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nomans_land2023-05-02 05:02 am
nml_mods) wrote in nomans_land2023-05-02 05:02 am
Entry tags:
On The First Day
It had been months.
Months of terror, of families ripped apart, refugees racing against the Ark in the sky, against the Plants that had once been their only source of survival on the world and had now been turned against them, raining lightning and death down on them like the hand of a vengeful God. Humanity pushed to the brink, fleeing their homes and communities, waves of refugees fleeing across the sands as more and more towns and cities fell to the reign of destruction that had been biting at their heels every step of the way.
And then, as the last descendants of the survivors of the Big Fall clustered in the city of Octovern, spiilling out into the streets, every available, livable space filled to capacity and beyond, what felt like the final days of humanity began. The sounds of artillery fire filled the air, the sight of the Ark and its grotesque ruler loomed overhead, and in the distant sky high above, the previously-inconceivable reinforcement ships from Earth took up orbit around No Man's Land. Throughout the night, explosions lit up the sky, thundering with deafening reports through the air, and yet the civilians below had settled into a still, terrified, anticipatory silence. They couldn't see, from their perspective, the figures atop the ruins of the Earth's space destroyers that had already fallen to the ground, locked in battle for the future of the people far below. But the sight of Millions Knives high above, terrifying and grotesque with the power of the Plants he had absorbed, was omnipresent, a never-ending threat, the harbinger of doom, biding his time until he could make good on his promise to wipe every last one of them off the face of existence.
And then something had changed.
Electrical currents rippled through the air above the downed ship, carrying screams on the wind. To the people below, Millions Knives' massive form had shifted, writhing, bellowing with unholy rage and pain and despair. And then it begun to unmake itself, shredding, crumbling, tearing itself apart at the seams and floating to the ground in tiny, shining, white particles. Tiny, white feathers drifted on the wind, closer and closer before, one by one, they began to settle to the roofs of the buildings, to the tops of cars and to the streets, and to the heads and faces of the humans staring up from below.
The instant that contact was made between feather and skin, a connection was made; between Human and Plant, between each person standing side by side, minds thrown open in bursts of light and expanding consciousness, and through the doors sprang multitudes of memories spanning hundreds of years. Suffering, laughter, pain, sorrow, joy, enslavement, death, pride, love. The Plants had made the connection to their creators - their keepers - that they had been silently pleading for since their first containment, and with it every man, woman, and child on the surface of the world began to see and feel and hear their stories and their cries for help. They did not want this war, they did not want this destruction. They had seen the promises of vengeance and a paradise for their kind atop the bones of humanity offered by Millions Knives and they had felt the hopes and dreams carried by Vash the Stampede of a kinder, more loving world, and they had made their choice.
Let there be love and peace in this world.
In the chaos that followed, as the bodies of the Plants began tumbling to the ground in a writhing mass and the screams of shock and confusion began to rise from the sea of humanity below, something rippled in the air, a last gasp of those silent voices before the connection was lost.
This was...different. New. As if reality had taken the distraction caused by the calamity below to shift itself sharply to the left, and then snapped. It started at the core of the mass of angelic bodies as men and women began to rush to their aid, a shockwave in the fabric of creation that rumbled silently in the atoms of the world and ricocheted outward, along the ground, through the air, until it had enveloped the entire planet. Time froze for an instant, and to the eyes of all who had the capacity for sight, that leftward shift became manifest, the world doubling on itself as the ground shook beneath their feet.
Wails of confusion and fear rose into the night sky, and for a brief moment, it felt as if the world were about to unmake itself on the molecular level. But then, just as suddenly as it had come, the distortion snapped back into place with a loud, ear-splitting CRACK, and in the stunned silence that followed, only one thing could be certain; things were not the same as they had been mere moments ago, as if everything and yet nothing at all had changed, all at once.
The world of No Man's Land was as it should be, but all across the surface of the planet, pockets of reality had split open, sending the inhabitants of mirrored existences tumbling through wide, unseen rifts. People and places outside of time and space found themselves staggering to their feet in a world that was both foreign and familiar at the same time, found themselves face to face with their own reflection made flesh, tossed about by the pleas of a race reaching across the fabric of creation for aid in putting a stop to a war that had been fought time and time again, across reality after reality, without fail.
Thus began the new chapter in the history of No Man's Land.
[Wherever your character was, whatever they were doing, when the rifts in reality opened, they will have found themselves rocked by a massive earthquake that lastes a few short seconds before settling with a loud crack, like thunder. While no damage will be left in its wake, the characters themselves will realize that though the planet appears to be the same, it will quickly become evident that they are in an alternate reality of the place they call home. Are they standing in the rubble of a once-destroyed city now remade whole? Is the bar they had been taking refuge in suddenly gone, leaving them tumbling to the sand with nothing but their drink in their hand? And what of the friends that had been standing by their side seconds before? This is where your stories begin.]
Months of terror, of families ripped apart, refugees racing against the Ark in the sky, against the Plants that had once been their only source of survival on the world and had now been turned against them, raining lightning and death down on them like the hand of a vengeful God. Humanity pushed to the brink, fleeing their homes and communities, waves of refugees fleeing across the sands as more and more towns and cities fell to the reign of destruction that had been biting at their heels every step of the way.
And then, as the last descendants of the survivors of the Big Fall clustered in the city of Octovern, spiilling out into the streets, every available, livable space filled to capacity and beyond, what felt like the final days of humanity began. The sounds of artillery fire filled the air, the sight of the Ark and its grotesque ruler loomed overhead, and in the distant sky high above, the previously-inconceivable reinforcement ships from Earth took up orbit around No Man's Land. Throughout the night, explosions lit up the sky, thundering with deafening reports through the air, and yet the civilians below had settled into a still, terrified, anticipatory silence. They couldn't see, from their perspective, the figures atop the ruins of the Earth's space destroyers that had already fallen to the ground, locked in battle for the future of the people far below. But the sight of Millions Knives high above, terrifying and grotesque with the power of the Plants he had absorbed, was omnipresent, a never-ending threat, the harbinger of doom, biding his time until he could make good on his promise to wipe every last one of them off the face of existence.
