[ It's warm and there's light. There's so, so much light.
Time doesn't exist in this place. Echos of faraway familiar voices come and go, flashes of a life seeped in red don't belong in the gentle, luminous current. But it doesn't feel wrong as the waters wash over him. He doesn't resist. Is this what they meant by Redemption?
A life lived wrong...but a death done right.
More than he deserves. But he doesn't fight it as he slowly loses himself to the greater lull of the tide. Deep, deep down where Many become One. Where the liens between one soul and the next blur, shedding past sins along with them. Where thought dissipates and all that exists is an ever-present feeling of belonging. It's nothing and everything all at the same time.
But it ends.
The soft edges of his existence begin to sharpen as something calls out--someone? Not one he knows, not one he's ever heard before. Something inhuman but somehow kind yet desperate. The current tries to lead him further down to the depths, but jagged roots breath through the waves, wrapping around his essence. He goes up, up, up and away, away, away from the light. He wants to scream, but has no mouth to do so. Only for a moment.
They figured it out. Maybe not all sins can be overlooked so easily.
Is this Penance?
--And suddenly, he does have a mouth. Everything is dry, pitch dark. There's sound, muffled. The sound of small things moving around him, skittering little feet and hungry tongues. He feels weight, but barely. Something heavy, heavy on top of him. His mouth opens and fills with sand, with dirt, and instinct kicks in. Broken nails dig up, up at an agonizingly slow pace. He hasn't the strength but he keeps at it until the cool of the earth gives way to the heat of day.
A hand breaks through.
Then an arm. Then the other.
When he finally pulls himself out, the world around him is in shades of grays. When he turns his head, it seems still, so still. A worm crawls out of the ground underneath him. A small green bud sprouts from the freshly torn earth, but goes unnoticed.
It hurts to move, a dull ache that he feels ought to be more. Looking down at his hands, he sees bone, sinew, blanched skin that sinks in or hangs by a thread. He doesn't have a sense of smell but he can imagine what it must be like. The rest of him can't be much different. He doesn't panic because he knows.
This must be Hell.
All he can hear is the sound of a gentle breeze. The building in front of him his vaguely familiar, broken as much of the world is. There's on one else around to mock him, so he moves forward, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other in an uneasy and shambling gait. The door opens with some force and he nearly topples inside.
A table. Chairs.
It's so...normal.
It must be a joke. The real Hell will begin soon. ]
[ vash has moved into the hopeland orphanage. temporarily.
he'd only been a handful of towns over when he'd received the call from miss melanie herself-- she'd taken a bad fall and had fractured one of her ankles. this meant she was unable to be on her feet for long periods of time, so all the major household chores had fallen squarely on livio's shoulders. and because livio had stubbornly refused to call vash himself to ask for help, saying he could handle it and that vash had quite enough on his plate, miss melanie had taken it upon herself to do it for him.
he'd caught the next bus heading for hopeland an hour later, satchel slung over one shoulder. he'd arrived before nightfall.
that conversation had taken place about a fortnight ago, and by now vash has fully settled into a little spare guestroom that is part of some recent additions made to the orphanage. without the eye of michael leering over them any longer, abducting children from their numbers for the "pilgrimage rite", there were even more mouths to feed and little bodies that wanted for beds. it's a consequence they have happily embraced, building out around the old bones of the original architecture.
the chores have been fairly split down the middle between the two of them, and now that there were four adult hands back at work, regular resupply trips could be made to the town down below. that had been the crux of the problem; livio trying to juggle only making trips once everyone had been put to bed, long after most of the stores had shuttered their storefronts, had quickly proven unsustainable. when livio had solemnly told miss melanie that they'd run out of potatoes, the owner of the bar that vash had been eating his lunch in had told him someone was asking for him, and had handed vash their landline.
livio is on one of those resupply trips now, taking hopeland's one vehicle, and isn't expected back until dusk. meanwhile vash has several loads of laundry to unpin from drying lines, to fold up into baskets, and to sort into communal drawers.
the quickest way to where the clotheslines were located was through the front doors of the orphanage and around the side. taking this route meant each and every time vash hauled the wash out to dry and back inside again when it had, he contended with sighting the punisher.
the years had been unkind to the tarp that swaddled the weapon, the wind gaping the myriad of tears and bullet holes wider, yet the belts holding it in place remained bible black and immutable. the steel clasps hadn't gathered so much as a freckle of rust. the cross-shaped machine gun had not budged since vash had burrowed it into the earth, a headstone for the man that lay in its shadow. it, too, had earned its final rest.
he couldn't help it-- seeing it always made him stall, his gait slowing, his attention fish-hooked.
(a week after his initial arrival, in the dead of night, vash has slipped out of his room and out of the building, soundless as a ghost. one hand held the neck of a bottle of "the bride" whiskey, two shot glasses held in the fingers of the other. it took him until he'd worked through half the bottle before the first tear, hot and salty, raced down his cheek.
"i miss you so much," he'd whispered, misery raining from his eyes.)
as he rounds the corner of the main building, a wicker basket of laundry held against each hip, his eyes are already lifted to seek one of the arms of the punisher as it comes into view.
vash's hand grips the hilt of his revolver, finger against the trigger guard before both baskets even hit the dirt, pale sheets spilling like milk onto the packed earth of the orphanage's front yard. his heart is like the rattle of sheet metal in the wind, frenetic and loud, his body warming with the blistering heat of adrenaline.
how? how? how could someone have possibly dug up wolfwood without him noticing? and made such quick work of it, too? as if that alone wasn't terrifying enough, the grime from the hollowed out grave site, darker for having not seen sunlight for years, littered the courtyard, leading right to the side door of the kitchen. it's open. they're still here.
a child's laugh from somewhere deeper inside the orphanage sucks the moisture out of his mouth.
he moves at speed, not bothering to attempt at the element of surprise, his boots stomping against the sandy ground as he sprints from where he'd abandoned the laundry to the exterior entrance of the kitchen. he nearly kicks the door off its hinges when he enters, the muzzle of his gun already pointed at the head of the intruder. the chamber is primed.
he blinks. he'd expected to see more than just this lone person, he'd expected to have to come face-to-face with long-decomposed corpse of--
the smell finally hits him, and it is vile, rotten. his mouth floods with a rush of sour saliva like it does when he's about to vomit, and he has to focus to muscle down the urge, a quiver lancing through the arm holding his revolver aloft. it certainly reeks of a dead body in here, but there is none. a quick assessment assures him. there's only...
the trespasser's dark clothing is caked with muck. their inky hair lays limp and dull against their scalp. they standing at a listing angle, like they haven't the strength to quite hold themselves up straight. but all this information is background noise when vash notices the glint of something at their wrist: it's a cross-shaped cuff link. ]
... Nick?
[ he can barely hear the rasp of his own voice over the blood roaring in his ears. ]
[ It's a whirl of action too fast for his mind to process. The sound of the door slamming, someone bursting in. Instinct tells him to be on guard, at the ready as ever to give as good as you can take, but his reflexes are anything but the uneven twitching of limbs that are slowly remembering how to respond. If he's going down, he's going down quickly. Easily.
Maybe that's the point. Take him down as efficiently as he had cut down so, so many lives in his career.
But the figure doesn't move again, giving him time to crank his neck to an uncanny angle. He can't lift his head, but his eyes roll forward and up. They can't stay focused, the muscles having long-since broken down. The left is stronger than the right as the latter droops down to the floor, splitting his vision in a way that what's left of his brain can't quite put together.
It makes him dizzy. Want to fall over.
"Nick?"
His heart beats once. It's strained, heavy, pulls his ribcage in as a deep, shaky breath follows. The voice--
--is a cruel joke.
An affront that's deep enough to gather up what strength he has to try and straighten, his torso twitching from one side to the next, righting itself so he can look his Punisher in the eye. If that's the game they want to play, there's no way in this or any other Hell he'll let them get a rise out of him.
His vision steadies for a moment, a short moment, but just long enough for piercing blue to break through the gray haze.
His heart beats again, one remaining eyelid peels back, widening.
No-- ]
N--n...
[ No words form. As he opens his mouth, an inky substance spittles out onto his mess of a suit and onto the floor, burdened with congealed blood and unhatched worm eggs.
Keep his head up, keep it up. He has to see, he has to see. It's snapshots as he fights against his failing body--familiar angles, a gunman's stance, spikey hair, and those blue, blue eyes. The only color he seems to be able to take in.
