Chapter Text
Meryl struggled against her restraints all the way out of the Inn, shouting curses and trying to get away from the man holding her from her forearm, but without any success. Still, as much as she'd tried, her fuel wasn't entirely anger. No, in her ribcage was a heavy heart, full of worry.
During the few months she'd known, and loved, Wolfwood, she'd learnt that the man was many things, but easy to take down was definitely not in that list. So, she didn't even want to begin to think about what could've happened to him.
But nothing ever goes as planned.
Besides, with her occupation as a reporter, it was almost impossible not to let her imagination wander around possibilities, thus she'd already imagined more than ten possible scenarios that could be stopping Wolfwood from already having come outside and having shot down these people.
Each scenario that'd gone through her mind had been more gruesome than the previous one too. Shot through the head, his throat being slit, shot through all the limbs that would incapacitate him from taking a vial, which would result in him slowly getting to a certain death.
So yeah, she didn't want to think about it.
Another curious thing about this whole ordeal was that, after she'd been dragged down the stairs by these two individuals, the Inn's reception had been completely empty, the opposite from how it'd been less than ten minutes ago when she and Wolfwood had passed by it with their groceries.
That made her think that the Inn and whoever these two were had teamed up, probably after Vash's bounty.
"What happened, girlie, cat caught your tongue?" The man grabbing her by the arm taunted, and she met his eyes with a glare. "You were very noisy just a few minutes ago. Already grieving your dead friend?"
That made her furrow her brows in anger and, before she could stop herself, she spat the man in the face.
"Bitch!" The man abruptly stopped walking outside the Inn, and harshly threw her to the ground. She didn't make a sound of complaint, smirking with disdain at him, while she sat up, getting rid of the dirt now adorning her palms.
"That's for whatever you did to Wolfwood, you asshole!" She shouted.
"I was the one to kill him, sugar." The woman behind her said, which sent chills through Meryl's spine, and made her freeze. With her eyes wide, she looked up at the other woman, while the brunette crouched in front of her.
"It was nothing personal, really." The woman slowly shook her head with a pout, that tried to look apologetic but wasn't good enough for Meryl to even consider buying it. Meryl had the heavy urge to try and hit her with her tied hands but figured that this woman wouldn't have any problem in putting a bullet in her too.
So, she went on just glaring at her in silence. Then, the woman went from looking at her, to look up at the man. "Put her in the car. I'm sure Vash will like to see... one of his friends with him."
Her eyes widened again, but now in surprise. She was glad that... at least, Vash was still... conscious! Of course Wolfwood was alive too, but he wasn't awake, that's it, Meryl decided, for her sanity's sake.
She was pushed onto the back seat of a van very similar to her own, and she landed on top of someone. She didn't even need to look up at him to know it was Vash, but the heavy smell of gunpowder and the sound of his nervous laugh were enough to confirm her suspicion.
"Meryl! What are you doing here?" Vash said with a strained smile. He had his arms tied with a long rope that gave a few spins around his torso and arms, unlike her that had her wrists handcuffed.
"Well," The woman that had captured them, and had shot Wolfwood twice, replied instead of her. "We needed some bait for you to stay with us and not escape, Stampede." She said with a fake smile, sitting on the passenger seat while she was looking at them through the rear view mirror. The other man, who was now behind the steering wheel, turned on the engine, speeding up and driving away from the Inn and into the main road.
"I see! Though I don't think it'll be neccesary!" Vash said, nodding. "I wouldn't escape you guys either way!" He assured, and Meryl wanted to hug him from trying to help her to get out of this mess– it wasn't like she would leave him alone though.
"Oh?" Their male captor grinned, now turning the rear view mirror so that he was the one looking at her and at Vash. "So if the lady's not neccesary, we could, I don't know, get rid of her?"
Meryl didn't let the threat get to her, so she only huffed in annoyance. "I don't think you have the balls." She shrugged, aiming for it to sound nonchalant.
