After taking a vial, Wolfwood's freshly regenerated flesh is extremely sensitive to the cold night. Vash is eager to soothe.
"It pierces Wolfwood, like the rebars had earlier, that he's grown too soft, too domesticated. Saving people, melting into touch… But it's like quicksand and every move he makes has only pulled him in deeper and the rope he's holding on to has frayed beyond use.
If he is to die - and he is -, maybe he can at least choose the way he goes?"
| Vashwood | Also on AO3 |
| (Mutual) Pining | Hurt/Comfort | Hand kisses | Bittersweet |
It's a beautiful night to be sleepless. Three moons have found themselves in the sky, pouring light over the sand, dunes casting sharp shadows.
Woofwood’s eyes are drawn to the crater on one of the larger moons, a mark of the planet’s fragile fate. He looks away forcefully, seeking out familiar constellations in the brightly lit sky instead.
After a minute or two, his cigarette is down to the filter and he pulls out another, ignores the faint tremble of his fingers as he lights it. The cold air nips at his tender skin and he hurries to tuck his hands back into his pockets.
It's always like this - freshly regenerated, the flesh is sensitive and achy, susceptible to temperature far more than the rest of his body. He's used to pushing through it; the pain that lances through whatever the vials have regrown at random intervals even during rest. He's used to it.
Doesn't mean he loves it.
When a strong and freezing breeze rushes through him, Wolfwood tucks his hands in his armpits, hunching over slightly. He holds the cigarette in his teeth, exhaling around it, lets his mind wander across the dunes, back in the direction of the town he and Vash had left in a hurry.
It'd gone the way it always does - Needle-noggin getting involved where he shouldn't, getting recognized and a chase starting. But this time there'd been an idiot with a rocket launcher and a building had come down on them. More so onto the mother with two kids who had been taking cover behind some boxes.
Punisher had taken the brunt of the load, but a chunk of the jagged concrete had angled past the top part, meeting his hands and piercing through them with rebars. The scream of the woman still rings in his ears, but by that time Vash was already shouldering part of the weight and pushing it off of them. (He might've shouted Wolfwood’s name, too, but it was lost in the din.)
There'd been no way but through - off - the metal making kebab of his hands, blood dripping on the ground and people he’d shielded. It had hurt like a bitch, but there had been no time to throw a pity party about it. They had had to move, dragging the family out of the ruins and onto the street, before they had stumbled and weaved their way to Angelina.
Somewhere along the way, Vash had pressed him into an alleyway, face pale and frantic. “Your hands, we need to see a doctor. I know someone, we just got to circle the town-"
“Give man a second, Needle-noggin. Gotta get the feeling back in my fingers and I'll fix it," he had growled, having dragged Punisher more with his whole arm around it.
Wolfwood had pawed at his jacket, numb digits trying to grasp the material and failing to.
“Can you…?” Vash had asked, eyes flitting for a split second towards the entrance of the alleyway, light broken by figures rushing past.
He'd taken too long to answer, a second stretching into three and then four, giving away his weakness.
“Let me help, please."
"Fine, no doctors. In the left-” he'd not gotten to finish the sentence before Vash's hands were opening his jacket, slipping into the pocket holding the vials.
"I know,” Spikey had said, breaking one open and putting it to his lips, tilting it gently like it could lessen the burn.
They'd been back on the move before the steam finished rising from his flesh.
The rest of the escape had been smooth, leaving the town and pursuers in the dust. But there had been tension in Vash throughout the day. A familiar one, like he was listening for something, waiting. And his gaze had been heavy on Wolfwood.
He had felt too raw and wired at the same time to bear it with patience. He’d snapped at Vash in the afternoon and then again at dinner, but the other man didn’t respond with vitriol - not that he ever did. It would be easier if he did.
Now, Wolfwood is sleepless and weary, the buzz of the vial’s aftereffects dying down and leaving only aching exhaustion in its wake. But his thoughts are too loud - an incoherent buzz that eases and increases with no rhyme or reason. Even the cigarettes aren’t soothing it.
There is movement behind him and he can tell Vash has woken up. Or perhaps he never fell asleep in the first place - he has a remarkable ability to fool even Wolfwood’s sharp senses. Sand shifts beneath Blondie’s feet as he approaches and Wolfwood straightens up, frowning at one of the moons.
Vash stops on his left and stands there in silence for a while, thankfully. His coat blows into Wolfwood's legs when the wind picks up, the edge of a sleeve brushing against his shoulder. He doesn't step away, though, and maybe that's his mistake of the night.
When his cigarette is through, he fetches the next. The fire of his lighter flickers and doesn't catch once, twice and he blames the breeze even as he tries to shield it, not the tremble in his hands.
Suddenly, the moonlight is broken as Vash stands in front of him. Wordlessly, he cups Wolfwood's palms, steadying them with a gentle touch and shielding the light. The end of the cigarette comes alive and bright, before dimming.
He tucks the lighter away and lets his hands fall down and away from Vash’s, but he follows, gathering them in his own. Almost too lightly to be efficient, Vash rubs his hands over Wolfwood's tender, cold skin. The sensation makes him tense, though it doesn't quite hurt.
“Spikey…” he says, a warning.
"My prosthetic is cold, isn't it?” Vash laughs in reply, tinted with self-deprecation in an all too familiar way. And he isn't wrong - the leather covering it isn't warmed by body heat -, but the agreement doesn't come as easily as it should, neither does the reprimand to tell him to cut it out.
It pierces Wolfwood, like the rebars had earlier, that he's grown too soft, too domesticated. Saving people, melting into touch… But it's like quicksand and every move he makes has only pulled him in deeper and the rope he's holding on to has frayed beyond use.
If he is to die - and he is -, maybe he can at least choose the way he goes?
Perhaps encouraged by the silence, Vash pulls their hands upward and blows warm, warm breath on his freezing fingers. They twitch as Wolfwood’s torn between yanking them away and staying where the warmth starts to slowly bloom again.
Or it's because he has to stop himself from reaching towards the face obscured in shadow. It's a lucky thing, he doesn't know how he'd survive whatever look Vash is wearing right now. He can almost, almost imagine it; the tenderness that would flay him alive if caught with more than a side glance, the furrow to Vash's brow in concentration.
The blond twists Wolfwood’s wrists just so and before he can tell him off - really he isn't some mannequin to be manipulated - there's a soft exhale and then a brush against his knuckles. It moves across them, a light kiss on each, before moving onto the other hand.
And he's sinking, well and truly now, his mouth and chest full with sand, heavy and hot. The only person who could pull Wolfwood out is the one that unwittingly backed him into it. And he doesn't want to be rescued, he doesn't -
“Vash." His voice comes out rough and there isn't any point to it, he doesn't even know if he's asking for anything. What more could be given to someone like him, what more could he dare to want?
Pressing one last, lingering kiss, Vash looks at him - Wolfwood can tell because a stray moonbeam reflects in those bright eyes, giving them shine for a split second. And Wolfwood lets go, like a startled animal caught in headlights.
His fingers brush against the warm skin of Vash's cheek, cupping it. The other man leans into his touch, clasping Woofwood’s other hand tighter between his.
He feels all too warm now, but he wouldn't pull away even if it burned. Not for anything. At least that is what Wolfwood thinks until the cigarette burns down to the filter and he has to yank it out of his mouth and toss it away. There's a chuckle from Vash and the moment lays tattered between them, a semblance of clarity coming back to Wolfwood.
Too much, too deep, what was he even thinking, if at all? What was Vash thinking? He's truly grown too soft and they can't afford for him to.
Gritting his teeth, he tucks his hands into his pockets and stares over the dunes for a second. “I'm going to sleep."
"Good night, Wolfwood,” Vash says softly to his retreating back and Wolfwood's hands clench, as if he could physically hold onto the remnants of that and the warmth still lingering in his aching palms. It's a different pain now and he wonders if that is what happens when someone like him touches something good, something kind.
I’ve been quiet for the past few months, more than I ever intended or wished to be. Life has been... Complicated. My head even more so.
But the way my heart swelled and swayed in my chest when I realized their fourth anniversary is coming up made me realize that some things have not changed and likely never will, time and love and nostalgia only adding more and more layers to it.
Day6 is my safe harbor, the port in which I can put my anchor down, come home somewhere known and warm, and beautiful and always expanding like a city growing constantly while I glance away, in the spaces I cannot see from where I’m resting in the waves.
Jae is the sea, mirthful and with its powerful currents all at once, so vividly blue it can take your breath away. Ever-changing and constant. Through him, I discovered Day6 more and therefor, he is the path to take me to this harbor. There is rhythm to him and unpredictability all at once and so much depth beneath the playful waves.
Sungjin is the lighthouse and the shore upon which it stands. Sturdy and welcoming in the day and breaking through the darkness and the fog when I was not even sure if I was lost, because having path was a forgotten feeling. The golden sand, warmed by the sun, in which to dig my toes in and feel grounded, rooted to this world as the warmth radiates up to my palms, to my heart.
Young K is the sun, warm and blindingly brilliant, scorching in its convictions when he puts his mind to it, but just as well lazily resting on a cloud or two and still bringing life to its fullest and smile to people around him. Sometimes, somehow all at once. It’s too much to look at directly, but one wants to be in its presence all the same.
Dowoon is the longing to come back, to come home that defines everything. And he is the pull of the world beyond the horizon, the sort of want that can be only born when I know I have a place from which I come, to which I will return. There is beat to it, a making of music that underlines my life. It cannot be without the others, but the others are not what they are without it.
Wonpil is the breeze that refreshes the warm day, makes you want to spread my arms and spin around as if dancing with the wind. It plays with the waves, it hides and reveals the sun and camouflages itself in the grass by the lighthouse to pounce unexpectedly. It billows in the sails as the ship hurries back to port and it tugs at them gently when the urge to see more comes again. It binds everything together in ways that cannot be seen or denied.
And together, they all paint a scenery that is somehow similar to others and yet, uniquely theirs and uniquely safe and home. Only they can make this view together, each completing it and without any part missing, it’d not be what it is. Knowing how much work and learning and love was put into making it possible, in coming together as they have, it makes me tear up.
I want to thank them for that and I want to tell them I am so proud of them. So happy to know them. Overjoyed to love them. Delighted to have grown through and with them. Always looking forward to doing all this more and more in the future, cheering for each success.
"I don't need you to fix it. Just… be here." Mashwood anything I'll SLURP IT UP!!!!
Thank you for the prompt, love. <3 I hope you enjoy a bit of whump and emotional hurt/comfort. Ended up more heavy on Vashmeryl, but definitely in Mashwood flavor. Took slight liberty with wording of the prompt, but I think I stayed true to the heart of it.
TW: Suicidal ideations implied. Now also on AO3.
---
Vash wakes up with his hand already halfway to his gun on the bedside table. Reality anchors in with a heavy, warm hand on his chest a split second later - it is not noises of intruders that woke him.
It's noises of distress from the small woman sleeping beside him.
His heart instantly sinks and he presses a palm over Wolfwood's hand, holding him there while Meryl's knees push into his side as she curls up with a miserable whimper.
Vash looks at the other man, the low light not an obstacle for either of them, and they share a grim look.
He wishes waking Meryl was an option, but they quickly discovered it only left her more frightened and confused, unable to untangle herself from the dream-memories unless they gave her up first. Crowding her in with touches seems to make it worse, too.
So they lay there in the darkness, holding onto each other while she cries softly in her sleep, shifting and turning, trying to become as small as possible. This usually doesn't last longer than a few minutes, but every second feels agonizingly hot and digs under Vash's ribs. Branding him with his guilt, over and over.
Finally, Meryl stills, aside from a tremble that shakes her shoulders. He calls her name softly and she responds with a quiet whine.
“You're in our bedroom in December," Wolfwood says and Vash doesn't even get to feel the usual spark of joy over the use of our.
“I know," Meryl says and relief brushes against him. She doesn’t always, not right away.
“Want me to turn on the light and make some tea?" Wolfwood offers.
“Please." Her voice is small and wet. Part of Vash aches to hold her, but he knows it would be for his own comfort only. The rest of him is drowning in self-loathing. You did this to her.
The bedside lamp comes on, casting the room in low, warm light and Wolfwood gets up, pads toward the kitchen.
He should go help, find anything to keep his hands busy. Why didn't he think of the tea first? Useless. But it feels wrong to leave Meryl on her own, too. Not that he can help. He never can when it matters.
Beside him, Meryl unfurls some, face appearing from where it was hidden behind her arms. Her eyes feel heavy on him and Vash shifts, fighting the urge to flee.
“It was the day Knives took your arm." She pauses, expression twisting like she's straining against the truth. "Well, it was part of it, at least.”
Vash stares blankly at the wall ahead, hand clenched in his lap. She does not always share which of the memories that he'd pushed on her seizes her at night, emerging like beasts in the dark to tear into her subconscious. The one time they'd talked about it, Meryl admitted there are often too many to untangle and follow, just as it had been at Dragon’s Nest.
He doesn't know how she can lay here now, without coiling away in anger or fear, like she had done just after, and the memory stands like a gravestone to something tender and important he can never give back to her.
