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Chapter Text

- The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

-

It was a gray day in early spring when Nicholas the Punisher received his suicide mission.

The sky dripped thick, slow raindrops like a penitent nearly too exhausted to weep. No sun was out to shine through the stained glass windows that soared over the heads of the congregation in the cathedral. Even the candles that had been lit only emphasized the dimness. Shadows consumed the rafters and flickered in sinister shapes behind statues of tortured saints.

Along the nave, the innermost members of the God-Emperor’s sect stood arrayed in silence, their dark clothes flashing with the symbol of the Eye. Some wore simple broaches, some had it made into jewelry, and many wore it huge and proudly embroidered on their backs or chests - big enough for anyone to see from a distance, and to know and fear them instantly. The circle and vertical lines stood out shining white against a wall of black.

Nicholas stood before the altar, the sign of the Eye only newly sewn into the back of his tabard. He was going out into the world, after all, and he had to show his allegiance. The smaller patch he’d always worn over his heart had been deemed insufficient. He felt stiff and overburdened in his full gambeson, chain shirt and cowl, and tabard thick with fresh embroidery.

But he looked the part of his title. The hilt of his canvas-wrapped claymore rose over his shoulder. Sir Nicholas the Punisher of the Eye of Michael, sworn assassin-priest of the temple of the God-Emperor.

“You are to enter the forest and find the Beast Lord in whatever hide or hollow it calls home,” said the man standing before Nicholas: his mentor, Chapel. “You are to bring it forth, alive,” Chapel went on. “By whatever means necessary. You will bring this greatest of monsters, this hoarder of life and magic, to our Lord, so He may use its power to replenish the land and restore our people. You will perform this task before the harvest ends. If you fail, you will be committed to the roll of the dead at midwinter, and another sworn Eye will be chosen for the task. Do you understand?”

“I do,” Nicholas said. He breathed deep, his heart pounding in slow thuds. He kept himself steady, his face neutral.

“Then, Sir Nicholas the Punisher, go with God,” said Chapel, and touched Nicholas’ forehead with a fingertip dipped in blood mixed with oil. Chapel drew a circle, the small horizontal lines to the side, and then dragged the vertical stripes down with a firm touch. The central line on the bottom came down the length of Nicholas’ arched nose. When Chapel’s finger lifted, Nicholas looked up at him and met his eyes.

For a flickering moment, Nicholas couldn’t hide his hate. Chapel’s lips twitched beneath his gray beard, something like a smile. After today, Nicholas would be gone forever: Chapel’s chosen, his protege, his greatest mistake and worst failure.

Nicholas would go into the dark forest to hunt the snipe. Chapel expected him to die there, as everyone else had before him. Nicholas was only sorry he wouldn’t be able to take Chapel down into the dark, tangled wilderness with him.

After a beat, Nicholas turned his back on his mentor. During his years of training, that would have earned him a dagger in the back and a lecture on vigilance while he struggled not to bleed out. Today, Chapel didn’t need anything so crude as a blade to cut Nicholas deep.

Down the steps, first on Nicholas’ right, stood his fellow knight and brother, Livio the Double Fang. Livio’s long, pale hair was pulled back tight, and his expression was as gray and blank as the sky outside. The mask that covered half of his face hid the signs of his extensive modifications. More than Nicholas had ever been subjected to.

For his entire life, Nicholas had failed to keep Livio safe. From the priests who scouted the orphanage for strong children, from the beatings and the training, from becoming a killer and a pawn, from the master of alchemy and his substances - not once. Livio had been party to all of it and more. And now…

Now, if Nicholas failed, Livio would be next. It was the greatest motivation any member of the Eye had ever had for succeeding, and Chapel knew it. All that would come out of Chapel’s mouth was glory to the God-Emperor, savior of the land, but Nicholas knew what he really believed. No one in this damn organization could ever believe that Nicholas was committing to this mission out of the goodness of his heart, or belief in the cause, or loyalty to God.

Fuck you all, Nicholas thought. And fuck the land. Let it die.

But he would bring back the thrice-damned Beast Lord, alive and chained, and throw it at the God-Emperor’s feet. And when he was granted a boon after all that lifetime of slaving, he would only ask to be allowed to kill Chapel himself.

Nicholas walked stiffly down the line of his brethren, this family he did not choose and did not want. It wasn’t his idea to consider them family, even; the language of the sect demanded that he call them all Brother or Sister. The only one who was actually his brother was Livio, who had once been a kicked-bloody scrap of worthless child-meat just like Nicholas had been, back at the orphanage, what felt like a hundred years ago. When Livio had been dragged into the orphanage grounds by the militia, tossed to the dirt with his face all purpled with bruises, Nicholas had been the one to offer him a hand up. To give him half his ration at dinner. To tell him to stop crying, and to give him a rag to clean his filthy nose.

Livio would have had a better life if Nicholas had left him lying in the dirt. If Livio had never gotten so close to Nicholas, the clergy would never have paid him any mind - 

No, it was useless to think like that. And self-centered. Nicholas didn’t think he was so special that the Eye would have picked up Livio just to use as leverage against him. Livio had always been strong, after all. Showed early aptitude for fighting. Reacted well to the drugs.

Near the door of the cathedral, at the end of the line, Nicholas drew close to Father William Conrad - the sect’s Master of Alchemy. Nicholas hated the man just as dearly as he hated Chapel, but Conrad scared him in a way Chapel never had. Chapel had the fervor of a true believer and the tactics of a bully. Conrad was something more cloaked, more dangerous, and more powerful. He was a master puppeteer of human bodies, a surgeon and alchemist beyond compare. No one knew his true age. No one knew what he truly desired. It was said he had the ear of the God-Emperor himself.

Conrad held out a wrinkled hand and Nicholas slowed to a halt by him. The Father held out a small, flat pouch that clinked gently. Nicholas eyed its size and weighed it in his hand as he took it: five vials, no more.

“Be judicious,” Father William told him.

Nicholas nodded and tucked the pouch into his belt. Five more opportunities to cheat death. He ought to be trained well enough not to need them, but there was no telling what he’d find in the depths of the woods.

He stepped past Conrad, past the last of the other Eyes, and finally out into what passed for spring sunshine. As gray as it was, he still breathed a little easier outside the cathedral. He flicked his gaze upward, grateful that at the very least, if he was going to die, he would die far away from here.

What had once been a lavish church garden was now raked dirt and a few withered, broken stumps of old shrubs. Nicholas walked past the gray-brown patches, the smell of wet dirt mixed with cold manure rising up to meet him as he approached the wrought iron fence and the road beyond. The snows had only recently thawed, and the roads were slick with mud. He kept his footing by long practice.

One of the hunched, ruined figures of Conrad’s less-successful alchemical subjects was waiting for him, holding the reins of Nicholas’ horse. She stood at a respectable sixteen hands, her black coat already sleek with raindrops. She was too well-trained to panic at the mutant’s presence, but it was clear that she didn’t like it from the amount of white showing in her eyes. Nicholas took the reins from the mutant’s hand without speaking to - him? Nicholas was pretty sure this one had been a him, once.

