â --;; "That--"
Vash opens his mouth to argue-- snaps it shut again, the click almost audible. That no, it wasn't okay, even if he hadn't been able to realize what he was doing. He'd still hurt her, done something he couldn't ever take back, like so many other times in his life. He's not sure if he'll ever be able to entirely accept her forgiveness.
But he should. He should. Shouldn't he?
After so long of letting so many see him as a monster, sometimes it's still difficult to see himself as anything else-- no matter the ache that came with it, just as inescapable as the label.
Instead Vash sighs, eventually lets his hand fall away. Swallows the pill, even though the likelihood of it dissolving, being properly absorbed, still remains questionable. She's not the first to have forgiven him, not the first who he'd had the same hesitancy with.
A laugh half-formed, singular, bubbles forth instead. Though it's one of resignation, it isn't sad. There really won't be any worming his way out of it, will there?
"Guess I've never been all that good at givin' you the slip, huh?" he finally says. Sometimes the fog clears just enough to see why everyone else gets so annoyed with him being so stubborn-- if only because others are throwing the same bullheadedness at him.
The admission doesn't take the weight off his shoulders, not really-- but at this point he knows better than to continue to argue.
"Didn't stop me from tryin', though."
Meryl gives a half-hearted laugh at the admission. "I mean you almost did for two years." She points out - his time spent somwhere well after the incident at Jeneora Rock.
"You did try," she says after a while, "and it kind of made me mad." That feels weird to admit, but Meryl wants to be honest.
"I know Wolfwood was way more capable in fighting, but Millie and I aren't - weren't - helpless. Just... human."
She looks over at her friend. "I don't blame either of you, though."
