Chapter Text
Desert flies by like old film. Nicholas doesn't stop for two days and three nights once he catches scent—he is by no means a good driver but the bike roars under his hands even as his stomach gnaws on itself. He chugs his flask whenever it veers and Vic snaps at him to pay attention from the sidecar. His phone rings off the hook and he doesn't need to check to know it's the reporters. He doesn't have time for them—he doesn't have time for anything, really, not with the way Knives looked hours away from a Last Run.
Three days is a long time to be left alone with only your own thoughts and the shifting dunes for company. He's cramming a one week trip into sixty hours because plants wither in seventy two after going red.
Decrepit, dusty buildings come into view and he barely has mind to kill the bike's power before launching past the gates in a dead run, ignoring the confused shouts of the townsfolk and the barking daemons biting his heels, Vic a heavy argument against pursuers. He sees the powerplant and slams in shoulder first—Vic shoves a metal beam between the handles with her jaws. They share a look. Steeling himself, Nicholas turns around.
The plantroom is lit violet, scattering light spots over dark walls like mirror shards. The plant itself is unlike anything Wolfwood has ever seen—a bud lined bright cyan over spots of red, soothing cool against distress.
Nicholas doesn't understand until he comes closer and squints and sees familiar feathers folded alongside petals. His heartbeat jackknifes, because. That's.
"Needles...?" he breathes, torn.
Within the tank is not one plant but two. A dwarven dependent furled around another, slighter in comparison—disheveled and riddled with scars. Vash twines his wings with his sister's, face hidden in the crook of his elbow and her embrace, pulsing a faint red—Nicholas can't see his features but even if it's been two years he knows, "Oh blondie," breath gets stuck in Nicholas's throat and he's pressing against the tank between one moment and the next, cross forgotten. Vic circles around, distraught, before standing on her hind legs and whinging, claws scrabbling at glass.
A petal unfurls and Nicholas finally sees her—long, alien fingers curled into blond hair, humming into Vash's ear, trying to negate Vash's sickness by whatever promises these divine creatures are capable of making. Daemons—both of them, the essence of life itself, struggling just to keep the other breathing.
She stops gradually and turns to peer at Wolfwood, unblinking. Something flickers in her beatific eyes. Bubbles escape as she floats lower, holding Vash close but opening up slightly. Nicholas whines under his breath.
Vash's skin is a stoplight. He's seen all of his patterns back on that wretched sandsteamer but now they're burning like alarm lights, his arm, his legs, up his neck and spreading over his face. His eyes are half-open, unresponsive. He's not here.
"God, Needles—Vash," Nicholas wants so badly to reach inside, to shove himself in and do what he should've done long ago. He wants to hold him and never let go, he wants to listen to his stupid Shakespeare and weird hobbies and improbable idealism, he wants to open his own ribcage and put him inside where Vash would never feel lonely between Vic and his no-good heart; most of all—he wants Vash back. He's had him and took him for granted and then he betrayed him and then he couldn't find him—and now Vash is here and he's still helpless because right in front of Nicholas's eyes Vash is dying.
"Please," Nicholas begs and his knees buckle on the metal floor and he's such a poor imitation of Vash's open heart. "Please," he closes his eyes and glass screams under his clenching fingers. "Vash, come back."
For a while there's only Vic's griefstruck howling and the whirring of a powerplant working over capacity. The darkness behind his eyelids lightens and he draws back when purple floods his vision because—she's right in front of him. The plant's gaze flickers between him and Vash before she slides out Vash's only arm and guides it slowly to the glass, refracting the whole tank into red. Reverent, Nicholas reaches for the calloused palm on the other side with his own, like a prayer, like Vash has always done for other plants, others' daemons, for Knives, recklessly, selflessly, until he had nothing left for himself. Nicholas is no plant—he's not even human anymore, not really, but Vic puts her paws over his and their hands glow together, golden; bared.
It's cold in the dark, where the hurt eats him away. He curls around it as it spreads and hugs himself, suspended, barely held together with blue threads—until he notices a speck of light, sputtering. It seems close, familiar, but farther than even the horizon. He uncurls because he knows it: his guide—his shepherd. Among the things he belongs to, this belongs to him.
The darkness blossoms with constellations, harmonizing, until a North star lights up amongst them, golden. The freezing abyss sucks him in, mercilessly, but pale hands reach and pull him by his wrist—go, they say and push him lightly on his back until he stumbles forward on weak knees. He takes a step, and another. go, our little starling.
"VASH!"