The mutant servant slouched back inside the bars of the fence, reached out with over-long, over-muscled arms, and started to haul on the gates. Nicholas turned just enough to look back. Arrayed on the steps of the church stood Chapel, Conrad, and all the others, watching him leave with stony faces. At the very back, Nicholas just glimpsed Livio’s white hair and half-mask.

Nicholas took a deep breath, checked that his pouch of vials was firmly secured, and hoisted himself up onto his mare’s back. She snorted and shuffle-stepped, displeased with the amount of weight she’d been burdened with. But he’d lighten the load for her as soon as he could; this exit was as much for show as the giant white symbol on Nicholas’ back.

He gathered her reins in one hand and scratched his fingers into her mane with the other. “Shh, Angelina,” he murmured. “Don’t react.”

The gates heaved closed with an enormous, deep clang.

Angelina only flared her nostrils. Nicholas didn’t blink.

“Good girl,” he whispered, turning his head away at last. They wouldn’t get the pleasure of making him flinch. Never again.

Overhead, the rain began to drip a little faster.

-

The city of December was dying, but that was nothing new. The entire world was dying. It had been for a lifetime.

Nicholas had the faintest memories of green places within the city - parks and fields, trees in the churchyards. Even as recently as ten years ago, there had been grain growing just outside the city walls. But it was all blighted now, and whatever new could be coaxed out of the ground every spring always came up malformed and stunted. The people still marked time by plantings and harvests, but the seeds they planted were dried-out grit, and the fields they harvested were mostly rotten. Most of the people who had once farmed now gambled and drank themselves to death as their professions.

The known world and all its inhabitants would be long dead by now if they didn’t have the Plants, those inhuman creatures that the temple of the God-Emperor revered as angels. Plants were kept under heavy guard in their tanks of lightly glowing fluids, and they generated abundance out of nothing. Pipes attached to their tanks brought forth all sorts of needed materials - clean water, lumps of nutrient-rich protein-stuff similar to meat, oils, ores, wood pulp. It was a little disgusting, Nicholas had always thought, but he wouldn’t bite the… weird, lumpy, slimy hands that fed him.

He could not say that he found Plants angelic in any way. Suspended in their viscous fluids, they looked like eyeballs torn from sockets, their ripped ocular nerves dangling down. When they were active, they pulsed all over with bluish and pinkish markings like veins, which only enforced the resemblance.

Pink markings were bad, actually - the healthier a Plant was, the closer to a clear sky-blue its markings. But Nicholas had only ever seen a fully healthy Plant once, when he was a child. All the rest that he’d ever seen (and there hadn’t been many) were anywhere from lightly touched by pink lines, to shot through with angry red fissures that split like diseased skin and seeped like sores, staining the fluid in their tanks a dark crimson.

Whatever the blight was in the land, it affected the Plants, too. They were dying. Faster and faster every year. The God-Emperor took the ones that were on the verge of death - sent his personal vanguard out to collect the tanks and bring them back to the palace grounds, where no one ever saw them again. The Voice of the Emperor, a dead-eyed man named Bluesummers, decreed that it was to save people the agony of watching their Plants die. The Emperor took that terrible burden on himself.

The Emperor was good and generous in all things.

Nicholas wasn’t the only person around who thought that all of this was horse shit. It didn’t take a genius to see a starving, ruined landscape and think that the person who named themself Emperor of it, demanded to be worshipped as God, and killed anyone who objected, was probably fucking lying.

But. Still. Who could do anything to change it? Who, among the starving masses, could possibly change the way the world worked? The only thing Nicholas knew how to do was to protect those he could, to get strong for those who needed him to be strong. The caretaker of his orphanage-home, Miss Melanie; the kids he’d left behind there. Livio, his brother. And -

“Nicholas!”

He whipped his head to the side, finally registering the thud of hoofbeats approaching fast. He’d let himself sink too deep into glum reverie. The city walls were only a few hundred yards behind him, dead stubble of an old corn field lining both sides of the wet road. A figure on a mule came darting through the field on his left on an intercept course.

Nicholas’ heart thudded with abrupt speed, worried in a way he hadn’t been all day. He looked behind him, scanning the area with all the focus his enhanced ability and training could give him, but he didn’t spot any watchers.

Damn it, her voice had scared the shit out of him. As she drew closer, he hissed out, “Keep your voice down!”

She pulled her mule back to a trot and then a walk, catching up with him on the road at last. She was breathing hard, sweat streaking her brow, sticking her wheat-colored hair to her forehead.

“Milly…” Nicholas said despairingly.

Milly Thompson was from a massive farming family that had multiple generations living under one roof, every batch of siblings bigger than the last. It was the one major farm left in December that had never given up. They scrounged and saved and planted every seed they could find, and harvested every bit of grain that could claw its way out of the ground. For generations, the Thompsons had been known for their generosity. They would feed beggars and urchins whenever they could, which wasn’t always - less and less, nowadays, though they still tried to share what little they had.

Which was how Milly had met Nicholas, decades ago, when he was small and starving and she'd given him some bread. They’d known each other for so long, since before Nicholas had - well, it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered anymore.

“You can’t go,” Milly said, still panting. “Please don’t go.”

Nicholas looked up the road and didn’t respond.

“Nicholas, look at me!”

He squeezed his eyes shut and then sighed and opened them. “Milly,” he said, “this isn’t a discussion.”

Her breath hitched; he could already tell from the look on her face that she’d been crying for a while. “Stop!” she said. “No, I don’t mean - I mean, just here, stop here, stop riding. Whoa, Angel, sweet girl.”

“Don’t -“ Nicholas grouched, as Angelina turned her nose and her front hooves towards Milly’s beckoning. Milly had spoiled this horse rotten every chance she’d gotten since the sect gave her to Nicholas six years ago, and for that reason Milly was the only other person Angelina would obey.

Milly dug in her satchel and leaned over her own mount’s neck to hold out a sad-looking carrot. “Hm, Angel?” she asked, making Angelina swerve even more.

“Stop that,” Nicholas said, finally digging his heels in and bringing his horse to a stop. Angelina grabbed the carrot and lipped at Milly’s hand to look for more before crunching down on it.

Milly pulled her mule - Tomas, Nicholas thought, that was old Tomas the mule - to a halt as well, and swung her leg over so she could drop to the ground. She was wearing her long, light brown skirts tied up to keep them out of the mud, and her dusty-green bodice and shawl were fixed in place with pins. She pushed damp hair out of her face, looked up at Nicholas with her wide hazel eyes, and said, “At least you have to say goodbye to me properly.”

He cracked. She was worth so much more than - than anything he could ever give her. He had loved her for so long it felt like another vital organ in his body, something that just functioned day-to-day and didn’t bear thinking about until something went terribly wrong. And right now, he’d been stabbed in it.

Nicholas had meant to go on a bit further before he dismounted and changed, but now was as good a time as any. He heaved himself off Angelina’s back and thumped down into the mud, splattering his newly-shined boots.

At once, Milly was in his arms. He hugged her back, gripping as tightly as she did. “I’m sorry, Mills,” he told her, “I’m sorry, I have to.”