He sucks in a breath, labored and ragged, and tries to speak again to the same end. Slowly, he raises a hand, trying to reach out.
If this is the game they're going to play, he finds himself playing it all too easily. ]
[ vash watches, dread chilling him down to his core, as wolfwood's body twists to face him. the movement is uncanny and stilted, and like it's relying more on the construction of its skeleton than muscle. especially when it seems to stack its vertebrae to right itself.
it looks as awful as it smells. its skin, once a burnished and coppery brown, is a mottled mix of sickly greys and purples, and what little of it vash can see (its hands, its chest, its face and neck), it's only just barely maintaining the shape of the man in front of him. black ichor leaks in thick globs from a bullet wound that never closed just above one of wolfwood's collarbones.
vash's lifted arm drops, and he has to grip the door frame he stands in with his prosthetic arm to keep himself from going to his knees. he tries to swallow and can't, his tongue heavy and numb in his mouth. his skin crawls with the pins and needles of panic.
he has to fight the urge not to close his eyes, not to scream. it's a near thing, though, when wolfwood's body opens its mouth, and vash has to move the hand from the entryway to cover his own at the repulsive sight of a slurry of gore and insect eggs spilling down its chin. his digs his own gunmetal fingers into his cheek and jaw so hard it hurts.
-- and then it reaches in his direction. no... he reaches for vash. there's something bizarrely disarming in the shaky gesture, combined with what he reads as raw desperation on wolfwood's half-decayed face. maybe it's wishful thinking, but hasn't it always been that way? his heart always hopes on a wing and a prayer. ]
I-Is that really you?
[ vash doesn't come closer. not yet. he still can't quite feel his legs, frozen in place from terror. ]
[ The figure doesn't come closer. Is that the play? To make him try over and over to make contact until he falls to pieces? The way their voice shakes is one thing, but the timber is so uncanny that makes him ache in the places that death can never take from him. The words themselves take a moment to translate and each passing moment has the strength of his shoulder dwindling, making his had dip bit by bit.
The figure asks if it's really him.
He doesn't know himself. A piece of him still feels connected to some other places, somewhere much nicer than where he is now. Is this meant to make him face this reality? Was he only in the Great Below to show him what he had turned away from on his many ventures?
The figure--this "Vash"--has only one purpose here. And it's t--
Live.
The thought is not his own, wracking his entire skeleton with the force of the plea. He feels it in every bit of him that remains and for a single instant, the world is in bright, vivid color. For a moment, he feels alive.
His head snaps towards "Vash". ]
B-bl--
[ But it fades as his senses become a slurry again. It's too much, he's too gone. He coughs again as his knees give way and he crumbles to the ground, no where near able to try and right himself. More inky slop slips from his mouth and his nose as he struggles to breathe around it.
Yet scattered in the putrid substance is something soft and white. ]
[ vash takes a single step forward, the instinct to try and catch wolfwood before he hits tile finally unsticking his feet from the floor. but he's nowhere near enough to touch him, and wolfwood goes prone in a puddle of his own mess. the foul aroma of putrefaction worsens, and vash's stomach squeezes with a fresh surge of nausea.
but it's not enough to keep him away.
vash scrambles to kneel beside him. with his gun back in its holster, he moves to touch wolfwood, but aborts the gesture at the last moment. his blue eyes scintillate, and a film of unshed tears blurs his vision. ]
Oh, god, what's happened to you?
[ his voice is thick with emotion as his gaze takes quick stock of wolfwood's broken, rotting body. parts of his jacket crater into places where the muscle and organs have melted, pockmarking his human shape like the surface of a moon.
it's then that he notices the petals floating in the oil slick of blood. he recognizes them immediately for what they are-- the shed of a lotus flower. his mind races.
he prepares himself for the worst as he reaches over and gets his hands around wolfwood's far arm in an attempt to roll him over onto his back. if he's molting petals, vash has-- well. it's a working theory. and if he's right, then... then-- ]
[ He thought Hell would be more fire and brimstone, executioners lined up to have their go at the souls who managed to find themselves there. That it wouldn't look so damned much like home, that they wouldn't wear the faces of his loved ones. But this is more fitting, isn't it? He could take a thousand, a million shots and jabs. But the people he wanted to protect...
He hears movement, he hears words from the figure and a familiar name from another--
I found you, Wolfwood.
Why does it make him want to cry?
What seeps from his eye sockets are anything but tears, more of congealed tissue and rotted worm debris. He's in no condition to resist as he's turned over, light now that the bloat has long left his body and most of the heavy tissue has either decayed or been eaten. His eyes try to roll to focus on that face, now so much closer...
You must live for him. For Brother.
If this is Hell...why does the figure--why does Vash look so sad?
For...Vash.
He tries to form words, but no sound comes out. On his back, the ichor stays lodged in what remains of his throat save a few bubbles from the shredded skin on his neck. His shirt has rotted with much of his body, the linen much more thin than his jacket. His chest cavity is open and flesh hangs limply off half of his ribs like algae off a boat. There's no steady rhythm of breathing--only a random, ragged inhale, an attempt. But what could would it do? His lungs look like slabs of meat, liquified. The heart--
--the heart shudders between his lungs, trying to beat. Around it, small tendrils wrap around it like the roots of a sapling taking hold. They squeeze, forcing the heart to contract, just once. But it cannot keep it up on its own. ]
[ when the final battle had concluded, both vash and livio had mopped up the remains of the eye of michael. they routed the men and women from their places of worship and handed them over to the appropriate authorities. at least the ones that didn't turn their own guns on themselves; vash did his best to stop who he could, but sometimes even he was not fast enough.
in one such haunt, vash had uncovered several files of data, their digital signature reading w. conrad. standing there in the pale blue glow of the display screens, he learned with little fanfare that the serum that had been injected into wolfwood, and livio, too, had been synthesized from nai's blood. it was in the vials wolfwood used to knit himself back together, too. the clinical research had only referred to wolfwood by a test subject number, but vash had known it was him. felt it in his gut.
in a fit of despair he'd purged the files, fragmenting them beyond recovery before deleting them from the console. but he couldn't unlearn what he'd read. there was no cure for the curse of memory.
and yet, now, it doesn't feel so much like a curse. ]
I'm-- I-I'm going to save you. Okay? You're going to be all right.
[ he says that as much for wolfwood as he does himself.
he lifts his flesh hand to his mouth, sets the edge of his teeth into the pad of his thumb, and bites down. hard. until he feels his skin give and split open. blood, fresh and metallic, floods his mouth. he presses his lips to the wound and sucks, encouraging the flow until the well of his mouth is filled with it.
maybe this is stupid. maybe it won't work. maybe he's bitten himself bloody for nothing and wolfwood will die again, without a shred of dignity, gagging on his own liquefied innards. a tear lands on wolfwood's sunken cheek as vash leans over him, as if he's already started mourning the seemingly inevitable. the thumb of his prosthetic catches against wolfwood's bottom lip, and then his teeth, prying his mouth open as vash parts his lips and trickles his blood onto wolfwood's moldered tongue.
geranium red mixing into the greasy black; life co-mingling with death. ]
[ He watches with rapt attention, as much as he's able to muster. The world around him moves in slow motion, doubled by the fact that it takes him a good moment to understand what he sees after he sees it. Words take even longer, the sound finally getting to him long after Vash's lips have stopped moving.
"Save you."
Save? Is there really hope for him after all is said and done? Even now?
"All right."
Or is this just what he wants to hear from the person he wants to hear it from the most?
His heart that barely beats knows. If this is meant to be just a fleeting moment in what remains of his consciousness, however hard, he'd do it all again. He may not be deserving of tears, but he'll take it like the greedy bastard he is. There isn't much he can feel in this body, but that wetness feels like a balm to weathered flesh, soothing and fresh and so full of life.
Vash is close, so close that his eyes can't track properly and it all becomes a blur. It's small ache to try and focus, but he wouldn't close his eyes even if he could. How can one person seems so close but so far away at the same time? He's minutely aware of his jaw moving down, difficult on the left side of his face while the right barely hangs on.
And then it hits him. Something warm, coppery and--and sweet sliding down his tongue. Everywhere it touches, something springs to life--a feeling, a sensation where there was only a dullness. He feels it--Vash's lips on his, or what's left of them. Inch by inch, his tongue and his esophagus begin to repair, tiny vines of tissue weaving together and starting to turn pink. His eyes can't widen anymore, but if they could they would.