And then something had changed.
Electrical currents rippled through the air above the downed ship, carrying screams on the wind. To the people below, Millions Knives' massive form had shifted, writhing, bellowing with unholy rage and pain and despair. And then it begun to unmake itself, shredding, crumbling, tearing itself apart at the seams and floating to the ground in tiny, shining, white particles. Tiny, white feathers drifted on the wind, closer and closer before, one by one, they began to settle to the roofs of the buildings, to the tops of cars and to the streets, and to the heads and faces of the humans staring up from below.
The instant that contact was made between feather and skin, a connection was made; between Human and Plant, between each person standing side by side, minds thrown open in bursts of light and expanding consciousness, and through the doors sprang multitudes of memories spanning hundreds of years. Suffering, laughter, pain, sorrow, joy, enslavement, death, pride, love. The Plants had made the connection to their creators - their keepers - that they had been silently pleading for since their first containment, and with it every man, woman, and child on the surface of the world began to see and feel and hear their stories and their cries for help. They did not want this war, they did not want this destruction. They had seen the promises of vengeance and a paradise for their kind atop the bones of humanity offered by Millions Knives and they had felt the hopes and dreams carried by Vash the Stampede of a kinder, more loving world, and they had made their choice.
Of course, but...what would he do at a time like this?
I wonder if he'll laugh again
I wonder if he'll follow his ideals again.
I see. You all know him as well. That young man with a gentle smile.
Little Red Brother.
Let there be love and peace in this world.
In the chaos that followed, as the bodies of the Plants began tumbling to the ground in a writhing mass and the screams of shock and confusion began to rise from the sea of humanity below, something rippled in the air, a last gasp of those silent voices before the connection was lost.
Help Us. Help him. Please.
This was...different. New. As if reality had taken the distraction caused by the calamity below to shift itself sharply to the left, and then snapped. It started at the core of the mass of angelic bodies as men and women began to rush to their aid, a shockwave in the fabric of creation that rumbled silently in the atoms of the world and ricocheted outward, along the ground, through the air, until it had enveloped the entire planet. Time froze for an instant, and to the eyes of all who had the capacity for sight, that leftward shift became manifest, the world doubling on itself as the ground shook beneath their feet.
Wails of confusion and fear rose into the night sky, and for a brief moment, it felt as if the world were about to unmake itself on the molecular level. But then, just as suddenly as it had come, the distortion snapped back into place with a loud, ear-splitting CRACK, and in the stunned silence that followed, only one thing could be certain; things were not the same as they had been mere moments ago, as if everything and yet nothing at all had changed, all at once.
The world of No Man's Land was as it should be, but all across the surface of the planet, pockets of reality had split open, sending the inhabitants of mirrored existences tumbling through wide, unseen rifts. People and places outside of time and space found themselves staggering to their feet in a world that was both foreign and familiar at the same time, found themselves face to face with their own reflection made flesh, tossed about by the pleas of a race reaching across the fabric of creation for aid in putting a stop to a war that had been fought time and time again, across reality after reality, without fail.
[Wherever your character was, whatever they were doing, when the rifts in reality opened, they will have found themselves rocked by a massive earthquake that lastes a few short seconds before settling with a loud crack, like thunder. While no damage will be left in its wake, the characters themselves will realize that though the planet appears to be the same, it will quickly become evident that they are in an alternate reality of the place they call home. Are they standing in the rubble of a once-destroyed city now remade whole? Is the bar they had been taking refuge in suddenly gone, leaving them tumbling to the sand with nothing but their drink in their hand? And what of the friends that had been standing by their side seconds before? This is where your stories begin.]
Meanwhile, they can see exactly what's happening in each other and just leave it unsaid. USUALLY.
All around them, the sounds of voices calling out names, confused rumblings as people tried to make sense of things, and a general undercurrent of fear had begun. And oh, if this didn't feel familiar, he didn't know what did. It was like December all over again, like the panic in Augusta four years ago, and standing in the middle of it made the tension in his shoulders and the rocks in his gut worse. Things had almost been quiet here for the past two years, compared to the warzone he'd left behind back home.
"Hey, Nico! Asshole! Getcher ass back here, I ain't jokin' around!" The snarl in his voice as it joined those around them was hopefully enough to cover the way it cracked from everyone else, but Wolfwood still heard it all the same. He cursed under his breath, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a glass tube, filled not with the blue drug that had almost taken his life but with a cigar. He was adept enough at carrying the cross on his back that he had no trouble balancing it across his shoulder, freeing both of his hands so that he could uncork the tube and pull the cigar free, cut the head off of it, bring it to his lips and light it.
He took a heavy drag of it, holding the smoke in his lungs as he let his eyes scan the crowd around them, and did his best to clench his fingers around the stogie until they stopped shaking. Not that it helped very much, and he felt enough of a spike of irritation at himself that, when he had still received no replying shout from a twin of his own voice and still had not seen an uncomfortably-familiar shock of unruly black hair, he flung the empty cigar tube against a nearby wall before finally letting the breath out of his lungs.
At least the Pop-smash of the glass on the bricks was satisfying. Petty, but satisfying. Somewhat.
"You don't get back here, I'm takin' your smokes! Yer gonna make Spikey sad, now C'mere!!"
Because hiding behind Vash's soft heart was easier than admitting to his own fears, the guilt he felt at the little voice in the back of his head telling him it should have been him missing, the universe had miscorrected its mistake, regardless of the fact that the hubbub around them should have been more than enough to tell him that it wasn't an isolated incident.
