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How dare you, Vash thinks before catching himself short in the thought. It’s uncharacteristic and unwelcome and, frankly, something he doesn’t want to admit to even inside the privacy of his own head.
He shoves the offending item back into the laundry before the situation can escalate, although tellingly his fingers do not unbunch from the fabric.
Living with Nai is natural, like craving sweets, or stretching upon waking, or breathing. They’ve done it for most of their lives, first as children in a single bedroom and now as young adults in their own apartment. The two of them have a rhythm, filling the gaps the other leaves to make a complete picture. Nai cleans, manages their finances, does the groceries ─ Vash cooks, does all the little DIY jobs that need doing, and laundry. Which is why, he tells himself in a frantic feedback loop of denial, it’s totally normal that he can tell at a glance that the underwear in his hands does not belong to his brother.
Nai likes briefs, both regular and boxer, in soft grey for preference although white was also acceptable. He owned exactly two pairs that did not fit this description by virtue of being loose fitting black satin boxers, although they didn’t turn up in the laundry very often. Not that he kept track or anything.
Heart racing more than was warranted, he cautiously withdrew the alien intimates from the basket for a second look.
They were navy with a high cut leg, an exposed elastic waistband, and─ Vash chewed at his tongue in an attempt at self control ─ a spot of dark dampness at the crotch. Before Vash can check himself he has a finger pressed into it, feeling the cool, tacky evidence as if he could learn anything more than he’s already pieced together. Neither the underwear nor the dampness belong to Nai. Not his style, not his colour, and not nearly enough.
Vash bites down on his tongue with a strangled noise of frustration.
Even second hand, Vash is aware what the spread of Nai’s wetness looks like in the discarded aftermath. Again, he reminds himself, he does their laundry. It’s not weird. Totally normal.
His first thought, rushed through as he tosses the horrible evidence into the washer to avoid tipping into insanity’s embrace, is of Nai’s only ex on record: Legato.
They’d been an item for two horrible years. Legato had not been good for Nai, a fact which all of Vash’s friends including Nico had eventually agreed on. Vash had known from the get go, before any confessions had been made or kisses exchanged, and he hadn’t hidden it. His friends had brushed him off as being overprotective at first, until the toxicity started to stink and leak out around the edges.
Unlike himself, Nai didn’t have much of a body count. In fact, Vash is sure Legato is the only person his twin has ever slept with, so maybe it isn’t entirely unfair of him to suspect the worst immediately. He juggles the pieces in his mind as he sorts the rest of the darks into the washer, and by the time he’s punching in the program he’s managed to decide that it can’t possibly be Legato.
Nai was smarter than that, surely. They had talked about giving in to fits of crocodile tears, and maybe Nai had called him a hypocrite for it, but they’d agreed nonetheless. Besides, Vash had a feeling he’d know if Legato had been in their apartment behind his back. There would have been change.
Whilst reassuring, this left him with two options: Either it was someone new (unlikely, given Nai’s avoidant nature), or it was someone familiar. One of his friends. Surely, he thought as he flopped down onto their overcrowded sofa, surely they all knew that Nai was off limits. He must have said that at some point, established it as some kind of ground rule or personal boundary, “Hey guys, please don’t set off fireworks around me because they freak me out. Also, please don’t fuck my brother, thank you!”
The television stood cold and inert on its console table opposite him across their cozy little living space, showing him the sprawl of his limbs and his kicked puppy expression in the shadowy reflection. He met his own gaze for a moment, searching his face for the guilt simmering low in his gut before surrendering. Throwing his head back into the horde of plant themed throw pillows they had amassed over the years, he blinked up at the flat expanse of their ceiling and began his mental hunt for whichever Judas had done this.
Livio? No, probably not, although Razlo gave him pause. Vash knew where both of their affections came home to roost, and whilst Livio was the type to stay in one place, Razlo had a reputation for wandering off target. Their communication was good these days however, and he doubted that Raz could have snuck that past his headmate without at least confiding in Wolfwood, who the pair used like a consenting external message board.
