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"Please don't," Vash whispered, his eyes shamelessly begging the man in front of him, who was holding a gun pointed at Wolfwood's unconscious form. "Please don't shoot him."
Three hours before.
"Shouldn't you two slow down?" Meryl commented, frowning at both Milly and Vash, while the two loudly laughed at some stupid inside joke only a person as intoxicated as them would get.
"Let them have some fun, shortie," Wolfwood grinned at her. "Why don't you have something a little bit stronger instead?" He winked at her, pouring onto her empty glass a bit of his own rum.
"Uhm, no thanks," she flashed him a mocking toothy smile before frownig again, leaning against the back of her chair while she crossed her arms. "I don't even like drinking."
"Oh, really?" He raised a brow, smirking at her.
"Yes, really." She rolled her eyes at him. "And, actually, she really should stop drinking. A hangover tomorrow won't do her any good, since we have actual jobs, unlike you." She eyed Vash and then Wolfwood, and how mad she looked got Wolfwood barking a laugh, and hooking an arm around her shoulders.
"Come on! I'm sure you deserve a break after such a hard work!" He assured, grinning as he used his free hand to grab his glass, before downing it in one go.
"Mr Wolfwood is right, ma'am! You should relaaax!" Milly added, heavily leaning onto Vash, as the other man obnoxiously shook with a high-pitched laugh.
"See, even your big girl– hey!" He cried out when he received a smack to the head.
"I got the point, priest." She clicked her tongue, before grabbing the glass with rum he'd poured her and drinking its contents in one go.
Wolfwood's mouth was left hanging open as he stared at her in surprise. "Woah," he exhaled when he became aware of his dumbstuck expression. "Woah."
"See? I'm not a lightweight. I just don't like getting drunk." She shrugged, before standing on her feet and grabbing her coat from the back of the chair. Then, she spared a glance towards Milly, before looking back at Wolfwood.
"I'm heading back to our room, can I trust you to help her get there, priest?" She said, narrowing her eyes at him. Perhaps it was just his semi drunk state, but her stare felt like it was getting right through Wolfwood.
Wolfwood gulped, before nodding. "Yeah, of course, don't worry, I got her." He smiled, this time genuinely.
Meryl didn't say anything before she was walking away and towards the stairs at one side of the room. The bar they were in was actually a part of the Inn, with the rooms being upstairs and the dinner that late at night turned into a bar downstairs.
Wolfwood let out a breath, fishing first his lighter out of one of the inside pockets of his blazer, and then his pack of cigarettes. He didn't even bother on counting how many he had left, mindlessly taking one out and putting in between his lips.
As soon as the lighter's flame touched the tip of the cigarette, he took a deep drag and closed his eyes, enjoying the intoxication of both the alcohol and the nicotine.
Meryl found that couldn't sleep. She'd never had any nightmares to complain about, not any meaningful ones anyway.
But drinking made her restless.
She'd tried every and any position while laying down on the bed but none of them had worked. The loud noises from the bar echoed against her ears and it made her feel like banging her head against the wall until the noise stopped.
And don't let her even start on the hangover she'd have the next day.
I shouldn't have drank those beers, regret tangled around the omnipresent nausea at her stomach, so she curled into a ball even tighter than she'd already been, now lying on her side. Nor that glass of rum... stupid Wolfwood. I'll kick his ass in the morning...
She wasn't sure about how much time must've passed ever since she'd crossed the door to the room Milly and her shared.
Soon later, there were a row of heavy steps, accompanied by obnoxiously loud voices that she soon recognized as Vash's worried one, Milly's drunken one and, lastly, Wolfwood's, who was telling the other two to shut up.
Since Meryl had her back to the door, she decided she would pretend to be asleep, so she wouldn't have to interact with the bunch of idiots.
Then, unceremoniously nonetheless, the part in which they kicked the door open and entered as if a damn carnival parade was taking place.
Resigned to her fate, Meryl decided to just bear with all the noise the other three were doing.
"Shut up, Needle Noggin'! I got this!" She could almost picture in her mind Wolfwood throwing his hands over the air and Vash looking like a cornered animal; "But she was about to fall out of your grasp!"
"Well, good job, now I don't need you, go to our goddamn room, you idiot!"
"Mr Wolfwood... you shouldn't use... such language..." Milly intervened, while there was the sound of the matress of a bed creaking, so Meryl deducted she must've been helped to lay over the bed by either Wolfwood or Vash.
