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Pain rips through him, like something bright beneath his eyelids, like a meteor seeking some world to put a hole into.
It’s his right leg. The intact one. Even intact is a strong word to describe it. Beneath the leather of his boots, the endless score of strappy buckles, his skin is ravaged. Healthy tissue caves into an expanse of scar tissue; pink and hardened.
Vash wants to scream, to lift his upper body off the sand beneath him and just let it out for the universe to take back up. He wants to curse his brother for giving this to him, for reliving him of his left leg and arm. This was all from the fall, from some kind of fall. The burning heap of bodies and shrapnel, a city that was never born.
He can’t scream about it. Not the number of dead. Not the portal torn from him along with his arm. Not of the pain that tore him from his sleep.
The others are besides him. Wolfwood sleeps with his arms wrapped around his cross. Vash would laugh if he didn’t want to shriek. Meryl and Roberto are nestled a safe distance from the priest, but not too far off from where Vash lays.
If he makes any noise, it would wake them all.
He manages the only way he can, biting down into the fabric of his jacket and exhaling so roughly it burns his throat. His face reddens from the strain, and he shakes his head, bleary-eyed.
A whimper escapes. He didn’t mean for it to. It’s either the more embarrassing small noises that come out from this pain, or full-on shrieking, bloody murder, something to tear into the night. To turn the others’ blood cold. Because Vash knows if he lets himself, he won’t stop. Not until his throat is raw.
“Kni-” He turns so he’s face-down in the sand, “Gonna fucking- fhh- get- Ah!”
He wants to destroy the source of this pain, of the agony that paints hot tears down his cheeks. His brother is the last known link. Who knows what else he’d destroy if he had the chance to. Maybe both Vash’s legs would be steel below the knee.
Maybe the only pain he’d feel would be a phantom. The pain of loss, rather than of something he’s kept, that was supposed to be excised from his being long ago.
Meryl is the first to wake. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and looks around for the source of the noise. It sounds like a strangled animal. Something straining against the sound of its own voice.
“Vash.” She whispers.
He’s on his back again, biting into his own arm this time.
“Kni?” He releases himself, eyes widening. He looks like he’s been straining for hours. Like he hasn’t slept since the sun dipped past the horizon.
“No,” Meryl soothes, “It’s not him.”
She’s wary of touching him. She’s not sure how he’d react. So, she just ghosts a hand over his back, and makes eye contact.
“It’s me.” She says. “I’m here to help you.” She tries to read for an expression. Anything but pain and fear on his face. “Please, tell me what’s wrong.”
“What the hell’s going on here.” Wolfwood’s voice comes gruff. And then he sees Vash’s form, stiff from the strain, trails of glowing runes appearing along major vessel pathways. At his neck. His forearms.
The telltale pitch of Vash’s grunts clouds the air around them. They’d been mostly lighthearted up until now, palms pressed against railing, parkouring from rooftop to rooftop, dodging bullets. Always dodging bullets.
“Hey, spikey.” Wolfwood is the first to touch him. He runs his hand through his hair, knowing it will calm him because he’s done this before. When there was no sleep between the two of them and the cadence of Vash’s breathing escalated to something painful.
It should be enough to calm him.
Vash curls into the touch, back disconnecting from the ground beneath him as he cranes his upper body up to push his head against Wolfwood’s palm. Any touch to distract from the pain in his leg.
Roberto’s awake by now. He watches for a bit, wincing at every peak Vash’s voice raises to. He fishes a cigarette out his pocket and puts it to his lips.
What he would do for some quiet, especially when the suns been hitting his back for so long he can’t remember air conditioning. He can’t remember running cold water or a time when his revolver remained full.
Now really wasn’t the time for one of his companions to go full meltdown. Of course, he’s acted up before. But right now, Vash is making noises that put Roberto’s hairs on end.
“Hey kid.” He grunts, not caring that there’s a one-hundred-and-something-year age difference between them, and the bulk of it is on Vash’s side. “Quiet down.” He sucks smoke through the cigarette and exhales. “It’s gonna be alright.”
“He’s right, Vash.” Meryl coos, “You’re gonna be just fine. You just need to breathe.”
“Can you do that, needle-noggin.” Wolfwood probes Vash’s scalp, pressing harder. “Just breathe so you can tell us what’s wrong.”
“Leg.” Is all Vash can say. He moans, coming to a full crescendo then dying down with small whimpers. His body trembles.
“What happened to your leg?” Meryl skims her palm against Vash’s boot. "Are you injured? Are you hurt?”
