Chapter Text
You're pounding your feet into each shuddering step of your staircase, heartbeat in your ears. You knew he looked fucking familiar, and you're already picturing your inn in shambles, and you think you'd ought to be screaming if you weren't so out of breath from the ascent.
You've never been one to pry into other peoples business, but this is your business, and so you push your way into room B, startling the hell out of your first—and only— guest of the night. It's rude to enter the rooms of your patrons, especially if they're in the damn room at the time, but this is a confrontation you must have.
His eyes are wide when he stares at you, and even wider when he sees the crumpled wanted poster dangling from your fingertips.
"That's—"
"A hefty fucking bounty," you say, and he snaps his jaw shut. But it's not anger or protest pouring out of those blue eyes like you'd expect. His look is reserved, quiet. That soft look he gives you, it's like he just understands. Whatever he thinks you're doing, he's not going to hold it against you. And something about that flares your nostrils.
You cross the room, the one you just finished replacing the windows in, and note that he's barely unpacked. He's sitting at the edge of the bed, coat hanging from his shoulders. Like he knew he wouldn't get away with being here long.
He's watching you with wide eyes, shifting his weight back a little when you approach. Vash the Stampede, with enough money on his head that you taste copper just thinking about it—yet he shrinks when you get close.
"Relax," you say, squeezing the poster in your hand, now dropped to your side. "I'm not turning you in."
His shoulders sag, confusion shining clear behind those tinted glasses. Now that you're close enough to see him, to really look at him, you realize they're hiding bright eyes and long lashes.
"You're not?"
"No. But—"
He's standing already, gripping your shoulders in big hands. No, one big hand, the other—the way it squeezes, that cold feeling that sinks into your skin— you thought it was a glove before, but now that you're up close, that's lost tech on his arm. Replacing his arm.
"Thank you," he breathes, and this close you can see that he looks worn out. Grimy, too, the film on his glasses a clear indicator that he hasn't taken time to clean himself up in a while. Too busy being on the run, you suppose. You dare to breathe deep and expect a sour human smell, readying yourself to demand he clean himself up before ruining your inn's sheets, but all you can smell is sand and dirt and metal. The pungent scent of sweat is noticeably lacking, but you aren't given much time to think about it, because Vash the Stampede is looking at you like he's known you and cared about you for years, and you're not sure what to do with how that makes you feel.
You step back in a sudden lurch and his hands hang in the air a moment before he realizes his mistake, and he drops his arms by his side. He might've apologized if you let him, but you have more to say.
"I'm not turning you in, but I want you out of here, and soon," you warn him. "High bounty means bounty hunters, and I'm not in the mood to deal with that kind of chaos right now, our doors damn near just re-opened." You point an accusatory finger towards his face, and he shrinks under it. "You cause trouble, you're out. I see you doing anything but lying low, you're out." You eye the sack he was travelling with, sitting pessimistically at the foot of the bed, and for good measure, you add, "You run out of money, you refuse to pay me up front each morning—"
"Out," he finishes earnestly. "I get it. I'll be good."
And he looks it—tall and built yet obedient in the way he's nodding as you lecture him, watching your mouth like he's memorizing everything you say. A strange character around here. Usually your patrons are rougher around the edges than this guy, and maybe that's why when he promises you he'll behave, you believe him.
With hands on your hips, you turn away from your newest guest to stomp towards the small closet at the corner of his room. You run a nice place for the middle of fucking nowhere, but the hinges of the cabinet you restored yourself nearly scream at you when you pluck open the door.
"Guess I'll be oiling that once you're gone," you mumble to yourself, and you're stacking a towel and soap against your forearm and chest before he has time to make it clear if he heard you or not. "Take this."
He meets you where you're standing and offloads the items, peering at the little round soap that has what looks like a smiling face carved into it.
"What's—"
"You need a bath."
