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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.]
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
He just wrapped around Wolfwood's body as he well as he could, carding fingers through the dark strands.
"I can try. I'm not s--" He wasn't sure how, any happiness he'd had was lost so, so very long ago. "We can try to see if I can find my way to it. Would you be willing to help." A corner of his mouth tugged up. "I might need a guide."
He didn't know if that would help or make things worse. But it was truth, and he didn't think he should offer falsehoods to Wolfwood. It would just hurt more.
LOL So you know how we had been talking about how you thought you'd tagged this one? MY TURN! 8D
He pulled into himself, instinctively trying to hide his weakness behind his hands as they moved up to curl around his own mouth, and his face went through a complicated set of emotions; a soft bark of laughter hiccupped in his throat once as his brain registered that Vash was trying to use gentle humor to ease the tension, but the smile that wanted to accompany it was short-lived as it flickered intermittently with a look that was almost stunned shock.
Such a little thing, a gentle reminder of the role he'd had in Vash's life, and given so lightly that the acceptance of it made him feel hollowed out.
That was what Wolfwood was. He was Vash's guide, the one who'd led him to his torture and imprisonment, who'd been the one to show him the way through the trials and trauma that Millions Knives had thrown at him, and he'd known exactly what he was doing. And now, the gently implied forgiveness of those sins and the kindness of asking him to be that again, but in a way that was meant to heal and not hurt, made his nerves feel raw.
How could he possibly deserve that? How could his guilt be so simply swept away and replaced with something so kind? Kindness had been beaten out of him years ago, the Nicholas who had the capacity for it had been killed and replaced with the man standing in Wolfwood's shoes, and there was no bringing him back.
So why, now, did the pain he felt in the moment over such a small, gently playful reminder of his role suddenly feel...freeing? How was it still possible for it to make him so suddenly want nothing more than...just that? To be allowed to be kind, to be allowed to help him heal?
He needed a moment, curled up around himself but still hovering so close to Vash's chest that it was as if he were still clinging without actually holding him, with his tears coming readily now and soft cries hiccupped between them as he stared down at the dark turtleneck under Vash's coat, unable to look him in the eye. But finally, he nodded, and he was able to pull his hands away from his face as he swallowed, his fingers latching onto the thick zipper on the red fabric and fussing it mindlessly beneath the pads of them.
"Mmm...I...I think I can try that. Yeah. Don't think that sounds too hard."
It wanted to sound just as light as the joke had been, trying to deflect the shock it had given him with his own playfulness, but it sounded needy to his own ears, and he couldn't even find the energy to care.
He wants to help, despite himself. Please, let him help. If anything good can come of the sins the Eye forced him to bear, it won't be such a bad thing if it's this.