Another one of the downsides to pouring out so many things he'd been keeping held tight in his chest for so long was that afterward, he felt as if all of the energy had been sapped out of him. And watching the pain settle on Vash's face, when he finally let them in on the burden that had been hanging over his head every time he remembered how little time he would ever have, only made it worse. The last thing he'd ever wanted was to be one more memory of a dead loved one to weigh him - them - down. It was, truth be told, part of the reason he had run off to December on his own in the first place.
Better to die where he wouldn't make him watch it happen and may not even know it had happened at all, he'd reasoned at the time, than to make him go through that and cause him so much pain.
And it had all blown up so magnificently in his face. In the end, it seemed nothing he did was going to keep him from causing them some kind of suffering. He didn't know how to handle that, but at this point, all he could do was leave it in their hands. It was up to them to decide what to do with him and the knowledge that he was just going to hurt them, regardless of what any of them wanted.
So when Needle-Noggin took their hands and held them together, reinforced that they needed to stick together and then made it sound like...like maybe he wasn't outright pushing him out of his life completely, he felt such a wave of relief that he dropped forward until his head was resting on his shoulder, as if all of the energy had left him, lifting both of their hands and holding them against his chest like a pair of lifelines. And now, after everything he'd said, words felt too hard, like too much work.
Did this mean he wasn't kicking him out of his life? Did he want him to stay? Or was he reading too much into it, was Vash, as one particulary nasty little voice in the back of his mind whispered at him in the silence, telling him what he thought would comfort Nicholas, trying to be kind in that way he always did because he knew he was hurting and afraid? When he really thought about it, he hoped it wasn't the latter, but less out of a hope that he really was being given a chance and more because he hoped Vash could be kind enough to himself not to do that. Wolfwood wasn't that kind of self-flagellation.
But then Blondie was addressing another of the massive monkey wrenches that had been tossed into everything, and Wolfwood grimaced where his forehead was pressed into Vash's shoulder and turned his head to press his cheek there instead so that he could cast a sympathetic look over at him, too.
"She really did get settled in the worst possible place." He had been far too young when July had been destroyed to have been really effected by the aftermath, and he had been too unwell and recovering in the days following JuLai, when Meryl and Nico had stumbled on him where they'd left his little camp the night before, so the only things he'd really been aware of at first were the murmurings of search and rescue attempts by emergency crews on the radio, the two of them trying to make sense of his mere existence, and the way they'd tried to process what they'd seen in quiet, whispered words when they thought he couldn't hear them.
At first, Nico hadn't even wanted to help him at all, and honestly he didn't blame him one little bit. He'd heard them arguing when they thought he was sleeping, had heard the way losing Vash and knowing he'd tried to make sure Nick was ok and could be found again before they left for JuLai had made the idea of abandoning him to the elements something that was only suggested in furiously-shouting whispers before it was dismissed entirely. JuLai had been hard for them, and even harder for Vash, a horrible shadow over them that none of them seemed to have been able to shake off, though none of them ever fully went into the things that had happened, and he understood. So the thought that their mom had unintentionally set up house on the ruins of one of the worst events in their lives, one of the things he knew they blamed themselves fully for regardless of where the blame actually lie? Inviting them there to be a happy family was a monumental ask.
"Maybe we can find a safe place for you two t'meet up, when you're ready. Wait 'til one of the other cities gets up and runnin' and then...Iunno. Make a vacation out've it. How did New Miami fair in the whole thing, anyone know?" His voice was tired, barely more than a whisper, though he was at least able to put a little humor into his tone. It didn't last long, though, not when Blondie talked about how many people they needed to find, and he held onto their hands a little tighter, like the feeling of their hands tucked against his chest somehow helped to alleviate the ache that was still thrumming there after his panic attack.
"No. Not alone." His voice had dropped again, almost whispering, and there was a distinct tone that sounded a bit like he might not mean it the way Blondie had. "I meant what I said, about promising to find the Vash who buried the man in December. I can't leave 'im alone out there. Even if...even if he's...gone. One way or another, I'll take 'im home to Rem, or...lay 'im next to that grave in December. 'Nless you guys think he'd want somethin' different?" His eyes focused dimly for a moment on Blondie, thoughtful and sad.