The roots around his heart begin to glow faintly, finding a rhythm again and again until his heart pounds with one heavy thump on it's own. Several seconds pass. And then another. And then another. A slow, erratic, but present heartbeat. With each thud, a small bud begins to form at the top of his heart, peaking up between his ribs.
Live.
This...is this...
...is this real?
He reaches up once again with a shaky hand, just trying to brush by any bit of Vash that he can touch.
[ vash's eyes are scrunched shut, eyelashes clumped together with tears that slip through the seal of his eyelids. he scoops his tongue into the floor of his mouth, and the trickle of blood becomes thicker as he spoons it out between his own teeth.
as it is, he doesn't pay witness to the miracle of life returning to wolfwood's corroded body, doesn't see the new skin that turns old to ash, using it as fertilizer for new growth.
his chest hurts. it hurts so much. this is not how he wants to remember wolfwood. not how he wanted to. he'd worked so fucking hard to forget how battered he had looked, sat on the sofa they'd shared in his final moments.
(vash had searched the bombed-out orphanage until he'd found some spare cloth and a bucket to fill with water, and he'd used them to clean wolfwood. he'd silently scrubbed the drying blood from his face and hands, even going so far as to scrape the gore out from under his fingernails. when vash had finished, he had sat back on his heels and watched him like that for a little while. like this, vash could just barely pretend he was only sleeping. that he hadn't died scared and in pain, but had gone gently under the blanket of slumber. a soft death.
vash had kissed him one last time before laying him into the earth he'd dug open with his own two hands.)
the hiccup of a sob echoes from his throat when he feels something touch him, grazing the hair at his temple. it's startling enough that he pulls back, thinking for a moment, deliriously, that one of the children had found them. that they somehow hadn't realized what was happening, but they were about to, and they'd start screaming. then more of them would come running, and they'd scream too. they'd be terrified, terrified of him--
he finally registers that it isn't one of the kids, that it's still just the two of them, and that it's wolfwoods hand trembling by his face.
he cares not that it's withered, his nails long and cracked, the skin of his fingers having shrank and atrophied after years of decay, vash still reaches up to press wolfwood's leathery palm to his cheek as his face crumples under the weight of his heart. ]
W-Wolfwood... Wolfwood. Nick.
[ the brilliance of fresh green finally lassos his attention, and his eyes shift to the bud that has slithered through the slats of his ribcage, like it's seeking the warmth of the sun. before he can rationalize and think better of it, he's reaching out to stroke a fingertip against its still tightly folded petals oh-so gently.
his cell-markings surge with ethereal light, casting them both in a pale, sapphire glow. ]
The touch is light, his nerve-endings far from being restored, but he can feel it. He can feel the curve of Vash's face against his blighted palm, he can hear his name off Vash's lips. It's all so fucking much.
Wolfwood. Nick.
Vash was the only one who called him that. Is.
Nicholas would gulp if he could, a pain in his chest reminiscent of the way the muscles could clench in on themselves when feelings became too much. Vash always had a way of making him feel the most whether he wanted to or not, to confront the good and the bad without being plagued by cynicism. He would cry if he could. But he can't. His yellowed eyes can only look up to Vash and wonder.
Why?
How?
He may not understand it, but something else does. Someone else does.
At Vash's touch, the bud begins to bloom, petals unfurling one by one with a similar glow. It pulses gently along with the beating of Nicholas' heart, slow, uneven, but now unending. Ever so do the vines reach out further inside of him, slipping along his lungs and creating a lattice work that carefully begin to shift from mesophyll to muscle, white to red.
Warmth seems to emanate from the flower in contrast to Nicholas' cold skin. And with it, a quiet voice calls out... ]
Brother. Red Brother. No tears.
[ The holes in his lungs begin to mend, air filling them properly for the first time. ]
[ vash's stare goes unfocused as he lets the tide of resonance wash over him.
you did this? you brought him back?
his tears are like a deluge with no end, a dam broken and spilling from his eyes. they fall like rain on wolfwood's mending chest.
why? you gave your life for him. it's killed you. why? why would you do that for me? you deserve to live, too.
for a hundred and fifty years and change, vash has crisscrossed the deserts of no man's lands over and over again, finding and meeting his scattered sisters. siblings not by blood, but through the kinship of a shared genus. so many of them he'd brought back from the brink, his forehead pressed to the glass of their tanks. he was their keeper; his actions had stranded them here, too.
and yet this one, from heaven knows where, gave her life for him.
"no sadness. no pain. for you, brother. not alone."
the hand that had brushed the bud is now fully pressed to wolfwood's chest, fingers gentle between the petals.
[ The warmth of their connection comes with a flash of memories--not just from this plant, but all the plants he has visited across the planet. His kindness, his attention, his care, and his love that brought all of his sister such hope. ]
For us, always. Sister. Love, Sister.
[ When times were rough, he would appear as a beacon of stability, of the good in the world. He helped them love.
And then the memories shift to that of this singular plant, the one below Hopeland. Fuzzy recollections of children playing before they focus on Vash, again and again standing or sitting vigil beside the headstone of the Punisher. Of his tears when he thought no one could see, of cries when he thought no one could hear him. She heard. She heard it all.
That same sadness is reflected back to him. She ached for Vash, for the brother who protected and cared for them. Who was protecting and caring for him? ]
Your pain...our pain.
[ The petals gently wrap around Vash's fingers, their light spreading further across Nicholas' body. The further it goes, the more distant her voice sounds. ]
You love...this one. So we love. This one.
[ But it's warmth returns and doubles. Confident. This not only must be done, but she gladly does it. ]
[ vash imagines himself through the connection, imagines her too, and threads their fingers together as he rests his forehead against hers one final time, here in the nebulous in between.
i love you, too.
he hasn't much power left, it's been years since the gold had been sapped from his hair. but he can offer her one small push, like the wind exhaling into the guttering sails of a ship, filling them. his harmony twins with her swan song, strengthening the foliage that turns to sinew and skin. together they rewind time for wolfwood just that little bit more, enough that he no longer teeters with his toes hanging off the ledge between life and death. it won't complete him, but it'll foster the foundation he'll need to get there someday. hopefully soon.
but even that small display of his exhausted potential winds him, and his connection to his sister unspools. he shouts as the divide between them widens as he loses grip and she slips away:
thank you! thank you!
the first thing he's aware of as he sinks back into his body is that his nose is dripping snot into his cupid's bow. he turns his head to wipe it on his shirt sleeve. he blinks a few times, his gaze focusing again and seeking wolfwood's face. vash's smile is watery and overflowing with affection. for his sisters, for him. ]
[ Nicholas isn't sure what he's feeling, but it's not far from that blissful current he had been swept up in. The sense that something is just right overwhelms him for a moment, a tide of boundless affection making him feel whole and hale. With it the flower blooms to it's fullest around Vash's fingers, before gently wilting as it sinks down into his chest, repairing some of the flesh as it integrates itself to his new being. Flickers of what Vash has experienced settle away in his subconscious. He hears the words Sister, Brother, and Love echo again and again.
He thinks he knows what's happening.
The feeling ebbs as reality once again sets in. He's--he's not right. He's not whole. The more of him there is, the more there is to hurt and what has been a dull ache, in some places, starts to become more poignant as nerves begin to connect. But his vision is a little more clear, his right eye finding it easier to track.
And above him is Vash.
Saying his name. ]
B--bl...uh...d..e...
[ Words are hard, his tongue in better condition but his lips not fully formed. But he is able to put a bit more force behind his hand, a gentle pressure that says "I'm here, I hear you, I'm here" when he cannot.
His world may still be in shades of gray, but he's aware that one of his fondest nicknames for Vash now seems a little contradictory. That hair...
It looks almost entirely black.
He tries to comment on it, but all that comes out is a long ah before his tongue gives up. ]
[ he turns his head against wolfwood's fingers as he listens to him string together disparate syllables, like pearls on a string, into an amalgam of a pet name vash hasn't heard in years: blondie. it's enough for a fresh rush of tears to paint his already abused and ruddy cheeks. ]
Yeah, yeah. It's me... it's me.
[ when wolfwood's second attempt at speaking proves too difficult, his chest heaving as new lungs try to push sound through a still-ruined throat, vash rests his fingers against wolfwood's lips. he hushes him, too. ]
Shhh, it's okay. Take it easy.
