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In retrospect, Vash will blame it on the heat. And the whiskey. And the lack of spare rooms. A combination of all three, perhaps.
But mostly the heat.
While it’s always warm on No Man’s Land, there’s a season when it can get truly hellish, and if the wind stops blowing for a few days even the nights are sweltering. It makes sleep difficult. Makes the long hours lying in the sticky darkness wretched.
Their brilliant plan to deal with this was to get as hammered as possible so they could pass out as soon as their heads hit the pillow. It was, in theory, a good plan. Vash had even enjoyed that night very much – getting to watch Wolfwood drain each glass, the moisture on his lips, the line of his throat as he tipped back his shot. Getting to lean into him as they bickered over who’s turn it was to buy the next round. Playing cards until neither of them could remember the rules and laughing until he was dizzy with it.
It’s the sort of indulgence Vash knows is too dangerous to allow all the time, but on rare occasions he permits himself just a taste. Tells himself it’s okay so long as he never goes any further than a selfish wanting.
Wolfwood makes it so perilously easy to want.
So, it had been a good night, and staggering up the stairs with an arm around each other and the floor wobbling from side to side, Vash is aglow in giddy emotion and a whole lot of whiskey. Wolfwood says something about his ‘noodle-legs’, and he giggles so hard they have to stop for him to catch his breath. He tells Wolfwood he has spaghetti legs. These are two very distinctly different things. Wolfwood disagrees. Vash lets him know he has shoestring fry legs, which is possibly the funniest thing he’s said ever, and is rewarded by Wolfwood laughing into his shoulder.
Together, they defeat the evil of a locked door and stumble into their room.
Sharing is nothing new. Sometimes money’s tight, or options are short. They don’t even fight over the bed these days – it’s a strange kind of normal to settle in back to back, a routine that’s safe so long as they never talk about it or acknowledge how they always seem to wake up with someone facing the other way, bodies pressed flush.
Wolfwood’s already taken up his half of the mattress by the time Vash is done battling his own clothes. There’s a sleep set in his pack, but it’s staying there because it’s too warm for anything but boxers. He detaches his arm, puts it on the floor within easy reach, barely remembers to hit the light, then tumbles into bed through sheer luck.
He’s pretty sure he elbows Wolfwood in the process. Hears him grumble anyway, followed by a half-hearted kick just so Vash knows he’s annoyed.
Vash kicks back. They’re both too drunk and too tired to devolve into petty roughhousing though so it’s only a few more playful nudges before they both fall still.
Behind the darkness of his lids the room is spinning. Round and round, like his brain is rolling in his skull, nothing to cling on to. The mattress is comfortable though. He can smell the tang of Wolfwood’s cigarettes, and that’s a scent that always sets him at ease.
Vash sighs into his pillow and lets himself sink down into the welcoming embrace of sleep.
He’s not sure how much time has passed when he stirs, but he doesn’t think it’s been long because his head is still swimming. It’s too hot. Wolfwood has shifted closer and thrown a careless arm over his waist at some point, and that’s usually nice, but the heat of skin on skin isn’t helping.
Vash whines.
Too hot. He shoves Wolfwood’s arm off, ignoring his sleepy grumble, then wriggles out of his boxers and kicks them away. Less clothes means less hot – he’s a genius!
Problem dealt with, Vash settles back down and quickly drifts.
He thinks he dreams. There’s the threads of something there – something pleasant and steamy, the sort of dream that leaves him sticky and aching when he wakes, even if he can only recall the vaguest of touches. It’s all just a pleasant buzz of feeling. And for a while, he’s caught somewhere in the in-between – that space that’s not quite waking or sleep. Just riding out the last delights of his imagination before the grating disappointment of reality can dispel it.
It’s too hot again.
Vash doesn’t want to do anything about it. He wants to hold on to the phantom of friction. Go back to dreaming about a body pressed to his, the delicious slide of something hot and hard between his thighs.
He just lies there. Waiting for it to fade.
But.
It doesn’t fade.
And the longer he lies there, the more he thinks, the less certain he becomes that this is all in his head. Maybe there is a body against his back, arms clutching him close, sweat dripping down the line of his spine. Maybe there’s something... something moving...
Vash inhales sharply.
That’s definitely the stiff line of a cock rubbing over his folds. Through the wetness of them. Nudging at his clit. The slick sound of each thrust is real, the hips rolling against his backside are real.
That’s Wolfwood.
Which it can’t be, because he wouldn’t...
Vash can smell his cigarettes. The same brand he always uses.
Stubble itches against his neck.
It’s Wolfwood.
Oh God, that’s Wolfwood’s cock.
He’s not awake, is he? Of course he’s not. This wouldn’t be happening if he was. Where did their boxers go? His foggy mind searches for an answer and comes up blank.
He should say something. He needs to stop this, needs to get up and out of the bed and stop this.
But... Wolfwood will be so guilty if he realizes what he’s doing. He’ll hate himself for it, and Vash will hate himself in turn, and that’s such a sad thought – he wants Wolfwood happy.
It’s already happening so is it so bad to let it play out? Let Wolfwood rut against him until he finds completion, clean up in the morning, let him think it was nothing more than a wet dream?
Maybe the whiskey still has ahold of him. Maybe it’s just been too long since he got laid. Either way, Vash doesn’t move.
It feels nice. Good. Sinfully good – makes him ache and clench around nothing. The slow grind is both perfect and agonizing. Just a rhythmic back and forth, setting his nerves ablaze, making him leak even more slick into the sticky mess where they collide (if such a thing is even possible).
The whole experience leaves him hazy with a warmth that goes right to his core.