“I know,” she said, wobbly-voiced and hoarse. “I know but I don’t have to want you to, I don’t have to be okay with it.”

“I’ll do it,” he said. “I promise, I’ll do it and I’ll come back. Summertime, watch for me. I’ll be back so soon you’ll never notice I left.”

“Don’t,” she hiccuped, “don’t promise anything, just -“ But she cut off with a choke, and let herself go. She sobbed into his tabard, her grip made awkward by his armored bulk. He hated that the last time she’d get to hug him, he was cold to the touch. He held her for a long time.

“Milly, you know I have to do this for -“

She finally raised her head, that old defiant fire in her eyes, and she sniffed and said, “Don’t tell me why. I know all the reasons why.”

He nodded.

She wiped her wrist under her nose and stepped back, looking down to pull her satchel in front of her. She coughed to clear her throat. “Here,” she said. “I made you sandwiches.” She pulled out a neatly wrapped bundle and pressed it towards him.

He’d sworn he wouldn’t cry. And he wasn’t going to, he just…

“Would you,” he said, hoarse, “stay and eat them with me?”

Milly closed her eyes and turned her face to the sky, her mouth twisting in misery. “No,” she said, finally. “They’re for the road. If I stay with you too long, I’ll - I’ll knock you out and hide you in the barn, and then we’d be in such trouble.”

Nicholas burst out a wet laugh at her. “We?” he asked. “I don’t think I’d be at fault for that.”

“Well, you’d have let me knock you out!” Milly said, nostrils flaring.

“I would have?”

“How else would I manage to knock you out if you didn’t let me?”

“You sell yourself short, big girl, I think you could take me,” Nicholas said.

Her face scrunched up in a smile she was clearly trying to resist. “Stop,” she said, pounding her fist onto his chest. “I’m mad at you. Stop it.”

“At me?” he asked, holding the package of food in one hand and raising the other to cover hers.

She looked at her tanned hand beneath his black glove, twisted her wrist and twined their fingers together. “No,” she said. “Not at you.” She looked up at his forehead. Then she tugged a handkerchief out of her skirt pocket with her free hand and raised it to wipe the bloody, ritual markings off of his face. 

He could feel the warmth of her hand through the cloth. He closed his eyes under her firm touch. “Milly,” Nicholas said, “watch out for Livio. Best you can. Please?”

He opened his eyes in time to see her nod. She met his gaze, her eyes burning with pure intent. “Nicholas D. Wolfwood,” she said, softly but firmly, “you have to promise me you will do everything in your power to stay alive.”

His stomach lurched at the sound of his real name. Those in the Eye forsook their family names and took the titles their mentors gifted them. Wolfwood was the name of a father and mother Nicholas had never known, a home he’d never lived in. He didn’t even know what the D was supposed to stand for - it was just part of a faded name written on a piece of paper he’d been left with, sometime in his forgotten past. He’d given that paper to Milly years ago and made her promise to burn it.

He believed she kept her promises, but clearly she’d never burned it from her mind. She took back her hand, reached into her satchel again, and pulled out the other thing he’d given her along with the paper - the only other thing he’d been left with as a child. It was a crude pewter casting of a wolf. He’d told her to sell it, but he hadn’t made her promise about it.

He gave her a despairing look. “Milly -“

She took his empty hand, pressed the figure into it and closed his fingers in a fist. “Don’t give me that look,” she said. “I don’t care. You aren’t what you think they turned you into. If you were, you wouldn’t still love me.”

Nicholas winced. That was very much part of the reason why Chapel considered him a failure.

“You’re going to be all right,” Milly told him. She mustered a smile, eyes shining. “Be safe. Come home.”

“Not going to tell me to save the world?” Nicholas asked.

She shook her head, still smiling. “I can’t ask that,” she said. “No one should ever ask one person to do that. It’s not fair.”

“No,” he agreed, clenching the figurine in his hand.

She sniffed hard, scrubbed her hands over her face, and made herself laugh. “Okay. Well! Little-Big Sister and Little-Little Brother need the mule this afternoon, so I should get back.”

“I know their names by now,” Nicholas said with a half-smile. “You don’t still have to call them that.”

She waved him off, turning to Tomas the mule and pulling herself onto his back. “I put some treats for Angel in with the sandwiches,” she said, rubbing Tomas’ ears.

“Her name’s Angelina,” he grouched, and she laughed at him.

“I’ll see you when you get back,” Milly told him, meeting his eyes again for a brief moment before turning and hupping on the reins to move up to a trot. In that glance, he saw her resolve wavering. He saw the very real possibility of her knocking him out and dragging him to her family barn. It made his stomach hurt.

Nicholas watched her go for too long, words stuck in his throat. He loved her. Like a sister, maybe, but also like he never wanted to live in a world without her, and like he wanted to keep her safe and feel her warmth every day for the rest of his life. It would be easier if it were lust, this feeling, but it wasn’t. It ran deeper than that. She was the best and sometimes only friend he’d ever had. If he had to die to save her life, he’d do it a million times over and ask for more.

So. Milly. Livio. Melanie and the orphanage.

They would have to be reasons enough to succeed at the impossible.

He finally let out a long, cleansing breath and turned back to his horse. He tucked the wolf figurine into the bundle of food, opened one of his saddlebags and pushed the bundle inside. Then he went to the other bag, tugged loose the straps, and hauled out his normal cloak. It had once been black, but was now charcoal gray with time and wear. He tossed it over Angelina’s back and spent the next ten minutes wrestling his way out of the top layer of his clothes.

He wished he could toss the chain shirt and cowl away entirely, but they were worth too much to just leave behind. He murmured apologies to Angelina while he stuffed the mail and flashy tabard into the saddlebag, weighing it down and filling it to bursting. He felt like he could breathe again in only his undershirt, white linen shirt, and black gambeson. On top of those he tossed the dark cloak around his shoulders, and fastened it with the clasp made from bent and twisted horseshoe nails that Milly’s Big-Big Brother (oldest of nine siblings, and an accomplished smith) had made for him. He re-slung his sword across his back, pulled his hood up, and kicked his clean boots into the mud again for good measure.

Once he was satisfied that he actually looked and felt like himself, he hoisted himself once more onto Angelina’s back. She was still displeased with the weight distribution, but he wouldn’t push her hard today. He knew that a normal walking speed would bring them alongside low cliffs to an overhang where they could spend the night somewhere dry and out of the wind. The edge of the forest was another week beyond that, five days if he rushed - but he had no reason to rush.

He had until harvest time. Seven months, generously speaking. The woods were known to be wide and deep and filled with dangers, but he was more than a match for monsters. Milly could never know what all Conrad and Chapel had done to him, the sort of predator they’d shaped him into. Just because the last several elite members of the Eye of Michael to be sent on this mission had never returned, that gave him no reason to worry. He knew he was better in combat than all of them combined.

Nicholas the Punisher clucked his tongue and thumped his heels. He didn’t look back until the walls of December were long, long out of sight.

-

Three days along the East Road, Nicholas entered the largest of December’s outlying settlements. Inepril had once been a thriving place of vast fields and thousand-head herds of well-fed livestock. Now it wallowed in its own filth and misery, its fields cracked and muddy. The animals that remained looked ill.

