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“Hey, Tongari.”
Vash’s gaze drifted away from the endless expanse of the desert passing them by. They had been travelling on deck of this massive hulk of a machine for a few hours at this point. Meryl and Roberto were on their way back to their news agency. Although Vash felt it was for the best they left, he still felt the shape of their absence. A hand smacked flat in the center of his forehead.
“Aiee!” Vash cried, gripping his head. Wolfwood drew his hand back, fishing out a cigarette and lighter. “What was that for?!”
“Had to bring someone back to earth,” said Wolfwood through a puff of smoke. He exhaled, holding the cigarette loosely between his fingers. “Where do you go when no one’s around to tether you?”
Vash smiled politely.
“I was just thinking.”
“Really. Well, don’t hold back.”
Vash looked to the side. The endless expanse of sand went on, and on, and on. If Vash stared too long, it just looked like they stayed in the same place for hours. If it weren’t for the sky changing colors as sunset drew near, he would almost swear they were stuck in a moment in time.
“The worst part about meeting new people is watching them leave,” said Vash. His voice was low and quiet, as though whispering a secret guilt into the air. Wolfwood leaned against the railing of the boat. “Do you ever feel that way while traveling, Wolfwood?”
“Not that I can remember,” said Wolfwood. “Most people I meet aren’t meant to stay above the ground for long once I perform my services…can’t say I get sad to watch them go.”
“Ah…yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.”
“You’re not a loner, are you?”
“I’m a traveler.”
“Not what I’m asking.”
Vash looked to Wolfwood and found he was already staring directly at him. Wolfwood had a quiet intensity that made Vash feel he was looking through him, at some part of himself he couldn’t see.
“You’re a traveler, but you’re not a loner,” said Wolfwood. His next puff of smoke dissipated into the sky of deep orange and purple. “You travel because you have to. But you don’t like being alone, do you.”
Vash felt something sting at his eyes.
“I’m not alone right now,” said Vash, smiling. Wolfwood prematurely coughed, smoke blowing unceremoniously out of his nose. He straightened out his posture, taking a deeper puff.
“You’re on a transporter,” sighed Wolfwood. “Of course you’re not alone.”
Vash leaned his head against his hand, smiling as Wolfwood went on about what a weird thing that was to say.
Sometimes the endless expanse of the desert could rattle Vash’s brain. Everything going on and on. The same dunes, the same heat. Like a thirty second film playing repeatedly over the course of his unnatural lifetime. But with Wolfwood it didn’t feel so bad to be suspended in a moment in time.
__
There was the attack. Livio. A barely narrow escape. Barely avoiding a massacre of the orphanage and every miserable building Wolfwood knew and grew up around. And there was Vash. Wolfwood knew Vash had his secrets. Secrets were normal in Wolfwood’s line of work. He would argue more often than not, the secrets were the reason why he was hired to trail someone. Vash seemed no different. A perky happy go lucky stranger who put on the perfect circus act of incompetence. Wolfwood met plenty of guys like that who had secrets.
Except he didn’t. He never met a man like Vash. He never met a man who glowed as though moonlight had soaked into his veins. He never met a man who glowed as he touched his hands to a glass bulb housing something that even persuaded a cynic like Wolfwood to question everything he thought he knew. Wolfwood knew secrets, but he didn’t know secrets like this.
They stopped in a city, the aftermath of the events still thrumming in their bones. Wolfwood felt like he was two separate entities. One of them was piloting his body and the other was wrapping everything that happened deep inside his chest. Livio . Wolfwood wanted to mourn. Mourning was what normal people did. If mourning was reserved for anyone, it would be reserved for the soft eyed boy he knew at the orphanage and the killing machine of a man who as a last act of selflessness did the only thing he thought possible to keep himself from hurting Wolfwood. But life still went on. The world still went on, and no matter how hard he wanted to Wolfwood couldn’t cry. He wasnt sure if it was him or his job.
They found a small inn and got the cheapest room, a one bedroom with just enough space to not feel like they were paying for a renovated broom closet. Wolfwood took the windowsill and told Vash he could have the bed. He had a feeling he wasn’t getting much sleep anyways.
“Wolfwood.”