It must surprise him, the straightforwardness of it. He laughs, a warm sort of sound that hits your ears all wrong, because you forget you're supposed to be stern and intimidating and the boss, and you feel yourself smiling at him before you can tell yourself to stop.
"I guess you're right," he chuckles, a sheepish sort of pink streaking across his cheeks. "Where—"
"C'mon."
Your inn was rarely ever bustling, and in the weeks since the last incident that left you with a laundry list of repairs and a half-baked plumbing system, it's been a breath away from dead. You've got a silent prayer under your breath whenever you think about it, as if by some miracle the power of your vocal cords alone will bring customers and enough coin to keep you afloat another month or two. But less customers means less people-work and more fixing, so you appreciate the downtime as much as you lament it. There's plenty here to improve on, still, and you're reminded of that when the door to the communal bathing room creaks louder than your cabinet had.
"Lucky for you, no one's fighting you for it," you call out over your shoulder, only to find your patron is standing right behind you, his chest nearly touching your back. You startle at his proximity, and he seems to remember his manners and takes a step away. For whatever reason, you feel like you're the one who should be embarrassed, and you clear your throat before saying, "Your—uh— throne awaits. Drain the water when you're done, or I'm kicking you out. Don't leave a ring of dirt, either. Oh, and don't leave that soap in the water. House made, so it'll melt if you're not careful."
He smiles at you, too warm, too familiar, and even with his eyes hiding behind those glasses you have to look away. It should give you shivers of alarm, it should have you reaching for that shotgun you've never used that you hide behind the front desk— but it doesn't. It's not quite right, but, for whatever reason, it's not threatening either.
"Leave the towels in the bin when you're done," is all you say to him before you trudge down the wheezing wooden steps and ignore the fact that you can feel him watching from the doorway.
*
You're pounding on the door nearly two hours later.
You'd been hovering around downstairs, waiting to hear the tub drain and the subsequent shuffling back to his room so you could start cooking dinner. But the longer you waited, the less you believed he was ever coming out at all.
"Hey—you alive in there?"
"Ah!" You've startled him. "Sure am!"
You can hear him shifting around in the water. You're relieved that despite the ruckus, you don't hear water crashing to the floor—he's filled it an appropriate amount.
"Look, I don't know what you're doing in there, but you must be more prune than man at this point—finish up and I'll have dinner ready in half an hour."
"Dinner!?"
His shock at your hospitality is a little on the insulting side.
"Yeah. Dinner. Look, just come downstairs when you can smell it, okay?"
You don't wait for his reply, but you hear him shouting after you as you trudge back down the stairs, "You got it!"
*
Vash the Stampede eats like he's starving.
You'd think maybe he had been, if that black turtleneck of his wasn't hugging each swell of muscle his body had to speak of. It takes effort not to stare, not to trace the curve of his shoulders or the thickness of his bicep when he reaches across the table to grab his third slab of pita to dunk into the sauce he's managed to spread all over his plate.
"Like it, do you?"
You haven't shared a meal with anyone in a while, and though you aren't much of a cook you can get by, and Vash is gulping back food and using any free moment his mouth has to sing your praises as the chef.
"This is the best meal I've ever eaten," he says, but you get the sneaking suspicion he's just a complimentary type of guy, though his eyes do shine when he meets yours.
He's left those tinted glasses of his somewhere else, and sitting across from him on this refurbished wooden table has left you with nothing to do but admire the blue of his eyes and the long lashes that frame them. That bright blonde hair of his makes his brows sit dark and striking beneath a mop of a hairdo, but he's got most of his hair buzzed around the back and you offhandedly find yourself debating if it would be soft or spiky to the touch.
"Are you a liar by nature, Vash the Stampede?" It's the wrong kind of reply to his good-natured flattery, but you can't help but try to defend yourself when he gives you eyes that threaten to disarm you.
"No," he replies, earnest, innocent. "And you can just call me Vash."
"Vash," you accept, and you cross your arms. He smiles with his cheeks full and you look away before you can think too much about how that makes you feel.