... usually. definitely now.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood, his one, was not here, wherever here was. His gun was here. His companions were here. But he wasn't. Perhaps he was back home, freaking out for finding himself all alone. Or perhaps he was somewhere else here, or somewhere else entirely, and he wondered if one of those options wasn't what was getting Wolfwood so worked up.
But with all the people around the panicking, he could stil feel it. There were no plants nearby aside from him. The sweet hum of his sisters was too distant for even him to hear, and that had not been the case before.
He kept... looking, anyway, for a little longer, but the situation just grawed at his guts, until he stepped next to his companion, his voice very, very quiet.
"Wolfwood. He is not here. And there are no plants around, not for a very, very long way. Far further than they should be." That did not sound right. People could not survive well without them.
Meanwhile, in another reality, other Nick is ABSOLUTELY panicking, too. XD
He fumbled in the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out his sunglasses, putting them on before turning his back on the town, moving close enough to Vash that their shoulders were almost touching so that his voice could drop low and he could still be heard. But he didn't look at him, couldn't look at him, knew that seeing the expression he was sure would be in those soft, expressive eyes would be all it took to make him lose what composure he had left.
"'S just like home. I'd be willing to bet top double-dollar, the next towns over are just the same." He chewed on his tongue, memories of entire communities descending into chaos and bloodshed coming back to him. Of the people fleeing in droves to the next towns, over and over as each next Plant was taken and the cycle continued until there was nowhere left to hide. "We need to leave, Vash. This town is...there's not anything you can do for these people right now, and you'll just run yourself into an early grave if you try."
His hand clenched tighter around the leather straps wrapped around the Punisher, and he took another long, deep drag of the cigar, shaking his head as it dropped down again, the fears in his mind shifting to certainties. But...Vash wasn't going to like what he suspected had happened. It was going to hurt him, and he didn't want to be the one to completely crush what hopes he was able to hold onto just yet; one of them had to be an optimist. So he tried to consider options that weren't the worst case scenario, if only to put a hopeful spin on what he was about to say.
"So. Nico's a survivor, right? I went through this, I know what I'd do in this situation. If he's still somewhere here, and we leave, he'll come find us. I have an idea where we should go, and he'll figure it out quick enough." He turned his head toward Vash, but still couldn't lift his gaze to look him in the eyes, continuing to hide his gaze behind his dark sunglasses as he stared at the stitching on the shoulder of his coat. "But...If he's not here...I...may know where we can find him...
I just...I'm..." He put the cigar back in his mouth and chewed on the end of it as he tried to work up the ability to say what was on the tip of his tongue. "If I'm right...I'm sorry. I really am. I pray to God that I'm wrong, for both your sakes."
... unless, of course, he's panicking like three random stops over
For a moment, his lips trembled, before he pressed them firmly together.
"Do you know where they are? The plants?" He knew that they were out there somewhere, he had heard them, and he knew that they had not abandoned people, which gave him more hope than he could express, but he needed to know.
Another deep breath. Wolfwood did not apologize. And now he was doing just that.
"Let us see where you think he is. And you can tell me on the way." The weight in his stomach was getting heavier, but the only way he could help these people was to return the plants, or bring them to the plants... when whatever they had asked for had been helped with.
Instead of locking himself down, Vash leaned slightly so their shoulders did touch, bump lightly. He was here. Whatever was happening, this was not Wolfwood's fault. And they would find how to help, together.
LOL Just randomly like "WTF???" got transported to another city and is SO CONFUSED
But he also knew how that stubbornness could just as easily be directed at the wrong problem, when Vash got an idea in his thick head, and the momentary worry that he was going to have to wrangle him out of town in a headlock for his own good was enough to keep the grim, smug satisfaction from fully manifesting. So when he shifted again, conceding the moral high ground, Wolfwood visibly relaxed just a bit, giving a small nod.
"Your brother has 'em. An' I'm not just talking one or two here and there, like last time you faced 'im. I mean all of 'em."
He let the information sink in, let Vash take a moment to register the gravity of what he was implying before nodding again. He had just enough time to tense the muscles needed to turn his body and begin walking away before Vash leaned in, touching, subtle enough that anyone around them wouldn't have even noticed it had occurred. But for Nicholas, it was like a jolt of electricity, a shock that nearly broke through the barrier he'd been building up over the past few minutes to prepare himself for the reality he was certain he was now facing.
He froze, his body leaning closer, his head dipping low. Touch was rare between them, even between him and his man back home. There was too much for them to deal with, too much guilt and pain and anger, and he knew that for all his kindness, Vash carried his own demons that made him pull back from accepting any of that kindness being given back to him in return.
Damn him, but they were too much alike in all the ways they hurt themselves the most. So that contact alone said so many more words than speaking could, and it hurt. It twisted with the voice inside of him that snarled that he didn't deserve the kindness, tangling his emotions into knots as another voice, a newer voice that was not his own rumbled back at him from his memory, twinged with a terrifying, comforting, otherworldly tone that had only come out when Vash had done that...thing, reaching into his head and contradicting the awful, undeniable truths the first voice said when Wolfwood was at his own breaking point.
It took him a moment before he was able to recover from the shock of it, and another moment still before he found the ability to lift his hand up from where it hung, trembling, at his side, and shifted just enough that he could curl his fingers around Vash's bicep, just above where it met the metal bracket keeping his prosthetic attached under his clothes. It was tentative at first, barely firm enough to even feel the heat of his skin through the fabric, and for a moment, he leaned closer, turning his head as if he wanted to hide his face against that red shoulder.
But then he jerked, as if coming out of a trance. He chewed the inside of his lip, forcing himself to bury the moment down inside of his chest, and let the hand on his arm finally take a gentle grip as he turned to pull him away from the bar. Shift around, move to the other side of him as he steered Vash in the direction of December so that he could drape the arm not carrying the Punisher over Vash's other shoulder. It gave the semblance of comradery, just a couple of friends walking down the street, and let him stand close enough that he could continue to speak softly enough that no one could hear.
