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It didn’t matter how many times Wolfwood had argued that this wasn’t a good use of the slim resources they had left to get them through until Livio got back, or the crew from Ship 3 arrived. He had been argued down, not only by Vash, but by Melanie and, for some reason, the kids. It was one thing to try and argue with an infuriatingly patient blondie and Melanie, who had never once pulled her punches on being firm with him, but when you added in a trio of whiny kids saying they’d actually be less worried about him if he just did what they were saying he should, arguing became futile.
“What, do I stink or something?”
“If we say yes, will that make you do it quicker?”
“Because yes, Mr Nico, you stink!”
That had been, maybe, hopefully, a lie, but Wolfwood hadn’t been able to keep up the fight. Ignoring the triumphant smirk on Melanie’s face, and the way Vash was trying and failing to hide his own smile behind his prosthetic hand, Wolfwood had given a big shrug and turned, marching himself off towards the big, semi-private bathing room at the other end of the orphanage.
Semi-private because the damn door didn’t lock. That hadn’t really been that much of an issue, when he’d been a kid here, because everyone was running around, coming and going, and it had never been a concern to want the door locked. It was better, Wolfwood reasoned. It allowed Melanie and the other older kids like himself the ability to get into the room if something was suspected to be going wrong.
Now, though, as a grown man, he wasn’t sure he wanted to run the risk of someone barging in to see if he’d died in the tub. There was no getting around it, though. If he jammed the single chair in the room up against the handle, he knew there was at least one person who would be strong enough to still break the thing down and come in to make sure he hadn’t nearly left this plane of existence. Again.
It was that chair that Wolfwood sat in now while he watched the tub fill with hot water. Again, he thought this was a waste of resources, and it wasn’t like he exactly had wounds that needed regular tending. Hell, he wasn’t even using the crutch anymore. The hole Livio’s – Razlo’s – Punisher had blasted through his lower leg had filled in, muscles knitting back together, skin regrowing over it. There wasn’t even a single damn scar to show what his body had gone through.
Just the dull ache that hadn’t quite gone yet.
Standing and turning off the faucet, Wolfwood unwrapped the towel from around his waist, glancing at the door again. The other side of it was silent, everyone going about their usual day as though they weren’t trying to stay afloat long enough for the cavalry to arrive. He didn’t have anything to worry about, no reason to think he might not have this time to himself.
Dropping the towel onto the worn seat of the wooden chair, he stepped into the bath, letting out a slow breath as he eased himself down into the hot water.
That ache had been what had led him to this position now.
It had started innocently enough.
Picking up the clean cloth draped over the side of the tub, Wolfwood lowered it into the water, and then rubbed the soap bar into it vigorously.
He’d woken up this morning not needing the crutch, and walking without it while he’d done his circuit of the orphanage. The kids had all still been asleep then, quiet in their beds, lined up the same way they’d been when he’d grown up here. Melanie had been awake, her bed made, and Wolfwood knew she would be somewhere in the building, preparing for breakfast.
As for Vash...
Seeing him in the place that Wolfwood considered home was weird. He shouldn’t have fit in here, he didn’t belong here, and yet, he did. Every time Wolfwood saw him on the grounds, or with the kids, he just fit. He was a stranger, he wasn’t like the rest of them, that much had been something the kids and Melanie had seen for themselves, but he belonged here just the same as Wolfwood did.
He belonged in the kitchen, next to Melanie, finishing spooning out the breakfast foods into their big, communal dishes. Talking to her in low, hushed tones, even as the bell rang for the children to wake, smiling at something she said.
Rubbing the cloth over his chest, Wolfwood remembered that smile, and the way it had changed when he’d seen Wolfwood standing in the doorway.
The sounds of small feet moving around upstairs had made the ceiling above them rumble, but Wolfwood hadn’t thought to even notice that.
Vash’s smile could light up a damn room. Any room.
Hell, it could light up the end of the world. That was something he’d learned fairly recently, and it was sticking with him. Hard to forget. Harder still when Vash wouldn’t stop turning the thing on him, even with that edge of concern it had as he’d come towards him.