They'd never talked about it, but he'd known; Vash had been planning on dying when he faced his brother. He'd never said it outright, but it had been obvious in little things he'd done and said, here and there, like thanking a couple of small-time criminals he'd rescued for sharing a drink with him, 'one last time,' as if he'd been slowly saying his good-byes to the world he loved so much a little at a time. Now, he would probably never know if that man had gotten his wish. His heart was feeling a whole kaleidoscope of feelings about it, dulled though they were with Blondie's calming presence. He wished he could say good bye properly, if he was gone, visit his grave and make peace with what he'd done. He wanted to help the man here, either to find his way home or to lay him to rest next to his partner, unsure whether the two desires were just a way of using the guilt from one to make up for the guilt of the other, or find his own closure.
He wanted to keep these two with him for the rest of the time he'd been given, wanted to protect them from himself, wanted to find Nico, find the kid they'd helped in the desert, the man Needle-Noggin had met, protect them all, keep them safe, at least do what he could to help give them the future they all deserved in the time he had left, so that maybe his end could be at the end of a life that had given them enough good things that they might help balance out the debt he carried from all the bad. And the list of things he needed to do kept growing, the longer they spent in this new reality, so that he felt pulled in a dozen different directions and wasn't sure where to even start. But...Nico had been the first one the list, so it only made sense to start there, and they were already outside Octovern, anyway.
And yet, if there were one thing that was able to pull his mind out of the dazed spiral of cognitive overload he was feeling, it was the thought of being put under the microscope again. He visibly tensed, his shoulders hitching up around his ears before the logical part of him caught ahold of the instinctive fear he felt about going under the knife. Neither of them would ever try and put him in that situation, he knew that. When Blondie talked about his mom looking for a way to help, it wasn't with the thought of straps restraining him to the bed, needles and wires and more drugs pumping through his veins than blood, burning and seering and driving him out of his fucking mind...!
He knew them better than that, trusted them enough to know that they would know him better than that, and that it would not be what they wanted for him.
So he forced himself to relax, forced his breathing to slow down again after it had threatened even through the soothing aura to shift into overdrive, and gave him a small, apologetic smile.
"I...It's...not gonna be easy for me. To make myself sit for...whatever she'd wanna do. I don't do good in...hospitals. Almost flipped my fuckin' lid the last time I woke up in one. Even knowin' it was run by Needle-Noggin's family on that ship didn't make it much easier." He sighed, turning his head to hide his eyes against Vash's neck, trying to make himself be comfortable with that particular memory. It was damn hard, and he didn't think he was very successful in the long run. "I...If you think it'd help, though...I know you wouldn't let it be like it was before...I need a little bit to...think about it. I want to..." If only for their sake. He shrugged. "I just...heh...you thought I panicked here...it'll be hard."
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Better to die where he wouldn't make him watch it happen and may not even know it had happened at all, he'd reasoned at the time, than to make him go through that and cause him so much pain.
And it had all blown up so magnificently in his face. In the end, it seemed nothing he did was going to keep him from causing them some kind of suffering. He didn't know how to handle that, but at this point, all he could do was leave it in their hands. It was up to them to decide what to do with him and the knowledge that he was just going to hurt them, regardless of what any of them wanted.
So when Needle-Noggin took their hands and held them together, reinforced that they needed to stick together and then made it sound like...like maybe he wasn't outright pushing him out of his life completely, he felt such a wave of relief that he dropped forward until his head was resting on his shoulder, as if all of the energy had left him, lifting both of their hands and holding them against his chest like a pair of lifelines. And now, after everything he'd said, words felt too hard, like too much work.
Did this mean he wasn't kicking him out of his life? Did he want him to stay? Or was he reading too much into it, was Vash, as one particulary nasty little voice in the back of his mind whispered at him in the silence, telling him what he thought would comfort Nicholas, trying to be kind in that way he always did because he knew he was hurting and afraid? When he really thought about it, he hoped it wasn't the latter, but less out of a hope that he really was being given a chance and more because he hoped Vash could be kind enough to himself not to do that. Wolfwood wasn't that kind of self-flagellation.
But then Blondie was addressing another of the massive monkey wrenches that had been tossed into everything, and Wolfwood grimaced where his forehead was pressed into Vash's shoulder and turned his head to press his cheek there instead so that he could cast a sympathetic look over at him, too.
"She really did get settled in the worst possible place." He had been far too young when July had been destroyed to have been really effected by the aftermath, and he had been too unwell and recovering in the days following JuLai, when Meryl and Nico had stumbled on him where they'd left his little camp the night before, so the only things he'd really been aware of at first were the murmurings of search and rescue attempts by emergency crews on the radio, the two of them trying to make sense of his mere existence, and the way they'd tried to process what they'd seen in quiet, whispered words when they thought he couldn't hear them.
