don’t think so,” Bluesummers replies flatly. “My orders were clear.”

Vash’s tight jaw tightens further, and he glares, fire in his eyes. Hatred in his eyes. Vash despises this man in a way Wolfwood’s never seen from him before. 

“He comes too,” Vash repeats, all but a growl.

Bluesummers does smirk now, openly, an eyebrow quirked. “No.” In the tense quiet that follows the denial, he shrugs lightly, and then continues, his tone baiting, “You going to make me?”

Wolfwood watches the storm on Vash’s face flash into a typhoon. He has the power to make Bluesummers cooperate. But Wolfwood knows he won’t use it like that, as much as the fucker deserves it. Unfortunately, Bluesummers also knows this.

Vash throws a desperate look at Wolfwood, who has to think fast. If he seems too eager to go along with Vash, that will seem suspicious. On the other hand, if he’s not there when Vash confronts his brother, he can’t play his part.

“No, I’m going. I need to negotiate my contract with your boss,” Wolfwood says, leaning on the last words.

“You already agreed to the terms,” Bluesummers says blandly, and begins steering Vash up the hill. Wolfwood tries to follow, but he’s restrained, first by the woman’s hand on his elbow, and second by his own body locking up as someone on his other side addresses him.

“Nico? It really is you.” The voice is deep, rougher than he remembers, but Wolfwood hasn’t heard anyone call him Nico in over a decade. Only one person ever did.

With dread and resignation, Wolfwood turns his head, and smiles at his brother, his hair longer, a really stupid tattoo on his face, but undeniably him.

“Hey Livio. What the fuck is that on your face?”

Several things happen at once. Bluesummers begins herding Vash away from Wolfwood, who drags his feet but goes, looking back at Wolfwood with wide eyes. The woman tightens her grip on Wolfwood’s arm to prevent him from trying to follow, but his legs have turned to ice. 

As all of this happens, Livio shrugs. “I could ask you the same thing,” he says lamely, an undercurrent of bitterness in his voice.

“You know each other?” the woman asks, sounding more amused than curious.

“He’s my brother,” Wolfwood says at the same time Livio answers, “He was my brother.”

The past tense is like a knife, even though Wolfwood did this. He was the one who left, who cut contact. His head and his vision start swimming. He still hasn’t taken his eyes off Vash’s hunched shoulders, receding now.

Their plan is well and truly fucked, and so are they.

“That’s cute,” says the woman with the vise grip on Wolfwood’s arm, snapping him back into the moment. “ Two family reunions.”

“I need to talk to you,” Wolfwood says to Livio, ignoring her.

“You’ve had over ten years,” Livio says, the words meant to wound, and yet there’s something perfunctory about his delivery. And most importantly, it’s not a denial.

“Livio, please,” he says as Vash disappears into one of the buildings, escorted by Bluesummers.

Livio doesn’t answer him directly, instead addressing the woman. “El, can I have a minute with him?”

She releases Wolfwood’s arm easily enough, and throws a, “Don’t let him wander off,” over her shoulder as she retreats.

And once they’re left alone, Wolfwood doesn’t know what to say, for all that Livio is staring at him expectantly. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. What is there to say? An apology, an excuse? Chastisement of Livio’s life choices that led him here? As if he has any room to speak.

“They know it’s you,” Livio finally says, “Sending the money every month.”

“Well. As long as they don’t know how I got it, I guess.” Another pause. “How are they?”

Livio makes a vague gesture. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen them in a couple years.”

“Too busy with your new friends? ” Wolfwood can’t keep a hint of disapproval out of his voice. “How’d you get caught up in all this bullshit, anyway?”

He scowls at Wolfwood in response. “It’s not bullshit.”

Wolfwood thinks of the shitty man in the shitty hat, who had died for what was absolutely some bullshit. Then he remembers what the shitty had man had said before Wolfwood had shot him.

“This is dangerous,” Wolfwood says.

