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Before this happened, they had made out once with each other. Vash remembered them waking up together, partly undressed, the taste of old booze and remembrance of skin on their lips, looking at each other with conflicting emotions. They had been too drunk then to get far, and they never talked about it. None of them could decide afterwards if it was a mistake, neither of them could remember much.
That was before their first sober kiss and way before they started bed sharing whenever Vash dropped by. The gunslinger had continued his wandering life after the Ark fell, but Warren City was more often than not on his route, or a detour, or just a place to rest and find a familiar face for a change.
This time they had just started drinking. Enough to feel a bit of a buzz, not enough for excuses.
There had been a balance between him and the gunsmith, a balance Vash felt deeply guilty of. A balance that was threatened by his own body arching up to find those fumbling, rough fingertips. Threatened by his own eyes and lips, that instead of a ‘no’ communicated a way more honest ‘yes please’.
Those greyish eyes lightened up, lips painting a radiant smile, body language still unsure. “Is this okay?” Frank and every one of his motions seemed to ask, and Vash was so tired, his own conflict forever hooked into his faster beating heart. How to tell that you want touch without being consumed? How to tell that you want love without all the confusing rules and the promises that he couldn’t deliver?
“Yes.” He said. Maybe , he meant and invited those hands on his torso, under the loose sweater he wore around Frank. (The moment Vash had realized he didn’t feel like wearing his body armor around the man, should have told him everything he needed to know).
His own hands gripped those shoulders, surprisingly muscular under this worn out shirt. Pressed his face against stubble, breathed in curly hair, and wasn’t that a treat after four months of traveling. Weeks of feeling disconnected from humanity and too full of grief to mourn each person individually. Knives turned into Wolfwood and Wolfwood into the Doc and the Doc into all the people on the sky ship, and the puppet people turned into Frank, even though he wasn’t dead yet.
Vash’s hands slipped over Frank’s spine, then beside it, where all the organs resided, the bones and the stories of Frank’s own loss. His flesh, fingertips, and the sensors of the prosthesis puzzling together all the clues. He could feel a fast beating heart, fluttering nerves and the need not only clear in the reluctant hardness pressing against Vash’s thigh.
Lips peppered his own racing pulse at his neck, broad hands finding their way around his skin, over scars and metal, and Vash asked himself how much of that touch was an echo of touching his wife Magdalena every night. How long it has been for Frank already, cohabitating with this longing for a thing that once was so innocent and now was mixed up with everything that was too much, too less, too tainted with loss.
Out of nowhere, Vash started sobbing and Frank stopped, backed off, a look of panic overwriting liquid courage and ease. “Oh fuck, sorry! Did I – are you ok?”
Ashamed of his tears and messing everything up again, Vash looked away. “I- I can’t.” I want.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not!”
Carefully, those hands were back again, holding his face and looking at him like he was someone very young, to be protected and guided - instead of very old, a protector and lost. But Frank didn’t know that, didn’t he?
“Have you ever slept with a guy? Or anybody?” Frank asked, keeping their bodies apart enough not to be sexual, close enough to be comforting. Speech only impacted a tiny bit by the liquor on his breath. Another relapse. Another human thing. Another relapse for Vash, too. Again stumbling over the boundaries he himself had drawn into the sand. His own rules of what he took of the care and love offered to him, all the while knowing that he couldn’t give back enough.
“Yeah. Plenty. I'm way older than I look.”
“’kay. Roger that.”
Frank just smiled at him, patient, unjudging, and Vash relaxed a bit. The hands on his face wandered higher, carefully combing through his messy black hair.
“Bad experience? You can tell me, I was married to a woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I learned from Magdalena that as a woman you grew up expecting bad experiences and that… kinda… shapes you. Lots of ugly stuff out there, I’m not a blind man.”
No, he wasn’t. “Nothing like that..”
Frank pressed a breath of relief on his forehead. “Oh damn, I’m so glad.”
Then, sheepishly, the gunsmith resumed eye contact. “So it’s just me? I know I’m kinda a sloppy, old-ish drunk. I’ll keep my hands to myself from now on, just… damn, I'm so into you I can’t even, but yeah.” Rambling, Frank tried simultaneously to button up his shirt and climb off Vash, out of the small cot without losing balance. “Misread you there, with all the kissing, not that’s your fault, no! I- I’ll just stop rambling now and we say we were just too drunk?” Again, his rueful smile seemed to add.