"Wait, wait, fellas! No need to get rid of anyone!" Vash immediately jumped into the conversation, putting himself almost on her lap so that the other man wasn't looking at her.
Selfless idiot, she thought, with a smile attempting to show in her face.
"I promise not to try to escape, and let you get the bounty in my head, only if you don't hurt her." Vash's tone, out of a sudden, turned serious.
"That's better." Their female captor commented with a pleased smile. "We should start getting along, it's a long trip til the next big town, where we'll get our money. We should introduce ourselves, I'm Beatrice."
"I'm not telling them my name." The other man huffed, with his eyes glued to the road.
"Come on, Mark, don't be silly!" Beatrice said with a laugh.
"Aw man! You already said it!" Mark clicked his tongue, hitting the steering wheel with his fist as he drove.
Vash laughed along with their captors, while Meryl stayed quiet, analysing how they'd get out of there, and whether or not to tell Vash about what'd happened to Wolfwood...
It wasn't as if telling him about it would change anything... nor as if it'd help in any way. However, it would surely help her own heavy heart and her loose tongue.
Maybe it was because she was a reporter, or perhaps she'd always been like this, but it was very much of her to tell every important fact to other people as soon as she got her hands on it.
But no, for once, she'd –at least try to– keep her mouth shut about this. Not only for Vash, but also for Wolfwood; even though he was very prideful and was always trying to hide it, he cared for them, and he wouldn't want them feeling sad over... whatever that'd happened to him.
"Is something wrong?"
When Meryl turns to Vash, he's definitely staring at her. And by his heavy stare over her, one could almost think he was reading her mind for answers.
Plants can't do that, can they...?
She looked away. "Nope, it's just that being kidnapped's not very nice." She lied, forcing a chuckle out of her throat.
—
"Damn..." Roberto mumbled, limping his way out of the bathroom. He'd waited for a good half an hour until he was pretty sure those bastards were out.
They'd gotten him on the shoulder while he'd been shaving, so he'd played dead for a while and had stayed there, having "fallen to his death" against the bathroom door, so he had closed it. All planned, obviously.
After those people had supposedly left, he'd decided to wait a bit more to be sure, but, in the meantime, he'd gotten the towel from the sink and had started putting some preassure on his bullet wound. It didn't feel as bad as it looked, and, hopefully, it wasn't.
From what he'd heard while he'd been sitting on the bathroom floor, both Meryl and Vash had been taken away and some other person, probably the priest, had been shot. However, Roberto wasn't too worried about him, since he'd seen him recovering from far worse things than a bullet to the gut.
"Oi, priest," he called around the little hall that connected the two rooms and the bathroom he'd just exited.
No reply.
Roberto just noticed the closed door of one of the rooms. Weird, he thought, as he slowly moved towards it. As soon as he opened it, however, the heavy smell of blood hit his nostrils, making his breath get caught in his throat.
This also made him move faster into the room– or at least try to enter through the small open gap between the door and the door frame, since something was clearly obstructing it and preventing him from fully opening it.
After a few attempts, he was finally able to get to the room, and what he found obstructing the door was definitely not pretty: it was that goddamned priest (no pun intended) slumped in a pool of what looked like his own blood, as pale as a sheet, and, even better yet, unconscious.
"Fuck!" Roberto cursed while he threw himself to his knees, with his hand flying to Wolfwood's neck to check for a pulse. "Come on, son."
The word escaped his lips before Roberto could even awknowledge that he was calling Wolfwood son, a name he'd only used with Vash (when the other man, or whatever thing he was, had been way too hurt) and, previously, with... his actual son.
Roberto shook his head.
He couldn't think about the past, not right now.
However, Roberto was forcefully brought out of his thought as soon as he caught a pulse– yes, it was weak and slow, but it was there.
