Chapter Text
“Will you help him?”
Vash stood with Wolfwood’s crumpled form cradled in his arms. His head lolled, slack, over the crook of Vash’s flesh and blood elbow. He had been awkward to pick up; Vash was tall, but so was Wolfwood. He did not fit comfortably against him. His long limbs spilled out of Vash’s hold towards the floor. Anyone shorter might not have managed it.
Sand had found its way beneath Vash’s gloves, itching against the only hand he had that could feel it—a reminder of the half-dug grave he had left behind when he’d finally had the sense to check Wolfwood’s pulse. He still felt dazed, blindsided by the wave of grief and raw power that had swept through him. He had a new streak of black hair amongst blond to show for it.
Miss Melanie took them in; her eyes went from Vash, to Wolfwood, then lifted up again to settle on Livio who lingered behind them. Livio ducked his head, regret apparent in his bowed shoulders.
“I’ll wait… somewhere else.”
Vash didn’t stop him as he turned tail to flee.
“Is he alive?” Melanie asked once Livio was out of earshot. Her hand reached forward hesitantly, as if afraid to touch.
“Barely,” Vash told her around the lump in his throat. He smiled because Wolfwood had said he’d looked better with one, even when it was fake. “I don’t know if he’ll wake up.”
Melanie finally let her hand settle on Wolfwood’s cheek. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “Oh, Nicholas.”
“I can’t keep an eye on him,” Vash told her, and if he let it the guilt could probably suffocate him. “There’s something I have to do.”
“It’s alright,” Melanie said. “We’ll take care of him.”
Vash tightened his hold on Wolfwood and followed her inside. They passed through a rundown chapel, full of rickety wooden pews, and into a hallway at the back. Children peered around corners as they walked, curious young faces following their progression to the small infirmary.
“We can’t do much for him,” Melanie admitted as Vash laid Wolfwood gently down onto a cot. Vash swept his dark hair from his forehead.
“That’s alright,” said Vash. “He’s not injured. Not in a normal way. He just needs to rest.”
“What did they do to him?” she asked, barely even a whisper.
Vash shook his head. “I don’t know.” He hesitated for a moment, before unstrapping his glove from his right hand and pressing two fingers against the pulse point underneath Wolfwood’s jaw. He waited.
And waited.
Wolfwood’s pulse fluttered. Slow, weak, but there. Any other human could not have survived with a pulse this slow for this long, but whatever they had made him into was keeping him alive. His skin was cool against Vash’s fingers, but not cold. Not dead. Just close enough to fool him into digging half a grave.
Vash closed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his forehead against Wolfwood’s.
“Live until I get back, okay?”
When Wolfwood woke, he felt like death. At first he thought that he was dead. He felt certain that he should be dead. What convinced him that he wasn’t dead was the very pressing need to use the bathroom. He managed to force his heavy eyes open. He stared up at the dark ceiling, taking a moment to be thoroughly miserable over how much he hurt. His body ached all over—an indeterminable soreness, like he’d worked out every muscle in his body way past his limit. He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. His mouth tasted like roadkill. His bladder screamed for his attention.
Ugh. Fuck.
He struggled to get his arms underneath him. They trembled as he somehow managed to push himself up. His vision swam. By the time he was upright, he noticed a familiar figure slumped over the foot of his bed.
Vash.
Something was off about him, but Wolfwood’s brain was working too slowly to figure out what. His bladder was taking priority. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself to his feet. His knees buckled. He caught himself on the bed before falling all the way to the floor. His head spun. Nausea crawled up his throat. Fuck. Now he needed the bathroom for another reason.
He pushed off the bed, taking a few staggering steps. He knew where he was now. He’d spent a few nights in this infirmary when he’d been seven with the flu, when he’d been twelve with a sprained ankle, when he’d been fourteen with a concussion. He found the bathroom in the dark with his eyes half shut and his vision all blotchy. He groped around until he found the light switch. He groaned when the brightness sent a spike of pain through his skull.
He relieved himself first, heaving a sigh. Then he leaned against the sink, cheek pressed against the cool porcelain as he considered if the nausea was bad enough to stick his head in the toilet bowl.
A knock on the door made him jump.
