The Inn at December [CW; will contain desecration of a grave in tags]

[mercifullyheavy]

Waking up the morning after drinking enough alcohol to kill a Toma was rarely an enjoyable event, even for Wolfwood. So when the light from the suns blazing in through the window finally managed to rouse him, he groaned, turning his head to bury it in the mattress underneath him. He wanted to roll over and shove his head under the pillow, but moving was...weird. He felt too hot, uncomfortable, like the blankets were wrapped too tightly around his limbs.

There was a moment of confusion before the vague memories of what had happened the night before began creeping into his consciousness, and at first he felt...hollow. Empty. Guilty for the trouble he'd caused. But the more he lay on the bed, the more the memories creeped in, until the hazy memories of the two of them finding him in the bar downstairs and making their way back up to the room for a proper sleep finally sank in, and he breathed in a sharp breath that made him groan all over again.

"Mmmmr...Needle-Noggin? Blondie?" He reached out with the arm he wasn't laying on top of - and the way that one felt like it was probably asleep was not a pleasant thing - slapping around the bed in search of the man he remembered dozing off against, and eventually his hand slapped against what felt like...an ankle? He felt the fabric of tight, knitted fabric over warm skin, and for a moment it made him relax into the bed again. "Mmmr...hey."

He patted the limb in drowsy greeting before reaching out again. One Vash down, the other to go? But even as he patted around, he dimly wondered if the other one had even gotten into the same bed, or if he'd taken another. He turned his head, blinking at the room through barely-opened eyes, only to find it empty, and his hand came up empty no matter where he searched.

That was when he decided he needed to just grin and bear the headache that was throbbing behind his eyes, and he turned, shifting, lifting his head to look around for the other man in the same moment he realized the claustrophobic feeling was from wearing his suit to bed, and found himself staring blearily at a bed that only held himself and the fluffy-haired, soft-spoken Vash he'd been traveling with for the past few months propped up against the headboard, and not the Vash he'd left behind in December.

"Morn'n'." He rolled over, bewildered, shielding his face enough that the light didn't completely blast his retinas and seer an apple-sized hole in his brain, and realized dimly that they were the only two people in the room.

He was gone.

He suddenly felt as if a bucket of rocks had been dumped right into his stomach, his head dropping back heavily and the arm he'd been using to shield his eyes dropping across his face.

Of course he was gone.

He wasn't sure if he was too tired, too hungover, or some combination of the two. It was taking him too long to work up the ability to think about what that actually made him feel. He knew it would kick in eventually. He wasn't looking forward to it.

Comments

[mercifullyheavy]

He gave a small, sad sound at that, the dark thoughts in his head reminding him of the early days, when all he'd seen when he looked at Vash was a loose canon, dangerous and able to go off without any warning.

"I wasn't always very good at that, either, though...I...I was so dumb." It was hard to admit, something he'd kept close to his chest for a long time, because Vash deserved better than that, and knowing that he'd been just as bad as the people who'd hurt him just added to the list of things he hated about himself.

Still, there was something about about hearing Vash have faith that his breaks could be mended that made it feel a little more real, where it might have been something he would have railed against before, snarled and shouted and told him he was delusional, too naive, too kind, going to get himself hurt because he put his trust in the wrong people. What had changed? Why did it feel less like a threat, now, than it had before? When had he stopped wanting to disbelieve the kind things he said about him? And why wasn't that as scary as it used to have been?

"I want to heal, I do. I don't know how. You and him and the girls...you've always been the only ones who treated me like I could." And then Vash was scolding him, but it was different than anger, and hearing such a casual curse coming from this Vash, even if it wouldn't have been at all unusual to hear from the other, was enough of a little surprise that it got a startled little laugh out of him that managed to derail the doubts that still wanted to argue against everything else he'd said. It was different, the hate he felt for himself versus the hate he saw Vash holding for himself, both of them really, and part of him still wanted to argue that they deserved to forgive themselves so much more than he did. But perhaps it was the fatigue that sapped any real energy out of him for arguing, because he found himself accepting the reassurances more easily than he might have otherwise.