Vash steadied the gunsmith as he got caught up in the woolen blanket lying crumpled under them. “Wait.” Vash felt guilty, and needy and so cared for and loved that it made him dizzy. He wished he could be more honest, or get more drunk, having better excuses. “Let’s try this…. You are perfect. I want this.”
Frank looked at him a bit desperate now, hand reaching for a nearby bottle and putting it down without taking a sip. “Mixed signals here, Lightning. What exactly do you want? And make it clear and honest- another misstep and I fear I’m in for a heart attack.”
Vash wiped his tears away and offered a smile that was met with relief and a kiss and a ‘sorry’ against his lips and an ‘it’s fine’ offered back.
“I want…” Vash rarely thought of what he wanted, just what he needed to do, how to avoid what he didn’t want, how to make peace that he failed at both too many times. The Ark left more scars than he dared to count and a deep fatigue that had only barely something to do with his hair turning black and his face slowly aging. “I want touch… your touch.”
There he was, lost again. Acting like a fucking virgin. Gathering a deep breath and some bravery, Vash spoke it out: “A lot of touch. The rest.. I don’t know. I don’t want to be fucked. You can touch my cock.. but don’t make me come.” Lose control again, he didn’t say. “I can suck you off or…. give you a hand job…. or…”
Frank nudged him. “Back to what you want and don’t want.”
“Penetration. Neither active nor passive.”
“Alright.”
“And please don’t hate me in the morning.”
“Why the fuck should I ever hate you? You plan on fleeing town after we make out?”
“Absolutely.”
“Will you come back?”
Vash stared at the ceiling, then through the small workshop that became a bit like home.
“Yes.”
“So… the usual just with a side order of making out then.” Frank grinned at him and Vash had to laugh, because it was true. They hung out and then Vash left, never a fan of big goodbyes. “And… it’s touching and being touched, right? It can be steamy but nothing heavy?”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“I can work with that. You mind if I jerk off?”
“No, not at all.”
“Okay.” Frank laid back beside him, embracing him fondly, and Vash inched closer, marveling that after this vulnerable conversation there was no awkwardness left between them. Just the warm cave of arms, the cot too small for them both, the messy workshop around them, hiding them from the world. “To be honest,” Frank confessed,“I probably wouldn’t have known what to do, anyway. I’m into ladies and lads alike, but some blowjobs are all I got around to involving dicks.”
And right now, Vash could’ve explained that he did extensive research on human sexuality, with females and males alike, and he liked men better and many times he got off on a dick and knew exactly what it was like to yearn for a person laying next to him. But that all felt like so long ago, like a past him. Before he killed and lost himself, before all those scars painted an absurd picture on his body, and before loss dragged him under, making him a stranger in his own skin.
Vash saw that reflected in Frank’s body too, and in the surrounding bottles. He was ashamed to play with something so fragile and kind just to sate a deep hunger for touch and connection with a person who loved him and wanted him. He settled for: “I just… don’t want to mess up your heart. I know you like me a lot and I…. know that physical intimacy can lead to complicated feelings.” How much did he know that. “And… I can’t even give you what you need sexually.”
“Let’s make a deal.” Frank said. “We make out a bit and see where it leads. You stay until morning, and I’ll prove to you that this already messed-up heart of mine isn’t as fragile as you fear it to be. And excuse me, but I'm way too old and unfit for acrobatic fucking–and all in for gentle making out and touching and kissing and you just enjoying it. Don’t get me wrong, I think you are hot as shit and I'm very interested in doing all kinds of naughty things with you. But my heart is not that easy to be ‘complicated’ by you wanting different things than me.”
Vash let that sink in, staring into those serious eyes that had only a hint of drunkenness, but as a practiced drunk able to blend the buzz out and be dead sure. This courage came not from liquid, but from a heart speaking its truth and well, that was enough right now to lay Vash’s fears to rest and let him reach for the other man. “Okay,” Vash echoed Frank’s catchphrase for emotional talk and they both giggled like young girls for a moment. “It’s a deal.”
Clumsily, they slipped out of their pants, only in underwear now. A human hand, curious, greedy and gentle, explored Vash’s inhuman skin, which drank in the caress, trembling, still cautious that feathers could reach back to engulf them protectively. A deeply irrational fear, Vash knew; depowered as he was, it was impossible for his wings to manifest, or signs of his true nature to slip out by accident. In response, Frank’s body opened up to every touch Vash offered, halting to let him explore, encouraging his body to trust his gentle intentions, even uncoordinated by booze and the vibration of horniness. It was all limbs and warmth, gun smoked fingertips and soft belly pressing in. The familiar tang of cigarettes hung in the air, curly hair brushed feather light against Vash’s cheek, soft lips pressed unhurried tenderness everywhere they could reach.