He runs and he doesn't look back.
His throat burns from shouting. The plant's eyes close and she hums, quiet but all-encompassing, and beneath Nicholas's hands the glass warms. It warms and warms until it's scalding hot, like the first time they introduced the drugs to his body or the desert under the suns' zenith or the sandsteamer's brakes but he holds on, because he swore he would until he couldn't anymore, because—
Oh.
Oh.
Angry townsfolk pour inside but they're only angry until they see their single plant a healthy cyan, retreating into her bud once more. The stranger who invaded their home so abrasively sits on the floor as if pushed over, still as a statue staring at his hands, and he is forgiven and thanked, yet he doesn't respond, oddly enough, crowded with lowered pitchforks and guns.
Nicholas doesn't see them. Instead, he stares in wonder.
Clinging and threading roots around his fingers, in Wolfwood's hand blooms a red geranium.
"That's him, isn't it?"
Nicholas looks down blankly and sees a scraggly mop and two narrowed eyes. The villagers have dispersed, happy to have their waterbank back, but Nicholas had ignored them all and left to walk delirious circles around the village, holding his heart's desire in the palm of his hand. Vash says nothing, petals fluttering with Wolfwood's frantic movements—alive, curving around his hand like it's a normal thing for a flower to do.
"Who?" he frowns. Vash's petals ruffle in the dry breeze.
"Eriks." The girl draws back at his confused look, "I mean, that's what we called him, when he was living with us but then he went missing and we couldn't find him and the plant stopped working and, and," she stops to catch breath, watching in a mix of suspicion and hope. "It's him, right? The fallen star?" Wolfwood's brain blanks out.
What?
"No," Vic says, the snitch, "this guy is Vash the Stampede."
"Alright," Mrs. Sheryl purses her lips because this is where Nicholas ends up: in a tiny kitchen sitting on a stool too small for him, interrogated by a granny and her grankid over tea and food. Vic noses around her San Bernardo before dropping to the floor, ears pert, playful. The girl's daemon looks very interested but she keeps him in her arms, protective. Nicholas shoves his own daemon with a foot because this is unserious and also humiliating, when she flops belly up. "I had my suspicions," Sheryl says slowly, "But a plant?"
"Yeah," Nicholas confirms, like a liar. He gave them a terrible, abridged version to explain himself. He'd promised Vash, that he's good at keeping secrets.
"I see," she muses and pins Wolfwood through thick glasses with a weathered look. She knows it's not the full truth but it will not come unless Vash wills it so. Instead, she sighs, "He needs—someone familiar in his life, right now." Her eyes drift up. "Would you mind staying with him?"
Vash weaves a flower crown in Wolfwood's hair. "I'm not going anywhere without him," Nicholas vows, ears tangled in roots.
"That's amenable, dear," Sheryl says before narrowing her eyes and pushing up against the table to peer closer at him, "Your eyes are quite red—young man, when was the last time you had any sleep?"
"Four days ago," Vic sells him out immediately. Before he can start a shouting row, his vision veers. The granny looks a bit double, now that he thinks about it. Somewhat distorted and paling, as if he'd chugged five consecutive shots of his drugs. The girl raises her voice but he can't really parse what she says. The only thing he sees are Vash's bright petals and worried eyes and see-through hands. What?
He doesn't remember much after that.
He has ninety eight unread messages and double that amount worth of missed calls after his crash-nap.
"UNDERTAKER," Meryl's voicemail bellows through the tiny speaker at astonishing decibels, "IF YOU DO NOT ANSWER THIS GODDAMNED INSANT I WILL DESECRATE YOUR GRAVE AFTER I PUT YOU IN IT—"
Another call shrieks into Nicholas's ear, interrupting the message and he picks it up before his eardrums burst.
"S'up—"
"IS HE ALRIGHT?"
Nicholas looks at Vash. He tried coaxing him into a watered pot after he woke up but he doesn't let go, twining around his forearm in a loose bracelet. Some of his petals are crinkled, others are a mess of lesions, some are missing entirely. One has turned completely black. He still looks beautiful. "I," he swallows, "I'm not. I'm not really sure how to answer that question, shortstack."
"Is he breathing?!" there are voices in the background, including the missus daemon screeching about Knives going ballistic, "Does he have a pulse!"
Nicholas blinks at Vash. He curls tighter around his wrist. "Uh," he says intelligently.