It's in this moment that you're bothered by the film of dust on the window here. It's less of a dining room and more of a dining corner, sun streaming in as it tries to tuck itself below the horizon, doing little other than illuminate the shabbiness of your establishment. You've tried your best to make this place better—oiled hinges, repaired furniture, kept useful things in stock. But the stunning introduction of blue and blonde in the space—you can't help but feel embarrassed that the room is a monotonous collection of brown and little else.
Feeling particularly vulnerable, you ask, "Where are you from, Vash? Not around here, I imagine."
He freezes with sauce dripping from his bread, mouth so open you can see the pink of his tongue. Another colour you aren't used to in this place, and you're positive that's the reason that when you see it, you look away.
Vash straightens out, squares those broad shoulders and sets his food down.
"Ah, no. Not originally, but, I've been around. Always, you know, wandering around. Seeing new things."
It's a typical kind of evasive answer that folks give when they don't really want you to know anything about them. You pretend it's the dust in the air that makes that realization land like a rash at your neck.
"What about you? Are you from around here?"
When you look back at Vash, he has his head cocked to one side, leaning in a little like you're the most interesting person on the planet. Your dinner spins in your stomach.
"Sure. I guess."
"You guess?"
"I uh—" You're not sure why you're telling him this— "I grew up in the city. Moved here after college to take this place over when my aunt died." You frown, reconsider. "During. During college." You clear your throat. "This, uh, this was her place."
He wouldn't tell you truths about himself, so you feel awfully slighted that you let it spill out just because he asked. But his eyes are so gentle, his gaze holding yours with complete understanding and maybe something kind of like reverence, so you keep talking.
"My parents didn't want the place. Wanted to sell it—too low brow for people like them, you know. Not profitable enough for them to care about. But I loved my aunt. She was tough, you know? No Man's Land swallows you up if you aren't. So... Just felt like spitting on her grave to let this place go."
Vash seems downright brimming with admiration, and you're not sure if it's because most people around here don't get an education at all, or because he hasn't caught on yet that you didn't actually finish yours. Whatever his reasoning, you're noticing more and more how long it's been since you've been with anyone, and maybe the pink of his tongue would look nice against your skin.
Again you're looking away, because you think if you look at him any longer you'll offer him some of the dark whisky you know your aunt has hoarded beneath the floorboards of the stockroom, and there's nothing you're more certain of than that being a bad, bad idea.
Wetting your lips, you gesture toward Vash's mechanical arm with a nod of your chin. "That's lost tech. Where'd you get it?"
Vash stiffens again— insulting, given you've just told him your life story. Or as close to it as you've ever gotten.
"Someone gave it to me," he says.
"You didn't steal it, like you did all those plants?"
He frowns at you so deeply that shame smacks the apology out of you before he can explain why he deserves one.
"Never mind," you say quickly. "None of my business. Sorry I asked." You rise from your seat, hand hovering near his plate. "You done?"
His eyes bounce from your hand to your face. A little deflated, he says, "Yeah, I'm done."
You try to shake the feeling of having done something wrong but it never leaves your shoulders, even as you're scrubbing dishes in a sink full of hot water and soap.
Vash tries to help, hovers near you, suggests he do the washing, but you banish him to his room, and for whatever reason, he leaves even when he looks like he doesn't want to.
You're being rude to your guest and you know it. That's the agony twisting in your gut, not the furrow in his dark brows or the way you seemed to seep the light out of his eyes with your behaviour. It's just bad for business.
That's how you justify knocking on his door when the sun's gone down and your hands are wrinkled from the sink. You struggle to find justification for the heat you feel when he tells you to come in and he's sitting on his bed with a book in his lap.
"Am I interrupting?" You ask it even though you don't want him to say yes.
"No."
His voice is so soft, you feel covered in it.