Meryl and Milly… Vash bit his lip, squinting at nothing. Was Nai into women? God, had they never talked about it? He guessed not, given that he didn’t know. There were things about each other that they didn’t know, which Vash had to remind himself was healthy and not a problem. Even so, they wouldn’t have slept with him. Meryl had views about Nai and his apparent dependency on Vash, which he’d never had the balls to counter with the damning fact that it was mutual.
Which left Wolfwood.
Wolfwood was his best friend, the person in their apartment the most besides themselves, and therefore the only one who had any kind of real direct dialogue with Nai. A dialogue comprised of bickering that occasionally ascended into outright argument, fuelled by Nick’s inability to resist continually poking the dragon.
But would he? Would they?
The rattle of a key in the lock of their apartment door brought Vash back into the room. As Nai entered looking more exhausted than when he’d left in the morning the issue of the intrusive underwear was put aside in favour of loving his twin in all the socially acceptable ways Vash knew how.
As they fell asleep tangled up on the sofa, one of Nai’s old wretched westerns running with the volume on low in the background, Vash decided not to mention it. If Nai wasn’t volunteering the information then there was a reason, and if Nai knew that Vash knew and wanted answers, he’d be better about hiding it. Easier, then, to feign ignorance and observe. A little deceitful, perhaps, but Vash could ignore it in favour of what he deemed his brother’s best interest.
Three loads of laundry passed before his patience bore fruit.
This time Vash felt the difference before he saw it, the fabric was too light, too thin, too delicate. More importantly, it was wet. Cautiously he withdrew his prize from the hamper, the sheer fabric twisting around his fingers, clinging, soaked almost transparent, and slippery with slick. Brain blank, he unwound them with care to reveal the full picture across his lap.
White, sheer, largely unadorned save for a scandalous cage of elastic in both front and back, and ─ Vash reached slowly into the drum of the washer for a familiar pair of marl grey briefs with which to compare ─ in Nai’s size.
Lingerie.
Unless Legato had dressed him up in lace and then, once soiled, had resolutely kept it to worship in private (which Vash had to admit was in character), this was a first.
Massaging his fingers over the soaked gusset, Vash gave Legato’s hypothetical act of worship due consideration. Vash conceded him the point, ignoring the fact that the whole idea had spun from his own imagination to start with. Nai would notice and there was no explaining away their presence in Vash’s room. Especially not in the state he wanted to make of them.
His fingers reflexively scrunched the fabric into a ball as the thought sang across his mind and then processed.
No, bad, wrong, bad Vash─
The rest of the laundry went by in a rush of loud music with as little thought as possible, and if he strategically got on top of the washer after punching in the program then that was an act known only to him and god.
It was only later, after Nai was home and twenty minutes deep into an impassioned infodump about renewable energy, that Vash realised the sublime wetness of his discovery indicated recent activity.
Wanting the protest without the lecture, Vash informed Nai of his evening plans en route to the door. Usually when Nai was informed of his intention to only sleep four hours between copious amounts of alcohol and karaoke and taking public transit home, he got an endearing earful about it. So perhaps he could be forgiven for doubling back when no protest came beyond a passive acknowledgment.
“Have a good night? Is that all? You aren’t worried about me?”
The blanket burrito that was his brother shifted to look at him, eyebrows drawn.
“You asked me to be less fretful. I was ‘hampering your fun’.”
Maybe Vash had said that, but that was no excuse. He pouted, pulling on the puppy dog eyes with practised ease.
“So go and have fun.” Nai pressed, meeting him with just as practised indifference. The blanket rippled as Nai’s hands and phone came into view, his attention slipping from Vash.
Huh.
Having technically gotten what he wanted, Vash left for Meryl’s place restless. Something about Nai’s sudden shift in attitude was unsettling, so about three hours, and half of Milly’s drunken rendition of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer into the night, Vash called it quits.
Vash let himself into the apartment as quietly as possible, not wanting to be questioned or wake Nai up if he’d already gone to bed.
It took him a moment to notice anything off, but after noiselessly struggling out of his shoes and jacket his brain finally processed the smell of take out. Sure enough, a pair of polystyrene containers which looked to have previously contained burgers and fries were stacked neatly on the kitchen counter.
Burgers? That wasn’t exactly a recognised Nai Meal™.
Two boxes.
