Chapter Text
Livio wasn’t really sure how to act around Vash. He got the impression Vash didn’t know, either.
The nervousness came from…a multitude of reasons. Personally he kind of expected Vash to beat the hell out of him for eternity, and he sure wouldn’t blame the guy! So, the fact that wasn’t happening was…something.
He asked Vash about it, once. Before the world was saved and it was just the two of them. He was far too quiet, cleaning out his guns just for something to do as Vash sat next to him, head tilted back and eyes closed to the night sky above them.
He took a breath, “Why didn’t you kill me?”
Vash’s eyes slowly opened. They were unnerving. Much too bright and not nearly human enough. He thought…or, well, Razlo, really, that they weren’t supposed to look like that. So horribly blank and clouded. Like the eyes of a corpse, except, miraculously, they kept blinking.
What he knew of Vash the Stampede, or would continue to learn, was he could expect a number of ways Vash was going to respond to that question. Most prominently, something along the lines of how he ‘didn’t do that sort of thing’. At worst he expected I couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to.
Instead, those eyes kept staring at the stars, and his reply came in a voice that sent shivers found only when standing before the uncanny valley, “He never would’ve forgiven me if I did.”
Vash didn’t have to elaborate who he was. More importantly, Livio made damn sure he didn’t say another word. He read between the lines: You’re lucky he loved you.
Later, much later, when everything was over and Vash was crumbling apart at the seams, he sat the two of them down on the wooden porch of a barber shop. No one was around anyway. Humanity was still reeling from being alive. Vash was reeling from being alive. Livio was much the same.
They didn’t say much. Just sat there, quietly, before those insurance girls that followed Vash around would come looking for him. Livio kind of wished they would hurry up. He felt horribly awkward and out of place. At least this was keeping him from freaking out about everything else.
“I killed him.” Came a quiet, broken croak, and Livio freezed at once. Oh God, Vash was crying. The words sank in a moment later.
Vash was staring out at nothing. Tears fell down his cheeks, face completely blank, wide-eyed. His chest was shuddering with breaths, hands shaking violently between his legs, elbows on his knees.
“Hey,” Livio started, but he didn’t know where he was going from there.
“I killed him.” Vash repeated, chest stuttering wildly. Those piercing eyes went to Livio now, and when he turned his head Livio saw—well, just one of Vash’s eyes, the other was enveloped in a flurry of small wings, fanning out from his head and spreading, possibly coming from the eye socket itself. He flinched at the sight. Vash went on, staring through him. “I killed him and I don’t—” He sucked in a breath, “I don’t—I don’t think I regret it.”
The him he was speaking of was not a question this time, either, though it was a very different him. Livio didn’t know where to start with any of that. He was scared shitless. But also if Vash imploded now, he might take the whole planet with him. So he just stared back and swallowed.
“I think,” Vash blinked rapidly, tears pouring down one side of his face, “I think I’d do it again.”
Livio didn’t know where to start with any of that. So he just said this: “I’m sorry.”
Vash’s eye finally locked in on Livio’s. For a second he finally looked like he was seeing him, pupil dilating just a little.
Then Vash twitched, a full-body movement, and the wings around his face flared. He trembled violently, then dropped his face into his hands and wailed.
Feathers burst from his neck, his back, through his coat, his hand, his legs—Livio nearly leapt for the hills. Razlo damn near re-arrived to snarl. And yet it was the sound Vash made that terrified him the most.
It was horribly inhuman. Shattering glass and nails on a chalkboard, clicking and torn out like a recording played backwards of a bird screeching. It set all his hairs standing on end and made his own skin feel itchy, a need to tear it away. It made him feel like prey when they heard the howl of a sandworm in the night.
Perhaps Livio should have run. Left Vash to the wings that stretched impossibly high and broken sobs as he transformed into something horrific and deadlier than all imagination. And yet he didn’t, and that was for two reasons.