[ vash looks him over from head to toe; the restoration is primarily centered in his chest, starting from his heart and slowly but surely blossoming out, seeking the most vital organs first. it leaves the rest of him, arms and legs, largely untouched by the gradual process. it has a lot of rot and whole parts of wolfwood that are just missing to rebuild. he needs time, and likely more than just one mouthful of vash's blood.
but they didn't have that luxury, at least not in the abundance vash desires and wolfwood requires. someone was sure to come looking for vash eventually, and dinner was due in only a handful of hours. he realizes he needs to move wolfwood; the prospect fills him with nervous dread. ]
Wolfwood, you can't stay here. We're-- we're in Hopeland. The orphanage. You're wandered into the kitchen. The kids, they...
[ vash's expression is mournful, but he thinks wolfwood will understand. ]
[ There's so much he wants to say, but can't. His body just isn't keeping up with what his metaphorical heart wants. Who would have thought that his soul would end up the least broken thing about him? Nicholas would laugh if he could.
Breathing isn't easy, but he does it. His lungs are slow as is his heart, working for a body that isn't ready for more. How he managed to get out of the ground, he'll have no clue. There's no way adrenaline is something his body could even produce right now.
(No, he knows, and he knows that he owes it all to her.)
He still can't quite believe he's looking at Vash--Vash, alive, well, changed in some ways but the same in so many more. He's seen him blubber and fall apart having grown used to and content with his job as the one to catch those tears. And here Nicholas is again, albeit in a different way.
The mention of Hopeland is enough for his good eye to widen, the eyelid having repaired a bit. Of course--of course that's why it felt so familiar. The world had been a haze, hastily sketched in chalk, but his soul still knew where home was, didn't it? And, God, what is Vash doing in Hopeland now after--?
--what happened?
He offers a groan of acknowledgment. Vash doesn't deserve to see him like this but Vash is also one of the only people who he would trust to see him like this. (Is Livio...?) Maybe the only at this point. (Still a kid, still a kid in his mind.) But the kids definitely don't need to add another horror to their already difficult existence. Or Miss Melanie... (They did make it out okay, right? He remembers them going up and away...)
Nicholas starts to move--or rather, tries to. He pulls his legs up, but manages to only bend his right knee by fifteen degrees and dig his left heel into the tile. His knee pops with a loud squelch, locking in place. ]
[ vash is quick to try to stop him, placing a hand on a thigh that is more femur than anything else. ]
No, don't try to get up. Just let me help you, okay?
[ except vash doesn't try to, at least not right away, his face pinched with concentration as he looks down at wolfwood. his brow smooths when he's found the answer to whatever question he'd been turning over in his mind. he reaches up to brush aside wolfwood's fringe from his brow. ]
Wait here. Two seconds and I'll be back. I swear.
[ vash unfolds his legs to stand, shuffling backwards several paces with his eyes still on wolfwood's prone body, before he turns and dashes out of the kitchen. he's blinded, briefly, by the suns, and lifts a hand to shield his eyes as he races to where he'd dropped the woven hampers of laundry. they'll need to be washed again, but that's not really his chief concern right now. he scoops sheets by the armful back into the righted baskets, stacks them, and takes them both with him when he jogs back to the kitchen.
once inside, he sets them on the table in the center of the room, and pulls one of the sheets at random from the chaotic pile. as he lays it out beside wolfwood, he explains himself: ]
I'm worried if I try to just pick you up as you are, I'll hurt you. But if you're wrapped in a sheet then you'll have more surface area to, um, keep you supported. I hope that makes sense.
[ he kneels again and leans over wolfwood to give him a soft, trembling smile. ]
I'm going to lift you a little to place you on it, okay? Please don't try to help.
[ Vash leaving fills him with a greater sense of dread than he wants to admit. Nicholas knows that it's silly--he trusts Vash with, well, everything. It's still settling that this is real, that this is happening, that he's alive and here and so is Vash and--and--
He waits. He really can't do anything else, can he? His eyes roll back and he stares blankly at the ceiling. He tries to listen to the sounds around him, the way the old stove clicks as it sits idly. What time is it? It seemed light enough, must be midday at least or maybe the afternoon.
God, Hopeland.
Each second hangs longer than the last and he can feel his heartbeat increase for a few beats as Vash reappears. His eyes twitch but track the fact that Vash has some linen on hand.
He wants to make a joke. Gonna make me a burrito, spikey? The line of where his eyebrows would be push together slightly at the request--don't help? Vash knows well that Nicholas doesn't like feeling a dead wait and unable to do anything by himself, but...he's definitely not in any position to argue. ]
[ vash bows beside him and gets one arm under wolfwood's neck with his hand braced under one shoulder, and slips the other up under his thighs. he won't be lifting him very high or for very long, but he still wishes he had a third hand to keep wolfwood's head steady. ]
One, two, three--
[ wolfwood is feather light. vash had no issues lifting him before-- he thinks of the times he'd get his arms up under the shelf of wolfwood's backside to spin him around, grinning from cheek to cheek despite how much wolfwood swore at him and demanded to be put down-- but the laundry he'd brought in just a minute before had been heavier. at least it makes for a quick changeover from kitchen floor to bed sheet.
vash gingerly removes his arms. he inclines over wolfwood again to look him in the eyes. ]
[ It hurts--he doesn't expect it, but what weight he has sinks a bit and makes tired bones feel it. It isn't a stinging pain, just more of that consistent dull ache has a sinking feeling that the more of him returns, the more he's going to feel it.
He can handle it, though. There's something about being in Vash's hold again that gets to him. Distant memories in the current, the good thoughts and feelings that had been ever-present but not always clear. The essence of Vash's aura was never far away, Nicholas realizes it now. That's one of the places he was finding his comfort, his happy forever.
Such overly sentimental thoughts aren't the kind he would normally express. But now, looking at Vash's face hovering above his, Nicholas wishes he could say every one of them.
[ vash exhales, quietly relieved. he knows it probably wasn't comfortable, but he figures wolfwood would be honest with him if something had actually gone awry. like this, vash folds the edges of the sheet around wolfwood, much like how one would swaddle a baby. he talks to him while he prepares him for what's next. ]
As I'm sure you've guessed you, uh, smell... well-- you smell like a dead body. [ it's not as though wolfwood has ever needed anything sugarcoated for him, medicine or otherwise. ] I don't think there's anywhere here in the orphanage I can stash you without one of the kids or Miss Melanie or Livio asking about it. But do you remember that old shed on the road up to the orphanage? Livio said you and him used to sneak out there to smoke after getting caught one too many times on the roof.
[ vash is gently carding fingers through wolfwood's limp hair, the gesture so simple and unself-conscious that he probably isn't even thinking about it. ]
We cleaned it out the last time I was here, but the kids have been told they're not allowed past the gate, and they tend to be on their best behavior when I'm visiting.
[ he laughs briefly. his eyes are starting to get glassy again; he sniffs once, hard, to clear his sinuses. ]
I'm going to take you there, okay? I'll bring you water and a bedroll for both of us to sleep on tonight, but I need to clean the kitchen and start dinner, so...
[ he bites his lip. ]
I don't want to leave you alone in there but I have to. I'm sorry.
[ If he had his druthers, he would prefer to be likened to a burrito than a baby. Burritos don't need people, they just exist as they are and are also not inherently disgusting. Babies need a lot of work and have their moments of grossness.
He smells? Of course he smells... he's probably lucky that his nose doesn't seem to actually be working just yet. He follows as Vash explains, but his mind does a hard stop at one name in particular--
Livio.
God he...he made it. He's around? He's fucking alive at the end of all this? That--that fills him with something, that warmth comes back. Livio made it. He made it through and he's back here, he's back with the kids and with Vash and...it's everything he could have hoped for. It's what he deserved.
God, how much has changed?
It takes him a moment to refocus, having missed half of what Vash has explained now, his mind really only able to focus on one thing at a time. But he catches the gist of it. He doesn't want to be seen by anyone anymore than they would want to see him. The thought of being left alone is, admittedly, unappealing but...he can handle this. Can't he handle anything at this point?
Vash clearly doesn't like the idea, even if it's the right one. All Nicholas can do is nod his head once, twice to make it clear it's not just any weird twitching he's doing. ]
This is just temporary. You'll be up and walking around before you know it.
[ does vash know that for sure? no. does he think saying it might will it into truth? maybe.
when he gets both arms under wolfwood again, it's with the sheet between them this time. ]
Just, uh, vocalize? If it's too much or I'm hurting you or something's wrong. I'll put you back down as quickly as I can.