He closes the book and sets it on the small desk beside the bed. It's a bit of a reach, and when he half rises from the bed you get a real look at the expanse of his ribcage, at the taper of his waist right where his pants sit. You'd be weak in the knees if that were something you ever let yourself admit to.
You're chewing on your lip for long enough that Vash fills the silence, saying in more of a statement than a question, "You went to school for engineering?"
It catches you off guard, but before you can have too much of a reaction, he gestures to the book on the desk with his mechanical arm. It was one of your school textbooks, something you'd left in this room to make it feel more inviting. You don't think anyone's cracked it open since you had, years ago.
"I—" That tortured feeling of bareness makes your shoulders contort. "I didn't finish."
"Because you took over this inn," Vash says, almost like he's reminding you, like it's something to be proud of. You cross your arms over your chest.
"Yeah."
"I thought it was impressive how well maintained everything is." He's speaking so softly, so proudly, that you feel like he must be talking to someone else. "You've done a lot of this by yourself, haven't you?"
You've been standing in the doorway while he spoke, but for some reason this makes you finally turn to close the door behind you. There's no one else here, but… you feel like you have to.
Vash scoots to the side of the bed— enough room for you to pull out the chair you built yourself from where it is tucked in under the desk, but also enough room for you to sit next to him on the mattress.
The chair creaks beneath you when you settle.
"The soap," Vash continues. "It smells so nice—you made it, didn't you?"
You nod, one quick bob of your chin. For all that you wanted people to notice your effort, the attention from him, that singular, soft heat roiling from the sound of his voice… it's too much. You feel embarrassed, like you'd rather no one say anything at all.
"This place is hemorrhaging money," you tell him, like you're supposed to be convincing him you aren't worthy of the praise that's coating your ears and warming your belly.
"Sounds like that's because of people like me—" His head is cocked to the side, his gaze soft, his body leaned toward you in that way it does when he seems to forget that giving space is polite. "—causing trouble."
"You're not— you aren't causing trouble. I'm sorry I was rude. You're not the first person to be falsely accused and slapped with a hefty bounty. I should have—"
"You were protecting what's yours." He's so close. He's so close with those soft bedroom eyes, warmth spilling from his lips. "It's okay."
You swallow. You could kiss him. It's almost like he wants it, the way he's getting so close, but— no, he's been getting close the whole time he's been here. He's a foreigner, a man from Someplace Else, though you aren't sure where exactly, but it's the only explanation for the sensitivity with which he speaks to you, for the way he enters your space when he's not paying attention. And that lost tech on his arm—
Your senses spark back to you, and you lean away.
"You washed your arm in the tub?"
He's snapped out of it, too, pulling back to twist around that metal arm of his.
He's flexing his fingers when he says, "Yeah, I did—"
"The soap, it's not meant for metal, it—" is this important? Does this matter? Or are you saying this to get yourself out of the magnetic pull that is Vash the Stampede, to cool the heat stirring in your belly? "—it leaves residue."
"Oh, guess it does."
He doesn't seem like he particularly minds it— how could he, when he walked in here caked in dirt that he barely seemed to notice— but he nods like he understands why you'd mention it.
"I could, uh—" You're struck wondering if this is rude. You certainly wouldn't offer to polish any other customer's arm, and just assuming he's willing to part with it to let you do so might be insulting. But it tumbles out anyway, "—polish it for you. If… if you want. Could get it… shiny…"
He's not a fucking piece of plumbing, and you're heating up with mortification at the suggestion you've just made, but he looks more touched at your offer than insulted.
"I guess it could use a bit of a polish," he says.
"I'm sorry," you say anyway, in spite of his lack of disapproval.
He tries to read your meaning, but from the furrow in his brow…
"It's—that's your arm, it's… part of you. I wouldn't have said anything like that if it had been…" You're desperately searching for something to say other than real. "You know. Flesh and bone."
"I don't mind." He's smiling again, twisting at his bicep. Unfastening it, you realize.