Firstly, he got the feeling Vash had been withholding this breakdown for a very, very long time, longer than Livio had even been alive, a feeling that built up and up over decades before finally hitting its breaking point. And he could kind of relate to that.
Secondly, because Wolfwood had found it fit to entrust the safety of the planet, and thus Hopeland Orphanage by extension, in the hands of Vash the Stampede. An unfair, childish part of him wanted to believe Wolfwood couldn’t have allowed himself to die if he didn’t know all his affairs were in order. And Wolfwood had won that gamble. So who was Livio to be scared of the man Wolfwood had trusted more than anything?
So when Vash shrieked and coiled in and extended out, pulsing and horrifying and not of this world, Livio sat back next to him. The wings didn’t touch him at all, just curled up and around him. Mostly he was concerned that Vash couldn’t breathe. He could scarcely hear any intake of breath, each one coming like it was going to be his last.
What he understood was this: Vash regretted what he had become. He regretted turning into what he deemed as a monster he’d been fighting for his entire life, lurking beneath his skin. He would regret this for the rest of his life, for however long he had left.
Vash did not regret putting a bullet between the eyes of Legato Bluesummers. And maybe he never would.
Livio was hesitant in putting an arm around what he assumed to still be Vash’s shoulders under all those wings, grateful now that no one was around to see. He gingerly pulled Vash against his side, hand gently settling over those feathers as Vash shook apart into something barely tangible, crying out for an answer that wouldn’t come. For the one being in the whole planet that had known him from the very beginning.
Livio wondered what that must be like. To now be the only person in the whole universe who could never again ask someone do you remember when?
He wasn’t sure how to act around Vash. But for Wolfwood’s sake, and perhaps his own guilt, he supposed he owed it to try.
It’s ten months later that Livio found himself in the company of Vash again, sitting on the back steps of Hopeland and sharing a drink Miss Melanie had pulled out of the secret cabinet for them. She was getting on in years, so she had gone to bed about an hour ago. That left the two of them continuing to drink.
Livio suspected Vash had already loaded himself up with alcohol before even coming to Hopeland, considering he was starting to already look a bit drunk. It usually took much more than this to tip him over.
He never could figure out whenever he’d run into Vash. After everything settled, the guy vanished into the winds for six months before the insurance girls found him again. For some reason, Vash had then gone to him, rubbing the back of his neck and apologizing.
“I really was going to come back.” Vash told him.
“You didn’t, I mean, have to.” Livio blinked.
“No, I did.” Vash had such a sad smile—all of his smiles were sad. “I was entrusted with you. I can’t be leaving you all alone for too long now, can I?”
Livio didn’t know what to say to that. So here they were, four months after that, visiting Hopeland again and reminiscing. Or maybe it was just an excuse to feel sad in good company.
“I’m thinkin’,” Livio began, and Vash started giggling wildly, smacking at his arm, “Mister Vash, I’m thinking.”
“Think faster!” Vash giggled, smacking at him again and swaying around, smiling so wide.
“I’m thinkin’,” Livio started again, and had to talk over Vash continuing to giggle, “I shoulda—should’ve gotten. More wine.”
“Whaaaat, you don’t like Miss Melanie’s?” Vash snickered, holding up his half-full glass, sloshing around.
“This is too, too,” Livio shook his head, “fancy.”
“This isn’t fancy.” Vash sniffed, then knocked back a swig.
“It’s, like, ten years old.”
“S’not fancy. You know what's fancy!” Vash gestured wildly with his glass, some wine spilling on the ground. “The, the, what was it called,” He knocked his other hand against his forehead, “oh! Seña. Seña is a damn good wine. Best I ever had.”
“S’what…which ones that?” Livio squinted off into the distance.
“You know, you know, Seña! It was all the rave, um,” Vash tilted his head up, “a while ago. I can’t remember when I last had some, actually.”
“Is it,” Livio blinked, frog-like, “is it still bein’ made?”