[ then, as carefully as he can, he lifts wolfwood from the floor. the sheet pulls taut under the slack of wolfwood's weight, supporting his spine and hips in a way that wouldn't be possible without it. vash holds him gently to his chest, and as he steps out of the kitchen and into the baking heat of the binary suns, he realizes the last time he held wolfwood like this was to bury him.
thank you. thank you for bringing him back to me.
vash wastes little time, but he also doesn't want to jostle wolfwood too much by running, either. so he walks quickly but steadily, keeping himself rigidly upright and trying to glide his gait as evenly as he can. he heads straight for the gates, which aren't (blessedly) yet chained for the night. all he needs to do is toe them open and they're out on the fringes of the orphanage's property. ]
[ To say it's awkward not being able to properly respond would be an understatement, but there's not much to be done about that. At least it's Vash's voice he gets to hear, a balm to the growing fears and implications of what this means in the back of his mind. (What if he doesn't recover? What if this is as far as he goes? Some last hurrah as a barely moving corpse just to catch a glimpse of the world saved?)
The world outside is bright. Nicholas' one "good" eye squints a bit and the noise he makes is more annoyed than anything, but it's short-lived. With some context, he takes the time to try and see how much has changed...
Not much. From what he can glimpse of the main building it seems to be in decent condition. There's so much damned relief in knowing that it's there, that it's filled with familiar cases and, Hell, probably new ones too after all that's been said and done. No kid should ever have to go to a place like that, but he's damned glad that it is there for them. That there are good people doing their damnedest.
The land around looks--well, like a desert from what he can see. Nothing to write home about. So instead he looks up at Vash, at all the familiar lines of his profile, of the unfamiliar darkness of his hair. It all fits in so perfectly into his memories of the man except for that. There's a story that needs to be told.
He recognizes the shed in the corner of his eye when they're close enough. Far enough away that it's unlikely the kids will wander past even during free time. It starts to sink in that this means Vash is going to leave him after they've only just been reunited--but he knows it's silly. Vash will be back. He always is. ]
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thefeywood2023-07-09 11:58 am
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Time doesn't exist in this place. Echos of faraway familiar voices come and go, flashes of a life seeped in red don't belong in the gentle, luminous current. But it doesn't feel wrong as the waters wash over him. He doesn't resist. Is this what they meant by Redemption?
A life lived wrong...but a death done right.
More than he deserves. But he doesn't fight it as he slowly loses himself to the greater lull of the tide. Deep, deep down where Many become One. Where the liens between one soul and the next blur, shedding past sins along with them. Where thought dissipates and all that exists is an ever-present feeling of belonging. It's nothing and everything all at the same time.
But it ends.
The soft edges of his existence begin to sharpen as something calls out--someone? Not one he knows, not one he's ever heard before. Something inhuman but somehow kind yet desperate. The current tries to lead him further down to the depths, but jagged roots breath through the waves, wrapping around his essence. He goes up, up, up and away, away, away from the light. He wants to scream, but has no mouth to do so. Only for a moment.
They figured it out. Maybe not all sins can be overlooked so easily.
Is this Penance?
--And suddenly, he does have a mouth. Everything is dry, pitch dark. There's sound, muffled. The sound of small things moving around him, skittering little feet and hungry tongues. He feels weight, but barely. Something heavy, heavy on top of him. His mouth opens and fills with sand, with dirt, and instinct kicks in. Broken nails dig up, up at an agonizingly slow pace. He hasn't the strength but he keeps at it until the cool of the earth gives way to the heat of day.
A hand breaks through.
Then an arm. Then the other.
When he finally pulls himself out, the world around him is in shades of grays. When he turns his head, it seems still, so still. A worm crawls out of the ground underneath him. A small green bud sprouts from the freshly torn earth, but goes unnoticed.
It hurts to move, a dull ache that he feels ought to be more. Looking down at his hands, he sees bone, sinew, blanched skin that sinks in or hangs by a thread. He doesn't have a sense of smell but he can imagine what it must be like. The rest of him can't be much different. He doesn't panic because he knows.
This must be Hell.
All he can hear is the sound of a gentle breeze. The building in front of him his vaguely familiar, broken as much of the world is. There's on one else around to mock him, so he moves forward, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other in an uneasy and shambling gait. The door opens with some force and he nearly topples inside.
A table. Chairs.
It's so...normal.
It must be a joke. The real Hell will begin soon. ]
no subject
he'd only been a handful of towns over when he'd received the call from miss melanie herself-- she'd taken a bad fall and had fractured one of her ankles. this meant she was unable to be on her feet for long periods of time, so all the major household chores had fallen squarely on livio's shoulders. and because livio had stubbornly refused to call vash himself to ask for help, saying he could handle it and that vash had quite enough on his plate, miss melanie had taken it upon herself to do it for him.
he'd caught the next bus heading for hopeland an hour later, satchel slung over one shoulder. he'd arrived before nightfall.
that conversation had taken place about a fortnight ago, and by now vash has fully settled into a little spare guestroom that is part of some recent additions made to the orphanage. without the eye of michael leering over them any longer, abducting children from their numbers for the "pilgrimage rite", there were even more mouths to feed and little bodies that wanted for beds. it's a consequence they have happily embraced, building out around the old bones of the original architecture.
the chores have been fairly split down the middle between the two of them, and now that there were four adult hands back at work, regular resupply trips could be made to the town down below. that had been the crux of the problem; livio trying to juggle only making trips once everyone had been put to bed, long after most of the stores had shuttered their storefronts, had quickly proven unsustainable. when livio had solemnly told miss melanie that they'd run out of potatoes, the owner of the bar that vash had been eating his lunch in had told him someone was asking for him, and had handed vash their landline.
livio is on one of those resupply trips now, taking hopeland's one vehicle, and isn't expected back until dusk. meanwhile vash has several loads of laundry to unpin from drying lines, to fold up into baskets, and to sort into communal drawers.
the quickest way to where the clotheslines were located was through the front doors of the orphanage and around the side. taking this route meant each and every time vash hauled the wash out to dry and back inside again when it had, he contended with sighting the punisher.
the years had been unkind to the tarp that swaddled the weapon, the wind gaping the myriad of tears and bullet holes wider, yet the belts holding it in place remained bible black and immutable. the steel clasps hadn't gathered so much as a freckle of rust. the cross-shaped machine gun had not budged since vash had burrowed it into the earth, a headstone for the man that lay in its shadow. it, too, had earned its final rest.
he couldn't help it-- seeing it always made him stall, his gait slowing, his attention fish-hooked.
(a week after his initial arrival, in the dead of night, vash has slipped out of his room and out of the building, soundless as a ghost. one hand held the neck of a bottle of "the bride" whiskey, two shot glasses held in the fingers of the other. it took him until he'd worked through half the bottle before the first tear, hot and salty, raced down his cheek.
"i miss you so much," he'd whispered, misery raining from his eyes.)
as he rounds the corner of the main building, a wicker basket of laundry held against each hip, his eyes are already lifted to seek one of the arms of the punisher as it comes into view.
vash's hand grips the hilt of his revolver, finger against the trigger guard before both baskets even hit the dirt, pale sheets spilling like milk onto the packed earth of the orphanage's front yard. his heart is like the rattle of sheet metal in the wind, frenetic and loud, his body warming with the blistering heat of adrenaline.
how? how? how could someone have possibly dug up wolfwood without him noticing? and made such quick work of it, too? as if that alone wasn't terrifying enough, the grime from the hollowed out grave site, darker for having not seen sunlight for years, littered the courtyard, leading right to the side door of the kitchen. it's open. they're still here.
a child's laugh from somewhere deeper inside the orphanage sucks the moisture out of his mouth.
he moves at speed, not bothering to attempt at the element of surprise, his boots stomping against the sandy ground as he sprints from where he'd abandoned the laundry to the exterior entrance of the kitchen. he nearly kicks the door off its hinges when he enters, the muzzle of his gun already pointed at the head of the intruder. the chamber is primed.
he blinks. he'd expected to see more than just this lone person, he'd expected to have to come face-to-face with long-decomposed corpse of--
the smell finally hits him, and it is vile, rotten. his mouth floods with a rush of sour saliva like it does when he's about to vomit, and he has to focus to muscle down the urge, a quiver lancing through the arm holding his revolver aloft. it certainly reeks of a dead body in here, but there is none. a quick assessment assures him. there's only...
the trespasser's dark clothing is caked with muck. their inky hair lays limp and dull against their scalp. they standing at a listing angle, like they haven't the strength to quite hold themselves up straight. but all this information is background noise when vash notices the glint of something at their wrist: it's a cross-shaped cuff link. ]
... Nick?