"Wait, hang on," you're rushing to the door, mortified at the idea of him handing you his arm and you just… disappearing with it. You call from the doorway, "I'll— I'll bring the polish here, just wait!"
You're gone before he has time to protest.
You find him seated in the same place when you return, heart racing from stomping back up the stairs. You're not sure why you're in a rush for this, but something about Vash feels fleeting, or maybe you're just used to people like him coming and going as fast as you can blink.
You have a rough towel in one hand and the polish in the other, and you take your place at the chair next to his bed, wincing at how it creaks under your weight.
"Do you have sensitive hearing?" Vash asks, an innocent sort of concern to the way he phrases it.
"Huh?"
He tips his chin in the direction of your chair, then points to the cabinet in the corner of the room.
"You seemed bothered by the noise of the hinges, and that chair when you sat in it."
You frown and stare down at the tin of polish, untwisting the lid to avoid meeting those prying eyes of his.
"It's not the noise," you admit.
"What is it?" He's so earnest, you can't even pretend to think he's mocking you.
"It's what it signals," you say, and you wrap the towel around your fingers before dipping into the polish. "Give me your arm."
You expect him to reach his arm out to you, but instead he goes back to his decision from before— he starts to disconnect it.
"Ah—you don't have to—"
It pops off, limp in his hand. There's an unusual sort of tremble in your grip when you take it from him. It's heavy, but not as heavy as you'd expect. You place it gently down on your lap and he watches you with care. Not like he's waiting to catch you on a mistake, more like he's just observing something that's caught his interest. As if you didn't have his fucking arm laying in your lap.
"What does the noise signal?"
You don't look at him. Can't look at him.
"That things are in disrepair." You stare down at the arm on your lap, desperate for a topic change. "How long have you had this," is the foolish question you find yourself asking before you can think to check your manners.
"A long time," is all he offers you, and it's a mercy, because you know that that was a rude question.
You clear your throat, hoping to cover your mistake when you ask, "And you've never had it take any damage from any typical materials, have you?"
His eyes are so soft when he assures you, "Nope, a little polish shouldn't do any damage."
"Okay, good."
You smooth your fingers over the expanse of his forearm, just admiring the material. Lost tech is pretty rare, and what little people have found is too much of a mystery to make any sense of. You'd love to pry this apart and try to learn what's going on in it, but you know better than to ever ask, and it's not like you ever even got your degree to make you qualified to do that anyway.
The metal is smooth to the touch, void of nicks and scratches despite this man's supposed outlaw lifestyle. You can tell from his clothes he's been through the ringer, but this arm is holding up well in spite of it. Part of you is wondering if someone is maintaining it, and you're looking for signs of it, smoothing your fingertips over the curves of it until you notice his gaze and jolt to a stop.
His eyes are half-lidded, bedroom eyes if you've ever seen them, that delicious freckle beneath his eye calling to you, begging for a kiss.
You think you must be losing your mind to jump to a conclusion like that, and you stop your inappropriate caressing of his detached arm and get to work. And it's good that you stopped there, especially since you could feel the urge to slip your hand into his metal palm and experience what it might be like to thread your fingers in between his.
"You said you went to college, so you must have been in one of the real big cities before you took over this place."
Again Vash is asking for more information about you than you usually give away, but you'd be damned if the weight of his arm on your thighs didn't have you feeling particularly inclined to be vulnerable.
"That's right."
"You seemed ashamed. Why is that?"
Your shoulders are suddenly at your ears, and you can't do anything but stare at the circles you're rubbing into Vash's arm at your lap.
"The way you act about being from the city. You're ashamed you came from there, but… But you're also ashamed that you left. Why?"
It should grate you in all the wrong ways, should have you tossing his arm to the ground and kicking him out of your inn.
Instead you let your hands settle on your lap, stop your work.