"Okay," Roberto let a shaky breath out of his chest while he manouvered the priest from a sitting position against the wall to a horizontal position on the floor so that the gravity would be on his side and the blood would stop falling out of him.
He didn't get any complaints of the pain from the priest, which was actually worrysome, but Roberto had no time to waste on it. Instead, he ran to Vash's backpack, where they kept all the bandages, which were usually used on the blonde's injuries.
Well, to say he ran was an optimistic manner of speaking at best since, because of his god awful wound in his shoulder –that he had yet to bandage–, he was rather rapidly walking to the other room.
Then, when he came back, the undertaker looked even worse, if that was possible, and his skin had taken an ashy tone. Between his lips, there was some blood dripping from his mouth too.
As much as tried not to, Roberto had started to care about the damn priest too, during these two months he and Meryl had known the extravagant duo of men that had stuck around in their van.
"Come on, son," he muttered, ignoring the slight pain movement brought to his own injured shoulder while he propped the priest up against the wall to get a better handle of the man to bandage his wounds.
Time wasn't on their side. Roberto had to hurry, he knew that.
"Don't die on me, you hear?" He pleaded, getting the bandages out of Vash's bag, his eyes worriedly gazing at Wolfwood's unconcious and pale face.
—
Vash wasn't as dumb as he looked. Well, perhaps a bit. Only a bit.
He knew Meryl was hiding something. She was rigid like a stick next to him, was looking a bit pale and her eyes were wide and alert.
When there was a bump on the road and the truck in which they'd been taken flew for a few seconds before falling back on the sand, he used it as an excuse for his head to fall on her shoulder and create proximity.
"Hi," he whispered, with a big grin spreading on his lips. He well knew the situation wasn't ideal, but also held the belief that it wasn't bad enough to make Meryl this nervous and/or panicked.
When she turned to look back at him, she tried to go for a smile, but it looked off, too forced. He'd know.
His arms itched of movement, aching to comfort her, trying to escape the tight grip of the rope around them, which was keeping them against his torso.
"Did they hurt you?" He muttered, though his nostrils hadn't detected any of the iron-ish smell of blood. His previous silly smile had now become a concerned frown as he stared into her eyes.
She shyly turned her head away from him and to the window. "No, it's not that." Her voice sounded as if something was constricting her airway, as if she was forcing herself not to cry or breathe in too much air.
This only deepened Vash's worry.
"You can tell me, Meryl," He prompted with a softer tone. "I won't let anything bad happen to you–"
"Wolfwood's dead."
—
Wolfwood let out a groan in discomfort, squeezing his eyes shut. He couldn't recall the last time he'd been awake, so his discomfort could probably be explained by a heavy hangover– wouldn't be his first time. Probably not the last.
Then, however, when he tried to go for a sitting position, he aborted the mission almost immediately when he felt a sharp pain on his abdomen, as if his guts were twisting themselves.
"Agh!" He choked out, falling back down and curling himself into a ball on the bed, with his arms wrapped around his torso.
What the hell was that about?
"Was about time you woke up, sleeping beauty." Roberto's voice came from in front of him, from where he stood next to the window with a cigarette between his fingers.
"What happened, gramps?" Wolfwood said through gritted teeth. The tight bandages around his torso and leg were doing nothing to help the pain.
"Two people took Meryl and Vash," Wolfwood immediately tensed at his words. It was quite unnerving that Roberto was actually using their names instead of some stupid nickname. "A guy and the lady who shot you."
Wolfwood narrowed his eyes as hazy memories of the events from earlier flashed through his mind.
Sharp eyes looking at him with disdain. "I'm not interested on leaving any loose ends, pretty boy."
The sensations of blood gushing out of his gut as if he was a damn pig.
Hearing noise outside of the room he was practically locked in. Meryl's angry voice shouting something.
A shot of adrenaline because of his worry towards Meryl.