“You’re up without the crutch. How’re you doing?”
This was where he’d gotten himself in trouble.
“Fine. Body hurts a bit, but nothing I can’t handle.”
It had been nothing but an offhand statement. Something to make Vash stop looking at him like that, like he had barely made it off Death’s doorstep, when the reality was that he’d gotten off the doorstep, down the walk, and out of the front yard. Vash hadn’t seen it that way, though, and neither had Melanie. Big wooden spoon in her hand, bits of clumpy breakfast meal clinging to it, she’d pointed at him.
“You should take a hot bath. Don’t open your mouth to argue with me, Nicholas. Your body needs it.”
Problem was, he couldn’t tell her that his body probably didn’t need it, because it was probably in his head. Between the vials he carried, and Livio’s blood, there was no reason his body should need anything else, much less a hot bath. It was the truth, plain and simple, but there were some things about the ways he’d changed that Wolfwood just didn’t want to shove in Melanie’s face.
Not yet.
She’d seen him fighting Razlo. She’d found out enough for now.
It might have been an easy thing to wave off, pushing himself through to help with getting the food out for breakfast, supervising while the kids came through with their bowls and general lack of coordination, if Vash hadn’t stood there nodding.
“Melanie’s right. You went through a lot, Wolfwood. It will be nice! Relaxing!”
Melanie had just about spoken over him, her tone so familiar that it had coaxed Wolfwood’s teenage instinct to push back and sass her to the surface. “And when’s the last time you took a bath?”
Right on cue, then, had been when the kids had started to show up. Wolfwood knew when he was outnumbered and, maybe in an actual fight, the Punisher humming in his hands, he would refuse to give in, but this? Over a bath?
And maybe Vash had a point.
Squeezing out the cloth, his skin rubbed pink with soap, Wolfwood draped it over the edge again, sliding down further into the water.
He didn’t deserve to relax.
Right now, he shouldn’t relax.
There was too much to worry about, with Knives planning whatever he was, and the immigrant fleet not far off from arriving. He should be out there, helping to make sure that they were ready, when Livio returned. They’d need to get the kids to safety before anything else could happen, and he had to do his part to help with that, rather than laying in here, worrying about body aches, and other things that were only in his head.
Unfortunately, there was a lot in his head, these last few days.
The least of which was that damn smile.
Laying on the ground, in a pool of his own blood, vision going hazy, breath harder to take, heart pounding to try and keep him going, Wolfwood hadn’t expected to remember that smile. The way Vash would look at him, those blue eyes so sweet behind his glasses. The way that smile had been constant, present, pulling Wolfwood along behind Vash until he’d changed in ways he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of.
Until he could think of himself as maybe, possibly, beginning to approach being worthy of getting that smile turned on him the way he did. Day to day, moment to moment.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood wasn’t necessarily a good man, but Vash hadn’t seen it that way, and, really, it was because of him that Wolfwood was here, now.
Proud of where he was standing.
Yeah, there was a lot in his head, and it was harder to ignore than he’d thought it would be. Before, Wolfwood had been able to push those things aside and focus on something else.
It was bad, now.
It didn’t help that Vash hadn’t let up for a damn minute since they’d taken Wolfwood off the ground outside the orphanage and brought him inside. He’d been there, semi-constantly, when he wasn’t keeping watch outside for Livio, or any signs of anything else. Every morning at breakfast. Every night in the quiet dark.
Wolfwood sighed, tipping his head back against the edge of the tub.
Vash had been with him last night. He’d been spending so much time watching the horizon, but when Wolfwood had called it a day, Vash had followed him in. He’d settled himself next to Wolfwood’s bed and leaned in, talking to him softly. Asking how he was healing.
Running his flesh fingers through Wolfwood’s stark, silvery-white hair and smiling, because to Vash that was a sign that things hadn’t been as bad as they could have.
Always that stupid damn smile.
So close, and so pretty, and Wolfwood was a sucker for it. He knew that, now. He was fully aware of it, feeling the way his heart had sped up, not out of a desperation to keep him alive, but from the mere brush of Vash’s fingers against his scalp.