He thought about the offer, about leaving Vash to finish reburying the grave, and he hated the idea of making him do it on his own. But for once, he allowed himself a little grace and simply nodded, knowing that going back to it, even to put things back into proper order, would just break him down again. So instead, he let himself pull away slowly, flexing his dirty hands as if forcing sensation back into numb fingers after they'd fallen asleep, and swallowed back the last of his tears.

"I...th-...thank you, and...I'm sorry. I...I know this wasn't easy for you, either."

[tallredridinghood]

Vash's eyebrows climbed up, helplessly, at the first part.

"So dumb, huh? I hate to break it to you, but that's going around now and again. So long as you don't get entrenched into it and refuse to budge, it's not that bad. And you did not."

Then he hummed, thoughtful. He did not point out that he believed that of everyone, absolutely everyone, even more so of people that Wolfwood had given up on. So this particular instance was just how the two of them were.

Instead, he thought to the only time he could think when he had healed, a little. Sure, it had only been to where he had been earlier, but it had been healing all the same.

"Sometimes, there isn't a how to it. When I was with Lina and all, it was a matter of being among people who were kind to me, and nothing else happening to break me more. Which is why I said it's a matter of time. Th...ink of it as how most people would be when their arm is broken. It would need to be aligned, and then steadied so it doesn't move, and then not used for a while." Sometimes, it had to be rebroken...

Vash acknowledged that thought and put it away for later consideration.

"... and broken inside might not be that different. I don't know. We can find out, right?" Or Wolfwood and his Vash could find out.

He managed to smile, a little, a smile that was not a grimace, just... very small, and reached up to tug oh so lightly at Wolfwood's hair, in lieu of ruffling it.

"I've got this. It needed to be done, and now this needs to be done. He'll be at peace. You go rest a bit more."

Another squeeze of Wolfwood's shoulder, and he was off, to fill up the grave again - this time with the shovel, as it would not get anywhere near to endangering anything - and then set down the stone, taking time to align it just right comparative to the Punisher, to how he knew now the body was laid out.

Then it was time to seek out a way to wash his hands, too.

[mercifullyheavy]

The small joke managed to get the smallest of laughs out of him, and he mumbled out an affectionate little "asshole" whispered in reply. He supposed at least he could be satisfied with that much, though. He'd been an idiot, terrified of the kindest, gentlest person on the planet, yes, but he'd also learned to get past it, and ended up in the complete opposite end of the spectrum. So...that stood for something, he supposed, even if it was still hard to openly admit that he was right if only because it would mean giving himself a bit of forgiveness for something he'd done wrong. He masqueraded as a holy man, yes, but he had never really been in the habit of offering absolution, especially not to himself.

And then he fell quiet again, remembering how Vash had been when he'd found him with Sheryl and Lina three-or-someodd years ago, how even having to deal with bandits and perverts intent on ruining the little life he'd managed to eke out for himself, he'd seemed...if not happy, then at least content. Recovering, at the very least. And then doing it all over again just a few short months ago, when he'd found Blondie in such a similar situation, hair different, yes, but undeniably mirroring the events that he had already lived through in his own world.

There had been a part of him then that, even though he'd barely known Vash for a few hours before learning to be absolutely terrified of him with the Fifth Moon incident and then having to go look for him anyway, had honestly felt bad for having to take him away from that. He'd been dangerous, yes, but he had also been the man who stood between Millions Knives and his goals, and even then, there had been something about him that just felt...right to Nicholas.

Even as scared as he was of the Humanoid Typhoon, when he looked at him, he'd never seen a cruel man, not like he had with so many others. Guarded, shy, churlish if you got him in a bad mood even, but underneath that, he'd been able to see kindness. It had been bruised and hurt and abused, and if he lost control of himself, he could still kill everyone around him. But he'd still known. Vash was just a sad, kind man wanting to be left in peace.

"D'you think...if we'd let you stay with Lina? Could Eriks have been happy? Could the breaks have gotten better?" He wasn't really sure he wanted to know the answer. On one hand, if yes, then it meant he'd taken them away from one of the few places they might have been able to find happiness. On the other hand, if no, then it just showed how deep those breaks must have been, to be so irreparable.