"If this is like back home, he's usin' em as his own personal...batteries. Weapons. Bit'a both, I guess you could say. But he's not stayin' in one place, either. Has himself a great, big ship he's flyin' around, takin' the Plants, usin' their power to wreak havoc. Last I knew, before...comin' here, they'd been collecting all the refugees in Octovern. You - you back home - were supposed to be headed there, too. You were supposed to be dealin' with him there, 'cause we knew it was only a matter of time.
Me, I went to December. Had some business to take care of, an' one...one group of...refugees wasn't worth distractin' you from what you needed to do. So I left without tellin' you. But ya showed up, anyway." He laughed, a bitter sound, because he should have known. He couldn't help remembering, even if it was a hazy, drug-addled memory at best, that he'd said as much to this man once before, two years ago.
He supposed it was only a matter of time before they had to talk about what had happened before, properly.
"That's...the last time I saw 'im." His voice cracked, he struggled to force the words out through his whispers, gnawing on the end of the cigar in his mouth. He drew in a puff on it through one side of his mouth and let the smoke out of his lungs through the other side after holding it for a moment, hoping it would settle his nerves. "I'm...I'm worried your man is there. If we're back home, if he took my place..."
He had to pull his arm away to hurriedly wipe the tears that rebelled against his attempts to keep himself composed, and when he let it drop back down, it was only to press it gently once against Vash's shoulder and then pull it back away. He wanted the contact, felt like he needed it, but the older voice in his head barked that no matter what anyone said, if he was right about this, then it was his fault this man had lost his friend.
"I still don't know why I ended up here with you, Blondie. I should be dead. He-...if they sent him back in my place...there'll be a grave. You always bury the bodies. Even the sorry sons of bitches who don't deserve it."
And damnit, if that didn't twist something in his chest in a way he couldn't explain, the thought that there was someone who cared enough about a fucked up, washed up killer like him, to give him a proper grave. It was more than he deserved, but he knew that man too well to think he wouldn't have gone out of his way to do it, and probably would have even made the effort of doing it right.
And now some other fucked up, washed up killer was probably laying out there in his place. In a weird way, no matter how little sense it made, he couldn't feel the same hate for Nico that he felt for himself. He deserved a chance to do better, to try and make up for the things he'd done. It wasn't his fault that Nicholas had come to the end of his road because of his own stupidity. It should be him in that theoretical grave.
i k r that would just be about right.
"He does not have them anymore. I don't know what is happening, but if he did, they would not have called for help... for help to the other me, if Knives had them." He did not know what that meant, but it meant that they would have to find out.
He listened a sliver of hope brightening the whole situation very slightly as the weight of that arm settled around his shoulders, and he thought that whatever he did wrong to make Wolfwood freeze with the shoulder-bump might have been forgiven, at least a little. The words were heavy, sinking into a low white noise around him that he tried to push away, to focus on what was going on, or might be going on.
He almost parted his lips to say that it did not make sense, not much, for Nico to have taken that role. Not if they had bene called here to help, and no, he could not let go of that call, the only shred of explanation he could find for benig here--
Then Wolfwood's tears hit him like a bullet through the stomach, and the loss of that touch turned the white noise into a roar, drowning out everything around him but the figure next to him, ready to guide him all over again. It was overwhelming, all of that too much, and he could not break, he couldn't, not with Wolfwood right there and so upset over this, but the words echoing in his mind could not make their way out.
Yes, he is a survivor
It will be all right
We'll find him, not his body
After a long moment, he finally managed to straighten up, pulling himself as tall as he could.
"Right." And he started walking in the direction where Wolfwood had been guiding him, eyes focused forward and steps long to hide how unsteady they could be. It was only when they were well past the small settlement that he managed at least some other words, though they felt distant and dry and insufficient even to him.
"You are not dead. I am glad."
The white roar was threatening to swallow them, and he had not even a sliver of the voice of a plant to anchor him. So he kept walking, eyes not even really seeing the way forward.
Just stomping out in the direction of the town they'd been in, cursing up a storm the whole way. XD
He was used to the tense silences; Vash had always seemed to have trouble with words when something really effected him. This time, Nicholas couldn't help but feel like the shift had come specifically because of himself, and it was enough to make him want to reach out, shake him and shout and make him just say it. Actually acknowledge that this was on Wolfwood's head, to vent the pain his presence had caused.
Things were easier when they bickered and fought and argued, even if right now he felt like he would have gladly accepted all of the anger Vash had to throw at him without a single complaint. And he knew there was anger, no matter how kind he was, no matter how much he refused to show that anger to the people around him. But he knew that was the way Vash did things. Never once had he expressed that anger for who Wolfwood was, only the things he did. Not once had he just admitted that those actions were enough to strip him of any of the good he might have once had.
He was too. Fucking. Kind.
But forcing the fight he wanted wasn't worth the effort, not when they had much more important things to worry about. He sighed, letting his legs shift into their own long stride to keep up with Vash as they made their way out of town. He let the silence linger between them, let it and the tension he felt coming off of Vash in waves gnaw at his own nerves, like claws raking down his skin. He hated it, hated knowing he was the cause of it, and that was just what he deserved.
By the time he heard Vash speak up again, enough time had passed that he had reached the end of his cigar and tossed it out into the desert sand. The nicotine hadn't been near enough to blunt the way the hollowness in his voice and his words made those same emotional claws dig in, right into his chest in a way that made him grit his teeth and bite back tears.
"Don't do that. Don't..." He gritted his teeth a moment, Chapel's voice screaming at him in his head, memories of being beaten down and bloodied for showing the smallest moments of weakness. But Chapel wasn't here, and Wolfwood would rather take the anger than have Vash continue to pretend things were fine when they very clearly weren't. "Don't give me the whole...loving, kind act when we both know I don't deserve it. You're upset, be upset, seriously! You cannot tell me that if Nick is dead because of my fuck up, that you would be glad that it was me here instead of him!"