"You are USELESS," Meryl yells in his ear, straight into his brain. He hates these new devices. "You hear me?!" He does. "I'm nineteen hours away. Pray he's alright when I get there, preacher," and she hangs up. Sunlight beams through the curtains of Vash's room and lights up vermillion into translucency, veins and blemishes and everything. Plants usually like sun, yet even now Vash leans into Nicholas's hand like it's the only thing that matters.
The second moon finds Nicholas raiding the kitchen for expired scraps like a homeless dog while the owners are asleep. He shakes out an empty bread pack when something clatters and thuds loudly in the night. Vic is up before Nicholas can properly react. He abandons the bag and skips stairs on his way and almost breaks his neck and freezes, when he looks up.
Vash wobbles in the corridor, clinging heavily against the doorframe on unsteady feet. His shirt hangs off malnourished shoulders and his hair is a spiky mess. "Wolfwood," he says, breathlessly, voice rough as if he hasn't spoken in years, "hi," and he gives a shaky smile, eyes crinkling softly. Nicholas, the fool that he is, can only gawk. "I missed you," Vash says as if he's finally found the words and he needs to get them out, "for a while, I think."
"You think?" Nicholas repeats like a broken recorder because nothing is really registering at the moment—but Vash just nods patiently.
"I think I got a bit lost," he confesses before his legs finally give out and he crumples on the floor. Nicholas lunges to catch him under his armpits and lowers them both on the hardwood carefully. "Maybe a lot," Vash amends, smoothing startled feathers out of his skin. Vic crowds him worriedly, just out of reach because they both feel the same—like they're seeing a dream.
Vash's face falls because Nicholas still hasn't responded. "Wolfwood?" he shifts hesitantly, rubbing familiar self-soothing circles as he looks up with concern—and something inside him finally snaps.
"I thought I've lost you," rips out of Nicholas, grieving and scared.
Without his glasses or his armor, without any of the layers Vash has put on himself, his eyes are the most striking blue color Nicholas has ever seen. Unguarded, as if he's not looking at someone terrible like Nicholas.
Endlessly complex—there's something simple now. "But you've found me, Wolfwood," Vash says warmly, leans, and presses a soft kiss to his cheekbone.
"You are so fucking stupid," Vic says twenty minutes later and continues to bite him in the ass as he paces because Nicholas had gone through a whole computer shutdown and five stages of denial, all between picking Vash up from the floor, swaddling him in a blanket, feeding him water, putting him to bed and going outside to clear his head and smoke.
He forgot his pack in the kitchen.
It's his forty seventh lap around the house.
He raises his hand but doesn't touch his face—two years and it still burns the same. "You idiot," Vic growls and bites him again.
The girl catches them on the staircase at five in the morning and her grip on his shirt is unrelenting, "He's," and she struggles to find words—something everyone faces, when the topic of conversation is related to Vash. "Do you know, if..." her eyes flicker over Nicholas's face and look down at Victoria. Despite Nicholas's frown she sits down and looks back at the girl, patient. She wags her tail, once. "He doesn't have a daemon," Lina tells Vic and the lack of surprise on her face seems to confirm something because Lina swallows dryly. Her daemon waddles over, hugging her leg, "He doesn't have his person either, does he...?" he asks, upset.
Nicholas says nothing because he's promised. Lina searches his face before her brows knit together angrily, "If you hurt him I will take granny's shovel and put your body where no one can find you," she says, aims and kicks him in the shin. She's gone before Nicholas can start howling in pain.
There's something untethered about this Vash, damaged and healing too slowly to inspire relief of any kind, missing chunks of his memory and being heartbreakingly confused about it. Nicholas thinks of their journey to July, the measly month and a half they spent in chaos and impending doom, how put together, how well-disguised Vash had been, between their daemons and the haunting gold.
This Vash is softer and transparent at the edges. Nicholas is reminded of the tight smile chaperoning most of Vash's expressions and sees, just how much it hid then—how little it hides now, when Vash's eyes wet easily or his face scrunches up in sudden bouts of sorrow or when it beams at the girl's shifting daems, when he rubs against his leg, whiskered. He thinks, that this is how Vash looked before he separated from Knives, before he started pretending to be something that he's not. A child's daemon, saying whatever is on their mind so that the feelings can't stay inside and rot.
"C'mere," says Nicholas because he knows Vash doesn't know how to ask for the things he wants and even less for the things he needs. Vash draws an uneven breath even when Wolfwood pats his lap and blue eyes flit and before Nicholas can move, he's a dove between one second and the other and after that—a butterfly.