“Wolfwood?”
Vash’s voice was soft, wobbly, hesitant, scared. Wolfwood couldn’t remember ever hearing him sound like that. It made him shiver, goosebumps crawling up his arms.
“Yeah?” Wolfwood tried to reply, except his throat disapproved of the use of his vocal chords and the word got stuck, turning into hacking coughs that had him scrambling for the toilet. He heaved, trembling, eyes streaming. He hadn’t heard the door open over his retching, but a hand settled on his back. It moved in comforting circles as his stomach heaved again. He had nothing to throw up, but it seemed pretty determined to try it anyway.
Eventually his stomach settled. He panted where he sat slumped over the toilet. His face was wet with tears. The hand had moved from his back to his hair, running through sweaty, dark locks. Another hand reached past him to flush the toilet.
“Fuck,” Wolfwood rasped. “That was fucking gross.”
Vash made this pathetic noise, not even close to a laugh really, and those hands were pulling him away from the toilet and into Vash’s chest. Vash’s arms went up around him. Wolfwood ended up practically sprawled in his lap. He wasn’t squeezing tight, but there was something desperate about the way Vash hugged him; the way his hands fisted into the back of Wolfwood’s shirt, the way he buried his nose into his hair.
They’d never been shy about touching each other, but they didn’t hug like this. This felt raw; a kind of emotional intimacy that almost made Wolfwood squirm away.
It clicked then, what had happened.
Wolfwood’s eyes were growing heavy. He knew he should probably get some fluids in him before he passed out again. He blinked slowly, trying to force himself to stay awake.
“How long?” he managed to ask from where his face had ended up smushed against Vash’s neck.
He was out before Vash could answer.
The next time he woke, it was daytime. He pried his eyes open. Sunlight streamed into the infirmary through the windows, specks of dust dancing in the air. He was back in a bed, blanket soft against his fingers as they twitched. He looked over to see Vash sitting in a chair next to his bed, brows furrowed at a book in his hands. He wore a plain, white, button down shirt. Wolfwood squinted at him, frowning. He finally processed why he looked so off.
“The fuck did you do to your hair?”
Vash startled, nearly dropping the book.
“Wolfwood!” he exclaimed, and then he did drop the book as both his hands found their way to Wolfwood’s. There was that desperation again, in the way he squeezed his hand oh so carefully, like he thought Wolfwood would break. His eyes were almost painfully blue and brimming with tears, made brighter by his hair that was now jet black all the way down to the roots.
Wolfwood squeezed his hand back. His throat felt dry as hell.
“Water,” he croaked.
“Oh!” Vash dropped Wolfwood’s hand and shot to his feet. “I’ll be right back!”
Wolfwood blew out a sigh through his nose as he left, eyes fluttering closed. He was half asleep again by the time Vash returned. He shook him gently by the shoulder.
“Sorry,” Vash said sheepishly, “but I’ve been told to keep you awake long enough to drink some water.”
“M’awake,” he groaned, and Vash laughed. He helped him sit up, and Wolfwood leaned against him as the world decided now was the time to start doing 360s. He closed his eyes against it, stubbornly pushing down the nausea.
“How the fuck did I make it to the bathroom?”
Vash laughed again, and Wolfwood could feel it. They stayed like this for a moment, pressed against each other, before Vash pulled back. He got an arm around his shoulders to hold him steady, then brought a glass to his lips. The first sip of water felt like heaven, but it also made him ravenous for more, and he gulped the entire glass down before coming back up for air.
Vash set the empty glass down on the bedside table.
“How long?” Wolfwood asked, and it was easier to talk now that he’d had some water.
“A little more than a month,” Vash told him. “We were starting to think you wouldn’t wake up.” Vash was positively beaming at him, that real smile on his face, but his voice wobbled a little when he said that.
“And you still waited?” Wolfwood asked.
Vash shrugged. “I had nothing else to do.”
Wolfwood studied the black hair on his head, pointing upwards in its usual spikes. Then he shifted, scooting towards the side and patting the space he’d made next to him.
“C’mere, Spikey.”
There was a moment of hesitation before Vash clambered up next to him, long legs stretching out next to his. Wolfwood tipped over to lean against him. They didn’t do this either, normally, but it was grounding him. It made him feel properly alive.
