In and around Octovern -- later

[love_and_peace]

0. A message on Radio Plant
It's not heard, exactly, telepathy doesn't work with the ears. It sounds like Knives - one of them anyway, threaded with a weariness he can't hide like this, and echoed with the feminine reverberation and power of a sister plant. He doesn't have the power to do it himself, but whether she's just signal boosting or if he'd taken the step to merge with her the way he did so many others ... is unknown.

Every plant will hear it, if all goes well. Including the very one Vash had headed out to try to confront..

Vash the Stampede, one of you, has decided to go to Octovern and reignite the conflict with my younger self in spite of it being quiet these past weeks. I know there's at least three more of you out there; I would appreciate it [irony etches that 'voice' briefly]if you could collectively make sure this doesn't go the way it did in the past. If I have to come out there myself, I'm going to make it everyone's problem.

So let's make sure it doesn't go that far. I am certain that together, all of you can find a way to resolve this with no further pointless misery for our own kind.



1. Just outside Octovern
The sour-faced young Wolfwood who picked Vash up only a few hours into his hike to Octovern hadn't been in the mood to talk. He was heading for December, he said, and didn't want to hear anything from any fucking Vash about why he shouldn't go there. Vash had tried to explain to him that Melanie and the kids weren't there anymore – they'd been taken away by Brad to the ship days ago, but Wolfwood didn't want to hear it. He needed to see the place for himself, and Vash, on a similar mission, couldn't argue the point. So Wolfwood drove in silence, and Vash was able to close his eyes and get some real sleep – only occasionally interrupted by strange dreams, including one where his brother tried to warn him about heading for Octovern! Aren't dreams strange? – for the first time in what felt like weeks.

The cliffs around the city – and the remnants of the ship that had crashed there – made for an excellent vista point, so that's where Vash headed first. From the top of the cliffs he could see the whole city, and clear signs of a fight that had to have happened several days ago, perhaps longer. There's scorch marks on the cliff face, craters around the city, military vehicles mixed in with the refugee vans and trucks... but the city itself seems pretty peaceful. It looks like Knives was right -- the fighting is already over.


2. Main St and Market, downtown Octovern
Given the state of the rest of the planet, walking into Octovern is a delightful surprise. There's people here, more people in one place than anywhere else on Noman's right now. Refugees and locals, crew from the Earth ships and local military police, they're all mingled together in one big, bustling town. The streets are full of vendors, cars, people, all talking and shopping and arguing and laughing as though the terror of the last year never happened.

There's some excitement at the end of the block, though, raised voices and a lot of movement... and then, startling the crowd, sudden gunfire! Out of the crowd comes a single man, wearing a red coat and with spiked up black hair with a blond streak, running as fast as he can, and behind him? Behind him are a lot of people – bounty hunters, a couple local feds, people waving guns and autograph books, a whole mob of folks, all hot in pursuit, all yelling: “It's Vash the Stampede!

Help?


3. Out in the desert, heading back to July
He's escaped the mob, but given how many people are looking for him now, it seems best to take the long way back, and avoid any additional attention. His brother, this world's Knives, and this world's Vash, have both vanished. The war is over, the plants have been rescued, the Earth leaders are meeting with local government... and he's not needed at all. It's a relief – of course it is! – but he's spent so long dedicated to this fight that he's not really sure to do with himself now that it's over.

Comments

[mercifullyheavy]

Something about the stubborn look on his face almost crumbled when he refused to come over, and when he started saying things that were obviously meant to be an excuse to dip out, and the reality of the conversation they'd had only minutes before came rushing back. This was it. He was leaving. And there was no guarantee he'd ever see him again. Even with Blondie working so hard to be the calm in the storm of every bad emotion that was roaring through the room, the grief still managed to resurface. He wasn't panicking, but that didn't mean the grief just magically went away.

When Blondie pulled away to address him properly, he stepped back, stuffing his hands in his pockets and clenching his teeth so hard he could hear the muscles in his jaw hissing faintly in his ears with the effort, but he was doing his best not to go off again, calm enough to want to avoid another outburst like before, either out of some sense of trying to maintain his own pride or a refusal to make the situation worse than it already was.

But then Needle-noggin had to put those last words that way, and Nicholas felt like he'd been slapped across the face. It sounded too much like things he'd heard him say before, things he'd refused to talk about at the time but had sat painfully in his memory for years, now, just weighing his guilt down like a ten ton boulder.

Being able to sit down and have a couple of drinks before the end...It was nice.

"Don't."

One of his hands darted out of his pocket to point an angry finger in his direction. Anger was safe. Anger was the shield he'd hidden behind his whole life, to keep people from seeing how much everything hurt. If he didn't have the courage for any other emotion, he could do anger, even as his lip trembled and he had to blink back even more ugly tears.

"Don't say it like that." He worked his jaw, chewing on his tongue and almost wanting to leave it at that. But if this was it...he huffed out a miserable little breath and shook his head. He couldn't leave it on angry words, even if the emotion he was expressing was exactly that. "You..." What? What does he want to say? What does he need to say? After everything he's already said? And what won't cause just even more pain than he already has? "When you go out there...I want you to...be happy. And don't try an' feed me some chirpy little line, I know better. I don't care how long it takes, I know it's not gonna happen next week or maybe not even for a buncha years. But you've got your family now, right? The fighting is over. You can finally stop running."