“Uh,” Vash stared blankly at him for a moment, jaw slack, “I don’t know, actually. I think I was…twenty-one or something when I first had it.”
“Like, like actually twenty-one?”
“Yeah, like, twenty-one whole years here.” Vash nodded, then swayed with it. “Damn. It was good wine.”
“Mister Vash?” Livio tried.
“Yeah?”
“I think you’re a bit too old.”
Vash cackled, loud and uproarious. He collapsed against Livio’s shoulder, shaking with his glee. He was touchy, Livio found, when he wasn’t conscious enough to be nervous about it. Livio was…shyer by nature, but it was worth indulging. Personally he was trying not to look at Vash too much, free of his coat and instead dressed in leather that exposed quite a bit of skin. It was making his palms sweaty.
“I suppose I am!” Vash giggled. “They just don’t make wine like they used to. It all tastes,” He chugged back nearly the rest of the glass in one gulp, “it all tastes the same.”
“I really don’t think it does.” Livio chuckled, taking a meager sip of his own drink. “I know a few good ones.”
“Hit me,” Vash leaned his back against Livio’s arm, legs crossed and bouncing, “you a savory type?”
“Oh, lets see, um,” Livio hummed, "Chardonnay was nice the one time I had it.”
“Just the once, though!” Vash dismissed.
“There’s this one that has Pinot in the name…say, why do so many wines have names like that?”
“It’s French, my friend!” Vash grinned. “A language we’ve all but forgotten. You know I’m actually fluent. They say it's the language of love.” He paused, frowning. “Or maybe that's Spanish.”
“Oh, there’s another wine!” Livio sipped at his drink again, chuckling. “Bride is its name, I think. But you really only see it at wed—”
Crack!
Livio whirled his head around.
Vash was staring up at the sky, completely still. All at once there was not an ounce of joy on his face. His expression was completely blank, head still on Livio’s shoulder. In his hand, the prosthetic, the glass now had spiderwebs from how tight he’d gripped it, dripping the last bits of liquid on the ground.
The silence was terribly oppressive.
Livio would not say he was unused to this. He was…getting used to it. How quickly Vash could change on a dime. He himself was no better. Seemed like almost anything could set him off on who-knows-what, sometimes bad enough that Razlo made an appearance.
He still didn’t like it. And he certainly didn’t like feeling he did something wrong.
Vash clicked somewhere low. Livio saw his throat bob as he worked around the words struggling to form. “I don’t like that one.”
“...no?” Livio hummed quietly.
“It.” Vash swallowed. “It’s too…sour.” He downed the last of his drink and roughly set it down on the steps, clinking loudly. “It ruined my palette. You know, I think every wine started tasting the same after I had that one. Every,” He closed his eyes, “just alcohol, I think. There’s always something sour in them now.”
Livio actually found The Bride to be rather sweet for wine. But he figured this was one of those things he shouldn't say. So he took the wine they had left, poured himself a little more, and handed the whole bottle to Vash.
Vash took it and downed it from the neck at once. Closed his eyes and held it to his forehead, then dropped it down to hold on his chest. “What were you saying about weddings?”
“Um,” Livio cleared his throat, “that’s just where it’s sold most, I find. At venues that host those sorts of things. I know some bars offer it at a discount to newlyweds.”
“Huh,” Vash said, voice hoarse, and swallowed down another mouthful. “You know I’ve never been married? Over a hundred and fifty years, and I never even had a fiancé. Is that sad or what?” He looked down the neck of the bottle, then took back more, and more, and more.
Livio grabbed the base of the bottle, gently pushing it down. Vash whined, some wine spilling around his lips and dripping down his face. Livio gently held the bottle against Vash’s lower sternum.
“It’s not sad.” Livio said quietly. “No one said you had to get married.”
Vash made a pained little sound. He squeezed his eyes shut, head heavy on Livio’s shoulder. Eyes still shut, he rolled his head to look out at the desert spreading beyond Hopeland, the moons hanging high in the sky.