"Shh, girl, just rest down over here." So Wolfwood it was that had helped her down.
"Okay, Mr Wolfwood..."
"Do you need any help?" Vash was the one speaking this time while there was the sound of someone walking through the old wooden floor and away from the beds, and then coming back.
A few beats after, something was placed over a surface very close to Meryl, so she deducted it was the lighttable that was located between the two beds.
"It'd be of great help if you learnt how to whisper, you spikey head!"
Then, the rest of the noise was actually taken out of the room, the door being heavily kicked closed. Meryl let out a sigh of relief at the quiet atmosphere that finally returned.
"You're still awake, ma'am?" Milly asked, and she sounded awfully sober, without having slurred a word. Frowning upon the abrupt change of tone, Meryl turned around to look at her.
"You're not... drunk?"
"Oh, no, ma'am!" The other woman giggled, now sitting up a bit and taking the glass from her lighttable, which was located between the two singular beds. "It was just cute to look Mr priest and Mr Vash worrying so much." She said before taking a big gulp.
Meryl blinked at her, feeling dumbstuck.
"I am capable of taking a few drinks because me and my brothers always played drinking games, and the ones who lost did the chores around the house!" She giggled again, leaving the glass back over the table.
"I... wow, I didn't know that." Meryl replied, a bit disoriented.
"Why did you leave early, ma'am?"
"I don't like drinking, Milly... I've never enjoyed it." She shrugged a shoulder. "I don't like not being aware of my surroundings without any memory at the next day." She said, chuckling to fill the silence that followed her sentence. Milly only hummed in acknowledgement.
Before they could go on with their chitchat, however, on the other room next to theirs –Vash and Wolfwood's, Meryl's tired mind provided–, there was a sound of a gunshot.
Both women tensed, their heads snapping to look at each other before looking back at the wall. The next second, they were on their feet, Meryl grabbing her Deringer from under her pillow and Meryl grabbing her gun from next to her bed.
"Do you think they're alright, ma'am?" Milly whispered, as they quietly hurried out of the room, with their guns up.
"We can only hope so." Meryl replied, the hand that was holding her pistol slightly shaking. "Stay alert." She commanded, as they crossed the short distance of the hallway that separated both rooms.
Ten minutes before.
"It'd be of great help if you learnt how to whisper, you spikey head!" Wolfwood whisper-shouted, slightly pushing Vash outside the girls' room, kicking the door closed with the back of his foot, and towards their own.
"Sorry..." Vash whispered, giggling into his palm, while he was trying to open the door to their own room. Apparently, the doorknob wasn't on his side today, since it wasn't letting him enter.
Wolfwood laughed, appearing at his side. "You really are something else." He muttered, knocking his hip against Vash's to move him aside. "Scoot over."
He gave the door a try himself with one hand while he put the key right through the lock, however, before he even turned the key, the door was opening. Wolfwood abruptly closed it back, and his head snapped to look at Vash, and he noticed Wolfwood's brows were knitting together.
"Stay here," he commanded, and when Vash looked at the slight preassure over his chest he found Wolfwood's hand pressing him back.
Vash blinked at him, taking a step back while he hummed in acknowledgement.
Then, Vash's ears perked up at the sound of a gun and his eyes landed on the one that had materialized into Wolfwood's hand. "Wolf–"
A hand immediately flew to his mouth, muffling his voice. "Vash, I need you to shut up." Wolfwood whispered, his face now only inches apart from his own. Vash's eyes widened at the use of his names, instead of any of Wolfwood's usual nicknames for him.
"Our door's open, but you closed it before we left, remember?" Vash nodded, so Wolfwood's hand lowered from his mouth. "They must've picked the lock... we may have been robbed and/or we might get ambushed right now. I need'ya focused here."
Vash lightly slapped himself on the cheek to sober up, then, he looked up at Wolfwood. Just in case, he grabbed his own gun. He wasn't as tipsy as before, but the room still spun a bit around him.
Because he was a Plant, he didn't have to drink quite a lot of alcohol for it to have effect on him, and the effect lasted all the night long. Meryl and him had theorized that it was because he had a fast metabolism.
When they were both ready, Wolfwood was opening the door with his gun up and breaking into the room.
Out of a sudden, a gunshot was heard, making Vash flinch before his widened, quickly blinking.
"Agh!" Wolfwood cried out, hissñ knees buckling under him, and Vash connected the two dots; Wolfwood had gotten shot.
He didn't have time to even react though, because he was soon being attacked from behind, getting an arm chocking him by the neck and the tip of a pistol pressed against his temple.