"Damn." Wolfwood muttered, letting out a sigh through his nose. "Then what are you doing here?" He furrowed his brows at Roberto, noticing the slight shake in the hand that was holding his cigarette and the filters of finished cigarettes sitting at the ahstray over the frame of the window.
"I was a damn coward." Roberto wasn't meeting his gaze. "Got shot on the shoulder and played dead until they were gone." He clicked his tongue. "Help me bring them back, Undertaker." He turned his head to Wolfwood, and a shiver ran through the latter's spine.
Nicholas was no damn saviour. He was a trained assasin. His first instinct was to shoot first, ask questions later. He was The Punisher.
Wolfwood, however, was going to bring their asses back to safety no matter what it took of him.
—
"Wolfwood's dead."
Vash's mouth fell shut immediately, and his jaw clenched. He blinked, maybe he got it wrong? But no, now, that Meryl had turned to look back at him and probably inspect his expression, he could see the tears welling up in her eyes.
"What?" He'd tried to say, but it came out as a choked out wheeze of air. Vash didn't know the exact moment in which his eyes had grown as wide as they were now, nor when the knot in the middle of his throat had formed.
He tried to ease his erratic breathing by thinking through the situation at hand. This was Wolfwood they were talking about. The guy had gotten shot many times during their journey and had walked it off like nothing.
Vash licked his lips, noticing how dry they were.
He'd eventually figured more or less who Wolfwood was and what his mission was, so that meant Vash had also figured his brother's people had done something to him to force him to be who he was. Maybe not healing habilities like him and Nai, but definitely something like that.
"He can't be dead." He didn't even bother in whispering, since all the noise coming from the road through the two open windows of the front seats was loud enough to hide his voice. Besides, the strong urge to cry was already making it weak enough.
He'd never seen Meryl holding so much anguish in her eyes, which were now leaking tears through the lashes. The sight was shortlived though, since she was soon bringing her tied hands to cover her face.
"It was all my fault!" She choked out, shaking like a leaf. Vash hated himself for not being able to hug her pain away and kiss it better. So he pressed his shoulder and arm against to hers, trying to cut the remaining distance between them.
"Shh," he made circling motions over her thigh, since it was the only availible way at the moment for him to try and provide her some kind of comfort. "It'll be okay, sweetheart."
It wasn't like him to use any pet names, but he considered the ocassion warranted it this time. However, even he wouldn't have bought his weak attempt at comfort, since he was currently crying too, the tears mindlessly rolling down his face and falling over Meryl's shoulder.
"He-he was locked inside the r-room after getting shot... he couldn't have reached his vials..." she muttered between sobs. Yet another pang of pain and guilt hit Vash's heart– this was all his fault. It was him they'd been after, not Wolfwood. Nor Roberto– he wasn't sure about his whereabouts but before getting taken he'd heard a gunshot– more tears filled his eyes.
"Oh, don't cry now, girlie," their male captor, Mark, said, looking at them through the rear view mirror. Vash glared at him, feeling a sudden wave of hatred at the man. Mark was smirking, like Wolfwood always used to did, yet Vash felt the urge to wipe it off his mouth with a punch. "You're better off without him."
"Shut up!"
Vash found himself dumbfounded, even with the tears still falling from his eyes behind his glasses, at the sudden display of anger from Meryl. Their captor looked as surprised as Vash felt.
"He was a good man! Better than you could ever dream of being! So don't you dare speak of him, you asshole!"
The other guy, Mark, couldn't even think of a comeback because, soon enough, a gunshot ran off and hit the mirror of one of the sides of the truck.
"Shit!" Both of their captors cursed outloud at the same time, and Beatrice, the woman, made a harsh turn with the truck, making both Vash and Meryl fall to the side, with her falling on top of him.
He only yelped in surprise, but mostly because of the newly added weight over him. "Guess he wasn't really dead." He said with a genuine smile, chuckling.
