literally this is so far away from where the post-canon vashwood wip [will post link once ao3 is back up] is currently at, but in light of ep 8, i need to show how i've been on the blond/light-haired ww agenda for months now
so ig this is an out of context revival ww whump :]]] enjoy
Wolfwood was in the water.
Wolfwood was in the water.
Vash froze, staring at the tank. His mental barriers slammed down, blocking the plants thoughts from his view. Wolfwood, bare as the day he was born, was floating, unconscious, next to the plant, who cradled him in weak arms. He was hale as a tomas and unmoving as a stillborn one. His hair—blond, now—floated in the tank’s liquid.
And then Vash’s feet were carrying him to the edge of the glass between them. The plant drifted downward with Wolfwood in her arms and presented him to Vash with an prideful expression, like a mother showing off her newborn.
Except Wolfwood wasn’t breathing.
There wasn’t any time to question whether or not this was another hallucination. Hands pressed to the glass, Vash glanced frantically for any way to access the plant tank. He couldn’t destroy the tank without draining the tank and thus endangering the plant’s life, but there was obviously no entrance at the bottom.
A maintenance staircase led to the top of the tank, presumably to monitor the tank. Vash threw himself up the stairs two, three at a time—the metal stairs rattling as he ran—until he stood at the top on a small platform attached to the side of the tank.
His heart was bruising itself against his ribs for how hard it was beating, and all he could think about was how no matter how hard he listened through his enhanced hearing, he couldn’t hear Wolfwood’s heart beat at all.
Somehow his heart managed to drop when he realized there was no discernible entrance from the top either. With hands shaking almost too hard to even grip it, he yanked out his gun, flipped the safety off, sent a panicked sorry to the plant, and shot the tank once, twice, thrice, watching the glass hiss and crack. As liquid started to leak from the tank, his prosthesis punched through the glass, widening the holes and pulling at shards until there was a hole large enough to throw himself through, not caring of the shards that scraped him along the way.
The plant had already risen to meet him, hovering just below the drainage line of the tank. From his thoughts and frantic actions, she grasped that something was wrong, and she readily handed Wolfwood’s limp body over to him.
He was cold to the touch. Just like when Vash had lowered his body into the ground—
But he had the same hooked nose, the same mole under his jaw, the same psyche Vash had drooled over in lighter days, and the same stubble lining his chin, even if it was blond now. Vash had spent years memorizing him in his memories, and it couldn’t be anyone else but his Wolfwood.
Holding Wolfwood in a bridal carry, cradling his head to Vash’s chest, his arms were taken, so he used his legs to propel himself back out of the tank, twisting his body so that Wolfwood was cushioned by Vash when he spat them out of the tank.
While the plant watched on, he prayed for a miracle as he pressed his ear to his lips and his fingers to his throat; he couldn’t hear him breathe, and he couldn’t feel his pulse.
His chest ached with how each breath rattled his chest.
He shifted Wolfwood—ever so gingerly—and lowered him to the metal platform. It’d been years since he’s had to preform CPR. The idea of performing it on someone he knew, he loved—
He didn’t have the time to think.
Hands locked together, he pressed down against his chest, again and again. He kissed air into Wolfwood’s lungs and tried not to think about how long he’d yearned to kiss him in any other circumstance than this.
He did more compressions.
It was strange how his flesh arm and hand had begun to feel like plastic extensions of himself, moving through some control unknown to him and shaking with uncoordination.
It was the third time that Vash breathed air into Wolfwood’s lungs when he jerked, and his pulse kick-started under his trembling hands. Vash didn’t even realize it at first—didn’t dare himself to believe—so he kissed another breath into Wolfwood, and then another, and then Wolfwood was throwing Vash off of him so that he could cough up plant water in brittle, wheezing hacks.
Unthinkingly, Vash tilted Wolfwood on his side, thumping him on the back to expel any remaining liquid and stopping when his wet wheezes became soft pants against the harsh metal of the platform.
He continued to hold him when Wolfwood promptly vomited all over the platform. Vash brushed his hair from his forehead and made sure he didn’t faceplant into his own sick, which was solely bile. He did so as he staved off his own hyperventilation.
Vash supposed it made sense. Wolfwood, who’d been dead for over a decade by now, had been suddenly thrown into a briefly-uninhabited-now-his body with all the care of a sandsteamer. His body was jumpstarting itself, and in the process, several of the systems had to malfunction in order to eventually function. Even now Vash could see how his limbs were twitching—spasming, almost—as his nervous system got a hold of itself.
