Chapter Text
“Hey, Needle-noggin’.”
“Oh!” Vash, seated in the middle of the bar at a table for at least four, all alone - and wasn’t that a beautiful visualisation of the crippling loneliness he pretended very hard he was too silly to feel - perked up. “Hi Wolfw- huh.”
Vash perked down again, giving Wolfwood a slow once-over - not of the seductive kind, but of the increasingly-horrified sort.
“What the dune happened to you!?”
“‘Dune’ is close.” Wolfwood threw himself onto a chair and shook sand and dried blood out of his hair, reaching for Vash’s barely-touched drink. Vash swiftly moved it out of his reach. “Lotta uneven sand was involved. And halfa sandsteamer’s caravan, now mostly a heap of junk metal. Some welcome to town that was.”
“There was a caravan accident!?” Vash gasped, hands flying up to his mouth, leaving his drink unguarded. This time, Wolfwood snatched it successfully. “Were any of the other people hurt?”
Wolfwood threw the drink back, sighed in relief - at least Vash had tolerable taste in liquor - and then peered over the rim of the glass at him. “Most people would ask first if I was hurt, yanno.”
“Ah, pardon me. Of course.” Vash smiled sweetly. “Did the wittle woowoo get a booboo? Shall Vashie kiss it betteOW OW OW-!”
“Asshole.” Wolfwood pinched Vash’s kiss-pursed lips harder, then let go. “M’fine, and so were most of the other guys, by some miracle. The Good Lord protects kids and fools and reckless drivers.” He paused. “And so do seatbelts.”
“Hmmh,” Vash whined, prodding at his mouth.
“Guardian angels musta been workin’ overtime, ‘cos everybody walked away just fine from the pile-up of the year. Nothing life-threatenin’, just bruises and scratches and a broken bone or two.” Wolfwood glanced morosely down at his neé Vash’s glass. It had not miraculously refilled itself. “Vehicles, though? Not so lucky.”
“Oh,” Vash seemed to suddenly understand why, precisely, Wolfwood had walked into the bar looking more like a grim undertaker than a wandering priest. “Oh no.”
“My li’l Angelina’s a goner.” Wolfwood confirmed darkly, and manfully tried not to cry. He manfully failed. “Can’t even tell she once used to be a bike. Horrible sight, ya can’t imagine…”
“I’m very sorry,” Vash said, and with those big puppy-dog eyes and wobbling lip, he really meant it, too. “Can she be fixed?”
“Hypothetically? Yeah, I guess.” Wolfwood grimaced. “In practice? I spent my last double dollars on fuel to get here, and a very disappointin’ gas station egg sammich.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.” An unhappy nod. “Unless, I dunno, I inherit a great big wad o’ cash under suspicious circumstances (doubly so, considering I’m an orphan), or sell an internal organ or two… my girl’s not getting fixed anytime soon.”
“...that sucks,” Vash finally offered. One would think he’d be better at the consoling thing after so many years, but, well, no. Not really. “Sorry?”
“S’fine,” said Wolfwood, even though it wasn’t.
For a moment, they contemplated all the tragedy and unfairness and misfortune in the world together, in silence.
"I've got comprehensive vehicle and accident insurance, you know," said Vash, suddenly.
"That's nice for y-" Wolfwood began.
Paused.
Considered.
"Why the actual fuck do you have vehicle and accident insurance, of all things!?" He blurted out. "You ain't even got a vehicle of your own!"
"Well, I do also have health insurance." Vash held up his prosthetic hand, and began counting fingers. "And property insurance. And travel insurance. And-"
"Hate to repeat myself," Wolfwood interrupted him, "but my initial question of Why The Actual Fuck Would The Humanoid Typhoon Buy Insurance still stands."
"Ah. Uh." Vash flushed a rather fetching red from the neck up, shiftily avoiding Wolfwood's gaze, which he was in the habit of doing on occasions that would get Wolfwood to roll his eyes and call him a "bleedin'-hearted old fool". "You see, the girls…"
"Oh, it's girls involved. Shoulda known!"
"Not like that! Our girls! The insurance girls!" Vash flustered. "I do cause them ever so much trouble, don't I? Like, seriously. So much trouble. I feel very bad for it - I always feel just a little bad, in fairness, but you just gotta keep on smiling, haha! - and I thought… the least I could do… to make it up to them…"
"...is getting 'em a great big fat commission off o' you?"
"Yeah!" Vash nodded fiercely. "So I bought the whole package. All of it. I'm insured up to the gills, and it does make Meryl just a smidgen less fed up with me, I think, so…? Win?"
"But how do ya even pay for keepin' it going?" Wolfwood remained firmly baffled. "You're as church-mouse-poor as I am!"
"Well, why do you think I'm constantly broke?" Vash shrugged, a little helplessly. "I prioritise my monthly insurance payments over everything, duh! Which, uh. Doesn't leave much to live off of. But, ah, a clean… or, uh, slightly-less-guilty conscience is priceless, right?"