Somewhere in the back of his head, a tiny, weak voice that sounded like the man he knew back home flared up with a faintly-dawning moment of clarity that tried to push through the fog in his mind. What are you doing, why are you saying this? Because it was the truth, damnit! And now he'd kicked the wam's nest because he wanted to finally hear it from Vash's own lips, even when he knew that wasn't his way. He was just reminding him of what was at stake, he was digging the knife into the wound he would feel when they found Nicholas' body before he'd even received it, and he was making things worse.
"Fuck."
then he gets lost because what is cross-verse geography where tf is hopeland
But then Wolfwood spoke, and the words cut through the roar with enough depth that his eyes stung, and he had to swallow and remind himself that he did not deserve to cry, and so he breathed, and walked, for a little bit before he could swallow that up.
"I would not be glad if either of you was dead. But we don't know that he is. We don't know, Wolfwood, and until that is a certainty, I won't grieve him." He would hold on to hope. He had to.
"But however much you are aware of your mistake, you did not choose to get anyone else hurt by it." Other than the other Vash, but he knew that bringing that up would not help. "And you certainly did not, and would not, make him go take your place. However it might make sense in you mind, if it happened, or is happening, you did not make it happen. So you stop that, too." His right arm weint in front of his body, holding on to the left elbow, and he stared up ahead. "If I'm right, and it was the plants that called us here, then he wouldn't be there, anyway. If it was someone else, and that happened, then it'd be their fault. Not yours."
And then Vash would be angry. But not at Wolfwood.
...TBH, that would just make him panic EVEN MORE. l o l oh NO.
It didn't make it any easier though, listening to him being so reasonable, making so much damn sense. He felt like an asshole, chided like a child in the softest way possible. It was times like this when Vash's true age became more obvious, the wisdom he had after so much experience, even if it was buried under the demons that dogged his every step and left him running ragged. Made him want to tuck himself inside of that coat he wore that was too large for his frame, hide himself against his side where it was safe. Where, against all odds and better judgment, someone actually cared about him.
He fell into his own long silence as they walked, and he knew he was pouting, even if he would never admit to it. It was a while of walking, wiping his sleeve against his face to hide the tears, before he finally spoke up again, as softly muttered as the sound of their feet shuffling through the sand.
"Look...it's just...all I know how to do, sometimes. I'm just trying to be a realist, Blondie. If I don't get my hopes up, it won't hurt when it all comes crashing down on my head..."
more panicked and pissed, yup. poor nico.
He stopped, turning to stand in front of Wolfwood. He couldn't properly smile, not yet, but he was trying, and his eyes, though a little bloodshot, were soft and kind as always.
"I know. I am sorry - but at this point you are hurting yourself, and it - we may have to deal with more than enough of that in the days to come. Save your strength?" And mine, he did not add, because that was selfish, but a part of him knew to be true. Wolfwood hurting himself was hurting Vash, too, it ever would be the case, and... there was already so much pain.
Deep breath. "I am sorry I am taking that away from you right now. It's easier to be focusing on one thing, even if it hurts with every time your thoughts circle through it. But... we have too much work to do."
He really was sorry, too. He wasn't sure he could bare this better than the self-blaming. The silent tears, or the pain in Wolfwood's voice, the attempt to explain and apologize.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The words come to him unbidden, and that almost wrings the wryest smile out of his lips.
"We will do what we can. Idealist or realist, that's all we have."
Exactly! They'll probably be able to find him based on his shouting and ranting. lol
The fact that he was right made him both angrier with himself and...well, still angry, but for multiple reasons. He wasn't doing Nico any good, letting himself spiral like this, he wasn't doing Vash any good when things may have just gone from bad to infinitely worse in the span of an hour. He shook his head, risking a glance back at him just in time to see the way that glass-brittle smile shifted, only slightly less painful than before, just in a different way.
"No, look, you're right." Even if it was hard to admit. Especially knowing how much Vash took these things personally. He was starting to go soft, himself.
Which was probably why, looking at that painful smile, knowing that Vash was hurting - because he was always hurting, and this was just adding to it - remembering what Luida had said to him when they'd come out of recovery back at Home, remembering how timidly he'd asked if he could hold Wolfwood when he'd gone and upset him the last time he'd forgotten to keep his feelings in check around this man, he couldn't help but reach up after a moment, his fingers barely touching the sleeve of his coat, and forced himself to really look at him. Despite the fact that it always hurt so much to look into those sad, hollow smiles of his.
"...Hey. Blondie, is...is it alright if...if I hold you for a minute...?" Was this alright? Was this overstepping a boundary? He...Vash looked like he needed it. He'd asked for it before, so it was fine, right?
bls let them stop worrying
Then he made a small sound at the back of his throat, helpless, because the current situation was so far removed from the realm of moments of physical comfort that it had not even occurred to him, nor did he think that Wolfwood would want that. (Find out what was happening, find Nico, find his Vash, all of these would help, right? They would make things all right?) but now that it was brought up, oh, how he did want a hug.
"Y-yes. Please?" His voice even squeaked, and then he just. Stepped closer and planted his face against Wolfwood's broad shoulder, letting him settle down the Punisher and all that but just.
He needed. A little time. To hide from reality. To process properly. And while being quiet and walking would have done the trick, eventually, being able to hide against someone he trusted --
It was something he'd missed since Rem last held him.
Nope. Neber Stahp
He really wasn't used to this kind of thing anymore. Hadn't been for a long time, now. But after a moment of quietly panicking as he tried to remember how to do...this, he shifted, relaxing slightly into it, and like instinct instilled from so many years taking care of the kids at the orphanage when Miss Melanie was overwhelmed, he began to rock him gently, rubbing his hands against his back.
"Hey. You're gonna be alright." The words rumbled out unconsciously, though they left him a little bewildered after the fact. Would he? Or was he just parroting the things that had worked when he'd found Livio curled up under his blankets, once Wolfwood had stopped feeling prickly and wary of getting too attached to the little guy?