He heard Meryl sniffle, as she uselessly tried to use her tied hands to get off him. "You really think it's him?" Her voice sounded almost timid.
"Who else would make such a badass entrance?"
—
"Go faster, gramps!" Wolfwood commanded, from where he was sitting through the open window, his feet over the passenger seat of Meryl's truck and his butt literally on the rolled-down window. He was holding the old man's Derringer since he'd figured his cross would fall out of his grasp.
"I've already you it can't go faster, goddamnit!"
Wolfwood smirked at his reply, closing one eye to get a better aim before shooting the enemy's car other side mirror. He barked out a laugh at the victory, watching the car ahead of them zigzaging like a baby thoma walking for the first time.
He was restraining himself from shooting one of the wheels because, even though it'd be effective to stop the damn car, nothing assured that Vash and Meryl wouldn't suffer an injury.
Then, Wolfwood lowered himself from the window and entered the car again. "Do you think that'll scare them off enough to make them park the car?" He asked Roberto as the other man continued to drive.
"We can only hope so." Roberto sighed, before glancing at the cigarette Wolfwood was lighting for himself. "I did save your life. The least you could do was light me a cigarette, you know?" He teased with a smirk of his own.
"Didn't ask you to." Wolfwood huffed, grabbing another cigarette for the old man and lighting it, before handing it to him. "Lucky you, I'm a nice guy." He then put on a huge ass grin, showing all his teeth.
"'m sure you are." Roberto laughed, grabbing the cigarette and driving it to his lips. After a second, his expression took an abrupt turn and became serious all of a sudden, making Wolfwood frown too. "Look." Roberto nodded ahead of them, where the other truck was starting to speed up.
"Stubborn assholes." Wolfwood muttered, gritting his teeth hard enough for his cigarette's filter to crack a bit. "Do you have anything to see from afar? Wanna see whether Vash and Meryl have already lowever their heads or if I might shoot them by mistake."
"A spyglass?" Roberto said, ever so smug. The bastard.
With a huff and the cigarette hanging between his lips, Wolfwood grabbed the damn thing from the glove compartment Roberto was pointing at with his cigarette and placed it on one of his eye, adjusting it to see correctly.
Fortunately, he saw through the spyglass that the only heads raised were the ones on the front seats, so he was clear to shoot the rear view mirror– that would surely send the message.
—
Meryl couldn't help but let out a tiny shout when a closer shot went off, right above their heads, with the bullet hitting the rear view mirror at the end of its trayectory.
Fortunately, as soon as the first of supposedly Wolfwood's shots had hit their mark –A.K.A. the two side mirrors of the truck they were being transported in–, Vash had (slowly and softly) thrown himself on top of her to protect her.
"Are you okay?" She whispered, kissing Vash's cheek, which was currently lying next to her mouth.
"Yes, you?" He whispered back, and she didn't need to look at him to see his silly smile.
"If he keeps on with the stray bullets, he'll be the one to kill us." Meryl huffed, bringring her knees even closer to her chest. A complete fetal position would be better but the restraints around her wrists were preventing her from it.
"Have some faith on him." Vash murmured.
"You know I do."
—
"Son of a bitch is actually pulling over." Wolfwood commented, lowering himself to the seat once again.
"Keep your guard up." Roberto commanded, pushing hard the accelerator.
"Always do." Wolfwood grinned.
However, all of a sudden, the truck they were chasing down made an abrupt "U" turn, and the person sitting on its passenger seat started shooting–
"Look out!" Wolfwood shouted, his hands flying to the steering wheel to turn it completely to the left to avoid the raining bullets.
The other truck then gave another turn to go on in their previous direction. As soon as Roberto, not without a row of curses directed to him, was able to redirect their own truck too, Wolfwood stuck his head and arm out the window for the third time again.
"Fuck this shit," he muttered, before aiming one of the wheels of the enemy's truck, watching it immediately losing its control over the direction it was taking.