Sometimes they halted for a breath, and a question. “Okay?” And as they progressed, Vash’s maybe became more and more a yes, at peace with his words, at peace with his heart. They were naked now and sweaty, gently rubbing against each other. Frank stroked carefully over Vash’s cock, caressing like it was any other body part, and Vash explored the boundary of skin that separated them, sucked in breath and the ease of touch, nourished by it skin deep. There were some scars to explore, too, some birthmarks and the play of muscles and flesh and soft parts that felt alive and filled with so much Vash had always yearned for.
He grabbed Frank’s ass because he knew it was an ergogenic place for a lot of people and then went to his cock. It twitched in his hand and he heard a moan close to his ear. And they fell, fell into the touching and Vash felt like floating. The pressure of not being able to give anything back eased, his fingers coaxing out pre-cum.
“Slow down….,” Frank whispered after a while, sweaty and panting, and Vash let go, taking the gunsmith in. He looked happy, but hanging on to control, flushed and easily ten years younger than when he was moping over his drink. “If I come now, I’ll get dead tired… I want to touch you some more. Any place you really like?”
“The neck… and the dip of my back…”
“Mind turning around?”
Vash hesitated for a second. They had been laying side by side or Frank a bit hovering over him, but being on his stomach with the man above him felt way too vulnerable. This was a classic position to fuck - and maybe Vash even wanted that now, eased up and feeling safe and drunk by skin contact. Another maybe. Shoving those thoughts to the side, Vash turned around and all that happened was that gentle hands caressed his back, starting at his hairline and then dipping down just where his ass cheek began. Very light, and as Vash relaxed, a bit more pressure. “Man… you are beautiful.” Frank said and probably meant it, even if his hands had to flow around the screws holding part of his spine together. A kiss at his neck lured some shudders out of Vash, a relaxed moan breaking the smoke- and sweat- filled silence.
This went on for a glorious while.
“I really need to come now…” Frank’s voice whispered in his ear, breathless, and Vash turned his head to look at his friend. His eyes were glazed and his cock was leaking, one hand already down there.
“Yeah..,” Vash answered and turned to his side again, pulling a surprised Frank in. Their bodies were pressed together tightly and Vash could feel Frank’s cock twitching against his stomach. “Go ahead.”
And they stayed in this intimate embrace, Frank shuddering and panting while palming himself off. Vash’s own cock showed interest now, but the plant was way too enthralled by the human coming apart in his arms to mind that. Hot semen spilled between them and Vash let go of a deep breath, being drawn in by comfort and ease and a strange sense of safety.
This sudden relaxation hit him hard, even without orgasm - resonating unconsciously with the other man. The last thing Vash felt before dozing off was an arm winding around him and calloused, strong fingertips caressing his back. They were slightly damp by Frank’s cum and their shared sweat.
They overslept the next morning and Vash was woken up by a loud crash and the sound of rolling bottles. A very naked Frank sat on the floor, hair messy and his smile embarrassed but bright. “Good morning, Lightning. Slept well?”
The blanket had won at the second attempt to make the man stumble. Vash reciprocated the smile, stretching his body and blinking into the midday sun, sneaking through the windows. It smelled like gun oil, stale smoke, a bit of leftover booze - it felt safe. “Yeah, like a stone.” This was the moment his stomach used to make itself known with a deep rumble.
Frank just laughed and stood up. His eyes lingered for a moment on Vash’s naked form, before stepping forward and offering Vash a towel to wipe himself clean.
“’Only breakfast here is fluid, sorry. Usually I scrounge some bread and toma eggs from my neighbours, but they are out of town. But the shack at the town square is always open. I’ll grab us a bag of hotdogs and donuts.”
“Sounds great.”
“You’ll be here when I come back?”
Before last night, Vash hadn't realized how much Frank’s greyish eyes could resemble a thunderstorm when not embarrassed or flooded by liquid, but earnest and serious.
“We have a deal.”
Oh, this relieved smile would doom him. There was so much love and Vash still felt he could not give back what was expected of him, already lost on the rules of romance. But he could follow up on a promise.
“Frank?”
“Yeah?”
“The donuts, if they have the ones with-“
“ – powdered sugar and cinnamon. Got you.”