“How are the kids?” Wolfwood asked, and Vash started talking.
He learned who had trouble sleeping at night, who liked to play rough outside in the yard, who was the fastest at tag, who fell and bruised their knee yesterday. Wolfwood drifted off like that, to the sound of Vash’s voice and the heat of him pressed against his side.
It was a gentle hand against his forehead that woke him next. The hand was too soft to be Vash’s—fingers short and pudgy instead of long and slender. He felt so warm, but there was an uncomfortable ache in his neck that pulled him further out of sleep. He blinked his eyes open to find Miss Melanie watching him.
“Hi,” he rasped.
Her eyes crinkled in a smile. “Hi Nicholas,” she said, and it made him feel like he was seven years old. He hadn’t felt like Nicholas in a while. Not since he’d skipped growing up. Not since he’d drenched his hands in blood.
She pushed his hair from his face. “You got so big.”
His eyes burned. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said, hand cupping his cheek, thumb rubbing soothingly over his cheek. She stepped away, nodding towards Vash who he just realized was conked out next to him. Someone had put a blanket over both of them.
“You’ve made a good friend,” she said as Vash made a snuffling noise in his sleep, face turning to press into the side of Wolfwood’s neck.
“Yeah,” he said. He could feel himself smiling.
Wolfwood regained his strength over the next few weeks. Eventually, kids started crowding around him the way they liked to swarm Vash. They took turns telling stories about their travels together—it was thanks to Vash that most of them were child friendly. Wolfwood helped out in the kitchen. Vash kept himself busy helping repair the roof. No one asked why Wolfwood looked at least half a decade older than he should have been. He wondered if that was Miss Melanie’s influence.
Something had shifted in his relationship with Vash. It felt softer now, more delicate, like if he tugged the wrong way the tension would make it snap. Sometimes, they laced their fingers together under the table at dinner. Sometimes, Wolfwood just wanted to hold him and be held by him. They didn’t talk about it.
It was one of their last nights at the orphanage when Wolfwood finally got the courage to ask about Livio. They were both washing up after dinner. Wolfwood’s hands were red from the hot water. Vash hummed as he dried.
“What happened with Livio?” Wolfwood asked as he rinsed soapy spuds off a plate and passed it to Vash.
Vash paused, eyebrows shooting up to his hairline. “He’s alive. He actually helped me, after you…”
He trailed off. He couldn’t say died, because that wasn’t true, but it was close enough to the truth Wolfwood could tell that it troubled him to think about.
“He’s good?” Wolfwood asked.
Vash smiled at him. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not sure where he is now, but we could find him?”
“I’d like that.”
Wolfwood had grown up in this chapel, had half-listened to sermons while trying not to laugh at whatever Livio had whispered under his breath. He felt too tall, walking through the pews. He towered even when he sat. The pew creaked under his weight. He studied the wooden cross nailed to the wall behind the podium. He thought about the Punisher, wrapped up and leaning against the wall next to his bag.
He clasped his hands together, bowed his head, and prayed.
Before they left, Miss Melanie wrapped him up into a hug so tight he thought his ribs would pop. It felt wrong to be so much bigger than her, but he rested his chin on the crown of her head and squeezed her back. He could feel Vash’s eyes on them and knew that he’d be wearing that gooey expression he got whenever he thought Wolfwood was being sweet.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Melanie said as she pulled away.
“I won’t,” he told her. “I’ll write.”
“You’ll visit.”
“I’ll visit,” he agreed.
“And you better not show back up in another few years as an old man.”
Wolfwood blinked at her, shocked. It was the first comment anyone had made directly about what his body had been turned into, and it was a joke. A flash of uncertainty flickered across her face, but he barked out a laugh before she could start to apologize.
“I won’t,” he told her, grinning. “I’ve got a life I want to live first.”
She seemed pleased by this answer.
She hugged Vash too. Vash lifted her off her feet and twirled her around. She giggled, a charmed flush on her cheeks when he set her down. A few of the kids ran to the windows, waving excitedly. Wolfwood grinned and waved back.
Then he turned around to follow Vash back out into the world.