"Bernardelli Insurance has clearly put a pretty steep price on it, actually." This, Wolfwood decided, rooting around in the inside of his jacket for a cigarette package that had survived the crash un-squashed, was not a conversation he wanted to have without copious amounts of nicotine in his system. "Christ, Tongari, the shit you get up to…"
"But! My inexplicably-well-insured state works in your favour right now!" Vash leaned across the table. "You see, Wolfwood… I have an overabundance of vehicle insurance, without any vehicle to ever apply it to. Meanwhile, you have no insurance, but an Angelina who has recently been rather unfortunately involved in a caravan pile-up. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
Comprehension dawned like the two suns across Wolfwood's face.
"You mean…" The wicked grin of insurance fraud stretched Wolfwood's lips around the cigarette. "There might be a way for you to finally get some well-deserved cash back outta those Bernadelli bastards, and for me to resolve my current predicament without havin' to sell a kidney or two?"
"Entirely mutually beneficial." Vash smiled angelically. "And really, I think Bernardelli will still turn a profit on me. It's very pricey insurance."
"Ya should really cancel that package."
"And make Milly cry!?" Vash gasped dramatically. "Oh, you monster."
"Don't think the Big Girl will be a fan of us cheatin' her employer, anyway- oh, hold on. Damn." Wolfwood frowned. "Tongari, it won't work. They'll know you're tryin' to milk 'em unlawfully, 'cos Angelina's registered in my name."
"You registered your bike with the authorities!?" Vash blinked.
"Yeah, so what!?" Wolfwood snapped. "A wanted outlaw buyin' a fortune's worth of insurance is fine and dandy, but the moment a Man of God does some vehicle registration like any good, law-abidin' citizen…"
Vash slowly raised one eyebrow - or tried, he was in fact quite bad at it, and just sort of raised both while squinting - but obligingly did not question the polite fiction of Wolfwood's only-a-priest-and-nothing-more status. They both knew it was tomashit, but what was a little lying and secret-mercenaryship between friends?
"You're right, though. It's going to be a problem." Vash sighed, putting his chin on his hand and pouting. "But… let's see, maybe we can find a loophole."
He reached into his coat, and brought out a thick stack of papers that were only very slightly singed (and suffered some minor bloodstains), plopping it down onto the table between them. The first page had "BERNARDELLI INSURANCE SOCIETY" written in large and fancy font at the top.
"...you just carry that around with ya?"
"One never knows when one needs to make an insurance claim and has to have the requisite paperwork on hand, Mr. Wolfwood." Vash said primly in an uncannily Merylesque tone, flipping through the pages. "Besides, it could probably stop a bullet if necessary, and with me, there's a lot of necessity for bullet-stopping, so…"
"Yeah yeah, got it. Hand me some o' that, we'll get through it quicker with two pairs of eyes."
Vash carefully split the stack in half and slid it over - and then, they both got to reading.
(Though not before ordering a drink each, since this was not the kind of work you could bear doing while semi-sober.)
"Okay, if we say that I was the one who crashed into your Angelina-"
"That caravan pile-up is pretty well-documented, Tongari. One of the cars was a broadcast van for Bernardelli's news branch, reporter and all - decent enough guy though, let me bum a swig of whisky off him for my nerves. Roberto-something."
"Hm. Suboptimal."
"I guess we could claim that 'Vash the Stampede' is an alias of mine and it's really my insurance…?"
"My face is plastered all over this planet, Wolfwood. Identity fraud isn't the way."
"Yeah, fair.
…
…also, Jesus Christ, Spikey, ya used your actual outlaw name on this!?"
"In my defence, Meryl was very against letting me make one up."
">sigh< Figured she would be."
"Hear me out, Wolfwood, hear me out. We get an inflatable sex doll, and-"
"No."
"But-"
"NO."
"...fine."
The day went on, their drinks dwindled into dryness - before promptly being replenished - and still no convenient miracle loophole was forthcoming.
Wolfwood was already thoughtfully eyeing the spiky top of Vash's head where it was bent over the documents, vaguely contemplating how 60 Billion $$ would probably be quite sufficient to cover the damages to Angelina and then some, when said head snapped up.
"I got it! I think I got it!" Vash triumphantly waved one sheet (with a minor burn mark in one corner) in Wolfwood's face. "Here! The subclause three down!"
"...uh…." Wolfwood grabbed Vash's hand to steady the page, then pulled his sunglasses down his nose to read over them. "Hm-hm-hm… in case of… yada yada yada… insurance coverage extends to… oh. Extends to family members."
He looked up at Vash, who was watching him with such puppy-eyed delight Wolfwood half expected a wagging tail equivalent of his Angel arm to manifest.
"Nicholas D. Wolfwood." Vash's grin was bright and infectious, not least because it was real, and Wolfwood had always loved his genuine smiles best. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Vash the Stampede." Wolfwood clasped the scarred and roughened palm of Vash's flesh hand (still holding the page) in both of his, grinning just as hard. "Thought you'd never ask!"