Maybe it’s that haze that trips him up. Maybe it’s whiskey.
He’s just sort of... lost in the sensations, trying to picture how big Wolfwood must be through feel alone. So Vash doesn’t notice the way his own hips angle back to meet each stroke – not at first. And when he does, he can’t bring himself to stop.
It’s too good.
It’s all he can think of anymore.
He’s going mad with the knowledge of how it feels to have Wolfwood’s cock catching on his entrance again and again.
And then he tilts his hips just so.
And the blunt head of his cock is pushing into him rather than rebounding, and – oh.
I shouldn’t have done that, Vash thinks in brief flash of clarity. But the stretch... the stretch is amazing.
It feels so nice to be full. To feel that familiar drag at his insides that he’s gone so long without. It feels even better to know it’s him. To imagine the curve of his smile, the smooth baritone of his drawl as he whispers something filthy into the shell of his ear...
Vash has to fight back a moan.
Wolfwood’s breaths are hot against his sweat laden skin. The little unconscious grunts that slip out as he thrusts greedily into his cunt are doing more for him than they should be. He wonders, distantly, if he could be dreaming of him. God. That's a thought.
It’s not as deep or as hard as he’d like – shallow, rabbity twitches of those hips, arms clenching tighter to hold him in place – but Vash is too far gone to care. He’s drowning in it.
It’s good, it’s good, it’s good-
And then Wolfwood jerks, his breath hitching, and there’s a rush of warmth blooming inside of him.
He’s just cum.
Inside.
Maybe Vash should be more worried about that than he is.
All he feels is vaguely disappointed though, because Wolfwood has stopped moving. He wants that glorious friction to start up again. He wants to reach his own end.
But it’s stopped.
He thinks about getting a hand down to finish himself off but he only has one and it’s trapped beneath him, and if he wriggles around to free it Wolfwood could wake up.
Vash lies there wondering what to do.
Listening to Wolfwood’s breaths grow deep and even.
His head is buzzing. He’s hot and sweaty and dissatisfied, but everything is so quiet and still. Before he knows it, he’s drifting. Falling back into the softness of dreams. And when he wakes again it’s because he’s being jostled by the bump of a body mindlessly rutting into him once more.
It takes his syrupy thoughts a moment to catch up.
Did Wolfwood ever pull out? Did he grow hard while he was buried in his cunt, restless fidgeting giving way to an eager rocking as he chased round two? What kind of sick freak is Vash, that the idea turns him on?
Maybe this time he’ll get off though.
He thinks he could. He thinks he wouldn’t even have to touch himself, just focus on Wolfwood’s cock driving in and out of him relentlessly. Picture the flush of his tanned skin. Conjure the taste of his lips.
That tight coil of pleasure is building in him fast as he pants into his pillow.
Just a little more.
A little more.
But then it stops again and Vash could scream with frustration.
There’s no warmth spilling inside him though. Wolfwood is just very stiff, very still – and suddenly he’s pulling away which is the last thing he wants.
Vash doesn’t really think about it – he just frees his arm and reaches back. Manages to grab a thigh. Grinds his own hips in a silent plea for something he could never ask for.
Please. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop-
It’s a full ten seconds before Wolfwood responds. Very slowly the entire length of his cock presses back in and there’s the depth he’d been craving. When Vash’s grip on his thigh tightens, Wolfwood cautiously withdraws and shoves inside with more force.
Vash whimpers.
They don’t speak. They don’t say a word. Like maybe if they did, it would shatter whatever temporary plane this present moment hangs in. Make it something real. Something with consequences. But if they hold their silence, surrender only a gasp, a moan, a hiss of air... if they do that, then all that exists is the pleasure they share.
All he has to think about is the way Wolfwood picks up speed until he's pounding into him. How it’s hard and fast enough that the bed creaks beneath the wet slap of their coupling. How he fills him so perfectly, punches the breath right out of him until he’s giddy with it.
This time, there’s no stopping. Wolfwood drives him right over the edge and Vash cums hard with a startled cry, clamping down so tight Wolfwood has to slow to a deep grind while he rides out the waves of his pleasure. When the aftershocks have passed, Vash is a boneless lump of flesh - all strength fled, floating in an empty headed bliss.
He feels Wolfwood start to move again but can’t muster the energy to respond. He just lies there while it happens, letting him use his body. A few more rough thrusts and it’s over anyway – he empties himself into Vash, groaning against his back as he spills.
They lie there in silence, both catching their breath.
Eventually Wolfwood pulls out of him. His hand brushes Vash’s sweaty bangs from his face in a motion that’s unpractised yet reeks of a tenderness he’ll never deserve, and it's exactly wrong, too close to meaning something they can't have. Too intimate. Unfair. But then he retreats, and rolls over to turn his back to him, and that’s more familiar. That’s how it should be.
They still don’t speak.
And when morning comes, Vash makes his walk of shame to the bathroom and cleans up before the other man can stir. They eat breakfast together. They hit the road.
They still don’t speak.
There’s a part of him that wants to hope that Wolfwood doesn’t even remember. It would be tidier that way, he thinks. They’d both had a lot to drink that night. It’s possible.
The simple truth is that it never should have happened.
Not because he didn’t want it. Not because he doesn’t want him.
But because he does.
A nameless fuck after a visit to the saloon might be a rarity for Vash but it’s something he can permit, just sometimes, when he knows he’ll be gone with the dawn. There’ll be nothing to bind them together. No danger from being involved. The things Vash cares about are the things his brother destroys, and that can never be Wolfwood.
He’s dared to steal himself a taste, and that’s all he’ll ever have.
He knows better than to ask for more.
They both do.