[ he can barely hear the rasp of his own voice over the blood roaring in his ears. ]
no subject
Maybe that's the point. Take him down as efficiently as he had cut down so, so many lives in his career.
But the figure doesn't move again, giving him time to crank his neck to an uncanny angle. He can't lift his head, but his eyes roll forward and up. They can't stay focused, the muscles having long-since broken down. The left is stronger than the right as the latter droops down to the floor, splitting his vision in a way that what's left of his brain can't quite put together.
It makes him dizzy. Want to fall over.
"Nick?"
His heart beats once. It's strained, heavy, pulls his ribcage in as a deep, shaky breath follows. The voice--
--is a cruel joke.
An affront that's deep enough to gather up what strength he has to try and straighten, his torso twitching from one side to the next, righting itself so he can look his Punisher in the eye. If that's the game they want to play, there's no way in this or any other Hell he'll let them get a rise out of him.
His vision steadies for a moment, a short moment, but just long enough for piercing blue to break through the gray haze.
His heart beats again, one remaining eyelid peels back, widening.
No-- ]
N--n...
[ No words form. As he opens his mouth, an inky substance spittles out onto his mess of a suit and onto the floor, burdened with congealed blood and unhatched worm eggs.
Keep his head up, keep it up. He has to see, he has to see. It's snapshots as he fights against his failing body--familiar angles, a gunman's stance, spikey hair, and those blue, blue eyes. The only color he seems to be able to take in.
He sucks in a breath, labored and ragged, and tries to speak again to the same end. Slowly, he raises a hand, trying to reach out.
If this is the game they're going to play, he finds himself playing it all too easily. ]
no subject
it looks as awful as it smells. its skin, once a burnished and coppery brown, is a mottled mix of sickly greys and purples, and what little of it vash can see (its hands, its chest, its face and neck), it's only just barely maintaining the shape of the man in front of him. black ichor leaks in thick globs from a bullet wound that never closed just above one of wolfwood's collarbones.
vash's lifted arm drops, and he has to grip the door frame he stands in with his prosthetic arm to keep himself from going to his knees. he tries to swallow and can't, his tongue heavy and numb in his mouth. his skin crawls with the pins and needles of panic.
he has to fight the urge not to close his eyes, not to scream. it's a near thing, though, when wolfwood's body opens its mouth, and vash has to move the hand from the entryway to cover his own at the repulsive sight of a slurry of gore and insect eggs spilling down its chin. his digs his own gunmetal fingers into his cheek and jaw so hard it hurts.
-- and then it reaches in his direction. no... he reaches for vash. there's something bizarrely disarming in the shaky gesture, combined with what he reads as raw desperation on wolfwood's half-decayed face. maybe it's wishful thinking, but hasn't it always been that way? his heart always hopes on a wing and a prayer. ]
I-Is that really you?
[ vash doesn't come closer. not yet. he still can't quite feel his legs, frozen in place from terror. ]
no subject
The figure asks if it's really him.
He doesn't know himself. A piece of him still feels connected to some other places, somewhere much nicer than where he is now. Is this meant to make him face this reality? Was he only in the Great Below to show him what he had turned away from on his many ventures?
The figure--this "Vash"--has only one purpose here. And it's t--
Live.
The thought is not his own, wracking his entire skeleton with the force of the plea. He feels it in every bit of him that remains and for a single instant, the world is in bright, vivid color. For a moment, he feels alive.
His head snaps towards "Vash". ]
B-bl--
[ But it fades as his senses become a slurry again. It's too much, he's too gone. He coughs again as his knees give way and he crumbles to the ground, no where near able to try and right himself. More inky slop slips from his mouth and his nose as he struggles to breathe around it.
Yet scattered in the putrid substance is something soft and white. ]
no subject
but it's not enough to keep him away.
vash scrambles to kneel beside him. with his gun back in its holster, he moves to touch wolfwood, but aborts the gesture at the last moment. his blue eyes scintillate, and a film of unshed tears blurs his vision. ]
Oh, god, what's happened to you?
[ his voice is thick with emotion as his gaze takes quick stock of wolfwood's broken, rotting body. parts of his jacket crater into places where the muscle and organs have melted, pockmarking his human shape like the surface of a moon.
it's then that he notices the petals floating in the oil slick of blood. he recognizes them immediately for what they are-- the shed of a lotus flower. his mind races.
he prepares himself for the worst as he reaches over and gets his hands around wolfwood's far arm in an attempt to roll him over onto his back. if he's molting petals, vash has-- well. it's a working theory. and if he's right, then... then-- ]
no subject
He hears movement, he hears words from the figure and a familiar name from another--
I found you, Wolfwood.
Why does it make him want to cry?
What seeps from his eye sockets are anything but tears, more of congealed tissue and rotted worm debris. He's in no condition to resist as he's turned over, light now that the bloat has long left his body and most of the heavy tissue has either decayed or been eaten. His eyes try to roll to focus on that face, now so much closer...
You must live for him. For Brother.
If this is Hell...why does the figure--why does Vash look so sad?
For...Vash.
He tries to form words, but no sound comes out. On his back, the ichor stays lodged in what remains of his throat save a few bubbles from the shredded skin on his neck. His shirt has rotted with much of his body, the linen much more thin than his jacket. His chest cavity is open and flesh hangs limply off half of his ribs like algae off a boat. There's no steady rhythm of breathing--only a random, ragged inhale, an attempt. But what could would it do? His lungs look like slabs of meat, liquified. The heart--
--the heart shudders between his lungs, trying to beat. Around it, small tendrils wrap around it like the roots of a sapling taking hold. They squeeze, forcing the heart to contract, just once. But it cannot keep it up on its own. ]
no subject
in one such haunt, vash had uncovered several files of data, their digital signature reading w. conrad. standing there in the pale blue glow of the display screens, he learned with little fanfare that the serum that had been injected into wolfwood, and livio, too, had been synthesized from nai's blood. it was in the vials wolfwood used to knit himself back together, too. the clinical research had only referred to wolfwood by a test subject number, but vash had known it was him. felt it in his gut.
in a fit of despair he'd purged the files, fragmenting them beyond recovery before deleting them from the console. but he couldn't unlearn what he'd read. there was no cure for the curse of memory.
and yet, now, it doesn't feel so much like a curse. ]
I'm-- I-I'm going to save you. Okay? You're going to be all right.
[ he says that as much for wolfwood as he does himself.
he lifts his flesh hand to his mouth, sets the edge of his teeth into the pad of his thumb, and bites down. hard. until he feels his skin give and split open. blood, fresh and metallic, floods his mouth. he presses his lips to the wound and sucks, encouraging the flow until the well of his mouth is filled with it.
maybe this is stupid. maybe it won't work. maybe he's bitten himself bloody for nothing and wolfwood will die again, without a shred of dignity, gagging on his own liquefied innards. a tear lands on wolfwood's sunken cheek as vash leans over him, as if he's already started mourning the seemingly inevitable. the thumb of his prosthetic catches against wolfwood's bottom lip, and then his teeth, prying his mouth open as vash parts his lips and trickles his blood onto wolfwood's moldered tongue.
geranium red mixing into the greasy black; life co-mingling with death. ]
no subject
"Save you."
Save? Is there really hope for him after all is said and done? Even now?
"All right."
Or is this just what he wants to hear from the person he wants to hear it from the most?
His heart that barely beats knows. If this is meant to be just a fleeting moment in what remains of his consciousness, however hard, he'd do it all again. He may not be deserving of tears, but he'll take it like the greedy bastard he is. There isn't much he can feel in this body, but that wetness feels like a balm to weathered flesh, soothing and fresh and so full of life.
Vash is close, so close that his eyes can't track properly and it all becomes a blur. It's small ache to try and focus, but he wouldn't close his eyes even if he could. How can one person seems so close but so far away at the same time? He's minutely aware of his jaw moving down, difficult on the left side of his face while the right barely hangs on.
And then it hits him. Something warm, coppery and--and sweet sliding down his tongue. Everywhere it touches, something springs to life--a feeling, a sensation where there was only a dullness. He feels it--Vash's lips on his, or what's left of them. Inch by inch, his tongue and his esophagus begin to repair, tiny vines of tissue weaving together and starting to turn pink. His eyes can't widen anymore, but if they could they would.