Vash’s beckon pierced the veil of darkness. Wolfwood looked away from the window, to the bed. Enough moonlight crept in through the window to illuminate himself but keep Vash in the shadows. Wolfwood could feel Vash watching him from them, from where he sat in the dark with his secrets.
“Mm?” said Wolfwood, sighing a puff of smoke out. Vash was quiet. He wiggled over to the edge of the bed, letting his legs hang over the side, though he was so long and gangly his feet touched the floor as soon as the motion was made.
“Are you doing okay?” asked Vash. His voice was steady and so soft it may have been lost in the whisper of the dark if there was any noise present to compete with it. Wolfwood tried not to show any reaction, but he felt his shoulders jerk from the impact of the question. He looked back outside the window, at the sleepy city outside. There were a few windows still lit, but those too eventually blinked into the yawning mouth of evening.
“I’m alive,” said Wolfwood, rubbing his cigarette out into the hard brick of the wall.
“Yeah,” said Vash, hands on his knees. He gave Wolfwood a smile that felt so sad he wasn’t sure he could stand to look at it. “Livio…you knew him?”
“Mm,” said Wolfwood, this time feeling it hit his chest in a way that made him feel hollow and empty. Before he knew what he was doing he said “He was my brother.”
Was , thought Wolfwood. Was. Fuck. Why was he telling this to Vash. Why of all things that happened today was a single word the one thing that made his eyes start to sting. Vash looked even sadder, and for once Wolfwood didn’t think it looked like he was faking his emotions.
“I’m so sorry,” said Vash. His hands rubbed over each other in nervous thought. “I know nothing I say can dull the impact of what happened. But he must have loved you a lot.”
Wolfwood deeply pinched the bridge of his nose, coughing. He felt something lodge in his throat, an invisible presence that he feared if he let escape would grow into a sob loud enough to shake the walls of the inn. He shook his head, trying to banish the sensation.
“What’s done is done,” said Wolfwood, and he was shocked by an unfamiliar shakiness in his voice. “Talking about him won’t bring him back.”
Vash didn’t answer, but Wolfwood didn’t take that wrong. He still felt him listening in the dark. Maybe his silence was his way of showing that.
“You glow?” Wolfwood wasn’t sure why he phrased the question like that. He let out a laugh. “Fuck.”
Vash smiled.
“Yeah. I do.”
Wolfwood walked over, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside him.
“Most people don’t glow.”
“Err, yeah, I’m sure. But I’m not...”
Vash smiled but looked nervously to the side.
“Could’ve fooled me,” said Wolfwood. “Is that your secret, Tongari?”
Vash bobbed his head from side to side casually before it became a nod.
“Part of it.”
“So the glowing. That only happens when you do… that ?”
“Yeah,” said Vash. “I’m not too sure why, it just happens.”
“It’s quite a sight, you know.”
Vash blushed, looking down at his feet.
“I wouldn’t know. I mean, I have an idea. I usually see my arms, sometimes my own reflection…but I don’t really have the energy to focus when it happens. It’s not important to focus on myself during it anyways.”
Vash looked back up to Wolfwood, a curious gleam in his eyes.
“What did I look like to you?”
“Ah,” said Wolfwood. “Like a city light sign?”
Vash grew quiet. Then cupped a hand to his mouth, laughing.
“You have quite a way with words, Wolfwood,” chuckled Vash. Wolfwood felt the tips of his ears singe red.
“You asked,” grumbled Wolfwood, shaking his head and rubbing at his face. “No but really, that’s the closest thing I can think of. You were glowing, but there were these lines.”
Wolfwood pressed his fingertip to Vash’s collarbone, tracing up his neck.
“Like, glowing lines that went from here to-”
Vash shuddered and moaned. His eyes widened in terror as he stared at Wolfwood who had a similar look, staring back at Vash. Vash’s face turned completely red and he let out a high, nervous laugh.