At first, Nico hadn't even wanted to help him at all, and honestly he didn't blame him one little bit. He'd heard them arguing when they thought he was sleeping, had heard the way losing Vash and knowing he'd tried to make sure Nick was ok and could be found again before they left for JuLai had made the idea of abandoning him to the elements something that was only suggested in furiously-shouting whispers before it was dismissed entirely. JuLai had been hard for them, and even harder for Vash, a horrible shadow over them that none of them seemed to have been able to shake off, though none of them ever fully went into the things that had happened, and he understood. So the thought that their mom had unintentionally set up house on the ruins of one of the worst events in their lives, one of the things he knew they blamed themselves fully for regardless of where the blame actually lie? Inviting them there to be a happy family was a monumental ask.
"Maybe we can find a safe place for you two t'meet up, when you're ready. Wait 'til one of the other cities gets up and runnin' and then...Iunno. Make a vacation out've it. How did New Miami fair in the whole thing, anyone know?" His voice was tired, barely more than a whisper, though he was at least able to put a little humor into his tone. It didn't last long, though, not when Blondie talked about how many people they needed to find, and he held onto their hands a little tighter, like the feeling of their hands tucked against his chest somehow helped to alleviate the ache that was still thrumming there after his panic attack.
"No. Not alone." His voice had dropped again, almost whispering, and there was a distinct tone that sounded a bit like he might not mean it the way Blondie had. "I meant what I said, about promising to find the Vash who buried the man in December. I can't leave 'im alone out there. Even if...even if he's...gone. One way or another, I'll take 'im home to Rem, or...lay 'im next to that grave in December. 'Nless you guys think he'd want somethin' different?" His eyes focused dimly for a moment on Blondie, thoughtful and sad.
They'd never talked about it, but he'd known; Vash had been planning on dying when he faced his brother. He'd never said it outright, but it had been obvious in little things he'd done and said, here and there, like thanking a couple of small-time criminals he'd rescued for sharing a drink with him, 'one last time,' as if he'd been slowly saying his good-byes to the world he loved so much a little at a time. Now, he would probably never know if that man had gotten his wish. His heart was feeling a whole kaleidoscope of feelings about it, dulled though they were with Blondie's calming presence. He wished he could say good bye properly, if he was gone, visit his grave and make peace with what he'd done. He wanted to help the man here, either to find his way home or to lay him to rest next to his partner, unsure whether the two desires were just a way of using the guilt from one to make up for the guilt of the other, or find his own closure.
He wanted to keep these two with him for the rest of the time he'd been given, wanted to protect them from himself, wanted to find Nico, find the kid they'd helped in the desert, the man Needle-Noggin had met, protect them all, keep them safe, at least do what he could to help give them the future they all deserved in the time he had left, so that maybe his end could be at the end of a life that had given them enough good things that they might help balance out the debt he carried from all the bad. And the list of things he needed to do kept growing, the longer they spent in this new reality, so that he felt pulled in a dozen different directions and wasn't sure where to even start. But...Nico had been the first one the list, so it only made sense to start there, and they were already outside Octovern, anyway.
And yet, if there were one thing that was able to pull his mind out of the dazed spiral of cognitive overload he was feeling, it was the thought of being put under the microscope again. He visibly tensed, his shoulders hitching up around his ears before the logical part of him caught ahold of the instinctive fear he felt about going under the knife. Neither of them would ever try and put him in that situation, he knew that. When Blondie talked about his mom looking for a way to help, it wasn't with the thought of straps restraining him to the bed, needles and wires and more drugs pumping through his veins than blood, burning and seering and driving him out of his fucking mind...!
He knew them better than that, trusted them enough to know that they would know him better than that, and that it would not be what they wanted for him.
So he forced himself to relax, forced his breathing to slow down again after it had threatened even through the soothing aura to shift into overdrive, and gave him a small, apologetic smile.
"I...It's...not gonna be easy for me. To make myself sit for...whatever she'd wanna do. I don't do good in...hospitals. Almost flipped my fuckin' lid the last time I woke up in one. Even knowin' it was run by Needle-Noggin's family on that ship didn't make it much easier." He sighed, turning his head to hide his eyes against Vash's neck, trying to make himself be comfortable with that particular memory. It was damn hard, and he didn't think he was very successful in the long run. "I...If you think it'd help, though...I know you wouldn't let it be like it was before...I need a little bit to...think about it. I want to..." If only for their sake. He shrugged. "I just...heh...you thought I panicked here...it'll be hard."