We all had to pay a price, she'd said plainly that one time, but he has gouged it from her and for what? It had bought neither time nor second chances, given nothing but misery that haunts her through the years.
“I am sorry," Vash manages and it sounds so hollow it makes him want to throw up. There are not enough human languages, dead or alive, to express his remorse.
"I saw a memory of your pain and you're apologizing to me?” Meryl sounds more like herself now and definitely incredulous. She reaches out, hand trembling slightly, and settles over his own. He almost flinches away from it. Her grip tightens, like she knows. Maybe she does - either because she's been swept through the storm of his mind or because he's spent years running. But he sought her guiding light at the end of it all.
“That's one of the things that is so hard about it - hurting both as you and as the witness of it. That there is nothing I can do to help, this is just the past I cannot rewrite or save you from.”
Vash squeezes his eyes shut, trying to suppress hot tears that flood them. Her kindness knows no bounds and it flays his undeserving soul. The guilt churns in him like a wheel of wings.
As he tries to keep from crying, some other truth he's kept onto for ages bubbles out, burning all the way: “Maybe if I was gone, you'd be free from this."
Meryl stills, like she's forgotten how to breathe and he hangs his head down with a choked sob. Everything he does, says, is — just makes everything worse.
“That's nonsense you have no basis for. What's in my head is there to stay. You won't take it away with distance.” Her voice is firm and even, but Vash knows the undercurrent of anger when he hears it. He's earned it a hundred times over.
But he wishes he was so sure that there isn't a tether between them that he could sever with drastic enough measures.
The bed creaks slightly as Meryl sits up and her hand leaves his, only to cup his cheek as her other does the same. “Look at me, Vash."
He does, takes her serious expression in through the blur. It is hard to meet her eyes, but he'd bear this discomfort a thousand times if it meant taking away some of hers. His first tears run down his face and into her palms.
“Vash. I don't need you to fix this," she says with severity and he wants to argue that it doesn't mean he shouldn't try. Meryl continues before he can: “But I do need you to stay.“
Her demeanor shatters then, lip trembling as her eyes fill with tears, too. “Please. Just stay."
Vash crumbles forward, unable to look at her anymore, and Meryl pulls him forward until he's sobbing in the crook of her neck, her arms wrapped around him as she trembles too. His hand grips the side of her T-shirt, twisting the fabric with remnants of anger he has for himself.
How selfish of him, to have her keep him close when she doesn't like contact after these night terrors. How selfish of him to want to live even if it means she will never be free from the part of him that haunts her. How selfish, selfish, selfish to be relieved.
He hears Wolfwood enter the room and stiffens in Meryl's arms, but she doesn't let him go. There's soft clinking of mugs as they're set on the bedside table and then the other man climbs into the bed, behind Vash. Curling around his form, Wolfwood embraces his waist, wordlessly pressing his face into Vash's scarred shoulder and just holds him.
It only makes everything worse because they should be comforting Meryl in whatever form she needs them to, but instead it's about him again.
“I am sorry, I am sorry," Vash repeats into Meryl's skin and she runs hand soothingly over his nape.
“I am not, I wouldn't trade this for anything, least of all a couple more restful nights.” She sounds so confident that it only makes him cry harder. To be wanted might never stop being overwhelming.
They hold him until his tears run dry and then some more, until the discomfort of position outweighs comfort and then they release Vash, but he's still pressed between them. Wolfwood shifts so he can wipe some excess tears from both Vash's and Meryl's faces away and then sighs: “Bet the tea's gotten cold.”
Meryl rolls her eyes and reaches for the mug anyway. "Lukewarm, it's fine.”
"If sleepin’ ain't on the cards, we might as well move to the kitchen for a fresh batch ‘n some food,” Wolfwood suggests with a stretch. Vash glances at the clock: 4:23am. Not the earliest they've started their day.
“Couldn't hurt," Meryl agrees and shifts off the bed. Vash shuffles after her, because where she goes now, he follows. And Wolfwood has always kept his back safe.
In an hour, Meryl is laughing about something or other and Wolfwood catches Vash's eye over the table, nodding subtly. Like he's saying you are allowed to have this. We are.
The trouble with wanting you is I want you (and I want you all the time)
Wolfwood's sunglasses are broken and he's having a rough time about it. Vash does something about it and Meryl has some questions.
| Teen | Mashwood | Also on AO3 |
| Pining | Flirting | Light Angst | First Kiss | HEA fluff | Wolfwood's beautiful brown eyes appreciation |
It is said it took one final straw to break the camel's back.
Wolfwood might not know what a camel is, but he still deeply relates to it at this moment.
He suspects the straw will be shaped like a lanky gunman in a red coat, turning around a corner and waving cheerily.
Wolfwood pretends he didn't see Vash, hopes he will take the hint. He doesn't feel like wasting his break from manual labor for spare change on chatter.
There is pressure behind his eyes, kicking at his temples, and weight in his chest that tangles his thoughts and drags them down roads he doesn't want to wander, least of all in company.
(How Eye of Michael pays him in borrowed lifetime of teal vials, in bullets and thin promises, but not coin. How Chapel would mock him for not earning his wages with paid kills. How the store keeper smiled and gave him a few suckers before his break, like he was a kid with knuckles that haven't been stained red with the blood of others.)
Of course, solitude is too much to ask.
Vash hops on a stack of crates next to him. Dusty boots enter Wolfwood's peripheral vision at uneven rhythm as the blond swings his legs.
It makes Wolfwood grit his teeth in annoyance that he knows is unproportional to the offense, but he has been on edge ever since he tripped, spilled his guts under hail of bullets and broke his sunglasses three towns ago.
He'd liked that pair, damnit. And it had been his last one.
Wolfwood takes a deep drag of his cigarette, holds the smoke in, in, in until lack of oxygen burns more than the sunlight piercing his skull and then exhales.
“Don't ya have something better to do than follow me around? Shortstack will be whinging about expenses again all night if you don't pitch in.”
“Oh, we already finished repairing the ranch fence, actually,” Vash perks up visibly at being addressed. Wolfwood doesn't have to look at him to know he is grinning. So he doesn't.
Shit’s too bright around here as is.
“Here.” A bottle green hand suddenly holds a pair of sunglasses in front of Wolfwood's face.
When he doesn't react in any way, Vash jumps down from his seat and wiggles the sunglasses. “Your old pair broke a while ago, didn't it?” he asks as if he hadn't seen Wolfwood trying to tape it back together and rejecting Meryl's repeated offer of her own pair when she caught him squinting and shrinking in the back seat.
“I don't need them,” he says automatically. It's something he's learned well, even before he stopped being a child on that steel table. When new shoes and clothes were handed out at the orphanage or he pushed the only ice cream cone he has had in Livio’s hand after his brother's had fallen in the sand of Hopeland town square. (Nevermind that he still remembers how frail and dry the waffle was, how exotic the cool sweetness had felt on his tongue.)
Vash's smile tilts into something almost sad for a split second, before he nods. “Sure, but you're ruining the group’s look, since the rest of us got a cool pair. Besides, Meryl already helped me buy ‘em, so might as well use them.”
In a swift movement, he plops them in Wolfwood's hair. “They're gonna look good on you, I promise. I am going to miss seeing your pretty eyes clearly, but that's a price to pay for style.”
The statement disarms him, slips sharp surprise between his ribs and steals his breath. Vash says it in that soft, earnest tone he reserves for weighed moments, but he has to be lying, joking, something.
No one's called Wolfwood pretty anything without needing something from him. But he's already given Vash everything, except honesty and even that breaks through sometimes.
What's more, Vash pairs it with one of those looks that Wolfwood doesn't know how to read, even though his life depends on such things. On anyone else, he'd think it affection, fondness, something achingly more even. But it's him and it's Vash. Most importantly, it's Wolfwood that doesn't go in the same sentence with any of those feelings.
“Shut up,” he says so very eloquently and pulls the glasses down on his face, relief spreading tentative, fragile wings in Wolfwood's chest. His cracked outer shell can begin mending.
Vash gives him an appraising look and then two thumbs up with a wide grin. “Looks great. Now we all match again!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, some of us got work to do,” he pushes past the gunman. Strategic retreat is the only thing that can save him now, make up for the heat in his face.
Later, he’ll tell Vash they ain't too shabby and the other man will know it for the thanks it will be.
---
In the evening, they usually all come together at whatever passes for the watering hole at their current stop. Today is no different and Wolfwood finds himself squished between Vash and Milly in their little booth.
The latter had exclaimed happily about his new pair of sunglasses and how well they suit him and before he could help it, Wolfwood had looked at Vash, who was cheerily agreeing, and then Meryl who had stared him down mutely. That had somehow felt worse than her outright disagreeing. It'd been too much like she saw past and through him.
Other than that, it is the same like any other evenings that he doesn't count and gather like stolen treasure at all. Vash’s arm is around his shoulders after he'd reached to tap Milly to get her attention for something and Wolfwood is trying to be less aware of it and failing as usual.
Meryl sits across from him, already loosening up with drink in her hand, kicking Vash over some remark but hitting Wolfwood instead beneath the table. He grouses about her aim and they bicker briefly, but frankly his heart isn't in it. Especially when Vash rubs the “injured” leg’s thigh soothingly and forgets to remove his hand.
They're a lot like this, in peaceful evenings with laughter and jokes, casual touches like he isn't a pus filled blister ready to burst.
He fears how he enjoys being included and seen in a way that settles like warmth in his gut, teased but not scorned. It's easy to forget himself like this, caught in Vash’s bright eyes a moment too long or following the curve of Meryl's smile when she tilts her head back, laughing.
They make him weak, the haunting of Chapel whispers in his ear. Soft and cowardly, hesitating to shoot fatally when he knows Vash’s face will fall. Tremor up his spine when he doesn't know if he will shield Meryl in time. She is capable, he knows, and still, the alternative scares him. Vash’s blood twists his gut in knots, in sense of failure, and he is losing sight of Hopeland, of Livio, isn't he-
His spiraling thoughts are interrupted by fingers brushing his, before snatching his whiskey glass away. There he goes, lowering his guard again, part of him yells, but the rest is entranced with Meryl taking a sip from his drink, licking a drop away from her lower lip before handing the glass back to him. “Thought they forgot to put the booze in it, with how quiet you're being.”
“Y’all talk enough for the four of us. Can't a man enjoy his drink in peace,” he retaliates, sinking deeper in the tough cushions of his seat. The smooth glass surface is cool in his hand, no trace of Meryl's warmth left, but as he spins it, a faint lipstick mark catches his eye.
He shouldn't, Wolfwood knows, and yet he still brings it to his lips, imagining briefly how her mouth would slot against his, how she would taste like whiskey now and mark his lips as she'd marked the glass.
He wipes the traces of her off the glass with his thumb harshly after. Enough indulging, enough spinning your pretty eyes in his mind. Enough enough enough. When Milly gets up to refill their drink, he stands up, too.
“Going to get some fresh air,” he throws over his shoulder at Vash’s inquiry and speeds up, before the blond decides to come with.
The night is cold and clear, two of the moons casting streets in harsh light-shadow play. There is a bench a little ways from the saloon's porch and Wolfwood throws himself on it, lights a cigarette. How easily they get under his skin with needles of wanting. Isn't he done being sewn and remade by others?
The inhale-exhale of familiar taste eases his mind slowly. It's just a desire, it will pass. It's a rare and fleeting visitor with him. Or it was, before Vash and Meryl. These days, he's left wanting more things than he has a name for.
It's worse on nights like these, when it takes so little pretending to see the want being mutual. That the touches linger more than they should between friends, that Vash looks at his mouth and inhales sharply before tearing his gaze away, that Meryl presses close to him for more than lack of space. It's easy to think of times they've mended each other, held on as someone cries and felt safest when they are huddled together in a tent, warm breath against Wolfwood’s collarbone.
To want them, want them both is greedy, impossible and as all sin, it consumes him whole. He was never made for moderation or passing through Heaven’s gate. He-
The saloon door opens, music and overlapping noise spilling out briefly, before familiar steps approach.
“Hey,” Meryl says as if he could truly ignore her standing in front of him. Wind picks up and immediately musses her hair, makes her pull her jacket closer around her.
“Go back inside,” he tells her instead of wrapping her in his jacket, in his arms to shield her from the cold.
“Fresh air doesn't belong to only you,” Meryl scoffs before tilting head back to look at the moons and inhaling deeply, as if to prove her point.
He finds it irrationally charming and hides his smile behind a cigarette.
“Vash picked out a nice pair for you in the end, I am glad,” Meryl interrupts the quickly settling silence, turning to look at him head on.
“Didn't have to bother,” he grumbles, ducking head down a little. He hasn't finished untangling his feelings about the earlier to add Meryl into the mix.
Meryl shifts, stepping closer. “It's easier now, right? The light.”
Admitting it's been a palpable relief is revealing weakness and having accepted them for any other reason, such as he likes having them or he can't deny Vash anything is hardly better. But she’s not going to leave without a response and maybe he’s tired of bold faced lies for tonight. So, he grunts an affirmative.