“I kind of,” Vash started. Stopped. “A hundred and fifty years, and for most of them, I never wanted to get married. Couldn’t get past the ‘I shouldn’t’, so I never had the desire to.”
If Livio were brave, he’d ask about that most. When was the small period of time Vash wanted to get married? But he wasn’t brave. Not as much as he’d like to be. So he didn’t.
“It sounds nice.” Is what he said instead, soft. “I never gave it much thought, either.”
“It’s a wonderful thing.” Vash chuckled airly, eyes slipping open. They were glowing a little brighter, a bit more aquamarine. “Did—” He stopped. Sighed heavily. “Wolfwood ordained a few weddings.”
“Really?” Livio felt his throat close up and forced it back. “But he wasn’t a real priest?”
“Yeah, I wonder if they realized their marriage was invalid.” Vash snorted, throwing his free arm over his face. “I didn’t even notice if they had The Bride or not. He hated weddings. Always complained about them being shitshows. Loved the gossip, though.”
“Did he?” Livio prompted, if only because—he’d been dying, really, to hear more about Wolfwood. To know the person he had turned into. To feel some sort of…right to still call him his brother when he hadn’t even been peacefully in his presence for years.
“He caught the mother of the groom making out with the best man once.” Vash snickered. “I suppose I’m no better. I snooped around until I got the full story to share with him later. Apparently she used to date the best man’s father after the best man had long since moved out, broke up, then secretly moved on to his son.”
“Yikes,”
“Right?” Vash took another sip, but it was more measured this time. “Wolfwood laughed and laughed. He’s really mean like that sometimes, but it’s hard to stay mad.” He smiled a bit wistfully. Livio chose not to mention the incorrect use of present tense.
“Yeah?” He hummed. Hesitated for a moment. Took a gulp of his wine. “What else?”
Vash paused. Tilted his head back, blinking at Livio with bright, slightly wet eyes. Livio cleared his throat and straightened.
“I-I just,” He fidgeted, “you…know him best, so I just…I don’t, so. Right, um,” He scratched at his neck, “sorry, you don’t want to—”
“I can talk.” Vash interrupted, still staring so intently at Livio, viewing him almost upside-down. “I can talk about Wolfwood.” He cracked the smallest of smiles. “You could tell me about when he was a kid?”
Livio felt his throat close up. He nodded hastily, downing most of his wine to try and chase away the feeling. Vash sat up, holding the bottle between his knees as they sat shoulder-to-shoulder. It was heavy, but not…suffocating. He didn’t hate it.
“He, um,” Livio started quiet, “you know, Miss Melanie she…this was more recent, but she told me she wanted to keep him.”
“Did she?” Vash’s smile got a bit brighter.
“She wanted to keep both of us.” He looked down at his glass, swirling it. “Nico was the best with the kids, even when he was a kid. Really patient. Obviously, I mean, he put up with me.” He shrugged one shoulder. “She always wanted to have at least one kid for herself. She admitted she could justify Nico, because she was going to ask him to stay and work at Hopeland when he aged out. And she knew I wouldn’t go anywhere he wasn’t, so she’d get to keep two of us.” He took another sip.
“He’s still like that.” Vash murmured. Again, Livio did not correct his tenses. “Kids love him. He stayed a natural. He…yeah,” He tipped his head back as he closed his mouth around the neck of the bottle again, “he would’ve been perfect here.”
“You’re not too bad yourself.” Livio felt he had to say. “The kids here all love you, too.”
“One of the few things we have—had.” He stopped. Exhaled. “Had in common.”
“Tell me.” Livio croaked. “Tell me about everything different.”
And Vash smiled so very, very sad. He leaned back on one hand, and he hung his head as he rolled it over his shoulder.