"People here have it rough." You bite at your lip, try to shake off that naked feeling. You can't dare to look at the eyes that are boring deep into your soul. You stick your attention on his arm. "I grew up with clean water. I never had to worry about a singular plant going missing— they were all heavily guarded. Sure, there were problems here and there that only a big city could have, but… I got to go to school…. I got to go to school."
Vash thinks about this for a while, and you take back your work of shining up his arm. It's already looking brighter, the soap scum giving way to metal that seems to tug in all colour from the room.
"You feel like you wasted the opportunity, since you didn't finish your education… is that it?"
You swallow and it's rougher this time.
"Yeah. Something… something like that."
"But you needed to take over this place, in your aunt's memory."
"Yeah."
"Torn between two directions," Vash murmurs. "I'm sorry. That must be hard for you."
"It's—" You want to say it's fine. For some reason, you don't feel like lying to him. "It's complicated. It's… It's hard to say it's hard. In a lot of ways, I had it better than everyone I meet here. But in a lot of other ways, it's so much more difficult, because I chose to do something that I thought was right when everyone I knew thought I was being stupid."
There's a new hand on your knee—warm. Pale.
He squeezes you, looks at you with all of his heart in his eyes when you finally look up. This man… This man is dangerous. You can feel your heartbeat knocking against your ribs.
Those eyes— those lips— if you crawled on top of him on this bed, would he let you?
"That—uh, that earring," you're blabbering to cover the want that you can feel building in your gut.
"My—?"
"Yeah, that earring, I— I can shine that up too, if you like. It's a little dull."
Vash pulls his hand away from your knee.
"Oh, sure," he says, and the way he moves his half-missing arm, you realize he's reaching for it. He notices his mistake and laughs to himself, then he's fiddling with the earring by reaching across his body, fumbling to get it out of his ear.
"Let me."
You say it before you think about the consequences. You're already laying down his arm—so impossibly gently, he notices, as if it were a precious thing—on the desk beside you, and rising to lean toward his ear. His skin is wicked hot, as hot as yours feels under the intimacy of what you're doing. And maybe you take a little longer than you need to to unclasp that gold ring. Maybe you take a second to smell how your homemade soap has settled on his skin. Maybe you think about brushing your nose against his cheekbone, just once. Fuck, how much of this can you take?
"Vash, you—" could do whatever you wanted to me, could take me in any room, could kiss me right now, could ruin me for the rest of my life "—smell really good."
His chuckle makes you want to pretend to lose your footing, has you dreaming of crashing into those broad shoulders of his. "Someone had me take a bath," he says.
"Smart girl," you try to joke, but your pulse is between your legs and nowhere else, drunk on the heat of his skin, the smell of him, the shape of his body. You clear your throat. "Speaking of… Is, ah, is someone waiting for you?"
You've plucked the earring out of his ear, and you regret being so successful with it. You regret a lot of things, like that question. It nearly sets your skin on fire with embarrassment once it leaves your mouth, but you're falling back on your creaking chair and trying to pretend like it's nothing anyway.
"Someone…?"
You can barely hear yourself over your heart and your internal screaming at how obvious you're being.
"You know." You set the earring on the desk to finish with his arm, staying focused and fixed on the metal and not the man seducing you with his puppy eyes. "A woman. A man. Someone… someone waiting for you to get back to them. Someone missing you, right about now."
Vash takes in a sharp inhale, the meaning of it lost to you, then he chuckles, low and soft.
"No," he says. "No one is waiting for me. Not like that."
"Oh, okay."
Idiot. Fool. Your brain is fuelled from a pulse between your legs and little else.
In the silence that follows, no sound but the polish pressing into the metal of his arm, you feel the physical emptiness of the fact that he does not ask you the same question back.
It stings more than you'd like to admit.
Did you really think he would leap atop your body if you asked a simple question? You need to pivot, change topics.
"How long do you think you'll be staying here for?"
Fuck, where did that come from? You want to stuff the words back into your mouth. It's so desperate you can hear it, taste it.