Finally, Wolfwood opened his eyes, and after a few blinks, his gaze locked onto Vash’s. Vash felt pinned down by that bleary look, only half-aware but here. Alive.
Vash couldn’t handle it if this was just another hallucination. This one was definitely one of his most bizarre ones if it was, but it was more long lasting that any other. He’d lost Wolfwood for the first time on that couch, and then he’d lost him dozens of times again over the years in every place imaginable. He thought this one might just break him.
When Wolfwood opened his mouth, a vague croaking sound escaped his gasping lungs, but no coherent words. Vash lifted them both on jelly-like legs and carried them to the other side of the platform—he didn’t trust himself with stairs.
He had held Wolfwood in a bridal carry, but now he shifted his hand to hold him by his bare waist and held him steady while his legs struggled to hold his own weight like a newborn fawn. One arm kept to hold him steady, he uses his prosthesis—the more stable of the two arms—to unbutton his coat and wrap it around the bare and shivering shoulders of Wolfwood.
Wolfwood’s still staring at him like he’s forgotten something, and Vash is really hoping that the oxygen-deprivation hadn’t led to brain damage. Well, he’s hoping he’s real and alive, but that also.
Distantly, Vash is aware of a high keening noise emanating from him, but he can’t make himself stop. He’s vibrating out of his skin, and the two of them are clinging to each other like those nights that both drank too much and had to lean on each other to stand.
“Vash?” Wolfwood said, and that’s what finally does Vash in because he knows that Wolfwood never says his name.
Suddenly his knees aren’t strong enough to hold him up anymore, so he slides to the ground of the platform, dragging Wolfwood with him.
Tears are welling in his eyes and falling from his face. Vash’s arms had glued him to Wolfwood’s side, and his throat aches with the words clogged by the overwhelming fissure between the halves of his failing heart.
“Vash?” Wolfwood asked again. He sounded so confused, so worried. Vash can hear the subtle panic rising in his voice; Vash had only heard that tone a few times in his life: when Wolfwood saw his wings for the first time; when Wolfwood found him trapped under Legato’s cage; and when they were left sitting on a couch together and Wolfwood had tried to say goodbye to him.
Before, he would’ve given anything to hear Wolfwood’s voice again. Now he doesn’t know if he can take it.
It feels like his organs are rupturing, tearing each other apart through as the monster called grief rears its ugly head.
Vash blubbers something approximately Wolfwood, and Wolfwood raises fatigue-shaking arms to envelope Vash in an awkward semblance of a hug. His touch is hesitant and warm and real, but Wolfwood was never blond, and Wolfwood never called Vash by his name.
Vash won’t be able to take it if this isn’t real.
Eventually, Vash’s head finds its way to the folds of his own jacket, tucked into the crook of Wolfwood’s throat. It feels almost bizarre to be the one comforted right now. He isn’t the one who was ripped from death and slammed back into a body that wasn’t quite his own, so surely he should be the one comforting Wolfwood. And yet here they are.
Vash is all to aware of the desperate squeeze of Wolfwood’s hands on his sides. This can’t not be real. If it is, it will break him, shatter him to pieces on this platform; even god cannot be that cruel.
He still isn’t sure that this revival is a kind act either. For years Vash had been burdened with his grief, and now that he had finally started to let it go, to make an effort to move on, god decided to fuck with him again and throw him headfirst into his grief again.
Vash wheezed, and Wolfwood sputtered in a cough above him.
“Vash.”
He shuddered, a whine scraping past his teeth.
“Vash!” Wolfwood’s voice was weak and raspy, yet it was tearing him apart.
Every shallow wheeze felt like his last; he was suffocating on his own heartache. He can’t take this.
Wolfwood never called him by his name.
And even as he thought it, Wolfwood understood through some power unknown to Vash. He had always seemed to do when he was alive: he spotted the guilt behind his grin, the pain behind his eyes, and the weight on his shoulders when no one else could. Of course he would be the one to clock the inexplicable pain Vash felt when he said his name.
“Tongari, breathe.”
Wolfwood, on the verge of hysteric panic himself, coaxed Vash down from his metaphorical ledge, eased his hyperventilation with the patience of a practiced professional from years of experience helping with traumatized children at the orphanage.
When Vash passed the danger of passing out, he lifted his head from Wolfwood’s throat, and his eyes locked on the blond hair adorned on his head. Hair that used to be black. He couldn’t find a dark strand on him now.
Blond.
He thought of a younger version of himself, who had a full head of blond hair.