“You know he once dared he could drink me under the table.” Vash got a glint to his eye. “He got so hammered the first time he forgot half the night. Refused to believe me when I said I won. Dared me again.”
“And he lost again?”
“And he lost again.” Vash brought the bottle to his lips. “But between you and me, he got really close.”
They spent hours like that, trading stories back and forth. It was more than Livio could’ve ever been brave enough to hope for. Hearing Vash laugh at the stupid shit he and Wolfwood got up to, smile at the kindness he gave out, and solemnly trail off with the all-too-frequent sorrows.
Livio tried to share what he could, he really did, but it was like Vash was an endless well of stories. He was enraptured with each word, and Vash didn’t even seem to mind that their sharing was unbalanced. He just seemed lighter, talking about Wolfwood at all.
It was here that Livio took note of something. Multiple things. Far be it from him to say he knew much of anything about Vash, really, or emotions in general, but—
There was just something about the way Vash smiled, how it minutely twitched wider each time he said Wolfwood’s name. How his fingers curled around his jaw when he rested his chin on his palm, looking out into the desert with a wistful sort of affection. The tiniest blush when he started a story and then abruptly changed it. Livio noticed these the most, eyes narrowing.
“Am I,” Livio interrupted Vash in the middle of one of these stories, “sorry, are you…is there something I’m…?”
“Hm?” Vash blinked at him.
“You don’t have to tell me everything.” Livio finally settled on.
“Ah,” Vash flushed a little further, “you noticed.”
“Yeah,” Livio shrugged, “it’s…fine. It’s fine, I don’t really deserve any of this anyway—”
“Nonono, it’s not that!” Vash waved his hand quickly, the other around the bottle. It was nearly empty. “Not like that at all, I just, erm,” He cleared his throat loudly, “there are. Some things. I don’t think you want the details on. That’s all.”
“I know there were unpleasant things he did.” Livio tried again, though even as he said it he felt he was presuming incorrectly. “I mean, compared to me he…”
“No, no,” Vash tried again, though he deflated a bit, “although I guess I have been…skirting those, too. I just,” He fumbled for a moment, “want you to remember him kindly. He was. He was kind. One of the kindest people I’ve known.” Here he got all sad again. “And that means something, when you’re as old as me.”
“I’d like to know him as he was.” Livio said simply, and Vash slowly slumped until he tipped back, laying against the steps.
“Of course. My apologies.” Vash sighed heavily.
Livio ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth. There were…he and Razlo didn’t communicate much. But some things came through. And…he remembered whisperings in the Eye of Michael. Remembered what some would joke and sneer about Knives’s brother and the bodyguard who turned rogue. The nature of their…well, he hadn’t paid them much thought.
And here he sat with Vash, who cradled his remaining wine close and smiled off at nothing. Thought of his words earlier, each and every one. He took a breath.
“How…close were you?” He ventured.
“He…” Vash stuttered, eyes widening for a second before he schooled his expression. “He was my best friend.” He said, quiet.
Livio believed that. Painfully so, he believed it wholeheartedly. Even still, “Was that all?”
Vash stopped. Darted his eyes to him. Guilty. Like a dog with its head caught in a trashcan. Vash cleared his throat loudly and sat up abruptly. Cleared his throat again. Took another quick swig of his wine.
“W-well! Uh,” Vash’s fingers drummed, leg bouncing, head turning this way and that, but never towards Livio. “There was. We. Hm!”
“You don’t have to tell me.” Livio said, smiling a bit to himself and sipping quietly. This was—not surprising, he thought he’d be more surprised. If anything it was painting a clearer picture. Some things were making sense now, actually—
“We were.” Vash stopped. He looked pained, and yet, like it pained him more to be silent. “Um. We were…close.” Spoke into the neck of the bottle as he brought it close. “Of-often.”
Ah.
“Ah,” Livio took another careful sip. He hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. “Yeah, I don’t think I want the details.”