“Yeah, no shit.” Livio rolls his eyes.

Rolling his own in response, Wolfwood retorts, “I mean more than the usual danger, you dipshit. Bluesummers and his cronies have their own agenda.”

Livio’s brow furrows. “No, Legato’s the one who recruited me.”

“And when was that?”

“Earlier this year, around April?”

That’s what Wolfwood had thought. A note of desperation leaking into his voice, he says, “They’re using you. They already tried to coerce me by threatening you.”

It doesn’t work. Livio’s face twists, reminding Wolfwood of his worst teenage days. “Not everything is about you, Nico.”

Whatever Wolfwood might have said in response is cut off by the sounds of an explosion from up the hill.

He whips around to look. Of course, Vash had never left his mind, an undercurrent of fear edging into despair through Wolfwood’s whole conversation with his brother. He hadn’t had any way to know what was going on behind that door, but he hadn’t expected this.

Wolfwood is halfway up the hill before his mind catches up to his body. Livio is only a few steps behind, the only other distinct body Wolfwood can make out in the chaos. There are as many people running from the explosion as toward it, and still more frozen. Wolfwood is at the front of the pack, though, and when he comes to a stop, he has a perfect view.

Explosion hadn’t quite been the right word - the sound must have been the rush of air as everything within the footprint of the building had ceased to exist. Everything except for Vash and his brother, who stand in the hollow space in the snow.

Vash crackles with energy - not so much visible as palpable, a distortion in the air, in the fabric of the universe rippling around him. His face is screwed tight in anger, fear, and something like sadness. 

Knives, on the other hand, is grinning, a gleam in his eyes as he throws his arms wide.

“Don’t you see what I mean? This– this– is what we were made for!” In seconds the circle of bare ground at his feet roils, sprouts, and blooms into a constellation of jewel-bright flowers. “You, to scorch the earth, and me to remake it. We can purify this filthy rock–a cleansing flood.”

“At what cost, Nai? How much suffering?” 

Knives looks around, surveying the crowd that’s gathered to watch the confrontation, his flock of worshippers. There’s not even a spark of warmth in that look, barely even one of recognition.

“Let them reap the consequences of what they’ve sown,” Knives says coldly before looking back to his brother.

Vash’s jaw tightens. “So they all deserve death? Every one of them? Even Rem?”

Wolfwood doesn’t know the name, but Knives seems to. “She was no less complicit than any of the others.” His voice is cold, but the same sort of lashing, pulsing sensation emanating from Vash begins to surround him as well. 

“I don’t believe that. I don’t think you do, either, Nai.” Vash’s voice is hard-edged, brittle, and pleading.

Knives’ grin is as sharp as his chosen name as he replies, “And I can’t believe you believe that there’s anything worthy of redemption in these pitiful apes.”

“I’ve seen them choose to do the right thing even in impossible circumstances.” For the first time, Vash looks away from his brother, his eyes sweeping over the crowd until he finds Wolfwood, lingering there for a moment. There’s no way in hell Vash could be talking about him, surely.

“And I’ve seen them commit atrocities, not even out of hate, but for profit –over and over again,” Knives all but snarls.

They both fall silent for a time, at an ideological impasse. 

Knives is the one to break it. “Enough talk. This ends here. You’ll play your part.” Unstated is the whether you like it or not. Without another word, the flowers begin to stretch, becoming gnarled, thorny vines that reach for Vash.

He lets himself be entangled. Wolfwood pulls his gun from its concealed pocket, and only Livio’s quick hand on his shoulder keeps Wolfwood from rushing forward to do… something. Die, probably. 

But Vash doesn’t look scared. This is the first time he doesn’t have fear on his face, actually. It’s been eclipsed by sorrow and resignation.

“You’re right, Nai. This does end here.” With a surge of power that feels like standing in the wake of a sonic boom, the vines ensnaring Vash crumble away, and the ones still snaking toward him wither and writhe before also turning to dust. 