This was why the door in this room should lock, Wolfwood thought idly. The water was cooling, not nearly as hot as it had been when he’d gotten in, but it was still warm, and he wasn’t done. Embarrassingly, he wasn’t finished.
Thinking about Vash had pushed him to that.
And he should feel guilty, because he was supposed to be out there, helping. He hadn’t even needed this bath.
But Vash’s smile this morning, the way he’d brought a hand up to cover his mouth, to try and hide it, even while he met Wolfwood’s eyes, even while he knew Wolfwood could see it, that wouldn’t leave his mind. Wouldn’t let Wolfwood be.
Maybe this wasn’t the time, but it had been so long...
Opening his eyes, Wolfwood glanced at the door, listening, straining his ears to hear anything but the silence in the hallway beyond, and the sounds of the orphanage in motion distant, too distant to be a concern. He reached for the soap bar, running his palm over it while he watched the knob, as though somehow, now, it was going to turn and someone was going to walk in on him.
But it didn’t, and the space outside it stayed quiet, not a single distraction to stop Wolfwood as he slipped even lower in the tub and lowered his hand, fingers wrapping around his cock.
It had been a while. The last time Wolfwood had done this had been months ago, and he’d been holed up in a room on the Ark. One with a door that locked, getting off quick into his own hand and trying not to think about why he’d needed it, because that would have meant confronting some things about himself, and about why he’d ended up there after watching Vash argue with his brother on the security feed.
That wasn’t this.
Wolfwood knew, as his hand moved slow, warm water lapping against his chest, exactly why he was doing this.
Because of Vash.
Everything because of him.
He couldn’t even be mad about it. Even if he wanted to. Midvalley had called it out, months ago, and Wolfwood had known it then, even joked about it to Vash. Razlo had seen it, mocked it. Wolfwood himself had accepted it, in the moments he’d thought might be his last.
Vash had changed him. Wormed his way past the walls he put up, under his skin, right into his heart. He’d made it possible for Wolfwood to know who he really was, who he could be, outside of the Eye of Michael, apart from the Punisher.
All with those damn smiles, those pretty eyes looking at him and saying he was good.
Wolfwood’s free hand lifted out of the water, gripping the side of the tub.
He didn’t need to rush this, like he had last time, chasing the high until he was choking back the sounds his mouth desperately wanted to make. This time, Wolfwood could take it slow, eyes closed, hips pushing up to meet his own hand in a careful, torturous pace.
If things were different...
When things were different...
Maybe Vash would let this happen. They could fall into bed somewhere, anywhere. Hell, it wouldn’t need to be a bed. Wolfwood would take anything, anywhere, just to have Vash close to him. To get him out of that huge coat, and all his clothes. To feel Vash’s body against his, Vash’s breath on his neck, Wolfwood’s needy hands on his skin, pulling him closer.
His thumb squeaked against the side of the tub, his grip tightening.
Vash on top of him. Vash, smiling like that at him while they fucked. Vash smiling while he was feeling so good, and it being because of him, because of Wolfwood.
“Fuck,” Wolfwood whispered, brows knitting. He was close, Vash’s smile playing on the inside of his eyelids. The way it would go a little slack, his eyes closing, head tipping back--
“Wolfwood?”
That hadn’t been in his head and Wolfwood knew it. It had come with a soft little rap of knuckles against the door. Polite, and careful, but Wolfwood had frozen, head lifting, eyes snapping open, to stare at the door like it was about to open.
Like he might be about to be caught.
“What, blondie?”
That didn’t sound quite right, his voice a little thicker than he would have wanted, and Wolfwood cleared his throat.
“Sorry – what is it? Everything okay?”
On the other side of the door, Vash spoke, his voice soft and a little apologetic. “Oh, yeah, everything’s fine! I just wanted to check on you.”
Had he been in here for a long time? He couldn’t have been.
“I’m almost finished. I’ll be out soon.”
There was silence on the other side of the door and, for a second, Wolfwood thought Vash had left. He could imagine it. A little nod, satisfied with Wolfwood’s answer, before he trotted off. Heading back outside to perch himself on the ledge and watch for any signs of help.