Still, it was the only opportunity Nicholas was going to get to trade, and he’d been taking stock of his belongings and making his mental list for days. He hadn’t been allowed to pack his own bags for the mission - the sect had done it for him. Probably directed by Chapel, whose personal asceticism and religious fervor were not Nicholas’s style.

It took a grueling day of haggling, sweet-talking, and well-placed moments of intimidation, but after eight solid hours in Inepril’s sorry marketplaces, Nicholas had managed to resupply himself to his own satisfaction. The chain shirt and cowl, metal bracers and greaves, and unsalted blocks of hard tack were all gone. The leather bracers and gloves he traded for were old and broken in, which made them far preferable to the stiff new things he’d been sent off with. The armorer was so pleased with the trade that she threw in an extra belt, some scrap leather for boot repairs, and a bottle of leather oil.

More important than the gear, however, were the rations. He’d be damned if Chapel could force him to engage in self-flagellation in the form of flavorless, barely digestible hard tack for the next several months. What were the Eye going to do to him for rejecting their supplies, anyway, punish him? Hah. The rock-hard biscuits traded decently for a few pounds of waybread that at least had salt in it. After a fair amount of arguing, he came away with a saddlebag stuffed with waybread, jerky, dried fruits, some hard cheese, and even a sack of boiled-sugar candies flavored with herbs.

By far the most precious thing he managed to get hold of was the one vice that Chapel had never even tried to beat out of him: tobacco. The rest of his supplies mostly came from Inepril’s still-functional Plants, but no Plant had ever produced tobacco or alcohol. It was like the angels disapproved of human vices. Nicholas used the only real money he had on him to haggle for a pound and a half of dried, packed leaves, probably from two or more harvests ago at this point but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He’d have to be stingy to make it last.

The very last of his coin went to a hamper of hay that he strapped to Angelina’s back, leaving no room for himself. This was another part of the sect’s petty cruelty: no pack animal, only his mount. Which, realistically, meant that she had to be the pack-bearer and he had to walk. Plus they’d provisioned him lightly on the assumption that he could hunt to feed himself, and that his horse could forage, with no proof that either would be possible. Bastards.

The sky was dark purple and the sun nearly down when Nicholas finished checking over his new supplies and securing them for travel. Considering how many hackles he’d raised with his bartering, he had no intention of staying in Inepril overnight. That was asking for trouble. Besides, he had no money left to rent a room. He knew the road here fairly well, and there was a campground for caravans some four miles east - he could make that easily, even in twilight.

“C’mon, girl,” he murmured to Angelina, clucked in his cheek and held her lead over his shoulder as he turned to leave town.

The chill of lingering winter bit down with the falling darkness like a jaw slowly closing around him. Nicholas pulled his new gloves on and his hood up, but the chill was damp and creeping. He trudged, eyes peeled for trouble, as the sun finally slipped out of sight and the purpled bruise of the sky went completely black. There were just enough clouds to make a glimpse of stars or moon a rarity. The night air felt close and muffled.

Nicholas heard the thuds of approaching footsteps long before the men making them came into view. He had plenty of time to flex his joints to make sure he had easy range of motion, and to crack his knuckles quietly. He murmured, “Alert,” to Angelina, and her ears went wide to the sides to listen. She would either attack or fall back on his next command. She snorted, her breath steaming softly in the dark.

Eight men bristling with apparent weaponry stepped out into the road from behind a rise on his right. Half of them were burly with muscle, a head or more taller than Nicholas; three of the others held crossbows. The last one stepped to the front - an average man with a mild demeanor, a pitchfork held in one hand but pointed downward as though he didn’t want to use it. This one smiled at Nicholas and said, “‘Lo there, traveler.”

Nicholas’ hand was already raised to his shoulder, holding Angelina’s lead. In the dark, none of the men noticed that he let it go. Looped up into a loose knot, it didn’t fall all the way to the ground, just swung by her chest. Angelina let out another short breath, staying put. Good girl. Nicholas kept his hand where it was, knuckles touching the hilt of his sword.

“No,” Nicholas said flatly.

The leader of the men raised an eyebrow. The moon decided to peek out from behind the clouds just long enough to show a clearer image of the gang. Gang was a generous word, really: they were malnourished townsfolk puffed up on hot air and the threatening image painted by sharp metal flashing in moonlight. They’d been audible in the brush for half a mile. Most of them had growling stomachs and bad lungs; one had a limp. Every one of them was holding at least three things they might use as weapons, but were guaranteed to trip themselves up trying to use any given one of them. Two of the ones holding crossbows were absolutely going to fall over from the recoil, standing the way they were.

“I suppose we don’t even need to have this conversation, really,” said the leader. “But I do find it curious. Yet another man of the cloth headin’ out east into the meat grinder without even pausing to ask what happened to the last ones.”

Nicholas didn’t say anything. His fingers slid silently around the hilt of his sword, elbow never wavering. He looked like he was still just holding his horse’s lead.

“Curious?” the leader prodded.

“Not really,” Nicholas told him. “And I’m not wearing any sign.”

The leader shrugged. “I don’t need to see that thing you call an eye to know who you are,” he said. “It’s how y’all hold yourselves, really. And no one else rides around on four hundred pounds of healthy stew meat like that.” He nodded at Angelina, and the other men hefted their weapons and took half-steps forward.

Nicholas let out a small sigh. “You’re still standing, which means you were smart enough not to challenge the others who came through,” he said.

The leader laughed and shook his head. He reached into his leather jerkin and pulled out a small cloth object that caught the moonlight. It was a stiff oblong on a string, black, painted with the Eye of Michael. Nicholas’ eyes widened as he recognized that it was an eyepatch.

“Was she here two years ago or three?” the leader asked the rest of the men, showing off.

“Three,” said one of the big guys.

“Right. Last year it was that scrawny guy with all the spikes.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t kill Cyclops or Mine.”

“Didn’t we?” the leader said, twirling the eyepatch on its string.

Nicholas gave a little half-shrug, relaxing his shoulders, and his grip on his hilt solidified. The Punisher was too big for a sheath; he kept it wrapped in thick canvas bound with leather straps. The straps all connected via a central line to a tension spring mechanism that was currently resting under his thumb. “No,” he said. “You scavenge any bodies you find at the edge of the woods, I assume.”

The leader’s expression didn’t change, but one of the crossbows was re-gripped in angrier hands, and one of the big guys scowled. Nicholas was right. But they’d gotten cocky. They couldn’t scavenge every traveler; some probably got too far into the forest for them to follow. So why wait? Saved them time and effort to just take out their prey right on their doorstep.

Nicholas let out an annoyed breath. Why him? Why couldn’t they have tried to stop Dominique instead? At least she’d have enjoyed what was about to happen, whereas to him it felt like a chore and a waste.

“Only going to say this once,” Nicholas told them. “Get out of the road. You want to try to find my corpse out east in a month or so, knock yourselves out.”

“Naw,” said the leader, taking a step backwards. “By then that stew meat won’t be so tasty, I think.”

