Work Text:
Vash hadn’t expected it—had expected the opposite, actually, for Wolfwood to never do it, had only teased him about it once months ago right at the start, before they had the measure of each other. Wolfwood hadn't flustered like Vash hoped, or gotten mad like he expected. He'd just stared flat-eyed at Vash, eyes unreadable, before asking if there was more porridge.
And it was fine, really, that he bore no outward symbol of their attachment! Vash didn't need him to! Wolfwood had been marked enough in his life and they had a rather unconventional relationship—partnership—agreement—regardless. He was far younger than Vash, not unusual given most beings in the galaxy were, but anyone else in Wolfwood's peer group would either be nearing the end of a lengthy apprenticeship or already done, not beginning it. Wolfwood was too old by conventional standards but also too terribly young for the type of experience he did have.
He wasn't really beginning anyway, with Vash, which was something Vash couldn't think too much about without having to excuse himself to meditate (target practice on a pile of boulders in their little corner of the valley counted as meditation). Wolfwood hadn't told him everything but he hadn't needed to; the first time Wolfwood warily let him check, Vash felt the frighteningly crystalline state of his force-meridians, the hideous way Wolfwood's core had been splintered and altered. He'd felt, too, the heartbreaking ripple of what must be the remnant of Wolfwood's original state: filamental, ragged and fickle as the roots of a seedling. When Vash had threaded his own current of force around it, it grew warm, steady, almost curious. Then Wolfwood had jerked back like he'd been burned and the sudden hostile break in their connection left Vash reeling. Vash threw up before he'd even realized what was happening. Wolfwood still hasn't let him try again.
All that said, Wolfwood was an apprentice as far as formal education went but not at the beginning of his path. He didn’t want Wolfwood embarrassed more than he already was by their situation, not like this at least, or, worse, debased by the traditions of a life originally chosen for him against his will.
And it had been better, so far, that he hadn’t done it. Easier for Wolfwood to play bodyguard or transport pilot, contracted guide or orbital mechanic. Once, memorably, Vash’s mathematician, which was how Vash learned Wolfwood could do suspended grav-fluid flux calculations in his head but constantly mixed up geometric simplicities ("They muddle it up, I don't need to know 'em," Wolfwood had waved him off, as if every schoolchild had wasted their time with basic universal principles). It was also how Vash learned he apparently had a huge thing for Wolfwood being an incurable gossip, chatting up workers at the hydromech factory while Vash stood awkwardly off to the side trying to look non-threatening enough to not give away their "diplomatic tour of the region's industrial accomplishments" was entirely fake. And, when the chief engineer asked Wolfwood specifically if he wanted to see some schematics for a new design in his office, Vash looked threatening enough that the engineer hastily extended the offer to them both. It hadn’t mattered much in the end since the engineer ended up being the labor trafficker they’d been after, but watching Wolfwood competently maneuver the situation while clearly reveling in petty gossip had made him dazed and wanting, pride and desire and endearment curling through him in lake-heavy tendrils.
So, Vash feels he really can't be blamed when Wolfwood sits down for dinner across from him, turns to the side to ladle soup into his bowl, and Vash drops his spoon to splatter into his soup. He goes slack-jawed at the sight. Wolfwood’s hair is still damp from washing up while Vash had cooked, and where it would usually curl sweetly under his left earlobe and fluff out in cute ducktails against his neck, there is a short braid. It’s hardly identifiable as the marker of a padawan; it really does look like just a braid, a whim. But Vash sees it and he knows, and Wolfwood knows that he knows because Wolfwood’s ear is bright red. Wolfwood finishes ladling and immediately starts eating, eyes fixed on his bowl, as Vash gapes at him. It’s dead silent save for the din of night insects and fauna outside and Wolfwood’s slurping. Wolfwood shifts, Vash’s table small enough that their knees bump.
“S’good,” Wolfwood says, “Mushroom broth?”
Vash nods even though Wolfwood still isn’t looking at him. Without Wolfwood’s head turned to the side Vash can’t even really tell the braid is there.
“I used the ones you dried a few weeks ago,” he manages. Vash liked cooking well enough but found his enjoyment increased exponentially when cooking for Wolfwood. He still liked what Wolfwood made better, though.
Wolfwood finally looks at him. Where Vash expected a challenge, something flinty, something he’d ricochet off of, he sees only warmth and a little bashfulness and a little more mischief in Wolfwood’s grey-dawn eyes.
“I saw the first frogspawn, we're gonna have tadpoles soon.”
That gets Vash to raise an eyebrow. “You grew up on a desert planet, how do you know anything about frogs?” It was too early in the season for Vash to teach him about amphibians.
Wolfwood smiles, self-satisfied, and tears off a hunk of bread. He drops it on Vash’s plate, nudging the savory jam over before tearing off his own piece.
“I asked,” he says, “very nicely.”
Vash sits up straighter, his own astonished smile taking over.
“Wolfwood!” Reaching into such a thin line of the force, guiding and following it into such fragile early life—life that was gelatinous and on the brink of transformation at that—was extremely delicate nuanced work. It was too particular and tenuous for reliable training and too obscure once reaching knighthood and master rank. Only weird old relics of certain species like Vash could slip into such an ephemeral current. Otherwise it was the work of force sensitive healers and farmers, skills honed over decades of somatic and land knowledge, not fighters and human weapons.