“Right leg.” He bites his jacket sleeve again.
“we’re gonna need more to work with.” Wolfwood tsks, “What about your leg?”
“Just take- take the boot off a-and see.” Vash’s voice is muffled.
Meryl works at the straps, one by one, unlooping the belts of leather. Wolfwood takes the top end and she takes the bottom. By the time they’ve loosened the thing, Wolfwood’s taken over, gripping the boot like a vice, and tugging harshly.
Once it’s off, they roll up the leg of Vash’s undersuit, black flexible fabric, up to his thigh.
He doesn’t care that so much of him has been exposed. He doesn’t care that the only ones he can call friends, can call companions, are seeing the ugliest part of him.
“Christ, kid.” Roberto breathes more smoke.
“What can I do?” Wolfwood asks, “How can I make you feel better? Just tell me.”
Vash doesn’t answer, just spills more tears. They trail from the slopes of his cheeks and onto the sand below, splattering fat droplets.
“I’m talking to you, you needle-noggined idiot.” Wolfwood presses down onto Vash’s crown, not enough to cause pain, but he uses the pressure to snap Vash’s attention back to him.
Vash’s eyes slick against his sclera, gaze snapping directly to Wolfwood.
“What can we do to help you?”
“Your hands.” Vash looks like he’s holding back, his face is reddened and hot. “Use your hand, on the knots.” And suddenly, his expression changes to that of embarrassment.
“Like this?” Wolfwood presses his palm directly against the scarred tissue of Vash’s leg, just above his knee, and kneads where the muscle is tight.
His skin is like the planet’s topography; some regions flat, others protruding with mountain crests, the smooth slopes of the badlands. There is beauty in the healing. His body’s completely grown around the wound, replaced damaged tissue with firmer, more collagen-filled epidermis.
Wolfwood wants to put a mirror to it, to map it out with vash’s eyes trained on him and the most delicate part of his anatomy.
“Mhmm.” Vash suppresses a whine, still biting into his jacket.
Meryl takes Vash’s hand into hers. “See?” She coos, “We’ll help you make it better, okay?”
“Use both hands.” Roberto instructs through his cigarette. “You’ll be more effective at kneading out the tension.”
Wolfwood nods, adding another hand, gaze frantically switching from Vash’s to Meryl’s. He’s not sure if he’s going to hurt Vash like this, with the noises he’s making, he can’t tell if he’s hurting or soothing.
“Do you want me to take over?” Meryl asks, not
condescendingly, but with genuine concern in her eyes. She knows Wolfwood is deathly afraid of hurting Vash.
“Could you?” He slows his movement, thumbs still digging into Vash’s muscle.
Meryl nods.
They switch places, Wolfwood near Vash’s head, and Meryl at his leg. Her hands are more nimble, and she’s able to gauge pressure better than Wolfwood. The circles she pushes into Vash’s skin sooth.
Vash remembers a strange feeling now. Like the opposite of relief, but not at all painful. Like the short-lived portal cropping up from his arm, like his palms flat against the glass, his body glowing with the healing rhythm. Like some kind of creation.
“Feeling any better?” Wolfwood’s contemplating taking his hand.
Vash nods, swallowing roughly. He can’t remember much of the pain. He’d been so out of it, so dragged down by sleep and the deluded memories of his brother, of things being torn from him and born from him and destroyed by him.
It’s better than what he can remember of it. Though he can’t remember much of how his leg got so mangled in the place; it was a blur of shrapnel and fire and a chorus of screams he created.
“It’s calming down.” He breathes, finally breathes.
“Thank God.” Wolfwood finds himself saying.
“Fucking fantastic.” Roberto stamps out his cigarette.
They don’t leave him after the pain’s receded. Meryl slips his undersuit back down to his ankle and her and Wolfwood re-fasten his boot. When they’re done, they lay on either side of him, exhaling with the same relief Vash’s been offered.
The stars crowd around them, almost encroaching. Vash can only think of bright things as dangerous.
Things like himself, that’ve created the destruction on enough of a scale to do what he’s done, to his leg, to so many undeserving. And the landscape of the scarring is a reminder. It’s something that wakes him up with the pain, because he always needs to remember, because forgetting would mean moving on. And he doesn’t deserve any of that.
He looks to his left, then to his right, then he extends both arms, Christlike, body forming a crucifix. Wolfwood takes one side into his hand while Meryl takes the other. And Roberto just watches as he settles back down to sleep.
They all close their eyes, and the pain fades to black.