Honestly...yeah. Yeah. If there was one person on this damned planet that he thought could make it through this, it was Vash. Even if he did insist on taking every damn bullet that came out of the business end of a gun.
Seriously, though...if this was how Vash reacted when someone like Wolfwood asked if he wanted a hug, when was the last time he'd gotten one? From someone other than Nicholas. Because this was twice now, and both times, he'd latched on like it was a fucking lifeline.
Alright. New Rule. He needed to check in on him a lot more often. People didn't just latch on like this unless they really needed it. Especially not people like Vash, who worked so damn hard to keep everything so tightly contained.
But that was a concern for future Wolfwood. For now, he just let him cling as long as he needed to, rocking him and holding him and not even once letting himself give into the instinctive need to say some shitty little comment just to get him riled up.
OKAY BUT THEN PANIC LESS AT LEAST
So, in short, yes, it had been forever since he got a proper hug, and the closest he had had in recent memory had been knives pinning him with his blade tentacles and that was. Something else entirely. Holding and being held had been a part of his early childhood, and since then... he'd missed it beyond words.
Even so, right now it was something else. It was Vash drowning in his own mind in ways he could not easily express, and needed the anchor, the stability that was Wolfwood. Even if it disturbed him a little that he would lean on either of them at a time of this, and one was not there, and was that fair, but that drowned under the tide of everything else.
And Wolfwood's words. Instead of helping, they made him hunch his shoulders a little more. "It's so easy, you know. For me to be all right, and everyone else to be suffering. If I could exchange that... if everyone could be all right, even if I was suffering, I'd prefer that. But... it never works like that." Then he winced at how his own words sounded.
"Sorry. Sorry. I'll be fine. I'll be all right." Great, now he had ruined this also. Could he just be how he was normally be so they could get this resolved in some way?
The answer was pointing to a tentative no.
LOOK DON'T MAKE HIM MAKE PROMISES HE CAN'T KEEP OK
But life was never that easy, was it? Especially not, it seemed, when you lived long enough to watch everyone you love die, and then their children, and their children.
"...I wish I had the answers for you, I really do." He turned his head to rest his chin against the top of Vash's head and held him a little tighter. "You keep trying, over and over again, to take on everyone else's pain, but it really doesn't work that way, I'm sorry. And I know you just want to help, but...Vash, you're not God. Maybe the closest damn thing to it on this speck of dirt, but you're still just..."
Not human, no. Not technically. But that didn't mean he had less humanity than anyone else, with all it's frailties and hardships.
"You're still just one man. You can't keep blaming yourself because you're not perfect. Nobody is. It's not your responsibility to be everyone's punching bag. You deserve to be happy, too."
But...again. It was never that easy, was it? Not with that much pain, not with everything he'd been through. Some hurts just never really went away, and there were people who hadn't had the courage to keep going after enduring much less than Vash had. How was he supposed to even fix that?
He gave a small, sad smile, shifting again and pressing his face against Vash's cheek before he realized just what he was doing, though he didn't move away once he had.
"I know it's not really something that just happens, though. No amount of words from me is gonna fix it, and I'm sorry. But you don't have to suffer alone, you know? It's alright to ask for help if you need it. Even if it's just...a hug, or takin' a break. You've got people who love you an' want you to be happy. But you also don't have to pretend just to appease 'em, either. Just let 'em help if you're hurtin'. That's...that's all we wanna do, is help. We can handle it, I promise.
I...know we don't live as long as you do, but...at least let us help make things easier on you while we're here, alright? And I mean it. I can tell when you're hidin' behind those fake smiles'a yours. Always been able to." The little chuckle he gave was just a bandage on a bullet wound. More than likely, Vash would take everything he'd said and find a way of turning it around on himself, blaming himself for worrying the people who cared about him. But he needed to hear it, that people wanted to help. Sometimes he wondered just how often he'd been told. How often people had just let him take their burdens without complaint, without thanks, and without a thought to how it left him just a little bit more hollow inside.
he won't. he won't make him promise anything ever.
You've got people who love you an' want you to be happy. so simple and honest, and Vash knew exactly how true it was, but they- He did not want them to be wrong, but they were.
"I don't." Vash's voice was hoarse, even as the cheek that Wolfwood rested his own against was dry. "I don't deserve it." Not to be happy. Not even to indulge his hurt enough to cry over it. "I am... sorry. That I have to disappoint. But I don't deserve any of it. The-- everyone, everything here. All the fear, all the suffering. All who died in the crash, and even those who couldn't survive without the plants. It's partly my fault. I made it possible."
Millions upon millions of lives lost. And more, all around them.
"How can - how can anyone with that deserve to be happy?" A deep, shaky breath, and his voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm... sorry. It...
"At least if more people are all right, the weight lifts, a little."
'You'll be all right' really just...
He probably should have just taken it. Accepted it. He could see that in retrospect, but everything had him so shaken, he couldn't take one more thing. He needed to get better, again.
They probably should get going again, too. But the thought of stepping back and catching even a glance of Wolfwood's face was more than he could bear right now. He was going to. In just a little bit.
Well NOW he just feels BAD lol
"Vash, no. Listen to me, damnit. You cannot possibly tell me that you, of all people, intentionally did somethin' to help your brother kill people. I know you. I know you. Even when people're beatin' you senseless, you let 'em! The only thing about you that 'disappoints' me is that you keep lettin' yourself take the abuse!" And he hated that Vash would probably find a way of beating himself up over that, too, that it would just reinforce his guilt. "You're not responsible for the actions of other people. I know it makes you feel better, like it's gonna make everything better if you just let the world beat you down hard enough, but you really do deserve to be happy, too."
He let the anger fizzle out a bit, sighing and letting his arms loosen, a bit worried now that he'd gotten it out into the air that Vash would shut down and push away, and he didn't want him to feel trapped. But he didn't immediately let go, either.