Not that Knives would have allowed it to continue for very long, either way. But the thought still lingered in his head.

Still, it was shuffled away for later thought when Vash reassured him about being able to take care of the grave on his own, and was instead replaced with the return of the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and the overbearing weight of the thought of the man in the grave. He simply gave a small nod before he turned and shuffled inside, in his search for clean water to wash his hands off with.

Luckily enough, the first thing he noticed when he entered the kitchen was the first aid kit, sitting on one of the lunch tables and various bits and pieces scattered out around it. Someone must have been injured, though he supposed that made enough sense. Vash had taken a few hits of his own in the fight. He'd probably patched himself up afterward. What was most important at that moment to Wolfwood, though, was the bottle of rubbing alcohol sitting amongst the pile.

It wasn't soap and water, no, but it was honestly probably better than for what he was doing. He carried the bottle over to the sink and popped it open, pouring some of it into his palm and using it to scrub off the majority of what was still left on his hands. It was weirdly slimey and burned under his nails and the tiny places where his cuticles were cracked that he hadn't even noticed before, but it did what he wanted it to do. Then, thankfully, when he turned the knob on the tap, the pipes rattled to life with a groan and began dribbling out the smallest trickle of water. Not much, but it was enough, and he made quick work of washing his hands the rest of the way.

When Vash saw him again, he had come back to sit outside on the steps of the porch with a chipped bowl filled with water, and the bar of soap, the bottle of alcohol, and a tea towel, and there was a cigarette burning between his teeth He stood when he approached, a distant look on his face as he chewed on the filter of the cigarette, and held out the bottle of alcohol for him to take.

"Before we go, is it-...Can I...I...want a couple of minutes alone...with him. Is that alright?"

They really shouldn't be wasting much more time, and he knew that the man in the grave would have been just as carefully reburied as he had been the first time. There wasn't anything better he could do for him. But...he couldn't stop thinking about the fact that...somewhere out there, his partner might be alone, risking his life to keep everyone else safe, and how much it had hurt when he'd thought he was bound for that same grave, knowing that there wasn't anything he could do to keep him safe or make up for what he'd done.

That, on top of the guilt he felt for disturbing his resting place, made him want to sit for a little bit. Say his own sort of good bye, even if he hadn't known this version of himself. To maybe try and find some way to make amends for the thing he'd done today. The man in the ground deserved that much, at least, instead of Nicholas just riding off into the desert on his motorcycle after defiling his grave, without so much as a "Sorry, man. Tough luck."

[tallredridinghood]

Vash looked up, from what he was doing, but his body did not stop moving.

"Those are two different questions." Because they were. "Eriks could not have been happy, because even if he was not sought out - and if not by you, or even by Knives, he would have, eventually, ran into a situation that Eriks could not handle - he would always have known he was living a lie. He would also have started outliving those around him, so he'd have had to run, eventually." It was truth. "But the breaks would have gotten better, as long as he stayed. As long as they were not rebroken." He breathed out, looking back down. "It wouldn't have lasted much longer, I don't think. Because the world was not... calm enough to allow that much time. But that is what I meant when I talked about time and healing, yes. It might not be as isolated, but so long as nothing pushes you past those things that you would not normally choose to do, healing will come."

Slower, sometimes, when things were still too horrible, but it would still do so.

When he asked about some time alone, Vash nodded, putting away the bucket and the shovel both, then going inside following the scent of the rubbing alcohol to use it, himself. Then he sat down, bringing up the heel of one foot to rest on the edge of the chair, resting his forehead against his knee. Rest in peace, Wolfwood. You have been loved, you loved, and you've earned a rest from the pain that you bore. We'll try to make this world safer for those you fought for.

The words only echoed in his mind, but he meant each one.

[mercifullyheavy]

The answer was, at first, about what he might have expected. It made sense, given what he knew, what Vash's priorities were and the harshness of their world. But then he was reminded of how old he was, of what Luida had told him when the two of them had been recovering from the fight with Grey and Emilio, and he felt his heart breaking a little more than it already had been.