He thought of Knives, who had blond hair.
He thought of how naturally blond hair died out after the Fall—when such a large portion of passengers died, it made sense that a few recessive traits would be lost.
But Wolfwood had blond hair now.
He croaked, “Wolfwood?”
Vash felt as Wolfwood shuddered. He could tell from the pinch in his face that he was trying to hold his emotions together, to prolong the inevitable break down until he was alone. And from the twitch in his frown, Wolfwood knew that Vash knew.
Sometimes, Vash had imagined what it would be like if Wolfwood had never died. He’d imagined that Wolfwood would’ve stayed with him until the final fight, and he would’ve gone looking for him after, just like he did years ago. Wolfwood would’ve stayed with him while he recovered, but then the thought grew fuzzy, too vague to fully realize. It seemed impossible to imagine Wolfwood in a world after everything.
“I—” His voice caught in his throat. God, what was he even supposed to say? “I have a house,” Vash finally settled on.
That made Wolfwood’s jaw twitch, mouth flapping for a few seconds, devoid of words. “You?”
“Yeah. It’s a recent thing,” Vash said with a small laugh.
“Okay. Okay.”
Vash tried to haul them up to their feet, but he knees gave out before he could even grasp at the railing behind them. “Dammit.”
Wolfwood sighed, and then coughed again. He kept coughing, hacking so hard he lost his balance and was forced to lean on Vash, who braced one hand on the railing behind them and used the other arm to wrap around his waist. After a heart-stopping half-minute, Wolfwood was able to regain his breath, but he didn’t relent his grip on Vash’s undersuit.
His eyes, which had gained some clarity in the past few minutes, looked bleary again. “What’s with the black hair anyway?” he slurred.
Vash swallowed. “What’s with your blond hair?”
“Touche.”
Vash let his head clank against the railing softly. Even through Vash’s coat, he could tell how Wolfwood’s skin was burning up. Ignoring the part of him that said he shouldn’t be here at all, Vash surmised that this wasn’t the best place for him to recover his undying body.
He shook his legs, disentangling from Wolfwood to press his fingers into them and will feeling back into them. “We shouldn’t spend all night out here.”
In his peripheral, Wolfwood tested his own motor ability. “I don’t think I can do any long walks right now, Tongari.”
“Neither can I. Fuck.”
“Then I guess we’re spending the night here.”
Vash blew harsh air from his nose. “No we aren’t. You vomited literally right there,” he said, gesturing to the sick. It’s stench was beginning to permeate the upper level.
Wolfwood remarked, “Don’t think we got much choice in the matter.” He was fighting against sleep now, eyelids heavy and head nodding.
Vash settled back against the railing, and that was all Wolfwood needed to give up his fight and finally succumb to sleep. His head landed on Vash’s shoulder as his body went limp, but Vash refused to sit here useless when Wolfwood needed medical attention.
It took a few minutes to get his legs back into working order after their run and his complete breakdown. Once he was satisfied, Vash stood on shaky feet and gingerly picked up Wolfwood. With him unconscious, he couldn’t carry him on his back—which would’ve been easiest—and carried him bridal-style, doing his best to support his head.
The staircase seemed twice as long on the way down. By the time he reached the bottom, he had to lean up against the wall, panting for breath. Wolfwood didn’t wake.
In reality, Vash didn’t remember much of the walk back to his house. He remembered how his knees seemed to bounce between his thighs and shins; he remembered how his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat; he remembered the sight of Wolfwood’s face, soft in sleep and the most beautiful Vash laid his eyes on.
His door slammed open with a bang! after he shouldered it open. He remembered tucking Wolfwood into his bed—the only in the house; Milly and Meryl stayed with Miss Melanie when they visited.
He remembered drawing up a chair next to the bed, and then he remembered no more.
i opened a kofi page >:]]] writing more's a big goal of mine this year, and if u wanna help support me, here's the place! rn i'm taking tips, and hopefully will open writing comms soon
the past two years have been rough on me [both generally and writing-wise], BUT in an effort to get back into writing regularly [and hopefully finishing more projects], i will be participating in @thewriprpg's game for 2026 :]]]
behold, the very tentative character I made:
Character Name: Lyman
Species: Satyr
Region of Origin: Faewild's East
Initial Interest: Social Skills
Personality: Cunning, hedonistic, and outgoing
*i just am gonna make these skills a category of wip b/c my writing muse has been v fickle and there r so many wips that have little/no actual writing i couldn't pick just a few