“Yeah, yeah,” Wolfwood waves his bread, then dunks it in the soup, both ears pinking again from Vash’s enthusiasm. “It was hard with the water, you know I’m not good with water, but it was also like…reminded me of hide an' seek, when I was little. The other kids always wanted to hide and some of 'em were really good but for a lot of 'em I had to pretend like I didn't know where they were. It also reminded me of what you said, about how you feel your sisters sing to you sometimes.” Wolfwood places a hand at the base of his sternum, palm against the top of his stomach. He frowns, concentrating. Vash feels the force stir wide and gentle as a late summer breeze before it quiets. “Felt pulpy. Like a fruit, if a fruit were spun into yarn.”
“Mm, sticky,” Vash hums, incredibly pleased. It matters less that Vash can relate to the sensation and more that Wolfwood solidifies the feel of it for himself. "Good job," he says sincerely, relishing the pink now creeping across Wolfwood's cheekbones. He bumps Wolfwood's knees until Wolfwood looks at him again. "Show me tomorrow? I've never done that before." Wolfwood shoves more bread into his mouth and nods.
Most Jedi wouldn’t be able to parse such gentle smallness from the cacophony of everything else, much less been genuinely interested. Even when Vash had been young there still had been too much focus on the force as a commodity the Jedi hoarded to justify their actions, and the Sith spent to justify their power. Wolfwood had lived his whole life as a force-commodity, first as an exploited trove and then as a dangerously valuable rarity. There was something deeply vulnerable in reaching into the force the way Wolfwood had with the frogspawn; he would have had to open himself with such guileless sincerity to the gooey new life while precisely weaving his way through. Vash is wildly tender-hearted and obnoxiously proud of him.
It’s after dinner when Wolfwood is doing the dishes and Vash has wiped down the table that he lets himself fully take in Wolfwood’s braid. It makes him hot and bothered in numerous ways outside of his control, which is thrilling and a little distressing at his age.
And then, of course, he can’t help himself.
Sneaking up behind Wolfwood under the guise of returning the dishcloth to the sink, he tugs on the tail of Wolfwood’s braid.
“It looks nice,” he ducks down to say in Wolfwood's ear. He takes Wolfwood’s elbow to his stomach before he can scamper away, but not before feeling the shiver of the force between them, the magnetic tang that precedes overlap, Wolfwood’s still-new attempts at titrating his own ebb and flow twirling through Vash like little whirlpools.
Later that night, fireplace banked, Wolfwood in the cot next to his, Vash entirely unable to sleep and doing a bad job of pretending otherwise, he hears Wolfwood roll over and then go very still.
"Is it okay?" Wolfwood whispers. "I don't have to keep it."
Is it okay??? Is it okay that Wolfwood is claiming Vash, in this way, as his? That he is, in turn, allowing Vash to claim him as well? That he trusts Vash so enormously, that he believes in the trust Vash has in him, that he wants to entwine them in this way, a pair? Okay doesn't even begin to cover how okay it is!! It's also making Vash's heart landslide. He'd be stupid to insist there was any lack of affinity between them, but he'd be just as stupid to think he could actually do anything about it. Wolfwood might be here because of Vash but he wasn't here for Vash. Teasing, affection, the companionship that came with pedagogy was one thing but Vash…Vash couldn't truly bind him, not like his spoiled stubborn heart wanted to. There had been a pang of relief when Wolfwood had first rebuked his joking suggestion of the apprentice braid.
But with each passing week, the weeks spilling into months, that relief had eroded and evolved into a sort of addictive ridiculous miserable elation as he'd found he was shamefully selfish when it came to Wolfwood. Vash could never be worthy of Wolfwood's heart and soul and yet he's found himself matched to it regardless. The best he can do is try, always, to earn it. He knows, in a sudden tumult that feels painfully obvious, he's already handed his own over to Wolfwood for safekeeping.
"Keep it," Vash says, his throat tight. "Please."
Wolfwood huffs out a sigh and everything feels tremulous until he grumbles, "No messin' with it."
Vash relaxes, at last, burrows under the blanket. "Just a little."
"Vash!"
"Sorry, I'm elderly and asleep," Vash says, tugging the blanket up to hide his smile beneath. He's promptly smacked in the face with Wolfwood's pillow, which was a tactical error on Wolfwood's part because Vash has no problem being smothered with the shared scent of their soap filtered through Wolfwood's own. "Oh thank you," he rolls onto his side, clutching it like a child, "I was just thinking I needed another but I didn't want to get up and get it."
"You're gonna get somethin' alright," Wolfwood threatens, entirely too gleeful, making Vash's heart kick like a rabbit. Then he uses the force—very improper! and after Vash had praised him earlier!—to flip Vash's quilt off his bed.
The evening ends with them having to pile both their bedding on the floor in front of the fireplace, their cots unable to withstand the ensuing roughhousing and Vash far too flustered after getting pinned moments before his cot collapsed to attempt to fix them tonight. It's not a bad way to fall asleep though: Wolfwood closer on the shared blanket nest than he would be otherwise, honey-lit by the glow of the sleepy fire, so at ease that the tight, protective wrappings of the force he usually keeps around him have gone soft and melty at the edges. Vash closes his eyes and lets his own current brush, then bleed, barely, like watercolor, against it.