Meryl smiles at that, like it’s a relief to her somehow. But she’s not satisfied just yet, it seems. “I am curious, though. Do you need them even at night to be comfortable?”
Wolfwood tenses a little, weighing his options. “Don't need ‘em,” he says after a moment, knowing that he's opened the road for a dozen more questions he has no answers for, like a fool he is. The tipsy part of him wants to see where this is going, though.
Meryl grins as if he’d just given his soft underbelly for her to sink teeth into. (Her mouth on his skin, trailing lower– Stop.)
“Can I take them off, then?” she leans in, hands hooked behind her back as if she's holding back from reaching out.
“What? Why would ya do that?” He's too taken aback to play nonchalant, hand with cigarette frozen midway to his lips. “Ya have your own pair, leave mine alone," Wolfwood tries to recover, shut the conversation down like it has singed him. Curiosity killed the wolf in sheep’s clothing, not just the cat it seems.
Meryl hums, a simple, soft thing and he figures she must be slightly more drunk than it easily shows. She's got to be, for the next thing out of her mouth is: "I want to see your eyes properly.”
He takes a drag of his smoke, relieved his hand isn't vibrating like something in his chest is. Which makes little sense - Wolfwood isn’t flustered, like some teenage boy. “What do ya want that for?” It sounds stupid to his own ears, the repeated questions, but nothing else comes to mind, no quippy retorts or deflections.
Besides, surely, if he keeps asking why she will back down eventually, tipsy forwardness taking her only so far. It better be soon, because Wolfwood doesn't know how many more answers he can take.
He's in for at least one more and it punches air out of his lungs effortlessly.
Meryl smiles and takes another step forward, but her voice is serious: “They’re beautiful and I like to know when you're looking at me."
“You’re drunk," Wolfwood tries to dismiss it and the storm it has kicked up in his heart. Not her too. Why have they ganged up on him today of all days? There’s heat rising in his face and his gaze skips away from her, somewhere across the street. If he looks at her, he -
She shifts in his peripheral vision, sitting down on the bench next to him. So near their thighs are touching, shoulders brushing. Unnecessarily close. Momentarily there is an urge to pull away from it, from the temptation to press even closer still, stealing that warmth and connection he doesn’t have the right to. But he won’t behave like some startled thoma, fleeing from a misplaced touch.
Meryl continues, unaware of his stupid inner turmoil: "A little. But it's true! I understand you need them, but I wanna see more of your face in the rearview mirror sometimes. Or when we are drinking together and the lights are dim. Especially then."
He chokes on smoke a little, sputtering a cough and she pats his back several times, before leaving her hand rest there. Wolfwood wonders for a second if she has a fever, because the heat of it seeps through his suit and shirt so quickly, so deeply that he feels nearly branded by her tiny palm.
Meryl leans into his view, a small smile on her face, but there’s a wavering edge to it and he can tell her drunken courage is flagging. “Can I?” she asks again, her voice more quiet now.
It would be easy to say no or just to ignore her entirely. It should be easy, at least. To brush her off until she withdraws and maybe learns her lesson to not touch the tainted mess he is. That he can’t be held and only knows how to cut.
But he doesn’t want to. Again like he hasn’t outgrown wanting things, like there’s space left in him for more than the wish to protect the orphanage, the guilt of that thought having haunted him for weeks now. Now, Wolfwood’s heart is hammering in his throat, fearful anticipation of her pulling away or letting this moment continue filling his chest.
Instead of answering, he puts all too much focus into putting out the stub of his cigarette with his heel and feeling around in his pocket for a new one, but the fresh pack is in his room, goddamnit.
Then, Meryl’s smile drops a fraction at his prolonged silence and he reacts to it like a gun fired; faster than his brain can really process. “Sure, whatever.”
She brightens immediately and reaches for his glasses, fingertips brushing over his cheekbones before she removes them carefully, folding them gingerly and placing beside her, lenses up. Wolfwood faces forward again, tries not to think about how the warm handprint on his back is fading quickly.
The street is awash in moonlight, brighter and softer both now, without the tinted glass. And so is Meryl, when she takes his face in her hands and turns him towards her again. “Said I wanna look at you,” she explains softly, not withdrawing her touch.
His cheeks are burning and he doesn’t know where to look, finally settling on her face in case he can read her next move. Meryl’s eyes are focused on him with all too much clarity, but oddly, it doesn’t feel awful to be observed like this. There is… No, Wolfwood cannot name what it might be in her gaze. It doesn’t mean anything. None of this does, can mean anything. All of them have been saying things without weight the entire day, they have to have.
“You really are so handsome,” Meryl sighs, thumbs gently rubbing across his skin, defiant of his thoughts. His hands come to pull hers away - this is too much, he isn't for being held softly and if he lets it carry on, only more want will sprout and tie him down by her, by Vash's side.
But when Wolfwood’s fingers lock around her frail wrists, it's already too late and he can't find the strength to do so. It would take no more than the slightest tug, but instead he's holding onto her like it grounds him. If only it did. His heart is still racing away and thoughts are drowning in a flood of emotion.
“Thanks for indulging me," she says and he's at a loss for an answer. What he knows is that Meryl looks beautiful, gazing up at him with a smile, moonlight playing in her hair and eyes. And that he'd do so much for that smile, as he would for Vash’s true ones. Even if it means cutting himself open so that she could touch the softest parts of him that no one has, the ones he'd thought he'd never grown at all.
"It's… nothing,” Wolfwood manages to say, one final attempt to write all of this off. She frowns at him and shakes her head vigorously.
"Not for me," she insists and then her eyes widen as an idea occurs to her nearly audibly. He stiffens in her hold, apprehensive of what she's thought of. Is it that she's realized she's giving the wrong idea? Is it that he's leaning into the contact like a stray that yearns for a home and it's too much -
Her lips press sweetly to his, a simple but lingering kiss that leaves him too stunned to reciprocate. But Meryl doesn't seem to mind, smiling contentedly as she pulls away.
Wolfwood inhales the cold night air deeply, sharply and then, before he can think about it, chases after her, kissing her the best he knows how to. She melts into it immediately, melts into his arms as he wraps them around her, pulling her closer still.
She tastes like whiskey she stole from his glass and cheap beer underneath it, and something sweet and he feels drunk on all of it. Their noses bump and Meryl giggles against his mouth, slows their kiss into something more intentional. He follows her lead, eager to learn for once.
When they part for air, she burrows head in the crook of his neck and giggles. “I'm so happy," her voice is muffled, but earnest. Wolfwood swallows thickly and holds her tighter, hoping it will convey the same sentiment.
Because if he were to speak, words too big would tumble out. Words like I think I love you and it will kill me someday.
---
Love does almost kill him.
It also brings him back.
These days, he doesn't think about it much. He just lives, lives in love. Day by day with its little tribulations of grumpy Meryl before her coffee or corralling her to sleep when she's too deep into her work, of Vash's antics at the orphanage or in their kitchen.
There are their nightmares, too, and pains that have settled deep in his bones. A tremble to Wolfwood’s hands that makes him nick his fingers when he is carving wood like he is now. But all of it seems small to what has been endured before. Most of the time, anyway.
He is humming along to the tune in the radio when Vash almost trips on the threshold with speed he's rushing out. Wolfwood gives him a questioning look, but the blond is already leaning back into the house and yelling: “I was right, come now!"
Wolfwood leans back into the rocking chair, enjoying the slight breeze on the roofed patio of their little house, and gives his husband a quizzical look. Vash is already settling in the chair next to him, looking very content.
Meryl doesn't rush out with quite the same energy, but there's definitely pep to her step. She comes over to give him a kiss on the cheek before settling in Vash's lap, arm thrown around his broad shoulders.
Wolfwood ignores them for a few minutes, but there is only so much staring one can endure. "Is there something on my face?” he asks, setting his work down on the small table and focusing on his partners.
"Rather, it's that there isn't,” Meryl says cryptically, before truly explaining, "you don't have your sunglasses on.”
It's been happening more lately - that he forgets them around the house, most often on the entrance table, because the lights are soft and even out here on the patio, he's safe from the glare of the suns. Perhaps it is also that he is no longer taking the vials and the extreme light sensitivity is subsiding as the content slowly cycles out of his system, as much as it is possible.
What matters is, frequently, his wife and husband take time away from their tasks (Vash more often than Meryl because she has work ethics) to just come spend time with him and look appreciatively when he does forgo the sunglasses.
Wolfwood would be annoyed if he didn't understand that it's not about the sunglasses. Instead, they're taking time to be with him when he is truly comfortable and bask in what hadn't been a guarantee. (His white hair is forever a testament to that.) The knowledge fills his chest with warmth, so much of it is almost too hot to bear and if he isn’t careful, presses behind his unguarded eyes.
He is determined not to let that happen today and grumbles for the show of it. Then stands up, stretches. Something pops in his back and shoulder that he strained retiling their roof. No more coming back unscathed from life’s minor scuffles. It was always a dangerous loan of recovery, anyway.
But he has better things to think about. “Well, I better let ya appreciate me up close then," Wolfwood says, a second before plopping in Vash's lap as well, eliciting yelp from Meryl who gets squished between both men. It takes them a moment to rearrange, now with Meryl in his lap, but when they're settled, he feels soul deep contentment settle over him. The sort he couldn’t have imagined possible even a couple years ago, the sort that would’ve frightened him back then.
Vash rubs the early setting crows feet by his eyes and Wolfwood can tell he's venturing where he shouldn't in his thoughts again. But before he can do anything about it, Vash seems to shake off the melancholy, grins. "So very generous of you, Nico, to grant us such a view of your beautiful eyes.”
“The face isn't too bad either," Meryl adds, as if she doesn't call him handsome daily.
And instead of denying it, out loud or even in his heart, Wolfwood just laughs and kisses them both.
From your mouth through mine, with those words that gently filled my lungs
It's the perfect morning, the sort out of dreams that singe Wolfwood's fingertips, until he ruins it by saying things they can't have.
"She reaches forward suddenly, fingers tangling in his rosary and pulls him towards her. He goes easily, propping on his elbows, when Meryl leans in, so close their lips are almost touching and blows smoke into his eagerly open mouth.
Wolfwood inhales deeply, hungrily, almost like trying to taste her in it. She takes another drag and repeats it and he feels heady, lightheaded with it. Tipsy just from her proximity, but it isn't enough."
| Stryfewood | Post Julai, pre-Stargaze | Also on Ao3 |
| Morning sex | Pining | Shotgunning while fucking | Accidental love confession| Porn with feelings | The whole deal |
Consciousness comes slowly to Wolfwood. That in itself is a treat - not having to wake fully alert, ready to grab the Punisher and move, move. A treat that is laced with danger. Just because his guard is down and he is sinking in warmth, awareness bobbing on the waves of sleep, doesn't mean it's actually safe or will stay so.
But for now, no one is knocking on the door and there are no gunshots in the distance. It's just a comforting presence pressed to his back, arm wrapped around his waist. Sleepily, he burrows into it, like he could make the sense of safety consume him whole if he was insistent enough. A beautiful dream that will singe his fingertips later.
The arm tightens its hold and a leg he's becoming aware of tries to move deeper between his thighs. It must've been there for a while, because now it's even more firmly pressed to his hard-on. He groans and rubs his face against the rough pillow, various sensations finally dragging him into full wakefulness.
Meryl sighs and nuzzles into the space between his shoulder blades. His skin prickles into gooseflesh because something about it makes him feel so exposed. A gun barrel placed there could extinguish his worthless life. And someone would cry over him.
It's knowledge that doesn't sit pretty and light in his gut, hasn't since Meryl had sobbed holding him as a vial brought him from a painful brink to nothingness. Instead it presses sharp edged in whatever softness that remains in him, the one he'd thought he'd clawed out of him at the behest of even crueller hands or burned away as a fallen star of a man fell to the city below. Because of him.
She knows and still holds him, begging him to stay as his wounds knit themselves together, or in the late nights when they're tangled in each other, desperate to touch and feel and sometimes comfort. Or like this, simply and sweetly in early mornings, when the world has yet to expand beyond the edges of the bed they share.
Wolfwood has to abruptly close the door to the image of the future where this is every day. That's just asking for trouble. He should leave today or tomorrow, take a break so his thoughts settle. Meryl will understand. They're after all still on a pointless search. (Nevermind that a tender twine of hope frays painfully further every time they stumble upon a lead that turns out to be false. It would be easier if it didn't have such resilience and finally broke for good.)
But that will be later. Right now, he's still here with Meryl and though his arousal has subsided some, the urge to touch her has doubled. He wants to drink in as much as he can before he goes, a wish that contradicts the distance he will put between them. But Wolfwood has never claimed to be an entirely logical man.
He turns as carefully as he can, though he knows this will wake Meryl nonetheless. She yawns and burrows her head in the space beneath his chin, making his plan to press a kiss to her hair difficult. Probably for the better.
Her thigh brushes against his flagging erection and he stifles a noise. This seems to get Meryl's attention, though. “Someone's awake," she says against his collarbone and presses a kiss there. Her hand begins to wander across his chest as her thigh moves with more intention against him, heat pressing through the layers he's wearing.