“Angelina, hie,” Nicholas said, voice sharp, and she whinnied, spun, and took off back down the road towards Inepril. At the same moment, Nicholas’ thumb squeezed, a spring depressed, and a flurry of taut snaps popped loose. Canvas blew clear and Punisher was swinging in a wide arc around Nicholas’ right side while his left foot slid behind him to counterbalance the weight.

Three bolts clanged off his sword’s broadside, and two voices yelped as their owners fell on their asses in the mud. The third guy was a hunter, maybe, or a guardsman, because his footing was good and he was already fumblingly fitting another bolt into the lath. Nicholas decided to leave him for last, because he might have the sense to run away.

The thing was, no one expected someone Nicholas’ size - which wasn’t small, but wasn’t outstanding - to be not only able to wield a claymore, but to wield it with such speed and accuracy. Punisher whipped through the air so hard and fast that the wind let out a faint shriek as it was sliced apart. The sheer weight and cutting force of the weapon went through leather and flesh like butter, and even chain or plate only slowed it for a moment.

None of these guys had chain or plate.

The wet-meat sounds of blade in flesh were drowned out immediately by the screams. Usually Nicholas used a lot of rebound momentum when he fought, keeping his body tight and low behind the bulk of his weapon while he let it pull him into faster and faster motion. But that was when he was training against opponents who could actually challenge him. With these guys, there was no rebound because there were no parries, there were no return blows. None of them had a fucking chance in hell, and anyone who hadn’t been half-starved and crazed with desperation would have known it.

The encounter was short and brutal. The last of the screams cut into abrupt, bubbling silence as Nicholas planted the Punisher’s point down into a muscled neck. He jerked it back up, leaving the head attached by no more than a few tendons.

Two men remained: the leader, and the one who knew his way around a crossbow. To them, Nicholas said, “Now you got six less mouths to feed. You’re welcome.”

The leader staggered backwards and dropped his pitchfork. Nicholas smelled hot piss mixed in with the blood and sewer-smell of split intestines. “What kinda fucking church men are you monsters,” the leader croaked out.

“Merciful ones,” Nicholas said. He whipped Punisher down through the air hard enough to fling most of the blood and viscera off of it, then held his fingers to the sides of his mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle. In the distance, he heard Angelina neigh.

He walked back to find the wrappings for his sword. When he turned again, canvas and leather tossed in a bundle over his shoulder, it was to the sight of the crossbow aimed - remarkably steadily - right at his head.

Nicholas sighed. “I thought you had sense,” he said.

“Sense enough to know there’s an effective range for that thing,” the crossbowman said. His voice was shaking but his hands weren’t. “And I’m outside it. But you’re well within mine.” His finger moved to the trigger.

Nicholas said, “Go home.”

“I’ll just starve,” the man said, thin and dry.

Nicholas’s mouth twisted. Turned out the crossbowman had too much sense. He was a realist, and Nicholas could almost respect that.

The crossbowman turned his aim slightly to the side, looking over Nicholas’ shoulder, to where hoofbeats were approaching.

He’d been right that he was outside the range of Punisher, but surely he wasn’t fool enough to think that a claymore was the only weapon Nicholas had on his person. The crossbowman’s hands twitched when Nicholas’ throwing knife thunked through his eye, and the trigger released, but the bolt went high and wide.

Off to the other side of the road, the leader of the gang had been trying to get further away. At the crossbowman’s abrupt demise, he yowled in terror, tripped, and fell to one knee, struggling immediately to get back up and run. Nicholas had plenty of time to walk to the crossbowman and pull his knife out before the leader got on his feet again.

“Please,” the leader said, “please, please -“

Nicholas pointed his knife down at the crossbowman, said, “The only one who probably deserved better was this guy,” and threw the knife again.

The night settled once more into muffled stillness. Nicholas let out a long breath, feeling heavy and sick about the entire encounter. There was no other way it could have gone, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. It was just how the world worked.

He collected his knife, the most well-kept of the crossbows and every last bolt he could find. Then he stuck his hands into blood-filled pockets to see if there was anything else worth taking. Nothing. One guy had what appeared to be a hand-whittled carving of a… duck? Rabbit? It was pretty bad to start with, and now it was all smeared with red. Nicholas shoved it back in his pocket, hoping it would help someone identify his body once anyone came down this road looking. If they ever did.

Nicholas wiped his hands off as best he could on his pants, went over to Angelina and murmured praise to her flickering ears. She was scenting the air hard, whites showing in her eyes, aware of the presence of violent death. “You’re fine, girl, you’re fine,” he told her, rubbing her neck in long strokes until she settled. “Let’s get going.”

Cleaning and re-wrapping Punisher would have to wait for dawn. The best he could hope for tonight was to press on for another couple of miles, get Angelina fed, find a slightly softer patch of dirt to sit down, and try to doze with one eye open in the event of a followup mob. Maybe treat himself to a smoke.

Honestly, he was ready for the forest. For monsters, not people. To leave this cursed, bloody world behind, and be able to focus on his mission.

That was all that mattered now, the mission. If it was real… if by some God-forsaken stretch of the imagination, he really was going into hell to try to bring out the key to saving the world from starvation, then that was the only worthwhile thing he could offer guys like the crossbowman.

But he didn’t really believe it. And until he did, the most worthwhile thing he could offer was a quick, painless end.

He trudged on, blood drying thick and stiff on his hands.

-

Chapter Text

There had once been a city on the other side of the Forgotten Woods. A huge place, full of people, said to be the largest city in the realm. It had been teeming with artists and inventors and incredible feats of architecture and manufacturing. It was called July.

July was why the East Road even ran this way, from December directly into the deadly forest. The road had once been a major thoroughfare between cultural hubs, and the caravan campgrounds dotted along the way had been established long ago by traders. The woods had been here all along, too, a normal, healthy old-growth forest rich with animals to hunt, plants to forage, and trees to cut for lumber. So the stories said.

Then... fifty years ago or so, long before Nicholas' birth, the Typhoon had struck. Some cataclysm of dark magic and environmental disaster had resulted in the total destruction of the city of July. The forest had become malignant overnight, and the blight-curse that had sunk into the very fabric of the land followed soon after. The very few still-living people who had been in the woods at the time described the trees themselves stretching out dark, bleeding limbs to crush, strangle, and tear apart anyone not fast enough or lucky enough to sprint free. The only survivors had already been within a quarter mile of the forest's western border. Everything beyond - everything east, everything towards July - was simply lost.

Since then there had been no successful attempts to pass through the woods, and the God-Emperor had decreed that to prevent further loss of life, no further attempts would be permitted. Guards were sent out to patrol the edges of the woods and put a stop to all curiosity with extreme prejudice. Getting caught attempting to enter the Forgotten Woods was punishable by summary execution.

But the blight had sunk deeper and deeper into the land, and the Plants had begun to get sick. And then the sick Plants began being snapped up by the Emperor's personal guards and taken back to the palace. And people - average, ordinary people - were left in a rotting, ruined no man's land between the impenetrable fortress of the palace on one side, and the unsettlingly thriving woods on the other.

It had been decades now. Guard patrols were thinner on the ground, and those who still lingered were corrupt beyond belief. The most easterly parts of the realm had become a lawless, hardscrabble place, where people only lingered because they had nowhere else to go.