But if Vash notices where exactly your question is coming from, he doesn't let on.
"You mentioned you wanted me out soon," he says softly, and it feels like more of a reminder than a tease. Like he knows why you'd want that, and the risk brought about by having someone with such a high bounty stay anywhere for long.
"Right. I did say that." You're almost finished with his forearm, and his hand makes you feel all kinds of twisted feelings when you look at it. "Look. It's empty around here. Barely any customers. If you want to stay a little longer… I just… I won't be kicking you out, okay? As long as you don't cause trouble."
He just smiles at you for a while. A long while, shifting his weight from side to side on the bed, like he's taking you in from all angles.
"It's not too often anybody asks me to stick around without having to take a few bullets for them first," Vash muses, and you feel dread at the confession.
"You've—" You can't imagine this man in pain. Or rather, you don't want to. "—been shot?"
The way you look at him then— somehow you've managed to make him squirm this time, the intensity of your look causing him to duck his head a little. He's raising one hand up to show you his palm, and if he had is arm attached you think it'd be doing the same.
"It's okay," he says. "I'm better now."
You let his promise assuage your concerns and return to your work, feeling nervous when you hold his hand by the back of it and press fresh polish into his palm. He watches you work, admiring how softly you cradle the metal.
He notices the flutter of your lashes when you spread his fingers with your thumb and dig polish between each one.
Desperate not to linger on this under his watchful gaze, you whisper, "Vash."
He cocks his head, that blonde mop of hair bobbing as he moves. "Hmm?"
"You've been shot… So how many people have… Did you ever…"
He shifts on the bed, the frame creaking beneath him. He politely ignores your cringe.
"Never on purpose," he nearly whispers, and it's an odd way to phrase it, makes you think he has been responsible for someone's death before. But that it was never his choice… you believe him, and you let it soothe you.
"I just don't get it," you say as you turn his arm over to polish each of his knuckles. This is a beautiful piece of work, weighty but easy to move, sturdy in all places and— and maybe if it cupped your cheek, or—
"Get what?"
You're holding his ring finger in your hand, smoothing your thumb over the knuckles, wishing you could kiss each one of them.
"Why anyone would want to hurt you."
There's quiet for a while. You can hear the heat buzzing through the pipes in the walls, kicked off by the timer that triggers it just a little after sundown. No Man's Land is too hot to breathe in half the time, but at night, around here, you'll freeze to death if you're caught off guard.
"There's another name for me," Vash finally says after far too long of a silence, and there's a tremble in his voice that has you ceasing the work in your lap to stare at his profile. He's gazing out the window, peering out at the stars and the horizon just outside your inn's grimy windows. "Do you know it?"
"You mean other than Vash the Stampede?" You shake your head. "No."
He meets your eyes, all soft and pleading, a face like an apology.
"The Humanoid Typhoon." He looks down at his hand, settled on his thigh. If his arm were still attached, you think he'd be fiddling with his fingers. He's the picture of needy sorrow, slumped shoulders and worried brow, and if you were a different person, maybe you'd have crawled onto his lap and held him. "Wherever I go, I bring trouble. I end up involving people in things they never should have been involved in. I'm…" His eyes are shiny when they meet yours again. Then he blinks, and there's a smile that isn't as sincere as you wish it was. "I'm bad news, you know."
Maybe you could have taken his statement as humour if you hadn't heard the crack in his voice a moment ago. If you hadn't seen what looked like a lifetime of sorrow in his eyes, blinked away in favour of showing you a mask.
You want to dig deeper, want to squeeze his sorrow out of him, want to soothe him. But more than any of that, this flash of honesty has you simply wanting.
You can't fix him, you can't fix any of the sad sacks that drift through your inn. You can't even fix yourself, which is why you spend so much of your life tending to the pipes, the machines, the furniture here. That shame that snakes down your back when you say something that doesn't click with the locals, the humiliation when you get a rare radio transmission from your old college friends and you can't quite grasp the slang the city has settled on for the week. There was a time where you'd grasp meaning the first time you heard something. Now you have to either show your hand and admit you don't understand or grin and bear a conversation that may as well be in a completely different language.