Wolfwood feels a little too distracted for a clever remark, but silence feels too self-exposing. "Can ya blame a guy, waking up in bed with a pretty lady rubbing up against ‘im.”
“Wow, compliments so early in the morning? I should do this more often." The casualness of it lodges somewhere in his chest, almost pushing out the admission he could praise her for hours if she wanted him to. That he often does in his thoughts, when she isn't driving him crazy with altruism or being too detail obsessed. And sometimes even then. She is too good, too well-intentioned and yet fierce about making it reality. She is…
Kissing him. Sweetly to start off, but then her tongue presses against his lips and he gladly grants it entrance. Still, Meryl is leisurely about it, exploring his mouth slowly. He lets her, hand cradling her face for a while before it begins to caress down her arm and back up, to cup her breast, run his thumb over the stiffening nipple.
She moans and returns the gesture, squeezing his pec. He's discovered she's quite appreciative of his tits and he's abused it by having them as a distraction when she's lecturing him again. It works half the time, depending how angry she is.
After sucking on his tongue, Meryl pulls away to kiss his scruffy jaw and throat, leaving a few lovebites as she goes that have him rutting against her leg. But she stops properly only when she's facing his chest. Briefly she presses lips to a bruise from last night and then laps at his nipple. He moans, hand skidding over skin, settling on the back of her neck, fingers splayed.
She pushes him on his back to have full access, leg slotting between his still. He goes easily, knowing she always has his well being in mind. Awareness of that trust has him arching into her mouth when she bites down on top of his tits. Pain and pleasure twists together, making him crave more of that carefully dosed sting. And Meryl generously gives, kissing and biting her way across his chest, sometimes sucking and pinching at his nipples, moving his rosary out of the way as needed. He grinds against her leg, desperate for any friction as heat coils in his belly.
“Meryl," he gasps as she leaves a particularly intense mark. It goes straight to his cock, adding another layer to his already almost overflowing pleasure.
"That's it, let go,” she says, not quite like a command, but combined with her pushing her thigh several times in quick succession against him, it throws him over the edge.
She kisses him through it, hand carding through his hair in soothing motions until he's just a panting mess beneath her. There's a self satisfied twinkle in her blue eyes as she smiles down on him and he'd take being embarrassed about coming barely touched a thousand times if only he could keep her like this forever. (Honestly, not a hard bargain at all.)
He surges up to taste her grin and twists them as he shucks his pants and underwear off and kicks it off the bed in an exercise of dexterity that really should be remarked on. Maybe it's not as smooth as he'd have liked and their teeth bump together, but it gets the job done.
Their kiss breaks as she laughs softly, hands wandering over his shoulders and back. Wolfwood wants to bottle the sound, sip it slowly like finest whiskey on nights of his exile. So he doesn't say that or the three words that would doom them both even more, he busies his mouth kissing beneath her ear, pulling a shudder from Meryl.
He takes his time, returning the favor of marking her up between going back for more kisses, simply luxuriating in the closeness. Drinks in the soft noises he draws from her, warmth of her skin, shape of her mouth against his, the way she clings to him ever tighter. Like he's more than a pile of shards, sharp edged and callously cruel to anyone who might touch. Even Meryl isn't an exception because he will leave. But for now, he is held and she's moaning his name and that's all he needs.
His actual name, kept contained to private moments when they're skin to skin or she's soothing him, cradling his heart gently without even knowing what power she has. Nicholas has never sounded so good as it does coming from her. It makes him feel like a person almost.
When he finally touches where she's been trying to direct him to, she's so hot and wet against his fingers. Meryl muffles her louder moans in his shoulder but he pulls away. “Wanna hear," Wolfwood tells her, taking in how flushed and well kissed she looks. For and because of him.
Meryl blushes deeper, the flush darkening all the way to her chest. He considers chasing it with his lips. "That's…” He drags his fingers through her folds, parting them just so they brush close but not against her clit. She whines, sinking teeth in her lip. He pulls it free as he kisses her again, teasing more.
She wiggles, trying to get him to touch where she wants, but he's insistent. Close, closer still, but not enough. Meryl makes a frustrated huff and shifts her head away from his kisses, but he is undeterred, kissing across her cheek, jaw and down her throat again. Patience has been drilled into him, for better or for worse.
And it pays off - she drags his head back up and moans into his ear as she shifts her hips up to grind against his fingers ineffectively. The sound goes through him, rekindling the heating embers of his arousal completely.
Wolfwood does reward her, circling her clit lightly, giving more pressure the louder she gets. The room next door should be empty by now and frankly, he doesn't care if they get a noise complaint. They'll be out in a couple hours, never to return.
“Want you," Meryl moans, fingers carding through his hair and another scratching against his back just so. He'd love it if she dug in properly.
"You have me,” he promises and tries not to think how true the statement is, how far he'd go to prove it, if life challenged him. Instead, he sinks a finger in her heat and she takes him easily, legs falling open as her hips work against him, trying to hurry the slow pace he's set.
"More. Don't tease anymore." Breathless but still so demanding. He wants to be part of the world that yields to her. So he adds two more fingers, speeding up. She draws him in for a sloppy kiss before her head presses back into the pillow, back arching as he finds her sweet spot.
Wolfwood kisses down her exposed throat, before pulling back to appreciate the view, as far as her arms allow him. She's close, and the fact they know each other's bodies so well and that he still hungers for more, more in ways he scarcely has words for, sits like scalding awareness in the back of his mind. He focuses instead on Meryl and her pleasure and is rewarded with a beautiful cry of his name as she comes.
Briefly, he wishes it had been his head between her thighs instead of his hand. But there is always a next time and the thought doesn't terrify him as much as it should.
He gentles his touch slowly before withdrawing when it gets too much for her. Licks his fingers clean and settles in next to Meryl propped up on one elbow, tracing random patterns over her side and stomach. She captures his hand and brings to her lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles one by one and his heart constricts and lurches almost audibly. It's too much, he doesn't deserve it, he-
“If I was tickling ya, could've just said that," Wolfwood says, voice hoarse, and pulls his hand away, resting on his side. A shadow passes across Meryl's face and he knows he's done it again: hurt her in some way he doesn't understand. But how could he tell her that if she continued, he’d dissolve into something she'd never be able to wash herself clean of.
He can't afford it, there is still work to do. Distance to keep, to lie to himself she will be safe if they come after him. He still has to find the truth of what became of the one whose name burns even in the privacy of Wolfwood's mind. Maybe then she can finally rest and grieve. Nothing would give him such a right.
Wolfwood rolls on his back and reaches for his smokes. He's been awake for too long without a cigarette and he's starting to feel it, even if the morning activities were completely worth it. And then he almost drops his lighter when Meryl’s hand wraps around his member, giving it a few idle strokes.
“Doesn't seem you're all tuckered out yet,” she says. The brief quiet and knock of reality hasn't abated his arousal all that much, especially not with how she looks just after an orgasm. He'd love to give her another one if the mood isn't entirely ruined.
"Yeah? Gonna do somethin’ about it?” he asks as he takes a drag from the cigarette. She's got that mischievous look on her face again that he can't get enough of, even when he's on the receiving end of her scheming.
"I might have an idea or two.” Meryl sits up and swings leg over his hips, slowly lowering herself until he slides against her slick folds. They both moan at the sensation.
She repeats the motion several times before shifting so he is sliding against her sex directly, coating him in her slick. Her fingers scratch over his abdomen as she leverages herself. He untucks his left arm from beneath his head in favor of caressing up her leg until settling on her hip. She is taking her time with this, with him.
He isn't paying enough attention to his smoke and almost burns through the filter when his cock catches on her entrance and she throws her head back with a moan. The sound wrung out of him is too loud in his own ears, but her smile says she liked it.
If she keeps it up, he might come just like this again, he thinks. But Wolfwood doesn't want to hurry her. As an apology of sorts. And more selfishly, because it feels special to hold onto the lie they have all the time in the world. That they can be so leisurely to draw pleasure out instead of chasing it down. This whole morning has been a beautiful indulgence in a dream. (To have and to hold-)
He stubs his cigarette out carelessly, temporarily satisfied. Meryl grinds against his length one more time before stalling above him. She sinks slowly, inch by inch, until their hips meet and she stills with a satisfied sigh. His grip on her hip has tightened as the hot, tight heat envelopes him at a torturous pace.
“You feel so good," she says, so simply, that Wolfwood doesn't know what to respond other than stupid you too or not as good as you, so he pulls her in for a kiss instead. He has to sit up a little for her to reach which jostles them and they moan against each other's lips.
For a short while, they just kiss, joined as they are, hands exploring each other. Then Meryl pushes him gently back down and begins moving. It's still gratuitously slow, but there is pleasure in that. Like this, he has the chance to marvel at the muscles in her legs working, follow a sweat drop rolling down between her breasts, enjoy the golden light playing across her skin as it peeks through the blinds.
It's so simple, so unburdened that his chest feels too tight. He lights another cigarette as she speeds up, making the process take longer than it should.
Meryl scowls a little, enough to make him pay attention, but not yet genuinely upset. “Bored?"
“Never bored with ya, sweetheart." How could he be? There may be another with Typhoon in his name, but she's a storm in her own right, kicking up sand where she goes and digging up old truths. If only she were as invulnerable as one. He'd have to fear less then.
She hums, before leaning forward and plucking the cigarette from his lips. He lets her because there is nothing he'd not let her do to him. Hasn't already. Guarding his back in a fight, having him bent over a coffee table - his cock twitches in memory and Meryl quirks an eyebrow at him before taking a drag, hips still moving.
She has done this enough on nights when nightmares are too tangible, to not choke on the smoke. Meryl exhales towards the ceiling and he is mesmerized by the sight, sensation of her taking lazy pleasure from him.
Without changing pace, she smokes for a minute and he feels a little twitchy, between the urge to move his hips and craving the cigarette she'd stolen.
Her eyes lock with his, on the next inhale. She reaches forward suddenly, fingers tangling in his rosary and pulls him towards her. He goes easily, propping on his elbows, when Meryl leans in, so close their lips are almost touching and blows smoke into his eagerly open mouth.
Wolfwood inhales deeply, hungrily, almost like trying to taste her in it. She takes another drag and repeats it and he feels heady, lightheaded with it. Tipsy just from her proximity, but it isn't enough. He needs her closer still, so close he can briefly borrow her goodness and conviction as if it were his own, when he cannot tell where he ends and Meryl begins.
She continues to tease him, lips barely brushing with each shared exhale-inhale, until a sound much like please tumbles out of him. Meryl regards him with heavy lidded eyes, a smile curling on her lips just so, and like this (like always when he allows himself to dwell on it for a moment), she's a vision that seizes his heart, leaves him breathless.
She wraps her lips around the cigarette again, inhaling deeply, and he's never wanted to be an inanimate object more for a reason that isn't a wish to be numb. But she must've taken pity on him, because her hips snap down hard as she kisses him, pleasure and smoke rippling through him. Wolfwood moans into her, chases her lips when she pulls away.
She comes back with another breath of smoke in a moment, giving it to him as she rides him harder. His head, his lungs are full of her, she's enveloping him entirely. There is only her. Meryl, Meryl, Meryl - he realizes at some point he's begun chanting, panting her name against her mouth. He doesn't stop, can't even.
His eyes flutter briefly shut, overwhelmed, and she tugs on the rosary wordlessly. Their gazes meet and he's caught in the blue, caught in her like he's been for a year now. The warmth in her eyes makes him want to cry - he doesn't deserve this and never her. He has her fooled somehow, deceived his way into her affection, her bed, and one day she will see it. Selfishly, Wolfwood hopes that day is far away, even though every hour spent like this will hurt her more eventually. Even in this, he cannot be kind.
“Nico," she says so softly it hurts, like the name and its bearer is precious and deserving of gentleness, cupping his jaw. The rosary beads still wrapped around Meryl's fingers press into his skin, warm from her touch. Her thumb brushes over his cheek back and forth and grounds him in the moment, not the future. He turns his face into her touch, presses a kiss to her palm. Whatever sweetness he can pretend to have, he wants to give it all to Meryl.
She turns his face towards her again, leaning in slowly to share another smoke laden breath with him. She lingers, tongue tangling with his, and the separation is marked by flakes of hot ash falling onto his chest. It's not enough to make him really flinch, but his hips stutter beneath her nonetheless. Meryl regards him for a moment, expression inscrutable, before lifting off to tap the rest of the ash against the edge of an ashtray. He'd make a fitting one, but she'd never hurt him like that, even if he asked, and the knowledge thrashes in his chest.
When she sinks back down, Wolfwood makes a punched out noise. He can't touch her propped up like this, but it is a small price to pay when she comes back to fill his lungs again with smoke, with her. His thoughts blur once more, weaving around Meryl, craving more, craving the impossible - that he could inhale all of her and keep inside of him, all his and safe, and inseparable from him. To have and to hold-
Lost in the fantasy of those words, he doesn't even notice the cigarette coming to an end until she extinguishes the last of it in the ashtray. Wolfwood briefly considers lighting another just to give to her, but then Meryl is pushing him back down with a firm hand as she begins to fuck him hard and fast, filthy sounds dripping from both of them. He grasps at her hip, breast, slips fingers between them to rub her, earning drawn out Nico.