Vash doesn’t look at Wolfwood as he says, “Nick, run.”

He hesitates, his finger on the trigger. He doesn’t want to abandon Vash here, not after his own part in bringing him to this awful confrontation. At the same time, he trusts Vash–knows he’ll have to hold back if Wolfwood is still nearby. And not just him–any of these people, probably even the ones who were all for killing him in cold blood. 

So he raises his pistol into the air and fires. As eyes swivel toward him, Wolfwood yells, “Everybody, get away from here.” 

He waits just long enough to see that the spell is breaking, that at least some of The Flood’s members are starting to retreat, just as Knives’ strangling vines escape the hollow and begin to lash at anything they can. Not everyone goes–Bluesummers, for one, stares enraptured. But if he’s the only casualty, Wolfwood, for one, sees it as an acceptable tradeoff–Vash, surely, will disagree, but he’ll have to take Wolfwood to take over it once this is all over.

The power coalesces and crescendos, and the last thing Wolfwood can see before it engulfs him completely is the look of pure, visceral determination painting Vash’s face. With that, Wolfwood grabs Livio and starts them down the hill. 

He’s not quite fast enough, and a thorn the length of his hand stabs through his thigh. On pure instinct, he drops his gun so he can grab it and throw it aside, lacerating his hand in the process. But he’s free, and Livio pulls his arm over his shoulders so Wolfwood can still walk.

They limp-run down the slope, and make it to the edge of the compound when a wave of force hits him like a truck. He and Livio get thrown, and Wolfwood lays stunned, face-down in the snow for a few seconds before the pain in his leg brings him back. 

When he looks up the hill, it’s not there anymore. None of it is. Neither are Vash or Knives. There’s just a perfect circle of bare earth, July on a smaller scale.

Wolfwood lingers, scouring the darkness for any sign of Vash. There’s nothing. The forest is dead silent in the wake of the brothers’ clash. 

Finally, he turns to Livio and says, “Come on.”

Livio, dazed, doesn’t protest as Wolfwood leans on him and steers them through the forest. His bike is where he’d left it, thankfully–he’d been worried one of the fleeing Flood members would take it.

They don’t make it far before Wolfwood has to stop and treat his leg wound. Livio asks where they’re going. Wolfwood doesn’t have an answer, but Livio still gets on the bike with him when he’s steady enough to ride again.

Without making a conscious decision to, Wolfwood retraces his route, albeit much slower and with frequent stops, back to September.

Epilogue: The next year

In the months that follow, Wolfwood resumes his job as cemetery caretaker, in earnest this time, not as cover for anything more sinister. It’s harder now, with his leg, but he gets by. Livio gets hired on at a cattle ranch just outside of town, and takes to the work quickly. Wolfwood keeps the apartment, and waters the plants. Some of them die, but most of them tough it out. Sometimes he visits Brad and Luida, but mostly he avoids them. He doesn’t know how to answer to the elephant in the room. 

As the days lengthen and the flowers begin to bloom across the high desert, Wolfwood calls home for the first time in thirteen years. He’s not ready to visit yet, but he knows that the door is open for him when he is. It always was.

He watches the news; the Flood had dissolved, some of its members being arrested and others going to ground. No sign of its leader. 

Spring turns to summer. Vash’s birthday passes. The nights get longer, and the first autumn storms blow in. It’s been a year since Wolfwood last killed anyone.

Through it all, he lives his life. He cooks, he plays his guitar, he does his job. He makes acquaintances in the town. He has dinner with his brother. He’s not in stasis, he’s not passive. And yet… he still feels like he’s waiting. Holding his breath.

On the morning of the first frost of the year, there’s a knock on the door, a familiar cadence.

At the sight of him, Wolfwood finally gets to exhale.

“Hi, Nick,” Vash says as Wolfwood opens the door to let him in. “I’m home.”