“Sorry,” Vash wheezed out, then flopped back down again. Threw an arm over his eyes. Removed it. “I never said that out loud before now.”
“Huh?”
“That we were…” Vash licked his lips. “I guess. Acknowledging. Any of it. I never said it out loud.”
“Oh,” Livio tilted his head. “Not even to Meryl and Milly?”
“Well, they always knew. They’re perceptive.” Vash snorted. “I never had to say it out loud, I guess. Sorry,” He cleared his throat loudly, “you don’t want to hear about this.”
“No, no,” Livio set down his now-empty glass, “by all means.”
“I know it’s weird.”
“A little,” He admitted, “but it’s the first time you’ve spoken it. And it’s something about Nico still. I…” He swallowed, “can only imagine what…”
Vash slowly went still. Eyes clouded over, staring off. Blinked once, and it was gone. Livio was still unnerved by that look. The one Vash tucked away and yet never fully managed to hide.
“There were…a lot of things,” Vash began, “that I wanted, have wanted, in my life. When I finally die, it’ll be with a lot of regrets. Too many to count.” He lifted up the bottle, then stared down the neck when not a drop spilled out. “Half of them will be the things I never got to do with him.” And then, so very quiet; “Say to him.”
Livio let that sit for a minute. A million thoughts ran through his head, lingering on those last three words. He almost asked. But one look at Vash’s face stilled his tongue. No, it wasn’t his place to ask. It wasn’t even his place to know. It was meant for just Vash and Wolfwood. The only reason he heard it now was because he was as close as Vash would ever get.
Livio knocked his empty glass to Vash’s empty bottle, then set it down. Vash snorted, looked at the bottle, then discarded it. It immediately toppled and landed on the ground with a loud clang, but didn’t shatter. Vash didn’t even flinch.
“Well,” Livio said, “if I go before you, I’ll let him know.”
“Aw, will you?” Vash laughed, a wet, choked sound as he crossed his arms over his face, hiding it from view as he laid over those steps.
“Yeah,” Livio nodded, folding his hands, “I’ll tell him how you’re doing, too.”
“Don’t do that.” Vash croaked, horribly broken. “He won’t like what he hears.”
“I can’t tell him nothing,” Livio protested lightly.
“Tell him,” Vash shook on the intake of breath, “just tell him to wait a little longer.” There was a thick swallow. “I won’t be long. Okay?” He was so terribly quiet, bitten between a cry that refused to emerge. “If–if he’s even waiting, I mean—”
“He’s waiting.” Livio said. He had no reason to believe it was true, and yet, he did. He slowly moved until he was knocking his knee against Vash’s, watching the moons. “He’s waiting for both of us. We’ll get an earful about how long we took.”
Vash laughed. It came out broken and inhuman. Livio caught sight of a wobbly lip between Vash’s arms. He almost seemed to curl in. There was a feather peeking between his fingers.
“You know, sometimes,” Vash whispered, a confessional to a priest that no longer existed and never had, “I think about getting it over with already.”
Livio didn’t ask for elaboration. He was familiar with the feeling.
Instead, he laid his hand on Vash’s knee. Felt it jump, then settle. Pretended he couldn’t hear Vash suck back the cries that threatened to split him in two. Livio was no better, after all. He saw it for what it was: a desire that he could be the kind of person to pull the trigger, and yet knowing he wasn’t.
“Do you think he’d forgive me,” Vash croaked, “if I told him I missed him?”
“Probably not.” Livio squeezed his knee. “He’d say it’s a terrible reason to see him.”
“Yeah,” Vash chuckled, shaking, “yeah, he would.”
I miss him, too, was left unsaid. It simply sat between them, a third party watching between the dry air and shadows. But he stayed all the same, and he pretended he couldn’t see those feathers as Vash bit down every little monstrous thing about him.
He didn’t know much about Vash the Stampede. But what he did know was everything important, the things he cared about the most: for Wolfwood, they would have done anything.
He only wished that had been enough.