In the end...that was the only possible outcome, wasn't it? Everyone Vash loved would eventually grow old and die, leaving him alone and suffering when he didn't even look as if he'd aged a year. He would be lucky to have a century with the people he cared about, and with the violence inherent to life on this planet? Even that was a massive stretch.

And for Nicholas...? There was going to be far fewer still, and the thought made him want to crumble all over again. His years were numbered, he'd known this since he was very young, and he probably wouldn't live to see his 60th year even if he did decide to live a quiet, peaceful life. It hadn't been something he worried about before. Now it was just cruel, and not for his own sake.

The fight that had happened here might not have been what did it for him, but he was still going to die younger than most, and...it would just end up forcing Vash to go through this pain all over again. Nicholas was going to do it all over again, and this time, there wasn't anything he could do to stop it, it wasn't a result of his poor choices, it was just pure, uncompromising reality.

There were obvious tears in his eyes again when he nodded gently, biting his lip to keep from breaking down again, and unable to look up at him, and for a moment, he tried to smile, to pretend like he hadn't just spiraled into another deep chasm in his mind.

"I'm...I'm so. Sorry." His voice stuttered out, and then he was turning and walking inside, afraid that if he asked why, he wouldn't be able to keep himself from breaking again.

Later, after Vash had left him alone by the graveside, he shuffled slowly to stand at the foot of it, and then lowered himself to his knees. He was quiet for a long time, staring at his hands where they were folded in his lap and worrying at his lip again, so many thoughts and worries roiling inside of his head before he was able to grasp onto the end of a single thread and pull it out from the rest.

"I guess...first thing I owe you is...an apology. I'm sorry, for what I did here. For what I made him do, too. I...don't know if you'd understand or agree with why...why...I felt...like I had to...but I don't think it matters, either. Any reasons I could come up with would just...be an excuse. You didn't deserve what happened today, and I'm sorry we disturbed you." He couldn't help it, he was weeping again, though it was a quiet thing this time, not like the horrified screaming he'd been reduced to earlier. He sniffled sharply and palmed the tears away from his face. "I hope...wherever you are, you're at peace, now. I'm sorry you can't be in my place right now. I...I don't know why I somehow...deserved to live and you didn't. None of it makes sense to me, sometimes I feel like I understand everything less now than when I was...when I was...where you ended up. But I really do hope you have peace, now, I mean it. And...I want to...I hope...maybe I can make it up to you somehow. I know your partner is out there somewhere, missin' you and alone, but...I promise, I wanna find 'im for you and help him. There are more people like him, now. He doesn't have to be alone, anymore. I'll find 'im and make sure they find each other, so they don't have to be alone, anymore. That way...maybe your death will mean somethin'. I'll do it in your name, so they don't have to hurt anymore."

He was sobbing by the time he felt like he had said all he could think to say, his voice broken and rough. It didn't feel as strange, anymore, to be mourning this man, someone who was himself but also not, who'd had his own life and experiences. He reached out, brushing his hand over the cross chiseled into the surface of the grave stone, and then leaned over and kissed it softly. He kept his head close to it, feeling the texture of the stone beneath his fingertips, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper, only meant for the soul buried only a few short feet beneath him.

"Rest in peace, brother. You've earned it. Good bye."

He wasn't really a priest, and he didn't really know exactly what he believed, but when he sat back up, it only felt right, to pull the rosary he carried in his pocket out and cross himself before whispering a soft prayer before he left. Who knew, maybe this Nicholas had been a believer. It didn't hurt anything to do it right, and it helped ease the guilt he had for what he'd done, if only a little bit. And then, after sitting in a moment of silence, he stood, tucking the rosary back into his pocket, and was halfway turning to leave when he stopped short, startling himself with another thought and glancing back.

"Oh, God, I almost forgot! Don't worry about Angelina! I'll take care of her, too! I'll make sure she's kept in perfect shape, I promise!" He stared at the gravestone again, looking a little like he thought the man beneath it would give some sort of response, and then he finished his turn and went to pick the Punisher back up from where he'd left it against the crumbling ruins, and hurried inside to find Vash.