"The hell you think you're doing?!" Roberto snapped at him, his eyes now staring holes into the side of his face. "I'll tell you what, any of those two get hurt, I'll kick that thick head of yours until you die."
"Look at them, genius," Wolfwood said, pointing at the truck ahead of them as it harshly slowed down, with the hand that was still holding Roberto's Derringer. "I took the shot just now because they didn't have enough time to get to their previous speed."
"That's actually... pretty smart." Roberto amused with his brows raised, as he too slowed their vehicule down, finally reaching the other truck.
When both trucks stopped, Wolfwood handed Roberto his Derringer, while he grabbed Punisher from the back seats. "It's show time." He muttered, as the both of them got out of the car, their guards and guns up.
"If you want your friends to live, drop your guns." The bitch woman that'd shot him twice stated as Roberto and himself aproached her truck. The guy with her was pointing his pistol at the backseats of her truck.
"Not happening, lady." Said Roberto, beside him. "The best for you two punks would be to leave our people alone and go home."
"And let those six millions double dollars go to waste?" The male captor said with a laugh. "No, thank you, grandpa."
"But you only need me for that, folks!" A third voice suddenly said, and Wolfwood couldn't help but smile at the sound. Vash was now sticking his head out of the window, his face only inches away from the pistol pointing at him. Wolfwood's smile widened when they exchanged gazes and Vash beamed at him.
Then, the pistol hit his face, turning Vash's head and making the blonde man let out a grunt. Wolfwood gritted his teeth, getting a very violent urge to kill the guy that'd hit him.
The asshole smiled. "He's right though, so we can kill the girl–"
Bang!
The man screamed in pain as crimson red bloomed around his knee, while he was unceremoniously falling to the ground.
Surprisingly enough, Wolfwood hadn't been the one to take the shot. It'd been Roberto.
"He'll probably never walk again without aid, I hit cartilage." Roberto said, and Wolfwood noticed the woman paling a few shades, even though she was trying to hide it.
"So, except you want to leave him to bleed out on the sand like a worm, I'd advise you to get the woman and the man you have kidnapped out of your truck, get your man on it and take him to the closest town for treatment."
The woman blinked, before letting out a shaky breath. She quietly aproached the door of her truck, on the other side where Vash's head wasn't sticking out and her partner wasn't pathetically crying on the ground, and unlocked the door.
Meryl appeared out the door after a few seconds, her face blank. Vash soon followed her and the both of them aproached Roberto and Wolfwood, the latter still in awe at the whole scene.
The woman silently got her partner on the passenger seat, not without him crying out in pain at every movement and screaming in agony, and drove away.
Wolfwood had a bitter taste on his mouth. He'd expected more action, maybe? Or perhaps he'd stayed with urge to get some revenge for the bullet on his gut.
His thoughts were abruptly cut off when he was almost tackled to the ground by a hug. "Don't ever do that again!" Meryl's voice was muffled as he hid her face on his chest. Wolfwood blankly blinked, his brain catching up with the situation.
Meryl had just hugged him...? For real?
"I thought you were dead!" She huffed, pulling apart from the hug and pushing him backwards. He blinked once again. Just who understood women? First she hugged him and now she looked like she was about to beat his shit up!
"I'm glad you're alive too, Wolfwood." Vash said, making Wolfwood's head snap up to look at him, noticing the awfully fond expression he was wearing. However, it quickly turned into a silly grin.
"Oh, and Wolfwood, did you know Meryl even admitted she thinks well of you- ouch!" Vash was interrupted by a punch on his shoulder, given by none other than Meryl herself.
"I did not!" She denied, throwing glares at Vash.
"Aww you warm my heart, shortstack." Wolfwood smirked, though something had fluttered in his chest at the whole exchange.
If getting shot on the gut meant he received all this affection out of nowhere... perhaps he should do it more often, Wolfwood thought, tenderly watching the bickering between Vash and Meryl.