He stopped pointing at him to rub his hand angrily across his eyes with a furious little sniff before shoving the hand back into his pocket, sitting heavily back into the chair and only breaking eye contact for a brief moment when the leather shoulder holster holding his sidearm and the glass vials, now filled with cigars instead of drugs, caught his attention from the table out of the corner of his eye. He pulled one of the vials out, angrily popping the cork across the room and going through the motions of cutting and lighting it the cigar with enraged little hand motions that helped hide the way his fingers shook. The first hit of smoke that hit his lungs helped settle some of that, and the distinctive nausea that had started to surface in his throat.

"I know the shit I've been through don't even hold a candle to the shit you have." Holding eye contact was easier when he let himself be angry, too. The more he spoke, though, the softer his voice got. The anger was bleeding out of him. It hadn't been real in the first place, really, but he could pretend, as long as he needed to. Be more like the asshole he'd always been, put up those barriers, make himself an obnoxious, insufferable shithead so that if this was the last time he saw Vash, it would be easier for him to make a clean break, and maybe he wouldn't carry this guilt forever, too. "I probably don't have any right to make these sorts of demands, either, not after the shit I put you through. But you deserve to be happy. Even if I'll never be able to see it. So go be happy. At least..."

And that was the point when he couldn't look him in the eye, because part of him felt guilty for the thing he was about to say. But he believed wholeheartedly, with every fiber of his being, that it was true.

"At least, if you can't do it for yourself, then...do it because He would want you to. He wouldn't want you to go on sufferin' the way you have. Even if you can't believe you deserve it, I promise you, he would."

[love_and_peace]

He doesn't send gratitude back along their connection, but it flows from him nontheless. It's clear, too, in his half smile, the nod of his head – it's not right to ask anything more of this Vash, but they're a resiliant bunch, and perhaps having Wolfwood here to watch over will help Vash put away his own grief and worries for awhile. It's not healthy, but it works, so who's to say what's right?

And then Wolfwood...

He didn't expect that Wolfwood would make his leavetaking easy, but instead of tears, there's anger. The anger's a relief, honestly – tears on Wolfwood just don't sit right. The man was made for big broad feelings, laughter, and protective fury. Not sorrow. Sorrow's too heavy, even for someone as strong as Wolfwood. Vash would rather a thousand accusing glares be thrown his way than to have to endure a single tear. He knows how to respnd to anger! Tears on that strong face just hurt too much.

So his gentle, thankful smile hardens into a comfortable scowl as Wolfwood snaps at him to be happy, to go be with his family, as though the two standing here with him aren't every bit as much his family as the children back in July. As though happiness is something he can go and claim for himself – as though it's something he deserves to claim for himself – instead of finding it in brief golden moments. A smile at the edge of a dust storm. An offkey song, sung at the top of his lungs with a bar full of blurry new friends. The taste of something sweet after weeks of dry hard rations. Waking up before dawn to the fresh emptiness of the desert and the quiet snores from the next bedroll.

Wolfwood drops into the chair, and reaches for his vials, and for a moment Vash's heart stops, holding his breath as he tracks the hand in Wolfwood's pocket with poorly concealed horror. But it's just a cigar, because Wolfwood's right. There's no fighting anymore, no running, no danger. No adventure. The world is saved, the enemy defeated, and there's nothing left but the closing credits and a happily ever after. It's funny, isn't it, how so many great heroic stories all end that way? And then they were happy, like it's that easy. Like everything that had happened can just be put aside, swapped out for farming, or, what, working in a shop. Raising children. Simple, peaceful duties, one day the same as the next, nothing left of the journey but the nightmares and the scars.

But that's fiction. After a hundred and fifty years, how's he supposed to stop moving? How's he supposed to wake up in the same place every day, do the same things, live quietly? How's he supposed to be happy with the trail of dead he's left behind? His world is cinders by now. His family is living at the edge of a mass grave that he's responsible for. Even the promises he's made to the little ones, to watch over their upbringing and make sure they have everything he and his brother didn't, aren't as important as he's pretending they are. There's other Vashes here – there's so many of him! There's Knives, and Rem. He's not needed.

Really, things would be simpler for everyone if he just disappeared, he thinks, and swallows hard against the thought. He can't think like that, not ever. He isn't allowed to think like that.

He has to keep going. Until one of their sisters' portals vanishes him entirely, or until a stray bullet cuts his story short, he can't give up. He doesn't get to stop. So for Nai, and little Vash, he'll return to July. For this Vash here, he'll talk to her about moving, so the rest of his family can visit with a little less grief in their hearts. For Wolfwood, he'll be a destination, a shelter at the end of the road. He'll be happiness for others, and really, what better use of his life could there be?

His Wolfwood is dead, but this one's alive, and looking for connection, so he'll be that connection. He wouldn't want you to suffer, Wolfwood says, and before he can say any more Vash closes the distance between them, catching Wolfwood's flapping jaw with one hand and roughly sealing their mouths together. The kiss pulls the smoke from Wolfwood's lungs and it sears through Vash's chest, hot and poisonous. He could get used to that taste.

Wolfwood wants him happy? Fine. Survive and come back to July. He'll be waiting.