It stretched for long enough that Wolfwood started to believe that was it. His body hadn’t reacted to the sudden panic, and he could still feel the need, the demand to finish what he’d started, prodding at him. Cautiously, Wolfwood settled back against the tub, again, eyes still on the door.
Almost as though he knew Wolfwood had relaxed, Vash spoke again. His voice was still soft, but the note of apology was gone, replaced with something else.
Something knowing.
“You should finish. Take your time.”
Wolfwood swallowed. Something in his stomach flipped, the hand on his cock sliding up, squeezing at the head. He’d felt the interest there.
Did Vash know what he was doing in here?
How could he? Wolfwood hadn’t given anything away.
He didn’t think he’d given anything away.
“Whole point of this was for you to feel good.”
Wolfwood let out his breath in a huff. Not better. No, Vash hadn’t used the word ‘better’. He was standing there, on the other side of the door, feet away from where Wolfwood had been laying, thinking about making Vash feel good, and Vash was saying the whole point of this was for Wolfwood to feel good.
He should have felt guilty about the way he shifted in the water, his hand moving again, stroking over his length faster, now. Wolfwood needed this, he couldn’t ignore it. The guilt could come later.
If it came at all.
Vash’s voice was quiet through the door. “Does it feel good?”
He knew. He had to know. He couldn’t have been that unaware. Wolfwood felt like the sound of the water lapping back and forth around him was loud as hell, giving it away.
If it wasn’t, his own voice when he answered without stopping it would have. Rough, a little shaky.
“Feels great.”
It wasn’t a lie. This was better. If Vash didn’t know, maybe, it could have been wrong. It might have been perverse of Wolfwood, but he didn’t think Vash was ignorant. He was there, right there, on the other side of the door. Close enough that he could come in here. The door didn’t lock.
Vash could come in. He could close the door behind him. Wolfwood would let him have anything he wanted, do anything he wanted.
“I’m so glad you’re enjoying it...”
Wolfwood’s hand, the one that had been gripping the edge of the tub, came up, knuckles pressing against his mouth.
“Wolfwood...”
Vash didn’t sound like he didn’t know what was happening. The bastard was standing out there, this close, knowing Wolfwood was in here, hand on his own cock, desperately chasing that good, good feeling that was teasing just at the edge of his reach. Did he know he was the reason why, that, right now, as Wolfwood pushed into his own hand, movements getting reckless, cooled water sloshing up against the sides of the tub, his face was the only thing Wolfwood could picture?
A sigh.
“Wolfwood...”
This was torture. This was delicious, perfect fucking torture, and Wolfwood hadn’t known this was what he needed. Head tipped to the side, eyes struggling to focus on the door, his cheek pressed to the edge of the tub, uncomfortable but unnoticed because this was what he’d been needing. This could fix him, if only for a little while.
The door knob didn’t rattle, it didn’t even move, but there was a soft sound from it, like Vash’s hand had wrapped around the other side.
“Nicholas.”
There was no way Wolfwood managed to strangle the noise that came out of him. Not entirely, not in time. It was needy, mindless, slipping through his lips before he forced himself to bite down on his fist, sliding lower into the water. It was at his shoulders, and if he wasn’t careful he’d slide too far down and cause himself real trouble, but that wasn’t registering.
The only thing that was, was the bright, beautiful sting of pleasure singing through his body, making his bones buzz, the only thing in his head the same as it had been this entire time.
Vash’s smile.
The one he was probably wearing on the other side of the door, now, so close but too damn far away, listening while Wolfwood fought for breath, his orgasm rolling through his body until he could finally push himself back up in the water, blinking at the mess he’d made.
All because of Vash.
At least no one would know. It would swirl away down the drain with the bathwater.
Well. No one except...
Wolfwood turned his head, looking at the closed door again.
Like Vash knew he’d looked, there was a soft tap against the door, and then, just as soft and careful as he’d been this whole time, Vash spoke.
Wolfwood could hear the smile, now.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes. Hope you feel good, Wolfwood.”