No matter what you do, you'll never keep up with city folks if you aren't feeling the constant thrum of life there. And no matter what you do, you'll never align with the locals here who grew up under circumstances so different from yours that you're different down to your DNA.
It's a bitter thought that makes your tongue itch, a piece of yourself you've been covering your eyes from for a long, long time. The fact that no matter how much work you put in, you only seem to fit into this inn when no one else is around.
Except you haven't had a problem understanding Vash.
And maybe you notice it because you feel it too—that he feels like he doesn't belong anywhere, either.
You could give it to him—for a night, in that bed he sits on. You could show him a place he belongs, and maybe by extension, you'd belong too. Nothing soothes the soul like a tongue between your lips and hands dragging up your sides—you could soothe that sorrow you see in Vash if he'd let you.
"I stopped listening to the news when I left the city," is all you say to him when you've let your senses talk you down. His arm lays polished and weighty in your lap. With care, you shine up the earring that you've left sitting on the desk beside you, and Vash just watches in quiet thought until you return his arm back to him. The weight of it missing from your lap nearly kills you.
Vash fits his arm back into place, cringing a bit when something connects to something else and it sends a jolt through his body. But then it's there, hanging like he was born with it, rising before his face while he inspects your work.
"I don't think it's been this shiny since the day I got it," he chuckles to you.
When was that, really?
You don't ask. Not only because it would be rude, but because you're already struggling to talk yourself out of this room. A moment more of his vulnerability would bring you to your knees.
"Thank you," he says when you present his earring to him on your palm.
Before he can grab it, you hear yourself say, "Can I put it back in for you?"
He hesitates just a moment before letting his hand settle by his thigh on the bed. He cocks his head to the side, opening up his jaw, throat— ah, his ear.
You get close to him again, so very close. He smells divine, he smells vulnerable. The soft hairs on his ear would glow in sunlight. Maybe they'd even glow under the moons— there's so many of them, after all.
You take his earlobe between your thumb and forefinger, gentle in ways you're not used to being with people. You ache to kiss him, you're starving for it. You wish he could give you something, anything that could convince you to take the plunge, but he doesn't. He's vulnerable and open but… he's not sexual. His eyes don't stray along your body, he doesn't wet his lips or let his lashes droop.
You slide his earring into place and fasten it.
"There you go." You pull back, readying yourself to stand up straight, begging for him to grab your arms and pull you on top of him. But he keeps his hands to himself.
He busies himself toying with the earring, humming in approval at what you imagine is the distinct lack of sand and grime.
"Thanks for this, really," he says. "It was so thoughtful of you. You have such an eye for detail."
It pangs through you, that thrum of want. Look at me, you think. Take from my body. Give me something, anything.
He's smiling at you politely, a little pink in his cheeks at the delight he feels about his shiny metal pieces. He's contented. This was enough for him. He doesn't want more from you.
You could make him feel like he belongs somewhere. But you can't force him to make you feel that way, too.
"Well. Make sure to tell all your friends about my hospitality," you mutter, and with your tail between your legs you swipe the rag and polish from his desk, nudging the chair into place with your foot. "I'll start making breakfast around sunrise, if you plan to stick around."
"Breakfast too? Thanks!"
You could give him so much more than a meal, you think. But instead you say, "Goodnight, Vash."
There's an unusual sort of spark in his voice when he replies, "Goodnight!" just as you shoulder the door shut behind you.
The sheets are particularly cold when you lay in them that night, only to burn stifling and hot when you let yourself get twisted up in them with nothing but Vash in your thoughts and on your lips, a ghost of him in your fingertips when you press deep into yourself instead of sleeping.
You wonder if that polished metal would retain your body heat.