"Needles," Nicholas's breath catches without meaning to, but he doesn't get up because Vash has to decide for himself, because this is part of giving Vash what he needs: giving him a choice.
Vash is unlike anything Wolfwood has ever seen before—cyan and black, shimmering in the evening suns. A blue swallowtail—he floats, barely beating. Vic sits, mesmerized, completely still. Her nose twitches as she draws breath before Vash settles, between her eyes, wings folding and unfolding, half of one gone, spliced off long ago. She speaks nothing and only watches, not even daring to blink. Nicholas thinks, this is how he must look to others—with love naked on his face.
Vic snuffs gently and Vash flits up into the air, but now he's camellias and then he floats down as a cherry blossom. Wolfwood blinks and suddenly he has a handful of daemon in his arms.
"Alright," says Vash quietly.
"VASH," shouts Meryl when she arrives. Wolfwood goes to fetch her before anyone is annoyed enough to get trigger happy.
The fear proves to be unfounded. Turns out Meryl hadn't been lying about the new gun: it's really big and actually looks like one unlike Nicholas's, even if the Punisher is bigger. Proportionally speaking, she strikes more fear of god into passerby than he could ever hope to aspire to. It doesn't matter of course, once Vash sees Meryl and Dante.
"BABYGIRL," screeches the blackbird and performs an equivalent of an airstrike. It gets very loud and very busy in the house.
There are bruised ribs and scratched knees and some broken cutlery because Meryl plus gun weigh more than Vash can realistically handle at the moment, but it's worth it, when Vash's hair scatters over the floor and the fragile smile pulling his mouth dimples.
Meryl chats with Vash about random things. She kicks out Wolfwood because it's girlies-only event, allegedly, but he still eavesdrops because that's his room too now, not just Vash's. She tells him about the gun and her new job position at the news agency. She tells him about Roberto and his distant cousin, and that is a suspicious amount of casual compliments addressed to a girl who's just a friend but Nicholas can pester her about it later.
She carefully doesn't talk about the things that Vash hasn't remembered yet but she's got plenty of other topics to cover and her daemon has enough crude jokes to cringe all day. Lina is coming up the stairs with a tray of tea and snacks, rehearsing quietly to herself how she will ask to join them and that's his ticket in so he snatches the food and barges into the room, dragging her in a headlock while she squirms and kicks him on his abused foot. What's a girly night without a pair of young ears to ruin?
Some days are better than the others but recovery is by no means a straight line of improvement. Wolfwood takes Vash by the arm to breakfast every morning; they travel down the stairs, where Meryl and Lina make fun of each other and posture. Vash leans heavier into his side, clinging, and—shrinks.
Wolfwood's brows climb into his hairline because a teenager with Vash's eyes hugs his coat, mute, pressing his face into Nicholas's stomach. Clothes puddle on the steps as his pants slip—the uneven stitches on his legs are still there, like raked soil. Vash buries himself into Wolfwood's layers, spindly fingers catching in fabric even as his knotted sleeve slips off, jutting collarbones and sewn stump. He's horrifically small.
Crockery shatters and Vash jumps sharply and huddles even closer—Nicholas snaps his head down where Meryl gapes at them at the foot of the stairs. His eyes are glassy when he looks up, "Nai," Vash shudders, heartbeat so fast Wolfwood can feel it hammering under his hand. "I forgot—" he whispers in horror. "I—I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm—"
He has to carry Vash back to bed when the daemon's legs give up from hyperventilation and feed him breakfast with marginal success while Vic curls in Vash's legs and scars. He tries to ask him questions but Vash looks at him with his young face and gaunt underbags and too old eyes and humidity rises in the air just from the way his eyes wet in silence so Wolfwood does what he's always done with children who didn't receive enough comfort—he gives it to them. It doesn't matter that this child is one hundred and forty years old.
Vash comes around later in the evening, coaxed into coherency, hands and body longer, more like what he used to look like. Wolfwood has spent the last fourteen something hours with a tense daemon in his arms so he notices immediately, when he goes pliant and looks at him with more lucidity than he had in a long time.
"There you are," Nicholas says, relieved, and Vash flutters in his hands. "Hello, angel," Vic says, maw in his lap and he looks between her and Wolfwood. "Oh—oh, Vash," she says, face falling because he hiccups, silent, tears dripping down his chin and onto his shirt, iridescent with gold. She butts into his hand until he curls fingers into her hide like he always did before this whole mess.