And on the other side of it, the woods still stood there. Sweet forbidden fruit. The blight shied away from its edges, and even from a distance you could see the green that lingered under the dark trees. It would be full of food, full of fat game and fruiting trees and clear streams, undisturbed by humans for decades. At least, that's what desperate people wanted to believe about it.

The fact was, people still did not return from the Forgotten Woods, whether guard patrols killed them or not. Dozens of illegal expeditions had been launched in Nicholas' lifetime, but the hundred or so people who had gone into the woods over those years had simply walked in and never walked out. The response was equal parts fear - assuming that the explorers had been gruesomely killed by malign trees or monsters - and doubled-down belief, the assumption that the explorers had found the land of milk and honey and simply stayed there in riches.

Nicholas didn't see a difference in the two schools of thought. The latter clearly also thought that the explorers had died, just that they'd gone to heaven afterward. And the idea that the only salvation from this ruined realm was via death's deliverance to a prosperous afterlife was certainly a popular one. Plenty of people didn't bother to go into the woods to find heaven. They chose methods like poisons, nooses, and pacts with the like-minded.

The few straggling inhabitants of the countryside watched Nicholas walk along their muddy roads towards the forest, looking at him with mixed sadness and envy. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes always hungrily returning to his horse and packs. And then to his sword.

At one point, a pair of dirt-smeared children darted out into the road in front of him to beg. Their mother let out a cut-short shriek of fear from the door of the family's cabin, clearly certain she was about to see her children cut down by an Emperor's cultist.

Instead, Nicholas took some rations out of his bags and knelt. The older child, a girl, was holding her little toddler sibling's hand tight in her dirty fist, the other hand clenched white-knuckled in her skirt. She was just as afraid as her mother, but so fucking brave.

"What about this," Nicholas said, easing his expression into a practiced one that didn't scare kids. He split some waybread and a hunk of cheese in his broad hands. "This is for you, this is for you, this is for your mom - and this is for me. Okay? Man's gotta eat." He flashed a smile.

They were reluctant, but eventually he got them to take the food, and even crack a smile. The moment it seemed safe to them to do so, they ran like fire for their home, already stuffing bread and cheese into their cheeks on the way.

Nicholas stood, looked over at the cabin, and saw that the mother looked no less frightened than before. Maybe even more scared, now, wondering what he might demand in trade.

He nodded towards her, turned back to the road, and continued on his way.

He didn't run into any guard patrols, even though he was walking the center of the largest road right into forbidden territory. The patrols may have been warned he was coming and told to leave him alone, but he doubted it. He thought they were probably as decayed as the fields, as the laws. The biggest of the bullies would have settled in some townships where they could extort the people, and the guardsmen who were too weak-stomached for the work could easily have defected and quietly merged into the general populace.

At this point, the main thing keeping people from entering the Forgotten Woods was fear of the unknown. If there had been something big and mean and obvious to fight, people would have found a way to fight it - but there was no such thing. Just a quiet canopy over long, deep shadows, and no knowledge of what happened to you there.

Days out from December, Nicholas stood in the center of the road and looked into that darkness. Another hour's walk and he'd be too far in to turn back. Once he was under the trees, he'd have to figure out his own path - there was no road leading directly to his target.

He'd catch the Beast Lord and bring it out, or die trying. No other options.

Nicholas rubbed Angelina's neck, clucked in his cheek, and walked on.

-

The forest was unsettlingly… normal.

For the entirety of his first day beneath the canopy, Nicholas was tense as a drawn bow. From the first moment his boots left the scrubby, half-dead grass and mud and sank into greenness, he felt like he could no longer afford to blink. Open landscape with a half-mile view was suddenly reduced to a few yards of visibility in any direction. The sky disappeared.

Slowly, the silence began to be broken by small noises - rustles, faint cracks, an omnipresent creaking and sighing. Then a chitter, and then a chirp. By the time the edge of the woods was far, far behind him, Nicholas was surrounded by a cacophony of small animal noises. Angelina was snorting and looking around every few minutes, bothered by the noise. An abundance of animals was something both she and Nicholas had only ever experienced at livestock farms. The warbling of birdsong assaulted Nicholas’ senses, making his heart beat too fast as he tried to trace the location of each new noise.

Darkness fell earlier than he anticipated, too, as what little sunlight could breach the canopy failed early in the evening. Thankfully, Chapel had at least condescended to pack him a lantern. He filled the oil canister, struck a flint and waited for the flame to catch.

When he held up the lantern, the woods were an instant nightmare. The dimness between trees became darkness that pulsed and breathed with shadows. Flickers of movement made Nicholas’ enhanced perception go haywire. His eyes watered trying to keep up with it. He had to force himself to blink and stand still until he adjusted to the new input.

“Fuck this,” he muttered, rubbing a hand on Angelina’s neck. She whuffed and tossed her head, as unhappy as he was. “We’ll just get earlier starts, girl. Let’s find somewhere to set down.”

He found a large enough tree trunk to satisfy his desire to have something guarding his back, then spent a good long time unloading Angelina and brushing her down. He left her bridle on but took the bit out so she could comfortably eat some of her hay. The maintenance calmed him as much as it did her. Standing in one spot, he had time to fully internalize their immediate surroundings and track every moving branch, every scuttling animal. It gave him a chance to rule out all the possible threats and finally relax.

“At least it looks like you can eat good, girl,” Nicholas murmured to his horse, who had nosed through the bottom of her hay to find the green grass underneath. “And if any of these critters’ll sit still long enough for me to take a few shots, maybe I will too.” He finished up with the brush and rubbed her neck. She leaned against him for a moment before going back to grazing.

He tossed out his bedroll and sat on it with his back to the tree, and packed dried tobacco into the scorched bowl of his short pipe by lantern light. He took a piece of hay, stuck it into the lantern, and brought the scrap of flame up to the pipe before it could flare out. The fire tried to sting his fingers, but his hands were so beaten and callused that he barely noticed. He crushed the bit of ashy hay in his hand and hollowed his cheeks, held his breath deep for a moment, and exhaled.

The smoke helped him center his rattled mind. Even with grass and small game around, he’d need to find water before he started truly trying to track any mythical creatures that might or might not be real. For the whole day he’d been able to see the cracked and ruined foundations of the old road, even half-devoured as it was by the woods - and the merchants and travelers of long ago would have needed to drink, too. He’d keep following the roadway for now, eyes open for springs or creeks.

It bothered him immensely that there had been nothing remotely threatening so far. He knew for sure now that Dominique the Cyclops and E. G. Mine had died in these woods, presumably quite close to the edge. They had both been weaker than Nicholas, but not unformidable. He couldn’t let his guard down.

Nicholas took his time smoking and watching the moving shadows of the night. Angelina meandered a few steps away, following the grass, but eventually he heard her breathing slow as she sank into a light doze. He considered whether he needed to secure her more than just ground-tying - but if any threats did suddenly appear overnight, he wanted her to be able to run with ease. Ground-tied was fine.