"Vash the Stampede," the man in front of him, who was currently pointing a shotgun at Wolfwood's, pronounced the name while looking at him with a dark glint in his blue eyes. Vash could only try to glare at him, though with his still semi-tipsy state it was futile.
"This is your hunting dog?" The supposed bounty hunter kicked with his foot Wolfwood's shoulder, earning a grunt from the other man. Wolfwood was evidently awake, groaning while struggling to get up, now with all the projectiles stuck all over his chest.
Wolfwood.
Vash could feel the feathers trying to grow out of his skin, so he slowly inhaled, forcing them back in.
Calm down.
He let out a shaky breath, raising his head to look at their captor in the eye. "Please don't," Vash whispered, his eyes shamelessly begging the man in front of him, who was holding a gun pointed at Wolfwood's unconscious form. "Please don't shoot him."
Just then, yet another person broke into the the already full room– wait, two?!
"Drop the gun!"
Relief immediately flowed through Vash's whole body and he relaxed instantly when he recognized the woman's voice as Meryl's.
"Both of you!" Milly added.
The man holding Vash from the neck forced him to turn around, and pressing the gun even harder against his temple. "I don't think so, lady." The man said, and Vash's desperately tried to meet Meryl's eyes, which were currently glued onto his captor.
Bang!
A scream followed soon after and, before Vash knew it, the preassure against both his temple and neck suddenly vanished and the man who'd been holding him fell to the ground behind him.
"Mr Wolfwood!" Milly cried out, dropping her huge gun to the ground as she used her hands to cover her mouth in horror, with her gaze glued to the man now probably lying behind Vash.
Vash was brave enough to peak over his shoulder, and found the man (whom he just now got to see the face) clutching his bleeding knee and lying on his side.
"Now you've done it, you bastard!" The other bounty hunter shouted, at Wolfwood since the bullet to the captor's leg had came from his own gun.
However before anything else could take place, Milly raised her gun at him and shot one of her X shaped claws, trapping the other man and throwing him to the side of the room.
"Mr Wolfwood!" She cried out, hurrying to Wolfwood's side and throwing herself on her knees. She turned the man mouth up and gently laid his head over her lap.
Milly couldn't help but feel the tears welling up on her eyes as she caressed the priest's cheek, noticing how pale he was turning by the second.
She could hear Meryl a few feet from her checking over Vash, already scolding him just in case he was hiding an injury like he had in some other ocassions.
"Mr Wolfwood..."
The man had already passed out, though even while still unconscious his features pained. She ran her hand to get the hair out of his sticky and perspiring forehead.
"Milly," Mr Vash softly called, and his voice broke. When she raised her head to look at him, she found him crying, now with a hand rubbing his eye like the youngest of her brothers used to do as a kid.
"He... he has his... healing vials. In the right pocket of the inside of his blazer." His poor soul sounded so shaken that it broke Milly's heart.
"Oh!" She exclaimmed, with one hand already fishing through the priest's bloodied clothes feeling the drying substance sticking to and staining her fingers–think about something happier, Milly.
When her fingertips grasped some little bottle, she gripped and pulled it out, using her thumb to take the cap off and used her free hand to pull Mr Wolfwood's head upwards, tilting it forward so he wouldn't choke on the liquid, that, according to Mr Vash, was a healing one.
White smoke started coming out and he gasped, her head snapping up to send a look towards Mr Vash, but he only smiled at her, slowly nodding. "Don't worry, it's normal." He assured her and she believed him.
Meryl was currently holding him up with one of his long arms around her shoulders and one of her arms around his waist. If Mr Vash hadn't lied, it was because he was still, rather than injured. For that, Milly was deeply glad.
Out of a sudden the priest jolted in her lap, sitting uupon reflex and embracing her as tight as a lifeline. She giggled in his arms, before returning the embrace. "Shh, it's okay, Mr Wolfwood. You're okay."
After the total disaster their night had turned into, they ended up sleeping all together at the girls' room. They'd placed both beds next to each other and, since each matress had been pretty big, fitting the four of them on the two proved to be a rather easy task.
Because of Meryl and Wolfwood's idea, they kept the two men at the boys' room, planning on keeping them there even after getting the key back to the Innkeeper. And because of Vash and Milly's, they wrapped their wounds and just tied them up.
And, at the end of the day, even with the gunshots and worries, they had still had a great night together. And Wolfwood wouldn't have it any other way.