A strange panicked thrill coursed through him at the revelation. Sure enough, the living room presented him with a pair of used glasses on the coffee table, and a dualshock sitting off its cradle tangled up in Nai’s favourite blanket on the sofa.
A soft wet noise broke through the pounding of Vash’s pulse in his ears, shortly followed by a soft moan that Vash recognised. He’d feel shame for it later, for having committed his brother’s pleasure to memory from the scant few times he’d heard it ─ stolen moments from Nai’s own fingers, from hands that looked so much like Vash’s that it made his chest hurt to picture.
That meant they were still─
“Fuck,” Nai’s voice was thin and breathless, alluringly vulnerable when contrasted against his usual soft stoicism. Not that he was ever truly stoic, not if you knew, not if you understood like Vash did. “You have no right to be so─ ah hah─ so good at this. Mmn!”
Vash wasn’t sure when he’d progressed from the living room to the hallway, drawn closer like a hapless insect towards the ersatz invitation of a bee orchid. Nai’s door was open, sounds and voices unmuffled. Another step and he’d be close enough to see via the reflection of Nai’s mirror─ yet more incriminating knowledge in his mosaic of shame.
A cocky laugh muffled by wet heat and intimacy. Another breathless but familiar voice.
“But aren’t you lucky that I am?”
Another moan, shaky and broken with pleasure, followed by a laugh from─
“Nick, fuck, that’s not─ that’s not fair, I─”
Stomach sinking into his socks, Vash inched forward until the dim reflection in the long thin mirror behind Nai’s bed revealed his best friend, his betrayer─ half off the bed with his face buried between his twin’s long, beautiful legs, his hands full of thighs that tensed and squished beneath his bitten nails.
“C’mon Angel, give me one more. One more and I’ll fuck you like you begged me to.”
Nai’s legs spasmed as Wolfwood’s hand slipped away from his thigh to work furiously where Vash couldn’t see.
“I didn’t─ I don’t beg.” Nai spat the words, sweet with venom and undone by the way he arched and gasped as Wolfwood returned his mouth to his clit with a low moan.
Vash watched enraptured as Nai tensed and squirmed, listened as Wolfwood made his own pleasure known against his twin’s wet folds, no doubt utterly abused and swollen. Fuck, how long had they been at this? How many times had Wolfwood made Nai cum on his tongue and fingers? Vash wanted to know, was afraid of the answer, jealous, horrified and wanting in equal parts.
His hands skittered to press roughly at his own pussy, warm with arousal even through the thick barrier of his jeans. The hard friction of the seam against his clit felt harsh but good, making him bite back a desperate noise.
Nai’s orgasm hit him like a divine bolt, making him choke and seize, hips arching hard into Wolfwood’s mouth as one of his hands shot down to grasp roughly at the back of his head, keeping him there as Nai wailed. It seemed to last forever, his voice a rolling tone broken only by aborted attempts at speech; praise, a name, admonishments ─ Vash couldn’t tell. As Nai sunk back into the mattress, his voice quieting to small pants and whines as he shook apart, Vash came forcibly silent and virtually untouched.
He’d never imagined this, had never dared to. Maybe he’d known there would be no coming back from it if he did.
Finally, Wolfwood relented. Pulling away, he watched Nai with an expression Vash couldn’t see, his hands rubbing soothing lines over still quivering thighs until Nai’s breathing evened out to a deep, contented calm.
“Hey, you with me?” The softness came as a shock to Vash, having only heard Wolfwood speak like that to Livio, and perhaps Razlo once or twice.
“Somehow… yes.” Nai sounded like himself again, steady but blissful. That made it worse, more real somehow. Nai had said that. His Nai.
Nai laughed, soft and open, and then to Vash’s slow horror, sat up.
Their eyes locked through the reflection, wide with identical shock.
“Vash?”
Wolfwood suddenly leaned into view, alarm written across his face beneath the glistening evidence.
“Oh, fuck. Blondie, hold up─”
Glued to the spot, Vash tore his gaze away from his twin to find Wolfwood wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, some kind of pre-prepared excuse already lined up behind his teeth.
Vash would listen, devoid of choice─ hoping his flush would be excused for mortification rather than arousal and jealousy. He smiled at his friend awkwardly, lips twisting like a lopsided clamp around the only clear thought in his mind.
How dare you.