After his pipe died and he thumped the ashes out onto the ground, he ate just enough bread to silence his stomach and took a swallow of water. He didn’t fully settle into the bedroll, but remained sitting up, slumped down enough to let the tree take his weight. Next to him, Punisher lay in the grass, hilt close to his hand.

He crossed his arms to tuck his cloak in closer, and closed his eyes.

-

After days of peaceful walking, Nicholas slowly stopped seeing the forest and began to see the trees.

The Forgotten Woods had been an opponent he was prepared to challenge, not… this. If it was his enemy, then it was still asleep and unaware of him. But what if it wasn’t his enemy? What if… those people who had never come back really had just settled in here, deep in the wilderness, and left hell behind?

No. No, they’d have come back and told others. They’d have tried to go home to the rest of their loved ones to spread the news of paradise. There had to be a threat here. Had to be.

But he couldn’t find it. His paranoia strained and struggled against this peaceful, overwhelming beauty. Above him, bright sunlight pattered down through the canopy like rain, scattered by fans of glowing green leaves. The breezes were moist and warm, like an exhaled breath. His feet never ached as he trod through thick green grass and beds of moss. The plants that his boots crushed sent up an endless wafting scent of damp earth and vegetal richness. He’d never smelled anything like it in his life and it left him feeling slightly drunk all the time.

Streams turned out to be easy to find, though they were never anything bigger than little rills between rocks that he could easily step over. In his packs, the Eye had provided him with a couple of vials of Conrad’s alchemical purifier. A few drops in a full waterskin would kill anything in the water that could possibly make him sick. It also made the water taste of metal and sulfur. Blood and hellfire. Nicholas wrinkled his nose when he drank, but he figured it was better than shitting himself to death, as happened to a lot of the poorer country folk who couldn’t afford Plant water and had to drink from wells on their land.

Angelina, meanwhile, had never eaten so well, nor been so poorly behaved because of it. She would tug on her lead, nose flaring, drawn by every new patch of flowering grass or thick, tangled clover. He tsked at her but ended up letting her browse however she wanted. He couldn’t begrudge her this.

As for himself, he’d tried leaving Angelina ground-tied at the ruined road and taking the crossbow out into the woods to hunt a couple of times - but he’d had no luck. It was like the moment he set killing intent onto the woods themselves, every living being stood perfectly still and held their collective breath. He’d expected it to be easy to hunt, since the creatures here shouldn’t have any knowledge of hunters or know to flee from him as a predator. But when he perched himself very still and waited for a few hours, bolt pulled back tight, finger resting just outside the trigger, not a single thing rustled the undergrowth. No squirrels, no rabbits, no deer, not even a snake. Nothing.

He’d eventually taken the bolt out of the lath, gone back to Angelina with an irritable huff, and eaten his ration of dry bread and stale Plant-synth meat jerky while his horse gorged on a king’s feast. As soon as he got moving again, he heard a scuffle in the trees and whipped his head to the side to see two squirrels chasing each other higher into the branches.

“You little shits,” he told them.

He didn’t raise his voice, though. Something about the woods still unsettled him, idyllic as they seemed. There was an… intelligence, almost. A watchful breathing, a half-lidded eye.

Stories of the calamity that had ended July always hovered at the back of his mind. He kept one eye on the branches, half waiting for them to start to move on their own. To reach for him.

The only downside of the forest were the insects. Beneath the trees, spring seemed to have taken a firmer hold than in the lands outside. With less chill in the nighttime and days that verged on warm, bugs began to creep out of their wintering holes to find food. Namely, Nicholas’ blood.

On his seventh cool, humid morning in the Forgotten Woods, Nicholas slapped yet another bloodsucker away from his neck and grunted in annoyance. Angelina snorted in apparent solidarity.

“Eat some of these guys while you’re at it with the grass, why don’t you,” he said to her. He looked up into the endlessly, wondrously beautiful patterning of light through leaves, and said, “Where the hell are we going, girl? We’ll walk straight through to July at this rate.”

He’d stayed within sight of the ruined road this whole time, and the path had never wavered. Sometimes he lost sight of the roadbed for a while, but some stonework always seemed to reappear just when he was getting concerned. He’d seen rough maps that all disagreed with each other on the details, but none of them had suggested that the forest was wider than two hundred miles, give or take a dozen. Granted he was walking, not riding - and walking slow at that, as he took his time with his scrutiny of the place - but the journey should be easily done in a couple of weeks. He figured he’d been averaging fifteen miles a day, taking it slow. He’d be out the other side of the woods in no time.

What the fuck was the problem with this place, then? He could feel his unease building. Nothing added up. Where were the signs of previous explorers - old campfire circles, abandoned belongings, rotting clothes or even bodies? Where were all the animals that he could hear but not see? Why was there so little sign of winter, as though the woods just stayed fresh and green all year?

Why weren’t the woods trying to stop him?

He shouldn't have tempted fate by thinking the question.

First, it was Angelina’s hay. Nicholas had been careful to keep it from getting damp, usually tying its handles to some spare rope and hoisting it into the low branches of a tree at night to keep it off the ground. On the ninth morning he woke up to find a hole chewed clear through the bottom of it, bits of hay spilling everywhere.

“You little shits!” he yelled into the trees at the invisible squirrels, forgetting his stealth for a moment.

He lowered the hamper, threw the lid back, and found that all the remaining hay was smeared with shit and crawling with maggots.

“What the fuck,” he said to himself, keeping it under his breath this time. But there was an urgency to it, as his mind raced. “What the fuck.”

It didn’t make any damned sense - squirrels would have just eaten or taken it, birds would have taken it, anything clawed would have left claw marks, no animal behaving normally would befoul food like this, and the maggots -

It was intentional and malicious. It was calculated. Whatever had done this was intelligent.

It also hadn’t woken him up.

He carried the hamper away into the trees and left it there. He felt cold.

Angelina was not affected, of course, because she had plenty of forage and plenty of water and the grassy ground was pleasant on her hooves. She was in paradise. But she lipped at his hair while they walked that morning, sensing his unease. Nicholas shooed her away. “Didn’t hear you waking up and warning me,” he told her acidly.

Next, it was his waybread. He woke the next morning, packs lying innocently right next to him, exactly where he’d left them - but when he opened the parcel of hard travel bread, it was full of little weevils munching away. He growled, shook out the parcel, and wasted an hour picking bugs out of what remained. He missed plenty. When he finally got hungry enough to bite into a piece, carapaces crunched and sour ichor burst over his tongue. He barely managed to get it down.

The watchfulness in the trees felt more awake with every passing hour, as if it were gauging his reaction.

He took out the crossbow and loaded it while they walked that day, keeping his shoulders loose and nonchalant. He rested the bow against his shoulder, cleared his mind, and focused deeply into his senses. Every tiny foot that shifted a leaf, every rasp of something slithering in the grass, every low caw from a bird - he pinpointed it, judged the distance. His eyes slid half-closed as he walked and concentrated.

A scurry, closer - he jerked the bow from his shoulder and aimed with quickdraw accuracy - a flash of gray fur; his finger touched the trigger - a whistle and thunk as the projectile hit home.