“I love you, I-" spills from him in response, welling up unexpectedly from someplace deep and thinly denied, and overwhelming him, flooding him when he thought he could withstand it. On the next downstroke, Meryl comes and he follows as she tightens around him. The pleasure rips through him, scattering stars behind his eyelids as he pushes deep into her, each of her clenches prolonging the sensation.
As they come down from it, Meryl collapses forward, hot breath fanning over his chest as she pants. He wraps arms loosely around her, hand on her lower back, the other between her shoulder blades. Clarity comes back to him as they lay like this and now his heart is racing with a start of panic.
He wasn't supposed to say that. Not now or ever. Not because it's not true, Wolfwood knows with cutting awareness in this moment, but because it crashes through the lines he's drawn to preserve themselves. To protect her.
Because he will have to leave permanently one day, and if he's said it, if he's shown it's more than two lonely people falling into each other out of convenience for him, then it will add weight to his betrayal.
He hopes she didn't hear, hopes she will pretend so, if only to spare him a gentle rejection. Because Wolfwood doesn't expect anything else - how could he? He isn't made to be loved. Life has driven in that lesson hard, taking everything and everyone that might've been foolish enough to try. And that was before he'd been soaked to bone in the blood of others. Before he became a traitor to the kindest person to walk this wretched land.
It's a miracle enough that his arms can hold her gently through a hard night. That she'd allow him to. She, too, is so kind to permit him so near, after everything. To return the gesture when he is weak. He knows Meryl cares. But she cares for most - too many, in fact.
What he's spoken of is another beast entirely. One that he had spent months keeping on the edge of his heart through the day, only for it to come and curl up in the bed he shared with Meryl at night. One that chews at his hands, leaving them laden with an ache to touch her. One whose presence could turn her into a target for people who love nothing more than vulnerabilities, instead of a mere bystander.
Though who is he fooling, he's been around her too long already, she called that someone back from an edge he wasn't meant to return from. A creature as old as this world has taken interest in her. There is no safety for her left.
Still, if he had said nothing - if he runs now -, he can save her from bearing the burden of his heart. That heavy, wretched thing he'd thought was no more than twisted scrap metal and bullet shells. She's made it into something more, something that bleeds and yearns again and knows how little it deserves to be handled with care. But she will be compelled to, for her kindness runs endless.
Meryl shifts minutely on his chest and Wolfwood wonders if she can hear his heart racing. Being in contact like this, head to toe and still inside her, makes the distance he has to make burn. In another life, where he is a man and not a beast shaped as one, he'd hold her tighter, kiss her forehead. And in this wild fantasy, she has the same three words for him that she whispers against his lips.
In this world, however, his arms drop away and he glances at the clock. “If we don't hurry up, we will miss breakfast.” He hadn't even realized how long they'd slept in.
Meryl draws a shaky breath, her hands curling in fists where they'd rested on his chest. His stomach drops into some dark and familiar place. She pushes up just enough to look Wolfwood in the eyes, her own dark and serious. There's a determined downward tilt to her mouth he always wants to kiss. Now he may never get to again.
“Nicholas," she says so softly it barely reaches him, but still makes his whole body tense. He isn't ready, he doesn't want to hear how she gently refuses him. There had been comfort in the unspoken spaces, chance to skirt close to stolen scraps of what can't be.
"Will you tell me again when things are better?” Her hand cups his jaw, runs thumb across the stubble.
His stomach keeps dropping because he doesn't know- this wasn't-
His mind can't keep up as there's a burst of light and warmth exploding in his chest so large he thinks it might physically expand.
It's not a no, which makes it the most horrible wonderful thing on this planet. And she is looking at him so warmly, now that she's said what she was bracing to. A small smile on her face, all the patience for his answer. Which he cannot give.
Because to say no would be so cruel that it would make parts of his past pale in comparison. It would be denying his words in the first place, even though they've made such a tender happiness bloom on her face. Wolfwood cannot fathom rejecting this precious thread she's given him.
But he cannot make a promise either. It would be a lie, because as long as he breathes, there will never be a better, kinder time for them to love each other. This world is too cruel and would take too much to change and even if it did, if he survived that in some miraculous way, he cannot be someone else, erase who he has been. There will always be blood filling his footprints. Something would hunt and haunt him still, pull her down with him and she deserves better.
And yet. “Yes," he says, voice hoarse. The kindest lie he's ever told. One that makes him want to dream and shelter the light that comes alive in her eyes as she moves to kiss him. It tastes bittersweet as he embraces her again, but he wants to memorize every bit of it.
"I will be waiting,” Meryl tells him between kisses, cradling his face with both hands now. She's so bright he closes his eyes, feels a trickle of wet down the side of his face. Maybe for that life where she won't have to wait forever.
But for now, he can borrow from that kinder time and hold her close for as long as she wants.
Wolfwood grapples with the realization he's pack bonded with his best friends and what it could mean for the future he wants to share with them.
| Teen | Mashwood | Also on AO3 |
| Wolfwood is bad at feelings | Pre-relationship | Mild Hurt/Comfort | Nightmares | Bedsharing |
By the time Wolfwood realizes, he's already in too deep.
It starts with a playful fight over the remote control. It's not the first or the last one. Wolfwood wants to watch wrestling and annoy both Meryl and Vash with the lore, while Meryl insists on the latest whodunnit. (If Vash wasn’t preparing the snacks, he’d be fighting for the rights to watch documentaries or a romcom.) Wolfwood’s got it for now, so she tries to tackle him though doesn't succeed.
And then Meryl's teeth sink in his bicep, not enough to truly hurt, but he barely holds back a snarl and urge to wrestle her off, return the bite.
It takes him by surprise enough for her to wrench the remote from his hand and retreat to her end of the couch. His instincts tell him to pounce on her, wrestle her down on the floor if needed. Not in anger, no, a part of him is giddy with the thought, giddy over her. To play fight with a packmate, he hasn't ever since Livio left-
The thought sobers him up like a bucket of cold water.
“Wolfwood?" Meryl questions, when he sinks deep into the cushions instead of continuing their game.
“It’s fine, let's just watch your thing," he says, trying to sound nonchalant.
“I didn't hurt you, did I?" She scoots up to him, pulling up sleeve to see if she'd left a mark. He wouldn't mind if she had –
Wolfwood brushes her off, tamping down wherever that had come from. “No. I'm fine. Just a little tired."
Meryl gives him a long, hard look under which he wills the couch to swallow him whole, but doesn't say anything more before retreating to her side. Without comment, she turns on the action movie and his heart swells at her thoughtfulness.
Vash joins them a minute later, with a bit of questioning look, but thankfully doesn't ask anything directly. So they settle in and watch the movie Wolfwood barely pays attention to.
Instead, he is mentally lining up all the times the wolf has felt pleased or close to the surface around these two lately. And feels like a fool when the evidence keeps piling up.
From easy joy while playfighting to being pleased when they eat meals he's provided, to bone deep peace when they're piled together on the floor or bed, to some primal contentment when Meryl borrows his jacket and smells like his cologne for the rest of the evening. He'd thought he dealt with his wolf side better lately, but his life has been placating it the whole time, soothing away the aching loneliness that set his teeth on edge since Livio left.
When Vash rests head on his shoulder, Wolfwood ends up asking himself if it's such a bad thing. It has to be: it is lowering his guard and he'd nearly tussled with Meryl as if she was his match in strength, the wary side of him insists.
But it feels nice to feel like he's home. Like he belongs. Like he has more family than a man on the other side of the country. He has been more at peace than in ages, maybe ever.
It's just that he doesn't know how to be happy without being afraid of it. At any moment, he could crush it like a dainty porcelain teacup in monstrous claws, merely by existing. Meryl could - should - turn away and leave if she ever learned what he is, how long he's lied to her. A thousand things can go wrong. And probably will. They always have.
After the movie, he retreats to his room, followed by concerned gazes. He hates that they worry, that he isn't good enough at hiding it.
Next morning, he is greeted by cheery Vash and his favorite breakfast waiting for him and it burrows deep into his chest. Meryl runs through and he feels like sealing her laugh over some blond’s joke in a little box for safekeeping, though it's now such a familiar sound. But everything about his mates is important and always will be.
He is distracted the whole work day and comes home late. After mulling it over for an hour, he calls the only person who could understand - Livio.
“I think I have packbonded with Meryl and Vash," he starts without preamble.
“Oh? Just that?" His brother doesn't sound surprised at all, but he sure as hell is confusing.
“What do you mean?”
"Nevermind! Congratulations. I think. What do people say in cases like these?”
"Fuck if I know. What do I do now? I feel like I'll slip up, feeling safe and comfortable around them in that way. Vash already knows, but Meryl… Besides, they didn't ask for this.”
"I really don't think they'd mind if they knew. They're your best friends and housemates. Against all odds, they like you." There's way too much emphasis on ‘like’, but Wolfwood decides not to comment on it.
“What if I hurt Meryl? With the truth or because some fucked part of me thinks she's fellow wolf?” He's been thinking of that all too much for the past day. The picture painted in his mind is grotesque.
"I mean, it's not an ideal situation, but I think you're more careful and she's sturdier than you think. Besides, you had the same concerns about living together and it's been fine." He has a point, but this feels like an unexpected aspect of that worry that makes it more tangible. Still, they've gotten through half a year now…
There's another matter that weighs on Wolfwood's mind. He shifts uncomfortably, even though the other man can't see it. Out with it. “It isn't… I'm not replacing you,” he says because he needs Livio to know they'll always be brothers and there's a void in his life all the same.
"I know, stupid,” the other man says with a chuckle. "Anyway, you got this. How's that last case you told me about coming along?" They chat for a bit more about other current topics of their lives, before hanging up.
Wolfwood flops back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. Livio’s confidence in him is somewhat reassuring because they aren't in the habit of coddling each other where the wolf is concerned. And aside from removing himself from their presence, Wolfwood can't think of a solution anyway.
He doesn't want to, though. There's a swell of unease and unhappiness at the mere thought of it. It's familiar in some ways, like whenever he thinks of how far Livio is, but there's a strange edge to it. A different sort of heartache. To think there'd be no more cozy nights together, no shared laughter, no keeping them safe and coming back to a house that smelled like them, like home, no one to bake for, no… His life has become so entwined with theirs that he cannot picture anything whole without them in it.
And it scares him.
Deeply so.
So, he draws back a little over the next week, citing work as the reason for leaving early and coming back late. Observes himself closely where Vash and Meryl are concerned.
Now that he knows, he feels hyper aware of the signs he noticed before and then some other things, like wanting to kiss the two of them in a greeting. Though he's never wanted to do the tongue in your mouth hi outside of wolf form before, so it's still a little bizarre. (And he refuses to think that he thinks of kissing them frequently at other times as well, how long the thought has flitted through his mind only for him to bat it away with force even before it fully registered.)
More than anything, Wolfwood misses them, even if the distance is self imposed. It adds to the fear, because he's never got to keep anything he's wanted and his own truths are what could separate them. He feels himself winding tighter with each day as these thoughts simmer.
It must be this stress and season change that gets him with a cold, when he rarely, if ever, gets sick. He sniffles through work on Friday and wakes with fever on Saturday. He plans to simply sleep it off, but an hour after breakfast there's a knock on the door.
“Are you okay?" Vash asks. It’s not the first time Wolfwood has slept in late, so it really shouldn't be a big deal. It’s like Vash has some third sense for when something’s wrong - not that anything is wrong, he’s fine. Come to think of it, Vash probably does.
"I'm fine,” he insists and is immediately betrayed by a massive sneeze.
“That doesn't sound fine." The concern in Vash's voice makes him want to burrow deeper into the bed.
“Nothing I can't get over with some sleep." Wolfwood thinks he has managed to sound pretty convincing.
Not good enough for Vash. “And no food?"
“I'll stop by the kitchen later." He will. Probably.
“No need, I will bring you some.”
"Wait, no, Vash-” but the man is already gone.
He returns in a short while, though Wolfwood manages to slip into a feverish nap in the meantime, with a plate of sandwiches and a cup of hot tea with honey.
"Meryl's going to make soup for later, this is what we had on hand," Vash sounds apologetic and Woofwood waves him off.
“You didn't have to, I'm not hungry anyway."
“Well, I wanted to," he says and Woofwood’s heart does a weird thing in his chest, “and that's the cold talking. You have to eat."
They argue back and forth about it, but eventually he concedes and eats a little as Vash tells him silly stories from the internet. In a short while, Meryl stops by to check on him and immediately clocks his fever, practically flies off to fetch some meds which he loathes to take, to get more woozier. Vash even insists on helping him change out of his sweaty shirt, which makes him flush with more than fever and hide beneath the blankets afterwards.
Between all that, Wolfwood feels utterly fussed over, which comes with a mix of emotions. Part of him wants to insist he's fine and can handle himself, like his life depends on it. Because it has. That part wants to growl and push caring hands away.
And then there's an increasingly loud voice that wants to sink into the provided comfort, let his mates take care of him. Nuzzle into Vash's palm, melt under Meryl's attention.