Nicholas loops a hand around and draws Vash in by his forehead until he settles under Nicholas's chin and then presses his face closer and trembles. Dampness grows and spreads but Nicholas only murmurs nonsense—he would, if possible, keep two souls inside of himself, but this is the best he can do for now. Vash doesn't let go of Vic. His sobs grow louder and louder until he cries.
Flowers bloom over the fifth moon. Up above the skyline, constellations watch fondly over their youngest sapling. He set them free before sprouting—the least they can do is be happy when he can finally do the same for himself.
Of course, they would never settle for doing less.
The air is heavier and different than usual, and the usual is always the same: dusty, dry and smelling of desert. "Ba?" Lina heard someone breaking their plates again but something unusual is happening outside. She clings to her grandmother on the doorstep who looks at the sky and crosses herself, barely breathing. "Santa Maria..." falls from her lips.
Clouds gather on the horizon. They roil and darken and drift closer. With a snap of thunder, first rain comes down on Gunsmoke.
The town is going crazy outside, where Nicholas can see through the window. Something like this already happened in July but at least there's no gunfire about it.
Vash shuffles in his arms, "Wolfwood, I..."
"Yes, Needles?"
Something shoots up his neck, where Vash's hand spasms around Vic's hide, "You probably, you probably know already. That—that I'm not really a person."
"Hm."
"I'm a daemon."
"Mhm."
"I'm Nai's daemon."
"Uh-huh."
Vash goes quiet. He stays quiet until he curls up into Nicholas's collar and holds on, tremors wracking his frame.
"I'm sorry," Vash whimpers and there's a century of grief in those two words. Vic pushes her nose between Vash's arms until she covers his entire front like a ragged wool blanket. Nicholas buries his face in Vash's hair from behind and pulls him closer. For such as we are made of, such we be, Vash had told him in July and held his Punisher like a confession.
Knives' daemon. Goddamnit. "I wish you were mine."
"What?" Vash hiccups as Vic licks his face shamelessly.
Wolfwood knees her, "Nothing, Needle Noggin," he mutters as lightning and thunder set off all the dormant alarms of the village.
The rain doesn't stop for hours. Sheryl shoos them out of the house before they can talk any more, to hoard more water into her buckets. It's an excuse of course, because she's actually just been adamant on cheering Vash up and making sure he gets better and a miracle is just the thing to prod that endeavor along. Lina is already outside, splashing around and dancing with the other youngsters of the village, confused and delighted. Meryl too, is going wild with Dante between snapping photos and waving them over under the window.
"Wolfwood, is that my coat?" Vash asks in the doorway.
"No," says Nicholas at the same time Vic says, "yes."
Meryl has a newer phone with the web in it. It's going bonkers over the fact that without any warning or prompt, the atmosphere of Gunsmoke has started to change. There must be at least a dozen new cults sprouting like weed but Nicholas has had enough cult bullshit to last a lifetime and the next one so he shoves her phone back at her and goes to find Vash.
Vash talks to the sky sometimes. When it rains or when the stars are out. Nicholas should be concerned, very concerned, given the state he's found this man in barely weeks ago, but Vash looks more at peace like this so he settles besides him and watches the constellations dance overhead. "Where shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain?" Vash recites quietly, "When the hurlyburly's done, when the battle's lost and won..." he trails off, mind elsewhere.
"Shakespeare?" Nicholas prods and Vash smiles, present once again, "Yeah, Macbeth."
He's only read about rain in books before now. Vic nudges Nicholas's thigh with her nose where she's draped all over Vash's lap, just because. He growls at her and she growls back, low but playful.
Something draws him closer from his other side—golden feathers furl around his arm and before long he leans into Vash's side, relaxes and tilts his head onto his shoulder. He hears Vash's breath catch but not in a bad way. The feathers are warm and so are the stars over the humid desert.
"Bad dye job?" Nicholas asks as he threads a hand through Vash's hair. His fingers catch on the blackened strands and he can't help but frown.
"No," Vash quirks a half-smile, "Just getting old."
"Oh," says Nicholas and withdraws his hand and settles it beside.
He doesn't flinch when someone runs a hand through his hair in return and doesn't look when Vash's breath stutters. Wolfwood's silver patch gleams in the evening light—he laughs wryly. "Me too, blondie." His pinkie finds Vash's and curls. It's warm and soft, where it's not cut with callouses. He looks at Vash and there's so much in his eyes that doesn't have a name. "Me too."
He's there again. Between one black key and white, the crevice between sound and silence, where everything is bruised and terribly sensitive, just barely scabbing over. It still hurts and Vash jerks away on compulsive instinct but Nai almost panics and leaves so Vash does what he does best:
Nai, he says with a tight smile. Hello.