"I just...I wish I could get you t'see how much you matter. Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and accept that you made a mistake, an' I'm still dubious on that because I know how old you are, an' I might not've had a proper education but I can do simple math...One mistake, weighed against over a hundred years of lettin' other people abuse your kindness because you think it was enough to make you unforgivable? That math doesn't add up, either. What matters is that you've been tryin'. You care enough to wanna do better. God as my witness, I may be a terrible priest, but I know for a fact you've done more penance for your sins than most people would even care to try for."
Which...honestly made a sick feeling roll around in his stomach, because it just reminded him of his own sins, his own lies, the blood on his hands, and...fuck it. He wasn't opposed to playing dirty if he thought there was even the smallest chance that it would help. He shifted enough to hold Vash's face in his hands, actually pulling him away from his shoulder enough that he could press his forehead against his own, staring him down through those pale sunglasses, even if he tried to keep his eyes closed.
"Look at me, Vash. Look at me. All that blood you think you got on your hands? That wasn't your choice. You don't even know half of the things I've done. How many times I pulled the trigger, on my own, stabbed someone in the back, on my own. Those deaths weren't mistakes, I intended for every single one of 'em. That's who I am. That's who Nico is. If you think you deserve t'suffer for your mistake, then what's that say about us? I'm tryin' t'be a better man, 'cause that's what bein' around you so much has done to me, but if you don't think you're able to atone for what happened when you were a child, then what do I deserve? If it's really that impossible to make up for the things we've done, then I might as well not even try."
he knows it's true. he'll promise and do his best keep his promises but won't ask anyone
By the time Wolfwood raised his face up (Vash did not let go, though in a way he was mostly frozen, trying to fold in on himself except not really), his eyes were closed, and he opened them when Wolfwood told him to look at him. They were, at least, not closed off or distant or unfocused. Instead, they were filled with unshed tears, that he was trying his best not to allow to fall.
Then the words drew to their conclusion, and the blue eyes widened, Vash shaking once and freezing as though he had been hit with a round of the Punisher in the chest, except when he had actually gotten shot last, he'd reacted far less... not that this Wolfwood had been there to see that. The thought that he'd hurt Wolfwood with his words, with his attitude, to think that was absolutely unbearable.
"No! That's not what I said! I - what I did was on a scale that you cannot come close to but - that's not - not impossible!" He was flailing for words and halfway between devastated and angry (at himself). "I said that when people are better, it feels better! I meant - that's - it's how I can make up for it, and when I do, even if it hurts me at the moment, it feels less bad overall!"
He didn't know how to phrase it to make Wolfwood understand, but he was trying.
Ok, then promise to stop hurting yourself, Needle-Noggin!
But then, staring into those watery, wide eyes and hearing him stumbling over his own words, sensing the pain and anger he felt that was obviously not directed at Wolfwood, he knew it had...maybe not gone in one ear and out the other, but still missed the mark somewhere. And he sighed, frowning around his own tears, because God, damnit, he just didn't know what to do to get through to him properly!
"No, Vash, listen to me, I know that's not what you said. I don't care about the scale of the damn thing! Do you really think your mistakes make you more of a monster than someone who did it willingly?" He ground his teeth, remembering Augusta, back before he knew who Vash truly was, back when the things he had watched happening had been the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen in his entire life. And how he had fought and struggled on that hill, the sound of his voice as he changed, as Millions Knives held him contorted and screaming from above and forced him to become something horrifying. "I don't believe it, Vash. I've seen it, I've seen what you can do. What they make you do. I didn't understand it back then, I was fuckin' terrified!"
Now, though, when the memory of it made tears roll down his face, it wasn't out of fear. It was because the memory of him fighting so hard, shooting himself just to save others, hurt so much, because he understood, now. He understood.
"You're not a monster, Vash. I stood back and watched them use you, because I was too afraid to move. I didn't know you, I didn't know how much pain it was puttin' you through, but I do, now. Maybe not...maybe not personally. The amount of pain I see in you terrifies me, Vash, an' sometimes I don't know how you do it. But...there's nothin' you can say that will make me believe that the man I saw, screamin' an' helpless while his brother tried t'use him as a weapon to murder even more people, deserves to blame himself for what they did to him.
I know it makes you feel better to help people, I do, and so help me, it's one of the things about you that actually gives me an ounce'a fuckin' hope. But your happiness matters just as much as theirs does, Vash! They've been abusing you, an' I'm not gonna blame you for their actions. You have nothing to make up for. Help people because you want to help them. Not because you feel the need to hurt yourself. Not because you think they matter more than you do. You. Matter, Vash."
He flexed his jaw around the tears that he'd tried not to give into, a little angry with himself for them. But then his eyes narrowed a little, and he sat his jaw as a tiny thought occurred to him.
"An' don't tell me it's not the same, 'cause that happened to the man I knew back home. You're even softer than he was-...is." Because he didn't want to consider what might have happened to him since Wolfwood had...left. And using the past tense made his anxious heart hurt. "He will actually put a bullet in someone if it means they can't attack again, even if he still refuses to make 'em lethal. Have you ever actually shot a person with that thing? No, not the important part, shuttup. My point is, even with your differences, you're still the same man. And I know you would have fought just as hard as he did. You would never have hurt those people on your own, Vash. Ever."
........... he can... try...
"Intensional or not, it doesn't make the lives taken any less. That's why in this way, the sheer enormity of what I've caused cannot be denied... No. I can't deny it. But... It's not quite like that. It's not that I let them hurt me as penance, though sometimes my body moves before I can think." Now he was calm, in a way, because he could relieve a little of what was hurting wolfwood.
"What I'm trying to do, what helps, is to protect someone, to help someone, to relieve someone else's pain. Sometimes that means that I get hurt in the process, but that is less pain than is relieved when I help. I'm not trying to get hurt, it's that I don't mind getting hurt as much." It was the truth. For all the difference it might make, probably not...