Neither truly wins, though he is a bit abrasive and tells both Meryl and Vash to leave him be when they take turns by his bedside. He's not dying, for fuck’s sake. (Even if he can't remember the last time he's felt this shitty outside of shifts.) And the last thing they need is to catch the bug from him. Both of them are not deterred in the slightest and as the day progresses, Wolfwood is running out of steam to fight them on everything.
So, when Meryl insists she's going to spend the night in his room, he just groans in defeat. After dinner, they watch some shows he's barely paying attention to on her laptop, but the distraction is welcome nonetheless. He's just going to close his eyes for a moment …
He wakes up to a quiet room, feeling like everything is a little fuzzy, but not outright sick. Something prickles at his senses, though, and he pursues the feeling out into the living room which is equally quiet. And tidy. Even Meryl's throw blanket they often cuddle beneath is gone.
In the corridor, by the door there are only his shoes. So they must have gone out, surely. Batting away the unease, he goes to have a drink in the kitchen where the cupboard gives him a pause. It's mostly empty, no sign of Meryl's or Vash's cups.
He doesn't find anything belonging to them in the entire kitchen and by the end of the search, he's grown frantic. With dread filling his chest, Wolfwood goes to Vash's room and nudges the door open, freezing on the threshold.
The room is blank and empty, like it's never been lived in. Even his scent is gone. Wolfwood throws open Meryl's door as well to the same view.
He doesn't collapse, but it's a near thing as he leans against the wall. It feels like pieces of him have gone missing, vanished. He feels small and incomplete, collapsing in on himself without the support of their parts. A choked sob escapes him. Everything is wrong, everything is -
Wolfwood wakes up with a start, heart racing and eyes blurry. The nightmare is melting away by the second, but the devastating loneliness lingers.
“Wolfwood?" Meryl's voice is sleepy as she leans into his view and the relief of seeing her face makes him whimper.
“Wolfwood- Nico, what's wrong?" she asks when he grabs a hold of her hand and clutches it tightly. She rarely calls him that, as if she thinks it is too familiar or reserved for Livio, but he wouldn't really mind. Now, he feels comforted by it.
He pulls her closer, before stopping himself as his senses return more. But Meryl is already shuffling onto the bed, pulling him half in her lap.
“It was just a nightmare," she soothes, brushing damp hair away from his forehead and he gives into the comfort, pressing closer to her still, inhaling her scent and taking in how warm she is, because he is freezing.
It takes him a bit more to fully calm down, which he will be embarrassed about later, in the morning, all the while as she holds him. Eventually, though, he pulls away quite abruptly and Meryl lets him with a final comforting brush of hand down his arm.
"I will get you some water and medicine,” she says, slipping out of the bed and the room. He has to bite back a small noise, because part of him still doesn't want her out of his sight like she might not come back. Wolfwood rubs hands over his face and shivers, lighting up a cigarette to soothe his nerves further.
It doesn't take long for her to return, thankfully, and he takes the pills and scolding for smoking in bed without complaint. They settle back down, but sleep eludes him.
"Isn't it uncomfortable? Noddin’ off in the chair?” he asks in a bit and Meryl shrugs at him.
"It's not too bad," she reassures and Wolfwood frowns, before shuffling to one side and patting the bed.
"Come here. Might as well, can’t catch the bug from me more than you might already have.”
“I'll be fine and if not, you and Vash will help me out," she waves him off with such trust that his heart does a weird little lurch. "Are you sure?” Meryl gestures at the bed.
"Won't be the first time we sleep in the same bed," Wolfwood tells her, trying not to think about it too much, and she doesn't argue further, climbing beneath the blankets. The last tension in his body seeps out with a sigh as she nestles in next to him.
Meryl's hand squeezes his shoulder gently and then stays there. Her breathing evens out soon enough, exhaustion from the day catching up and it kills him to, thankfully dreamlessly, sleep as well.
He wakes up all too warm, hair tickling his nose. It takes Wolfwood a moment to orient himself, wrapped around Meryl's curled up form, but when he does, he stills so as not to wake her up with his shifting. She's had an uncomfortable night and needs the rest.
As they lay there, his arm thrown over her, he thinks back to the nightmare. On the nose and overly dramatic, but there's a part, loud and insistent, of him that knows his hurt would run deep if Vash and Meryl truly left him. And maybe it's selfish, maybe it's the only logical path, but he doesn't want to go through that. Even if keeping them close risks a separation down the lane, he'd rather take the chance than cut them out preemptively. He now knows that for sure.
A suppressed sneeze shakes him and Meryl stirs awake. She blinks at him sleepily before smiling. She looks so warm and content, so close, that once again the thought of kissing her flies through Wolfwood's mind. He rolls away from her, stretches.
“How are you feeling?" she asks, running hand up his back.
Wolfwood has to think about it for a moment, but then he can genuinely tell her that he is doing much better. The sneeze seems like the last dregs of illness lingering.
"That's great, I'm so glad. But you should rest up for the day,” Meryl insists, getting up from the bed. He groans in response because that sounds like torture.
He has enough energy to body her out of the room so he can change and joins her for late breakfast after. Vash is delighted to see them, though he, too, tries to insist Wolfwood goes back to bed. They compromise with him spending most of the day on the couch in their company with the TV on. By the evening, even the sneezes are gone. Benefits of not being quite human. It's a wonder he got sick in the first place.
And just like that, things fall back into their usual rhythm. In a week's time he manages to stop being hyper-aware of everything the wolf thinks when it comes to having pack members and all the turmoil feels somewhat pointless.
It comes full circle one night when they end up fighting for the remote again without Vash mediating. Meryl tries to tickle him, but he wiggles out of it, pushing her away, but she bites the arm holding her at length. He doesn't have time to think before he's pounced on her, wrestling her to the couch, lightly biting the hand that gets pushed in his face. He freezes and drops her hand, but Meryl seems unfazed, kicking at him and then slipping out from between his arms while he's still unmoving.
“Children, fighting without me?" Vash says behind him and he has only the clink of plates being set down as warning before Vash launches himself at Wolfwood and they tumble down on the floor at Meryl's feet.
"I ain’t got the remote!” Wolfwood exclaims, trying to wrestle Vash off. The other man is deceptively strong and he knows Vash isn't even giving it his all.
"Who said this is about the remote? I just want some fun, too!"
Wolfwood manages to flip them and pin Vash down. The man beneath him is breathing a little heavy, eyes bright. He's suddenly sharply aware of their proximity and only vaguely aware of Meryl settling on the couch and turning on her programme. Still, they cease their tussling to share a conspiratorial look before scrambling up to launch joint offense on her instead.
It ends with the three of them exhausted, splayed on the floor or the couch, a random movie playing in the background and Wolfwood feeling deeply, deeply content. The world didn't end, nobody got hurt, they all had fun and the wolf -
“Earth to Wolfwood! Is everything okay?" Apparently Vash has been talking to him for a bit and he missed it.
“It's nothin’." I'm just happy. And it's still scary, but he's faced worse things, hasn't he?
“Okay," Vash says before shuffling closer so that he can lay down with his head on Wolfwood's shoulder, faces side by side. Meryl throws popcorn kernel at them, which Vash catches with ease and thanks her for the snack. She snorts and they start to bicker, but Wolfwood closes his eyes and lets their voice and presence soothe him.
I can be everything (hope, fear, grief, death, love)
In the months Vash is missing, Meryl grows ever-closer to Wolfwood and struggles with the desire for something more than she feels she has the right to.
After granting her a taste of it, Wolfwood slips away for the truly final time, leaving Meryl and Vash grieving him and everything that could have been.
| Trimax Stryfewood/Mashwood | Canon-Typical Character Death | Also on AO3 |
| Getting Together (Sort of) | Grief and Regret | Emotional Hurt/Some Comfort |
The noise of the bar has gradually faded and the last remnants float like dust motes that dance around the dim lamp above the corner where Meryl and Wolfwood have sat for the past several hours.
Their drinks are empty and have been for a while now, neither interested in another refill. She's already had one too many to hold her usual white-knuckled grip on the reins of memories and now they mingle carelessly with stumbling, tender feelings, spinning together a lot like yearning.
She should drop her gaze away from Wolfwood, draped across the chair like he could take up all the space and make it his, make it comfortable. Should pay her tab to the tired bartender and tiptoe her way to her bed without disturbing Milly who'd retired to sleep what feels like ages ago.
It might very well be - the transient hours when night melts into morning are not far now and Meryl exhales a smile, remembering that time they'd sat around a campfire and argued about just when morning started and night departed. (She'd insisted 6am was morning while Vash was of the opinion that it had to be 4am, instead - Milly had only laughed and Wolfwood had insisted morning was whenever you woke up, largely to rile them all up.)
Wolfwood makes an inquiring noise at her expression, startling her out of the memory. “Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout there, smiling at the table like it got ya a good scoop?”
Meryl scoffs and picks up her glass, watches the last drop of whiskey roll around the bottom as it follows the movement of her wrist. “Nothing, just remembered something.”
“‘Bout him?”
They don't need to say Vash's name. They don't need to say a lot of things, lately. In this last year, they've perfected the art of conversing through the spaces of the unspoken.
Somehow, it feels important to say this, however: “About all of us.”
She feels his gaze on her as intent as hers is on the glass. Like he's trying to divine something from the tilt of her head, the part of her lips. (Meryl wishes she could always keep his attention like this.)
Meryl meets his eyes through the last plume of smoke, before he stubs the cigarette out in the overfilled ashtray.
A sharp tap on a table nearby draws her focus. “Bar’s closing, folks.”
There is a string of trepidation plucked in her chest with the reminder that she and Wolfwood cannot stay forever in this quiet moment away from time and roads that split and so rarely converge.
Guilt plays its tune next as she pays the bill and trails up the stairs behind the Undertaker because it is selfish, cruel even, to want to stretch this moment when Vash is suffering somewhere, beyond their reach.
But not for much longer, she hopes. Wolfwood had confided he might have a lead who to ask and who to shake for a direction of the cage the Humanoid Typhoon is locked up in, against all odds.
She'd tried to convince him to let her and Milly come along, but he'd insisted they'd scare the informant off. It had stung (still does), to be a liability once again, so she'd buried it beneath badly stitched nonchalance, said Fine and We got an assignment to do, anyway.
It weighs on her still, slowing her steps. She doesn't want to go to sleep, wake up in a tomorrow when Wolfwood has already slipped out of town and only left uncertainty with her, fear for him and Vash. She has already worn it into familiarity by now, might never learn to put it down.
To her surprise, Wolfwood doesn't head to his room, doesn't even walk Meryl to hers, as he sometimes does - she rolls her eyes and snarks about it without fail every time, just to cover how she's clinging to the mirage he might want to stretch the time spent with her just a minute longer.
Instead, he pops a hall window open and lights another cigarette, folding forward to rest his elbows on the windowsill. And she should, she really should, leave him to it, but it's a professional disease, really, not to.
Rather than that, she stands next to him, bumping her shoulder into his, ineffectually trying to push him to the side a little. Might as well be trying to move a mountain. But she is not Vash, it's not the kind of feat for her to accomplish.
“Stop hogging all the windowsill,” Meryl demands, far too softly (the whiskey, she thinks, has melted the edges of her sharpness with its burn). She feels his low chuckle from where their arms are pressed together, feels it get tucked just next to her heart.
“Ya got enough space right there,” he tells her and she's inclined to agree. But Meryl won't tell him that, won't tell him she can always find a place right next to him, and they fall into comfortable silence, watching the early signs of the first sunrise singing the distant horizon. Soon, the smaller sun will rise to meet the last moon in a brief kiss before they part and tomorrow will be today.
She thinks of his laugh, how long it had taken him to find the way back to it, after the shadow of the man he'd become last year, just after Vash had been taken from them. From Wolfwood, she corrects herself. Vash is not hers in any capacity but professional headache and even then he would rather bend backwards and do three somersaults than let her near. And yet…
And yet.
She shudders with a suppressed sigh.
“Cold?” Wolfwood asks as he fishes the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Their shoulders briefly disconnect, but then he's back.
Meryl shakes her head, even though she does feel chilly. The desert is unforgiving at night just as it is in the day and there's no shame in acknowledging that, but it's the principle of things. Just like when she snatches his newly lit cigarette from his fingers, just before he takes the first drag.
The taste is growing familiar now and she hasn't sputtered and choked on the smoke after the first two times. “Ya coulda asked, little lady,” he admonishes, “didn't think my bad company's already made ya forget all yer manners.”
“The company's not all bad and I've not forgotten my manners, I just know sometimes things are better when taken without permission.” She means to throw him a teasing glance, but their gazes lock and she feels her stomach drop, drop through some trapdoor she hadn't realized she'd hidden in her own words until they were out of her mouth.
Wolfwood looks away first. The severance hurts briefly, like a papercut.
“Thief,” he says, voice quiet and a little rough, and all she can think is *I wish*. I wish I could steal you and Vash away from your damned paths and keep you safe, steal you both from the desolate space you lock yourselves in and seek refuge only in each other. Pick a lock my way into a place where I can call you mine.