The roots around his heart begin to glow faintly, finding a rhythm again and again until his heart pounds with one heavy thump on it's own. Several seconds pass. And then another. And then another. A slow, erratic, but present heartbeat. With each thud, a small bud begins to form at the top of his heart, peaking up between his ribs.
Live.
This...is this...
...is this real?
He reaches up once again with a shaky hand, just trying to brush by any bit of Vash that he can touch.
Are you real? ]
no subject
as it is, he doesn't pay witness to the miracle of life returning to wolfwood's corroded body, doesn't see the new skin that turns old to ash, using it as fertilizer for new growth.
his chest hurts. it hurts so much. this is not how he wants to remember wolfwood. not how he wanted to. he'd worked so fucking hard to forget how battered he had looked, sat on the sofa they'd shared in his final moments.
(vash had searched the bombed-out orphanage until he'd found some spare cloth and a bucket to fill with water, and he'd used them to clean wolfwood. he'd silently scrubbed the drying blood from his face and hands, even going so far as to scrape the gore out from under his fingernails. when vash had finished, he had sat back on his heels and watched him like that for a little while. like this, vash could just barely pretend he was only sleeping. that he hadn't died scared and in pain, but had gone gently under the blanket of slumber. a soft death.
vash had kissed him one last time before laying him into the earth he'd dug open with his own two hands.)
the hiccup of a sob echoes from his throat when he feels something touch him, grazing the hair at his temple. it's startling enough that he pulls back, thinking for a moment, deliriously, that one of the children had found them. that they somehow hadn't realized what was happening, but they were about to, and they'd start screaming. then more of them would come running, and they'd scream too. they'd be terrified, terrified of him--
he finally registers that it isn't one of the kids, that it's still just the two of them, and that it's wolfwoods hand trembling by his face.
he cares not that it's withered, his nails long and cracked, the skin of his fingers having shrank and atrophied after years of decay, vash still reaches up to press wolfwood's leathery palm to his cheek as his face crumples under the weight of his heart. ]
W-Wolfwood... Wolfwood. Nick.
[ the brilliance of fresh green finally lassos his attention, and his eyes shift to the bud that has slithered through the slats of his ribcage, like it's seeking the warmth of the sun. before he can rationalize and think better of it, he's reaching out to stroke a fingertip against its still tightly folded petals oh-so gently.
his cell-markings surge with ethereal light, casting them both in a pale, sapphire glow. ]
no subject
It's real.
It's real.
The touch is light, his nerve-endings far from being restored, but he can feel it. He can feel the curve of Vash's face against his blighted palm, he can hear his name off Vash's lips. It's all so fucking much.
Wolfwood. Nick.
Vash was the only one who called him that. Is.
Nicholas would gulp if he could, a pain in his chest reminiscent of the way the muscles could clench in on themselves when feelings became too much. Vash always had a way of making him feel the most whether he wanted to or not, to confront the good and the bad without being plagued by cynicism. He would cry if he could. But he can't. His yellowed eyes can only look up to Vash and wonder.
Why?
How?
He may not understand it, but something else does. Someone else does.
At Vash's touch, the bud begins to bloom, petals unfurling one by one with a similar glow. It pulses gently along with the beating of Nicholas' heart, slow, uneven, but now unending. Ever so do the vines reach out further inside of him, slipping along his lungs and creating a lattice work that carefully begin to shift from mesophyll to muscle, white to red.
Warmth seems to emanate from the flower in contrast to Nicholas' cold skin. And with it, a quiet voice calls out... ]
Brother. Red Brother. No tears.
[ The holes in his lungs begin to mend, air filling them properly for the first time. ]
No sadness. No pain. For you, Brother. Not alone.
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you did this? you brought him back?
his tears are like a deluge with no end, a dam broken and spilling from his eyes. they fall like rain on wolfwood's mending chest.
why? you gave your life for him. it's killed you. why? why would you do that for me? you deserve to live, too.
for a hundred and fifty years and change, vash has crisscrossed the deserts of no man's lands over and over again, finding and meeting his scattered sisters. siblings not by blood, but through the kinship of a shared genus. so many of them he'd brought back from the brink, his forehead pressed to the glass of their tanks. he was their keeper; his actions had stranded them here, too.
and yet this one, from heaven knows where, gave her life for him.
"no sadness. no pain. for you, brother. not alone."
the hand that had brushed the bud is now fully pressed to wolfwood's chest, fingers gentle between the petals.
i'll never be able to repay this kindness. ]
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For us, always. Sister. Love, Sister.
[ When times were rough, he would appear as a beacon of stability, of the good in the world. He helped them love.
And then the memories shift to that of this singular plant, the one below Hopeland. Fuzzy recollections of children playing before they focus on Vash, again and again standing or sitting vigil beside the headstone of the Punisher. Of his tears when he thought no one could see, of cries when he thought no one could hear him. She heard. She heard it all.
That same sadness is reflected back to him. She ached for Vash, for the brother who protected and cared for them. Who was protecting and caring for him? ]
Your pain...our pain.
[ The petals gently wrap around Vash's fingers, their light spreading further across Nicholas' body. The further it goes, the more distant her voice sounds. ]
You love...this one. So we love. This one.
[ But it's warmth returns and doubles. Confident. This not only must be done, but she gladly does it. ]
We love. You.
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i love you, too.
he hasn't much power left, it's been years since the gold had been sapped from his hair. but he can offer her one small push, like the wind exhaling into the guttering sails of a ship, filling them. his harmony twins with her swan song, strengthening the foliage that turns to sinew and skin. together they rewind time for wolfwood just that little bit more, enough that he no longer teeters with his toes hanging off the ledge between life and death. it won't complete him, but it'll foster the foundation he'll need to get there someday. hopefully soon.
but even that small display of his exhausted potential winds him, and his connection to his sister unspools. he shouts as the divide between them widens as he loses grip and she slips away:
thank you! thank you!
the first thing he's aware of as he sinks back into his body is that his nose is dripping snot into his cupid's bow. he turns his head to wipe it on his shirt sleeve. he blinks a few times, his gaze focusing again and seeking wolfwood's face. vash's smile is watery and overflowing with affection. for his sisters, for him. ]
Nick... I've m-missed you so-- so much.
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He thinks he knows what's happening.
The feeling ebbs as reality once again sets in. He's--he's not right. He's not whole. The more of him there is, the more there is to hurt and what has been a dull ache, in some places, starts to become more poignant as nerves begin to connect. But his vision is a little more clear, his right eye finding it easier to track.
And above him is Vash.
Saying his name. ]
B--bl...uh...d..e...
[ Words are hard, his tongue in better condition but his lips not fully formed. But he is able to put a bit more force behind his hand, a gentle pressure that says "I'm here, I hear you, I'm here" when he cannot.
His world may still be in shades of gray, but he's aware that one of his fondest nicknames for Vash now seems a little contradictory. That hair...
It looks almost entirely black.
He tries to comment on it, but all that comes out is a long ah before his tongue gives up. ]
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Yeah, yeah. It's me... it's me.
[ when wolfwood's second attempt at speaking proves too difficult, his chest heaving as new lungs try to push sound through a still-ruined throat, vash rests his fingers against wolfwood's lips. he hushes him, too. ]
Shhh, it's okay. Take it easy.
[ vash looks him over from head to toe; the restoration is primarily centered in his chest, starting from his heart and slowly but surely blossoming out, seeking the most vital organs first. it leaves the rest of him, arms and legs, largely untouched by the gradual process. it has a lot of rot and whole parts of wolfwood that are just missing to rebuild. he needs time, and likely more than just one mouthful of vash's blood.
but they didn't have that luxury, at least not in the abundance vash desires and wolfwood requires. someone was sure to come looking for vash eventually, and dinner was due in only a handful of hours. he realizes he needs to move wolfwood; the prospect fills him with nervous dread. ]
Wolfwood, you can't stay here. We're-- we're in Hopeland. The orphanage. You're wandered into the kitchen. The kids, they...
[ vash's expression is mournful, but he thinks wolfwood will understand. ]
I'm going to have to try and pick you up.
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Breathing isn't easy, but he does it. His lungs are slow as is his heart, working for a body that isn't ready for more. How he managed to get out of the ground, he'll have no clue. There's no way adrenaline is something his body could even produce right now.