Then he took a deep breath.
"I fought. I always fight. But I turned JuLai into a crater, destroying everyone there, because I try tried to fly out into space with something dangerous, and then fell. The impact... The impact that I made, personally, obliterated the entire city.
"Fighting against doing harm can still kill people. That is why I won't kill even more. Why it's so hard to see others get hurt and just stand by. When I know I'll live.
" It's why everyone else's life seems so much more precious to me. Everyone else can lose that life. And I... I'll just wake up again."
He guesses he'll have to accept that...
"Yeah, but what about those of us who hurt when we see you hurtin'?" His voice was a furious whisper, and part of him felt guilty for twisting it around on him like that, but it was the truth. "What if one day, you don't wake up again? I keep tellin' you, it's gonna get you killed, Vash! I can't-..."
He gritted his teeth, the hands on Vash's face moving to clutch, fisted, in the shoulders of his coat so that he didn't hurt him with how hard they wanted to clench.
"I don't know how t'make you understand. How do I make you understand?"
And in the back of his mind, the memory of Luida, standing next to him as they watched Vash scramble to coordinate people after the Nine Lives had attacked inside of the cold sleep chamber, explaining to him so that he understood. Vash was suffering. He'd been suffering for so long. He hurt every damn day of his too-long life, and probably, the possibility of dying because of his blind altruism was, in the end, somehow a part of his plan. He loved people too much and wanted to help too much to end it himself, but the truth of it was easy to see when you knew what you were looking at. Either he didn't care if he was killed, keeping someone else safe, or he went through life actually hoping that the next fight was the one that would take him out.
His expression softened, pained and hurting, yes, but so worried. Full of just as much hurt as it was love, because the thought that Vash was in so much pain broke his heart.
"I don't know how to make you stop hurtin', Vash, and I wish I did."
I s2g I wrote a tag for this before sleep and wanted to edit it but ig I didn't.
On the better days, it was a... hope. That one day he would be able to rest, to not have to fear the next time he would mess up and hurt more people... when the memories wouldn't fill him with weariness and grief he did not allow himself to feel.
On the worse days, he felt like he would never be granted that relief, condemned to wander and lose everyone, unto eternity. Which was why on the worse days he was more reckless, both to prove to himself exactly what he feared, and because then he cared less about the pain or consequences.
But Wolfwood's words hit him like a sandsteamer, the grief, the tears, the wrecked whisper, raw and torn out of parts of Wolfwood that he kept walled up behind anger and bluster and violence. It made Vash force himself into some semblance of inner balance. They couldn't... they could not both break. Not at the same time.
He leaned forward until their foreheads were against each other, then he pressed a little, just to remind Wolfwood that he was here. And he smiled. Not the smile that was bordering on manic but a smaller smile, the kind that let his ache come through, just a little.
"It... I understand. I'm sorry. I do understand. It's - not something that I've had to deal with for a long time. But every time you - either of you - pushes me out of harm's way, I understand. Every time you yell at me. It fights with what I've learned for this long, and often my body reacts before my mind can stop it." Deep breath. "And you have made it hurt so much less already. Both of you."
Vash closed his eyes. "For the first time in a very long time, you've showed me there was something more than, go, try to help, watch things turn into a disaster, run, try again, try again. You've given me joy and ... something that can only happen when you're working, fighting, with someone who understands you. When we move as a team, it's - I know I'm not alone." That was not the same as stopping the hurting. But it gave him something more than just hurt.
lol omg yeah, I've done that, too. Just suddenly "Where did it go???"
"It's...it's not enough, though, is it? It's never gonna be enough." And he sounded almost devastated at the thought. "You're the only son of a bitch on this entire fuckin' rock that deserves some fuckin' peace, but-..."
Nothing can stop this kind of pain. He finds happiness with Wolfwood, but Wolfwood isn't immortal. Wolfwood's life won't even last as long as a normal human's, and then Vash will be back to square one, all alone, suffering in silence, letting himself be abused and hurt and shot and mangled and traumatized because he thought that was what he deserved.
And it all just reminded him of the man he'd left behind. How well they'd moved together, how strong they were as a team, how they just seemed to know each other better than anyone else ever had. And he'd left him. He'd let his foolish impulses take away one of the only things that might have, if he was as much like the man in front of him as Wolfwood knew he was, made him feel like he wasn't all alone and destined to suffer for God only knew how long.
sob SERIOUSLY esp when I'm tagging from two different pcs and also phone..
"You let me smile not because I must, but because I can remember what joy is, that there is more than emptiness and pain and failure." A deep breath in, soft breath out.
"Can't that be enough?"
LOL oh no, that's so many places to keep track of! XD
He didn't answer for a long time, but he wrapped his arms around his shoulders, burying his face in the crook of his neck. No permission asked this time, but it was a slow thing, he could pull away if it wasn't wanted. It let him hide the way he sniffed and cried softly from the rest of the world, though, and given enough time, he swayed gently, self-soothingly, as he clung.
"I just want you t'be happy. All you do is show kindness t'everyone around you, even worthless sons of bitches like me, an' it's not right that you have to hurt so much. It's not right."
And if you'd asked him five years ago? Nicholas D. Wolfwood would have told you that kindness like that didn't exist, that it was a facade someone showed to get on your good side, to make you trust them so they could stab you in the back, and that everyone was some kind of an asshole that was just waiting to get one over on the next man. At least the Nicholas of five years ago wouldn't have had to hurt so much at the thought of one man carrying so much pain.
But at the same time, the only way he'd have been able to stay the same man would have been to never have met Vash. In the grand scheme of things, he'd call it a fair tradeoff, no matter how much it made him hurt.
It usually works fine with my brain but sometimes things slip through the cracks
LOL So you know how we had been talking about how you thought you'd tagged this one? MY TURN! 8D