“No, but I can be supportive of their beliefs.”
That earns her a huffed laugh. “A real saint, ain't ya.”
“Gunsmoke is truly doomed if it's us that pass for a saint and a priest around these parts. At least the angel is quite biblical.”
He says something, but she can't quite parse it through the rising pitch of ringing noise in her head. It comes as the experience of Vash’s divinity emerges from its badly cobbled prison within her mind. Her throat constricts, helplessly trying to swallow down the memory of the feathered mass pushing her down, filling every empty space between her atoms, overwriting her-
Meryl inhales the smoke deeply, holds it in her small, human lungs, just hers, and exhales it slowly. Repeats the motion, focuses on the burn and taste of it, and loses her gaze in the swirl of smoke, just like Wolfwood had taught her when he'd given her the first cigarette, for the same reason.
It helps, grounds her in the physical borders of self, instead of the ephemeral cocoon of pain-longing-history-written-with-hishers-blood-loneliness that her mind has become. It is eager to hatch and overtake her thoughts at the slightest provocation. Sometimes, it takes no more than the way wind billows through the dunes.
She doesn't indulge in smoking often, though, enjoys this method best when Wolfwood is next to her. Otherwise the ashen taste in her mouth becomes acidic with longing.
Did she lo- did she miss Wolfwood like this before she knew what being loved by him felt like, even if the knowledge is a precious hand-me-down? Part of her is certain that yes, part of her says this year of meeting and parting and missing Vash together has done the work of building the castle out of soft logs of yearning, bound to collapse from its own weight, part of her knows that the timeline of her feelings about everything has been tampered so thoroughly the answer does not matter.
“Back with me yet?” Wolfwood asks and she slowly turns to him, pauses before blowing the smoke in his face. Breaks into exhaustion powered giggles at his wrinkled nose and cussing she knows the meaning of through the dictionary borne from Vash’s knowledge in the corner of her mind. Tries not to think about the way the profanities sound when wrung from his lips with pleasure.
(She isn't meant to know that, she is just an accidental voyeur who wishes she could breach time and space and the wall separating them from her, to settle in those memories, make them hers as well.)
“That’s it, yer becomin’ more of a menace than usual, means it’s time for sleep,” Wolfwood says with a hint of exasperation one might have for a cranky child and she bristles at it, but it’s the touch of fondness in his tone that dismantles the last scaffolding upholding her pride.
Meryl nervously twists the cigarette in her fingers before putting it out on the windowsill, words unwieldy in her mouth as she tries to line them up. But silence has gotten her nothing but shapes of impossible dreams. It'd be good to bury them tonight so she can grieve and move on before Vash and Wolfwood return.
“Not yet,” she says finally, the sincere plea so audible it cuts into her. “Can't I have another minute of your time? Just a little bit more.”
Meryl clasps her hands together to hide how they tremble, aching to reach out and trace moonlight across his features.
Worse yet, now that she's started to talk, she can't stop anymore. “Before he's back and has all of it again.”
The intensity of this admission breaks her desperate surge of courage and her gaze drops away before she can read into his expression, seeking escape in the red edged horizon as she faces the window again.
“What kind of thief tells of their intentions,” Wolfwood questions, but it lacks the teasing lilt she's used to. Is she imagining the touch of hoarseness in his voice?
“I told you I'm not a thief.” She says it softly, enough so that it fades out before she can say If I was, I'd kiss you even though you're his. Instead, she's just a beggar.
“Ya don't have to be, y’know. To take what’s freely given, Meryl.” Wolfwood’s warm fingers rest on her upper arm as he turns her towards him. She goes willingly even if looking at his face is like opening a beautifully illustrated, gilded book in a foreign language. Some words are familiar but the rest she won't have the chance to learn, because –
“My time, his time. They're yers if ya truly want them.”
His palm travels upward, drawing shivers from her even through the layer of fabric separating their skin. Meryl thought she knew what it was like to be a livewire of wanting, all the times she'd been squished in a seat between them laughing about nothing or watching them stumble upstairs together, hands not discreet in their exploration. But this is somehow more still. If he takes her face in his large palm, she might explode into a million sparks.
The tip of his shoes meet hers as Wolfwood steps forward, leaning in. His eyes are searching her face and she hopes he will find the answer he wants there, the one that could bridge the lingering gap between them. With her hands still clenched, Meryl tilts her face towards him. If she stood on her tiptoes–
The moment dancing on the edge is thrown into an abyss by a door opening and slamming shut down the corridor. They jump apart just before a man storms past them and then downstairs.
Whatever bravery or foolishness had possessed her is gone and Meryl drops her gaze to the floor, wrapping an arm around herself as if her hand could trap the lingering warmth of Wolfwood’s touch.
“You're right, we ought to get some sleep. You have a long day ahead of you,” she says, relieved her voice doesn't tremble.
Wolfwood doesn't even tease her about saying he’d been right, only nods and wordlessly walks her to the room she and Milly share. They exchange subdued good nights and, once the door is shut behind her, Meryl has to fight the urge to crumble right there.
She manages to quietly get ready for bed without disturbing Milly's gentle snores and it's only when she hugs a pillow to her chest that the tears come. In a different world, it'd be Vash pressed safe and tight between her and Wolfwood, heavy arms flung around her and keeping her as she holds them.
In a different world, she would kiss their scars, soothe their nightmares, stand with them as they fight for the future of humankind. In a different world, they'd want her there and she'd not be choking on wistful interpretations of half said things.
In a different world…
---
When Meryl wakes, Milly is already puttering around the room and humming softly. She tries to turn away from her coworker while still pretending to be asleep, but there is no fooling Milly.
“Good morning, ma'am! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you!”
“You didn't, Milly,” she reassures as she sits up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. They feel tender and her nose is clogged up and Meryl doesn't know how to fix without alarming Milly. So, she hurries to the bathroom and takes way too long there, trying to scrub cracked longing away with hot water until it turns icy. At least she can blame the redness on steam now.
Once she's dressed and ready to face the world, she sets to packing her belongings up. Now that Wolfwood is gone, there is no more reason to linger around, any excuses for staying have turned thin and flaky.
“Are you not coming down for breakfast, ma'am?” Milly asks, lingering in the doorway as Meryl worries over perfectly folding her clothes.
“I don't feel hungry,” she waves her friend off. It's not even a lie, though it's more that Meryl doesn't feel like sitting at the table they'd all shared yesterday and feeling the void Wolfwood has left behind.
“Okay then, I might bring something up in case you change your mind, though!”
Meryl responds with a vaguely encouraging noise and sighs softly with relief once the door is shut. It's not that she wants to hide things from Milly, she couldn't even if she tried, but there is optimism and the belief you've just got to try, ma'am! that Meryl can't stomach right now.
And there is only so much reorganizing of her suitcase she can do before she is out of things to do. Wringing her hands, she moves to the window as if she could still see Wolfwood’s retreating figure in the distance, pin her hopes and well wishes to his back.
Of course he isn't there.
Meryl bites down on her lip, swallows thickly. This is stupid, she is stupid and has to pull herself together. Meryl Stryfe doesn't waste away pining at the window like some waif. She does her job and does it well.
As if to punctuate her decision, there's a knock on the door. Strange, Milly rarely knocks and just announces she's coming in. Gripping one of her derringers, Meryl waits to hear if the person moves on having realized it's the wrong room. But no, there's another knock.
“It's me,” a familiar voice breaks the tension.
Meryl exhales and moves to open the door, relief mixed with trepidation. “Wolfwood, what are you still doing–”
Her words get lost somewhere as she takes him in. Wolfwood is standing rigidly upright, his hair neatly combed and face clean shaved. Even his shirt is buttoned up properly. He doesn't really look like himself, eyes flitting about. God, he's even tucked the sunglasses in his shirt pocket again.
“Good morning, Meryl.”
“Good morning,” she manages after a second. “Is something wrong?”
“No. I just came to say goodbye.” Wolfwood pulls at the edge of his jacket in a nervous move and it pushes her worries into overdrive.
“That's not like you.” Meryl scans the surroundings for any threat, something that has chased him to her doorstep. If he's giving her signs, she is missing them and it's going to land them both in trouble.
Wolfwood coughs awkwardly. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” she steps aside. Maybe this way, they will be out of the immediate eyeline and he'll be able to hint what he needs help with.
But he just ends up standing in the middle of the room awkwardly, hand clenching and unclenching until he catches her looking at it and then tucks both behind his back.
“Wolfwood, what's wrong?” There's irritation in her tone now, to mask her fears. Some of them over potential physical threats, others about harm to her feelings. Maybe he's figured out how she feels about him, about Vash and is here to explain that it just can't be.
“Nothing. Nothing's wrong, it's just that…” Wolfwood trails off, mumbles something under his breath.
“Just what? What's gotten into you?” She steps up to him, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. She struggles to maintain it, though, somehow up close he looks so young and insecure suddenly. There's a burst of ache in her fingers, to reach and cup his cheek, see how soft it feels without stubble and to brush some of his mysterious concern away.
“You. It's you.” He says with a sudden, familiar flare of irritation as if it explains anything. “Oh fuck it all, I've never been good at talking anyway.”
Before Meryl can agree that so much is obvious, large palms cup her face so gently she barely registers it before Wolfwood kisses her.
It's a gentle press of chapped lips, so soft and unexpected that Meryl freezes entirely, staring at Wolfwood whose eyes have fluttered shut, eyelashes casting shadow on his cheeks.
Before she can process any more than that, just as her heart kicks into racing, the connection breaks as Wolfwood pulls away and this close, she can watch rejection wash over his features like it was her own.
This time, her body acts without thinking, as she grabs on the lapels of his jacket and pulls him back down for another kiss. A proper one.
He melts towards her almost instantly, nearly making her stumble a step back. One of his hands leaves her face to wrap around her waist, stabilizing her. The gentleness with which he tilts her face upwards aches - she hadn't thought it possible in this burning wasteland and certainly not given to her.
Meryl releases his jacket, only to loop her arms around his neck, pull them closer - damn if the height difference doesn't irritate and thrill her in equal measure - because she needs to erase any doubt she wants this, wants him. Twines fingers in the short, soft curls on his nape and he sighs a soft noise against her mouth in response. Hungry to hear it again she deepens the kiss and he is eager to reciprocate.
Time melts into an inconsequential breeze somewhere outside of them, but eventually Wolfwood pulls away - not too far, just enough to rest his forehead against hers, looking at her with an expression that is close to wonderment and disbelief mixed together. She wants to chase it away, but there are questions of her own that she cannot leave unasked.
“Why? Why now?”
“I couldn't leave without showin’ that I wasn't just sayin' things last night. When he's back, you can have us any way ya want us.”
The doubt she cannot quiet must show on her face. “I can keep kissing ya until you believe me,” he offers with a grin and she feels a blush bloom in her cheeks.
With a scoff, more out of habit than genuine, Meryl looks away. Worries her lip for a second before confessing: “I want to believe you, but all I see is him running away.”
Carefully, he turns her face back to him, expression somber before he breaks the quiet: “I know him, what we've said or almost said, I’d not lie about this.”
When she still doesn't reply - what could she? Words feel unwieldy and too simple, to convey the abyss his truths must cross to vanquish her fears - Wolfwood's mouth tightens. His touch, thumbs brushing over her cheeks, is as gentle as before though.
“I'm gonna get him back, for both of us. I promise. And then he can convince ya himself.”
“If you break this promise,” her voice is shaky, just so, as her hands come to cover his wrists, cling to him, “I'm going to kill you.”
“Might’ve to get in line for that,” this time his grin doesn't reach his eyes.
“Wolfwood -” She hates how easily reality trickles in like sand, making even the tenderest moment sharp edged.
“Don't worry, ya ‘n Spikey get the skip the line ticket.”
“That's not the point and you know it,” she admonishes and Wolfwood just smiles, a little wonky, as he presses his lips to her hand before pulling away.
But she can't let him go yet - maybe never, she realizes before pushing away that selfish, impossible thought - and reaches up. He meets her halfway for one last, lingering kiss that tastes of a few stray tears.
“Wait for us,” he tells her and then he's gone, before she can even say always.
---
The walk to the grave is short, but slow.
Meryl would say it is because of the rubble that people of Hopeland haven't cleared yet, but the truth that feels so cold pressed against her heart is that she and Vash are dragging their feet every step of the way.
She hates herself for it as she has hated herself for the halting way they'd set out on this trip. If they had tried in earnest, not using her work as an excuse, they could've been here two months earlier.
But they are here now, the self-fulfilling prophecy of the Punisher’s shape jutting out from the sand just a little ahead on a small dune.
“I thought he would have a better view of the orphanage from here,” Vash says in an artificially even voice. The rebuilding efforts are going well, with Livio working tirelessly like it is his own repentance.
“You're right. He can watch over the children when they return,” Meryl agrees and hides her clenched hands beneath her cape. It's all self-soothing nonsense, Wolfwood will never do anything again, but she cannot be so brutal to Vash or even the part of herself that needs to imagine Wolfwood’s rest as kind.