His head hung low when he found him in the kitchen, and he still had trouble looking him in the eye. But he was at least able to compose himself a bit after wiping away his tears with a sad little sniff, and he shoved his free hand into the pocket of his slacks.

"Ok. I think I'm ready. Let's go find the bike."

[tallredridinghood]

Vash had finished cleaning up. And then had done his best to tidy up the room, inasmuch as an abandoned space could be tidied up. Quietly, so as to not disturb Wolfwood. There were things that were important.

When the man came back in, Vash looked up, took in the tears, the head hanging low, and simply stepped up, pressing a kiss to the top of Wolfwood's hair.

"We have spent enough time with the dead and maybe-dead, now, I think." There was no judgment, it was something that needed to be done, and there was a solemnity to his words, rather than impatience.

"Come, let us rejoin the world of the living. There must be something only we can do, here. Let us find out what it is? And find everyone that we need to find, too."

There were things that needed to be set to rights, here. In Vash's mind, reuniting Wolfwood with his Vash was among them, but it was a list, and he was certain that would only grow longer.

[mercifullyheavy]

The sudden tidiness of the room when he came back wasn't lost on him, and there was a moment of sad fondness when he realized what had been going on when he was out there. Yeah. That checked out. Even when it wasn't needed, Vash was always trying to find something to do just to be helpful.

But then he was pressing another one of those small kisses that he always offered up so freely to the top of his head, and Nick's eyes slid closed again, his lip trembling a little. As if he were some precious thing, worthy of the affection, and shown it so often that at times, he almost wanted to believe he deserved it. At the very least, he was willing to accept the fact, at least in his own mind, that he craved the affection itself, unused to receiving it as he still was.

Even the gentleness of his words, free of judgment and seemingly more just to help pull him out of that dark place in his head, was a sort of balm on his frayed nerves. Vash, either of them, could spend so much time being a petulent brat, or a sweet, soft-spoken eternal-child, playful and dumb and impulsive, but they both had a side to them that was sometimes so rare to see, when he could really believe their age. Stern, but not unkind, commanding but with a gentle sort of guidance that was disarming, and it made him want to sink into it and just let them be in charge.

It was something he'd never experienced before, except perhaps from Chapel, in the earliest of days before he had shown his true colors, and even the mental comparison was enough to make his skin crawl. The only thing he could think of was the way it felt when he'd been particularly small and Miss Melanie or one of the other caregivers at the orphanage had held him when he'd cried.

Which, considering his relationship and feelings towards either of the Vashes, wasn't something he felt like he could even begin to unpack properly. Was that weird? Did that make him weird? God, did it even matter at this point? If that was the weirdest thing about him, maybe he was doing good, and he knew it wasn't.

Either way, it was that same feeling that he had, now, and with as raw as his emotions were, it was comforting, to let Vash metaphorically guide him back out of the nightmare he was living in his own head at the moment. He didn't have to think, he didn't have to try and keep up appearances. He could just accept the gentle reassurances as he was coaxed away from the horrible day he'd forced them to have and into the sun, instead.

So he simply nodded, quiet as he turned and walked back outside and around the building, to the yard he remembered leaving Angelina when it had been himself in this place. And sure enough, there she was; toppled over, sure, but when he righted her, she seemed to be whole and undamaged. Maybe a few scuffs here and there, but he could buff those out. He went through the familiar motions of strapping the Punisher to the back, and whether he realized he was doing it or not, after a few minutes, he began cooing soft little words of reassurance to the bike as he dusted her off, as if she were a living thing. He knows he's not your proper owner, but he promises he'll take care of you. He'll get you cleaned up. It'll be alright, he won't even make you deal with Spikey trying to drive you, this time. He'd need to see if he could find another sidecar, but for now, Vash could ride pillion behind him.

Which was, in the end, how they ended up leaving after the engine revved to life with barely a whimper of protest for the weeks without use, bringing a genuine smile to his face as he held her steady until Vash could climb on behind him.

And then they were off, headed towards Octovern. Just like old times. Mostly. Sort of.