He can feel Nai turn, presence filling just slightly.
Vash, he says, and Vash has to fight the way his heart trips and misses a beat, the urge to curl away and hide before the pain hits. He doesn't realize Nai also feels that now until Nai draws back, anguished. Vash holds his hands out reflexively, like he always does when he needs to take it for him—but Nai shutters away.
Don't, he croaks and doesn't let Vash, enough. You've taken enough—no more.
But it hurts you, Vash blinks, not understanding. I have to do it. It's my job.
Nai is frighteningly silent before he turns back. who taught you that.
You did, Vash says and explains when Nai gapes, shocked. I am yours. Your actions are my actions, your mistakes are my mistakes. Your pain is mine to bear.
Nai doesn't reply. He's walking around in circles, tugging at his hair. Stop that, Vash says and Nai's hands fly away, which surprises them both.
Knives paces until he stops, why haven't you healed your arm yet.
Vash feels confused. He hasn't felt so self-consious of his stump in decades. I can't, he says. You took it.
But you're—you're a plant, Knives grasps at straws. We're different, we're not like them, we—
You are a plant, Nai, Vash corrects gently. I am a soul. I don't heal. I can only learn to live with it.
It goes quiet for a very long time. Unusually quiet for his mind, especially right now that he shares it with Nai.
Is this—is this why you're afraid of me? Vash?
Vash's trembles and hugs himself, rubbing circles into his side with the one arm he has left. You wanted to take my legs forever too, Vash admits quietly and looks away. I got scared.
Their mind shakes with terrible, yawning grief and Vash can't—he wants to help. He's always helped with this—when Knives feels so sharply it tears him apart. Just, let me—
No! he screams, hoarding all of it away until it simmers behind doors where Vash can't reach anymore. It almost killed you—stop, Nai chokes out and Vash freezes.
A long time ago they'd been so comfortable with each other they hadn't even realized that meant something. They didn't just read each other's mind—they shared it, as effortlessly then as it is awkward now.
Vash plucks a loose feather absently and stops when Knives flinches because he forgot his bad habits go both ways now. Don't do that, Nai says. Vash dips his head because that's exactly what Wolfwood said when he caught him at it.
You like that mutt too much, Nai mutters sullenly and starts, at the swell of warm, yearning emotion that torrents immediately through Vash before he can reign it in.
I'm sorry, Vash says, but not really. Knives scrunches his face exactly the way he used to during suppertime. He's not that bad.
He's human! Nai snarls at once, generations of ire rising behind him. Vash takes a step back, shivering, as it throws a shadow over both of them.
He is, Vash agrees because it's true.
They are violent and senseless, Knives seethes.
Us, too, Nai.
They used our sisters—
So did we.
He's a broken fool—
But he has a very cute dog, Vash reminds him and Knives stops, scandalized, before fisting his hands.
He's mortal! Nai shakes his head, disbelieving, desperate. He'd always been so skeptical of Vash's ideas, even if they were his to begin with.
All of us are, Vash says and both of them know, that it's true. Knives paces, restless, malicious, hurt and overwhelmed but he looks for a moment as he did that night on the ship, young, lost.
And—he truly makes you happy?
I want to see my tomorrows, Vash confesses, if he's a part of them.
Nai lurches as if burned but he doesn't leave. He's always been such a scaredy cat—Vash kept that safe for him too, the terrible fear. He can be brave enough for two, even if that meant being like this. Something colors dim—"Don't be sad, Nai," he murmurs and Knives startles like every other time, when he thumbs away under his other half's eyes and smiles, crying for both of them, the way he always did. It takes a moment, or a whole eternity, but eventually wetness slides under Vash's fingers as Nai shares with him for the first time since they've come to Gunsmoke.
"...So me and shortstack were thinking—wouldn't it be nice to have a little vacation?" Nicholas says casually over dinner. Vash, who'd been in the middle of forking pancakes, straightens and stares at him. "I miss the kids, y'know. Been a while since I saw them last," two years taken up by his desperate search for Vash, but he's not going to say that.
"Rowdy bunch," Victoria hurrs. "Anklebiters. You'll like them."
Vash says nothing but he follows Nicholas's movements with a mute question in his eyes. Wolfwood softens. "I promised, to take you to see them, remember?" because some things aren't lies after all.
It's like watching a star breaking the horizon—Vash's face as it slowly lights up.