(No, he knows, and he knows that he owes it all to her.)
He still can't quite believe he's looking at Vash--Vash, alive, well, changed in some ways but the same in so many more. He's seen him blubber and fall apart having grown used to and content with his job as the one to catch those tears. And here Nicholas is again, albeit in a different way.
The mention of Hopeland is enough for his good eye to widen, the eyelid having repaired a bit. Of course--of course that's why it felt so familiar. The world had been a haze, hastily sketched in chalk, but his soul still knew where home was, didn't it? And, God, what is Vash doing in Hopeland now after--?
--what happened?
He offers a groan of acknowledgment. Vash doesn't deserve to see him like this but Vash is also one of the only people who he would trust to see him like this. (Is Livio...?) Maybe the only at this point. (Still a kid, still a kid in his mind.) But the kids definitely don't need to add another horror to their already difficult existence. Or Miss Melanie... (They did make it out okay, right? He remembers them going up and away...)
Nicholas starts to move--or rather, tries to. He pulls his legs up, but manages to only bend his right knee by fifteen degrees and dig his left heel into the tile. His knee pops with a loud squelch, locking in place. ]
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No, don't try to get up. Just let me help you, okay?
[ except vash doesn't try to, at least not right away, his face pinched with concentration as he looks down at wolfwood. his brow smooths when he's found the answer to whatever question he'd been turning over in his mind. he reaches up to brush aside wolfwood's fringe from his brow. ]
Wait here. Two seconds and I'll be back. I swear.
[ vash unfolds his legs to stand, shuffling backwards several paces with his eyes still on wolfwood's prone body, before he turns and dashes out of the kitchen. he's blinded, briefly, by the suns, and lifts a hand to shield his eyes as he races to where he'd dropped the woven hampers of laundry. they'll need to be washed again, but that's not really his chief concern right now. he scoops sheets by the armful back into the righted baskets, stacks them, and takes them both with him when he jogs back to the kitchen.
once inside, he sets them on the table in the center of the room, and pulls one of the sheets at random from the chaotic pile. as he lays it out beside wolfwood, he explains himself: ]
I'm worried if I try to just pick you up as you are, I'll hurt you. But if you're wrapped in a sheet then you'll have more surface area to, um, keep you supported. I hope that makes sense.
[ he kneels again and leans over wolfwood to give him a soft, trembling smile. ]
I'm going to lift you a little to place you on it, okay? Please don't try to help.
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He waits. He really can't do anything else, can he? His eyes roll back and he stares blankly at the ceiling. He tries to listen to the sounds around him, the way the old stove clicks as it sits idly. What time is it? It seemed light enough, must be midday at least or maybe the afternoon.
God, Hopeland.
Each second hangs longer than the last and he can feel his heartbeat increase for a few beats as Vash reappears. His eyes twitch but track the fact that Vash has some linen on hand.
He wants to make a joke. Gonna make me a burrito, spikey? The line of where his eyebrows would be push together slightly at the request--don't help? Vash knows well that Nicholas doesn't like feeling a dead wait and unable to do anything by himself, but...he's definitely not in any position to argue. ]
Ngh.
[ Fine.
But also.
I trust you. ]
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[ vash bows beside him and gets one arm under wolfwood's neck with his hand braced under one shoulder, and slips the other up under his thighs. he won't be lifting him very high or for very long, but he still wishes he had a third hand to keep wolfwood's head steady. ]
One, two, three--
[ wolfwood is feather light. vash had no issues lifting him before-- he thinks of the times he'd get his arms up under the shelf of wolfwood's backside to spin him around, grinning from cheek to cheek despite how much wolfwood swore at him and demanded to be put down-- but the laundry he'd brought in just a minute before had been heavier. at least it makes for a quick changeover from kitchen floor to bed sheet.
vash gingerly removes his arms. he inclines over wolfwood again to look him in the eyes. ]
You okay? I didn't hurt you?
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He can handle it, though. There's something about being in Vash's hold again that gets to him. Distant memories in the current, the good thoughts and feelings that had been ever-present but not always clear. The essence of Vash's aura was never far away, Nicholas realizes it now. That's one of the places he was finding his comfort, his happy forever.
Such overly sentimental thoughts aren't the kind he would normally express. But now, looking at Vash's face hovering above his, Nicholas wishes he could say every one of them.
All he can do is grunt in response. He's fine.
He'll...he'll be fine. ]
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As I'm sure you've guessed you, uh, smell... well-- you smell like a dead body. [ it's not as though wolfwood has ever needed anything sugarcoated for him, medicine or otherwise. ] I don't think there's anywhere here in the orphanage I can stash you without one of the kids or Miss Melanie or Livio asking about it. But do you remember that old shed on the road up to the orphanage? Livio said you and him used to sneak out there to smoke after getting caught one too many times on the roof.
[ vash is gently carding fingers through wolfwood's limp hair, the gesture so simple and unself-conscious that he probably isn't even thinking about it. ]
We cleaned it out the last time I was here, but the kids have been told they're not allowed past the gate, and they tend to be on their best behavior when I'm visiting.
[ he laughs briefly. his eyes are starting to get glassy again; he sniffs once, hard, to clear his sinuses. ]
I'm going to take you there, okay? I'll bring you water and a bedroll for both of us to sleep on tonight, but I need to clean the kitchen and start dinner, so...
[ he bites his lip. ]
I don't want to leave you alone in there but I have to. I'm sorry.
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If he had his druthers, he would prefer to be likened to a burrito than a baby. Burritos don't need people, they just exist as they are and are also not inherently disgusting. Babies need a lot of work and have their moments of grossness.He smells? Of course he smells... he's probably lucky that his nose doesn't seem to actually be working just yet. He follows as Vash explains, but his mind does a hard stop at one name in particular--
Livio.
God he...he made it. He's around? He's fucking alive at the end of all this? That--that fills him with something, that warmth comes back. Livio made it. He made it through and he's back here, he's back with the kids and with Vash and...it's everything he could have hoped for. It's what he deserved.
God, how much has changed?
It takes him a moment to refocus, having missed half of what Vash has explained now, his mind really only able to focus on one thing at a time. But he catches the gist of it. He doesn't want to be seen by anyone anymore than they would want to see him. The thought of being left alone is, admittedly, unappealing but...he can handle this. Can't he handle anything at this point?
Vash clearly doesn't like the idea, even if it's the right one. All Nicholas can do is nod his head once, twice to make it clear it's not just any weird twitching he's doing. ]
F...f..nn.
[ It's fine. He'll be fine. ]
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[ does vash know that for sure? no. does he think saying it might will it into truth? maybe.
when he gets both arms under wolfwood again, it's with the sheet between them this time. ]
Just, uh, vocalize? If it's too much or I'm hurting you or something's wrong. I'll put you back down as quickly as I can.
[ then, as carefully as he can, he lifts wolfwood from the floor. the sheet pulls taut under the slack of wolfwood's weight, supporting his spine and hips in a way that wouldn't be possible without it. vash holds him gently to his chest, and as he steps out of the kitchen and into the baking heat of the binary suns, he realizes the last time he held wolfwood like this was to bury him.
thank you. thank you for bringing him back to me.
vash wastes little time, but he also doesn't want to jostle wolfwood too much by running, either. so he walks quickly but steadily, keeping himself rigidly upright and trying to glide his gait as evenly as he can. he heads straight for the gates, which aren't (blessedly) yet chained for the night. all he needs to do is toe them open and they're out on the fringes of the orphanage's property. ]
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The world outside is bright. Nicholas' one "good" eye squints a bit and the noise he makes is more annoyed than anything, but it's short-lived. With some context, he takes the time to try and see how much has changed...
Not much. From what he can glimpse of the main building it seems to be in decent condition. There's so much damned relief in knowing that it's there, that it's filled with familiar cases and, Hell, probably new ones too after all that's been said and done. No kid should ever have to go to a place like that, but he's damned glad that it is there for them. That there are good people doing their damnedest.
The land around looks--well, like a desert from what he can see. Nothing to write home about. So instead he looks up at Vash, at all the familiar lines of his profile, of the unfamiliar darkness of his hair. It all fits in so perfectly into his memories of the man except for that. There's a story that needs to be told.
He recognizes the shed in the corner of his eye when they're close enough. Far enough away that it's unlikely the kids will wander past even during free time. It starts to sink in that this means Vash is going to leave him after they've only just been reunited--but he knows it's silly. Vash will be back. He always is. ]
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