“Aah, sorry,” Vash stuttered, his eyes darting nervously around the room. “Didn’t know I was so sensitive there…”
Wolfwood’s fingertip was still on Vash’s neck. He glided his finger from its current spot, just a little under Vash’s adam’s apple, to the nape of his neck. It felt like Vash was doing everything within his power to restrain himself but a long untethered moan left his lips. Glowing lines of blue followed Wolfwood’s finger, lighting up the surprise on his face. The way Vash’s lips parted when he moaned and the way his body was lighting up under his touch dipped right down to his dick, feeling himself grow hard the longer he looked at Vash, the longer his face was illuminated by his own body.
Wolfwood swerved his hand to cup the back of Vash’s head. Vash smiled and seemed to have trouble meeting Wolfwood’s eyes, but didn’t pull back. With his free hand Wolfwood placed two fingertips in a V formation against Vash’s collarbone. He slowly ran them up Vash’s neck until they stopped at the corners of his jaw. As they migrated up Vash shivered under his touch, The glowing marks on his body illuminating and following Wolfwood’s fingers.
But they didn’t disappear or stop this time. They stayed on Vash’s neck like a memory of his touch. And when Wolfwood’s fingers reached his jaw the lines traveled across his face, illuminating both of them in the dark. Wolfwood stared at Vash, swallowing. He had met many men, but never a man like this.
The soft blue glow emanating from Vash seemed to swallow both of them in their own little world, and he saw Vash’s mouth opening again. He wasn’t sure if it was to speak or to moan but he pressed his lips against Vash’s before either could escape. Vash moaned against his lips, placing his hands against the soft inside of Wolfwood’s thighs. Wolfwood tensed under Vash’s touch and as though sensing it Vash kept his hands planted firmly down, spreading Wolfwood’s legs further apart the tenser he got. Vash was a full light show now.
Wolfwood realized he wasn’t just glowing. He was responding to him. To his touch. When Wolfwood ran his hands across Vash’s body the glowing marks would pulse and jump under his hands when he touched a particularly sensitive part of the man’s body. Wolfwood assumed those were spots Vash liked best by how he sighed and tensed.
When he pressed his body tight to his Vash’s first reaction was a glow so bright he lit up the entire room to such a degree that Wolfwood feared anyone passing in the inn would see it streaming through the cracks of the doorway. Vash’s hand crept inside Wolfwood’s pants and the second he rubbed up against him he felt dizzy and warm. He went from a slow, firm touch to rubbing Wolfwood with increasing intensity and Wolfwood pressed his forehead strongly against Vash’s to brace himself. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and maybe he didn’t need to. Vash wasn’t speaking. He was glowing.
As Wolfwood dipped his hand under Vash’s pants and felt his thighs clench and shudder around him with a new wave of bright, blue glowing, he realized the language they were working with right now was just fine. Wolfwood wasn’t sure what he was working towards, and he wasn’t sure what Vash was amping up to, he was too busy focusing on how good Vash’s hand felt pumping up and down him and how good it felt to see Vash’s face shut tightly as he relented and gave in to moaning under Wolfwood’s hand, glowing and whimpering and only opening his eyes to occasionally look at Wolfwood before doubling back over. He knew Vash was close when he felt him clamp his thighs around his hand and instead of letting go, tightening and shuddering even more. As if Wolfwood’s body was taking the same cue the next movement from Vash’s hand against him made him double over, pressing against Vash and biting his neck as the waves of pleasure wracked through his body. Vash glowed so vividly the entire room looked like it was illuminated by starlight.
Sweaty and tired, Wolfwood collapsed on the bed beside Vash. He was too sleepy to move his hand out of Vash’s pants, and it seemed Vash felt the same. Wolfwood didn’t mind it. There was a small masochistic edge behind it, to have some level of touch after cumming made his body feel sore and tired in a good way, like how his legs sometimes felt after running. A throb that ached but felt satisfying. The way Vash was catching his breath but had a discreet, pleased smile on his face, Wolfwood knew it felt the same to him.
He truly never met any man like Vash before. Wolfwood had a lot of painful secrets in his life, and he was sure he would die carrying most of them. But in this tiny room with Vash, falling into a deep comfortable beside him, the glowing blue lines on his body pulsing and humming and gradually dimming as he started to doze off, this gave him one secret he could look back on time and time again and never regret.
Wolfwood knew Vash wasn’t a loner. He used to think he was.
He had never met someone like Vash and now that he had, he never wanted to let him out of his sight again.