He deserves that much. (He deserved to live, to put the orphanage back together with his own hands along with Livio, to come rest in their arms sweaty and tired and learning to forgive and be forgiven, he deserved to live and smoke a pack a day if he wanted, anything he wanted, and live -)
They come to a stop before the cross, a breeze tearing at the wraps around the weapon. She places a pack of his favorite cigarettes and a flower she doesn’t know the name of that the local plant had kindly manufactured for them at the foot of it. As she straightens up, Meryl spots a pair of sunglasses tucked in behind one of the middle belts and Vash must’ve followed her line of sight. “Didn't feel right to leave them on. He'd not sleep in them.”
The rational part of her pipes up that he isn't sleeping, that they were part of who he was and are now left to the elements, but it shrivels away as the memory of him on that last morning resurfaces. He'd taken them off then, had looked at her with a bare and open face, had earnestly promised -
“You liar.”
It surprises them both. Meryl hadn’t thought to speak, the words were suddenly out there, with her voice thin like weathered paper, wrapped and falling apart around a sudden storm of tears.
She hadn't cried then, when he told her properly, having dragged himself to her apartment after a long silence that she had thought might mean the end of all things. (But perhaps some tears she’d shed on Ship Three were for the building awareness of this truth already.) He had needed her to be strong; to clear his name, to be unyielding in the face of the Earth Federation and the people of this planet both, to pick up his pieces when he crumbled in quiet nights, try as he might to conceal it. She had needed to be strong.
And so Meryl had done what was needed and done it well. But to do so, she had kept the fact that Wolfwood is gone at arm’s length - aware of it and forever feeling it breathing down her neck, but pulling away with force each time it came even a fraction closer.
There is no more looking away now, no more careful avoidance of the void in her chest, no more careful pruning of her thoughts. This is his grave and she has come to say her goodbyes to the wind.
“You lied, you promised!” It is futile to argue with a weather-worn weapon as a stand in for a dead man, part of her thinks, but the rest is caught in an implosion, walls crumpling like tissue and support beams crushed like splinters, and the collapse is so utter it brings her to her knees in the sand.
It is hot and coarse beneath her hands as Meryl digs her fingers in, again and again, like she could claw him out of the ground, back into life with sheer willpower. If it were possible, wouldn't Vash have done so already?
“It was supposed to be both of you, you bastard,” she sobs, whole body shaking with the force of it. Her lungs spasm, sending her into a coughing fit so bad she dry heaves. (She hasn't eaten today, her stomach full with lead from the night or the week, the month before, and now she's thankful, because if she'd thrown up on his grave-)
It wracks her body and she fights against the convulsions, forces herself to be still, until the cough tapers into the quiet of labored breathing. And then another sob loosens itself from the ruin in her ribcage.
“It’s not fair. You're so cruel,” she doesn't know if she is saying it to life or Wolfwood or some concept of a higher being that could be god or fate but most likely nothing at all. The world's cruelties are often so mundane and always rooted in humanity, even that of Vash's twisted brother. And still, she accuses, pointlessly and brokenly, because anger is all she has left now.
“I wish you'd never come to me that morning, never kissed me!” Because then she'd not had a taste of something sweet and true, so brief that time is sure to grind it into sand and rip out of her hands, and yet it is the key to the eclipsing doors of knowledge of what could have been, what almost was.
But the words curdle in her mouth even before she's done saying them and Meryl collapses forward, head pressed to her hands, sand biting into her skin. It is cruel and in some ways, utterly untrue - she would not trade a single hour spent with him for peace of heart in this moment, much less the moment they met in the middle of a dunesea of wanting. His face aching with rejection flashes before her eyes and a wrecked sound tears out of her. She can't do this to the memory of him, not even in the confines of her own head.
“I'm sorry, that's not true, it isn't, it just hurts. It's not fair. I am sorry. Please. I love you, I am sorry, it's not fair.” She is babbling now, incomplete thoughts pouring out, utterly undone by saying now what he will never hear, never know that she had more than merely wanted him and more of his time, which there had been so pitifully little of, in the end.
Meryl is vaguely aware that Vash is hovering above her, as if he can't decide whether to touch her or run away. And she hasn't told him those three words either, because to be too close to him has meant acknowledging who is missing, so she's sat with him in the early morning hours, held him once or twice, but it has been done in a quiet too large for either of them to breach individually.
It should be embarrassing, to be like this in front of him, and maybe later it will be, but now the embers of anger flare up in another direction. She sits up and grabs onto his wrist, at first just clutching him and then pulling him down, down to her, because he is always so far even next to her.
“And you!” Meryl starts, still amid sobs as Vash sinks into the sand, knees bumping into hers, “pretending you are fine, even now. Like it will make anyone feel better. Like you won't trust me with your pain. Even if I don't understand entirely, you don't have to do it alone! Isn't that what it was about in the end? Isn't that what cost him his life?”
Vash had hardly told her anything, but she isn't so much a fool she can't piece some things together. Like his guilt for being too late, when he'd not even been given a chance to be there from the start. She is angry about it still, at the circumstances and Wolfwood both, because the maybe of things being different, better, hurts so much, like a ruptured organ.
“I'm sorry, I don't know how to be different,” Vash admits quietly and she shakes him, both hands gripping the red fabric tightly. He sways with the force.
“Are you willing to learn?” She demands, but it turns into a plea mere seconds later: “At least try? For us, for him?”
There is a long silence, only broken by her stifled sobs and sniffling as she stares him down. There is anguish in his shaded eyes, lips pulled tight as if he's afraid of what he has to say. And then he sharply pulls her in an embrace, coat zipper digging into her neck but it seems inconsequential as Vash hides his face into her shoulder.
“Yes, I will try.” It is said quietly, but with sincerity that she desperately wants to believe. Meryl returns the hug, clinging to him tightly as if wind could rip him and this moment away from her. A thank you for basic communication feels like too much, but she says it anyway.
There is a subtle shake to Vash's body now, too, and his voice is choked as he says: “I didn't get to say it, too. That I love him.”
Stupid, she thinks, but would never say. She had been no better, still isn't. It doesn't hurt less for it.
“He had to know, even he wasn't that obtuse,” Meryl says instead. But part of her wonders if it's true, if he’d have done as he had, if he truly knew. Had Wolfwood genuinely thought he could uphold his promise or had he doubted she’d be all that torn up about it if he didn't? And what of Vash? Had Wolfwood felt the unspoken, but implied love, had it mattered?
In the end, it doesn't matter. Both answers only bring pain. Either he died unknowing and they failed him in that or, ultimately, it wasn't a decisive factor for him, for he didn't pick them.
“Bastard,” she sobs into Vash's coat.
“Me or him?”
“Both,” she answers decisively. “My bastards.” Realistically they had never been both hers at once, there’s never been a true ‘them’ that was composed of three. Only fractured parts that didn't end up coming together. And yet, they are still Meryl’s in the intrinsic way their lives have tangled together, reshaped her heart. Even in his death, she gets to keep Wolfwood this way - stubbornly, fiercely.
Vash gives a wet laugh at that and then tightens his embrace. “Yours.” It is the most they’ve said on the topic of them in these months and to her, it is as good, or better, than any loud and flowery declaration.
They hold each other until both of their tears subside and then for a bit more.
Eventually, she untangles herself from Vash’s arms, the unpleasant feeling of her stuffy nose and soggy face too much to ignore. She has never cried quite like this, might never again unless something rips Vash away from her, and now she is left turned inside out with a void in the middle of it all. That, she thinks, is always going to stay there, even if it unfathomably may shrink over time, a capsule of love with destination destroyed.
They get up and stand side by side, arms brushing, in a silence that begs to be broken, but she isn’t quite sure how to. It comes to her in one final bout of irrationality, of dwindling urge to say things here that Wolfwood never got to hear.
“Thank you. Thank you for saving Vash, thank you...” She trails off, because there is no putting in words everything she’s grateful for, just like there is no true way to capture the rest of her feelings. “I will miss you forever.” It’s not enough, but nothing ever will be.
Vash murmurs his thanks as well, voice growing so quiet she doesn’t hear the end of it, but it isn’t for her ears anyway.
She hesitates, before stepping forward and unhooking the sunglasses from their post. “You don’t need them anymore and better with us than the winds,” she says as an explanation, more so for Vash’s benefit because he’s made a strangled noise behind her. But she’s seen the lighter just like Wolfwood’s, if much less worn, he pulls from the depths of his inner pocket on the hard nights, to flick in his hand or light a smoke that she doesn’t even reprimand him about, as long as he does it by the window. She wants a memento of her own and there may be others who don’t think twice about picking things from a man’s grave.
Vash doesn’t protest further and she tucks the glasses into her cape. Then she turns back to face him, braces herself, before stretching her hand out, feeling like something intangible hinges on this. He takes her hand, giving it a squeeze before tangling their fingers together. Like that, they make their way back to Hopeland, as slow as they’d come here and with her heart undecided if it weighs impossibly more or has eased by a fraction.
I'm going to be greedy and ask about these: Hanged man + SW desert whump car + Proposal 👀💙
Hi lovely. You're always welcome to ask as much as you'd like!
Hanged man
A piece set nebulously between the seasons or at any canon time Vash is missing. Wolfwood gets in trouble with the local law enforcers (more of thugs than anything) and is to be hanged for it. The only thing that Meryl can do is feed him a vial's content right before it's done via kiss, pretending to be his widow-to-be. And she has to watch him die & get him away fast enough before he comes back. :)
A snippet (almost all that exists of it as it stands right now)
The scorching midday suns bear down down on Nicholas D. Wolfwood without mercy, much like his executors.
But his attention isn't on the sweat trickling down his temple or the soaked shirt clinging to his back and in the open wounds there or even the jeering crowd, thirsty for bloodshed.
He only sees Meryl, her eyes wide and dark, as she steps toward him. There is a hitch to her breath and tremble to her shoulders, visible only to his eyes trained to notice weakness. (There is nothing weak about her in this moment, just another way Chapel had been wrong.)
Nicholas doesn't even have the luxury to tell her to back off, to not risk the ire of his guards, because his life is in her hand or pocket now; the tiny vial that he's relying on mending his neck after he hangs from gallows looming over him and put a beat back into his heart.
SW desert whump car
It was started for Stryfewood week way back when I feel, story set to Devil's Backbone. Wolfwood gets hurt and has a bad reaction to vials, Meryl has to nurse him through the night on the desert. Thoughts on how important he is to her and themes of religion with her as someone who has always been skeptic.
A snippet. I don't know if I can go back to this style, but I'd really like to.
It starts something like this -
Under the scorching suns with a man left for dead (not by her, not yet);
With a full body-car impact that sends her life veering off its’ course, but it already had, who is she fooling? -;
As a fallen star crashes through the sky and silences thousands of wishes;
On the edge of a crater, wind roughly licking away her tears, until she hides in the arms that saved her and doomed their star.
Somewhere there and then, it becomes Meryl and Wolfwood and the road ahead, zigzagging across the endless sand toward any whisper of the one ghost they refuse to acknowledge as that. Some nights, she thinks she’s never lied as passionately as she does when she swears she’ll find Vash, that he cannot be gone. Those nights, she thinks she’s never seen anyone as desperate to be lied to, to be fooled so thoroughly it consumes the heart, as Wolfwood. They are tied with the rope of believeme-lietome, held together like they will disintegrate if they separate; she knows on those cold nights that only they can fill these roles for each other, when words are hard and the scent of his smoke is a third of the normalcy Meryl knows can never be recreated.
Proposal
Stryfewood centric piece in the missing 2 years where Wolfwood makes a 'joke' about marrying her and she turns it on him, proposing simply but in earnest. It is supposed to be part 1 of a larger set that leads into Mashwood where they find him later on while being together/married.
A snippet. I am fond of this one as well.
"Meryl…" His voice is rough, scraping by the lump of awareness that something is going to break today in his throat. And Wolfwood doesn't know if there will be any fixing it after.
"Don't. Don't give me any of that 'I am not a good man' bullshit, Nicholas." Her grip on the counter tightens and her eyes are hard on him, dark in the shadow.
"Being good is not about every grand act you could have performed or being unfaltering every step of the way. It is about a child you comfort, holding me after a nightmare, making sure to draw a bucket of extra water up for a grandma though no one asked you. And even if you weren't good, so what?"
Her voice has risen in volume and she catches herself, takes a breath, before continuing more softly.
"Bad men have good things, things they don't deserve, all the time. When was the last time you were selfish?"
Every time I kiss you, every time I touch you like it is something I have right to, every time I am not bleeding out and mending myself in a pointless attempt to pay off debts that can't be written down, he thinks.
"I don't want some hypothetical good man." Meryl pauses and a ghost of red brushes past her, past Wolfwood's outstretched feet.
"I am asking you. What matters is, if you want it. If you want me."
She is still, waiting for his response - or lack of it. How fragile and almost translucent this silence is, Nicholas thinks. Like her skin in the early morning, when he can press kisses to veins on her wrists, follow their journey up her arm with his lips and linger over her tender, armed heart. It is so easy to bruise her, sometimes merely by holding her too tight when he tries to protect her.
He has never been good at not breaking things. Not even himself. That's all he knows how to do, even.