Nicholas lowered the bow and looked at the squirrel he’d just pinned to a tree. Its paws spasmed as the life leaked out of it. He walked over and yanked the bolt out of the creature’s neck. It was small but sleek with fat. A couple more of these and he’d have a good dinner.

“Fuck you,” he told the woods, not raising his voice.

For the rest of the day he kept his attention high-strung and his reflexes loose and fast, but he only managed to nail one other squirrel. A third, he winged with a bolt - he found the bolt itself, stained with a little blood. After that, he heard absolutely nothing in the trees except for faraway birds.

He cursed under his breath the whole time he made camp, built up a small fire, and got his catch skinned and prepped. He watched Angelina cropping placidly while he roasted his little slivers of hard-won meat, and couldn’t help feeling that she had the better end of the deal as an herbivore. The grass looked pretty delicious, really, if grass was what you were into.

Still, the hot food was worth the effort. He picked the bones clean and buried them in the ashes of his fire. He curled his back against a decently sized snarl of tree root, pulled his packs close and cinched them tight. With all of his belongings within easy hand’s reach, and the hilt of the Punisher resting on his thigh, he went to sleep.

The next morning, a cursory check of his packs showed nothing amiss - except for a big wolf spider that had crawled into his spare clothes. He picked it up and threw it as far as he could. Those didn’t bite, but he didn’t feel like giving it a free ride.

He ate a cold, dry breakfast, took a swig of water, and kicked his fire’s ashes one more time just to make sure there were no embers. Something flashing in the ashes caught his eye and he knelt, realizing that a small piece of metal had been lying on top of the pile. He picked it up… and even through the ashy coating he immediately recognized the weight and shape of his pewter wolf figurine.

He jerked upright and took a step back from the dead fire, heart pounding. Beneath the shock and fear, the beginnings of rage began to simmer. Is this how Cyclops and Mine and all the others had died? Taunted by some petty, invisible magician until they went mad? He’d trained all his life to fucking fight, damn it, not get in a pissing contest with an apparently conscious forest that wanted him to break first in some stupid game of psychological chicken.

Nicholas scrubbed the figurine clean on his pants, shoved it in his pocket, and stomped hard on the pile of ashes and bones. He heard a satisfying crunch beneath his boot, probably a squirrel skull. Then he fixed Angelina up for the day without a word, threw his sword over his back, and loaded the crossbow.

Once again he followed the faint signs of the old road. The forest floor had been quite level where he’d entered, but it had increasingly tilted down into long, rolling slopes. The hills got deeper and wider today, and at one point the left side of the road broke away into a washed-out ravine with a rushing creek at the bottom. Larger rocks rose through the trees in the distance, like broken bones sticking out of the skin of the earth. The going got slower, although the old road still followed natural curves in the landscape.

The squared stones that marked the old road disappeared for a while under deep moss. This had happened before; Nicholas always found them again after an hour or two, as long as he followed the most straightforward path. But a few hours into the afternoon, he still hadn’t seen them. He kicked deep into the flattest patches of moss, hunting stonework, but all he found was dirt. A calculating look around showed that he’d been following a perfectly logical diagonal slope down a hill, on a bit of ground that had seemed flatter than the rest - completely road-like.

But as soon as he started moving forward again, the obvious way forward began to break up. He hit a small stream and had to ford it, then a thicket too tangled to hack through, and a rock wall that took him almost an hour to skirt around. His sense of direction never wavered, but the road was clearly gone.

“Damn it,” he said. He turned to Angelina and rubbed her nose for a minute, thinking. “East should still take us to the other side of the woods,” he muttered. “But the Beast Lord isn’t out there, is it, it’s in here. You think it’s the one screwing with us, girl?” He scratched her jaw and she whuffed. “Be a hell of a lot easier if it’d just attack me,” Nicholas said. “Get this over with.”

Out of the branches overhead, there came a faint, breathy giggle that blew away on the wind.

Nicholas had aimed and fired his crossbow before the sound was half over. But there was no yelp of pain, no thunk of bolt into flesh. He followed the trajectory of his shot, eyes wide for details - and several yards away, he found his bolt. Pinned to its head was a dragonfly the size of his palm.

Nicholas picked up the bolt and the bug, but as soon as he touched the dragonfly its wings fell off and its segments slid apart in rapid decay. He was left with nothing but a bolt that looked unused.

He fitted it back into the lath and cranked back the mechanism with barely-contained violence.

“Come out,” he told the woods. “Face to face!”

Silence.

Eventually he had to move on again, regardless of how hard he trembled with rage and paranoia. The woods were empty of any apparent wildlife now. Even the distant birdcalls were silent.

As the sun grew dimmer and the shadows beneath the trees turned sinister once again, Nicholas started to look for a decent campsite. Up a small rise and then down the other side, he noticed a smudge of darker darkness near the base of a tree large enough to suit his purposes. There was a root that came up that would serve as decent cover for him to lie next to while he tried to get some sleep.

Finally close enough to see, he froze in his tracks. The tree was way too fucking familiar. Too similar to the one he’d slept under last night. And the smudge of dark on the ground was a pile of… a pile of…

He whirled away from his own kicked-apart campfire and looked back wildly. This was not where he had been this morning. The landscape was different, the hills, the, the - but the tree was the same one, he wasn’t crazy, his own bootprint fit into the crushed remains of his cooking fire like no time had passed, and -

And from where he’d camped last night, the road had only been a dozen yards away. He yanked on Angelina’s lead and half-ran away from the campsite, heart in his throat, away back in the direction that he knew was west, back towards where the road had been yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and -

He staggered to a halt when he reached a stretch of tauntingly flat moss. So very road-like. In the middle of it lay five squared-off roadbed stones, their bottoms discolored with dirt as though they’d lain in the ground for decades and only been recently moved. But there was no sign anywhere of where they’d been dug up. The ground was pristine.

The road stones were arranged three in a long line, with two sticking out from the sides, off-center. A cross.

Nicholas stood there breathing hard, unable to bring himself to blink in the failing light. He was never getting out of here, was he? He’d die here, alone and tormented and hopelessly lost.

Far up in the branches, a raspy wisp of a voice said, “There’s a wolf in our woods.”

Nicholas looked up. Hoarsely, he said, “Beast Lord, I presume?”

“Why not,” said the voice agreeably. Its location shifted instantly, making Nicholas jerk his head to the side. “You’re not like the others.”

“No?” Nicholas managed.

“You haven’t set fires yet. Bombed trees.” The location shifted again. “Made traps. Tried to deafen or blind. You only walk. Where are you going, little wolf?”

“To find you,” Nicholas said, heart thudding sickly. He lowered his crossbow slowly and switched it to his off-hand, right hand going for the hilt of the Punisher.

“How? Wandering?”

“Worked, didn’t it,” Nicholas said, mouth dry. “Here you are.”

“Here?” The voice shifted again. A dozen smaller whispers of the same voice came from all around him, repeating, “Here? Here? Here?”

Nicholas hunched into a defensive posture, thumb on the release of Punisher’s wrappings.

The voice let out a little giggle again. “Did they send you for the joke?” the voice asked, now directly above Nicholas’ head. “Funny little joke.”

“What?” Nicholas asked, burning all over with the adrenaline-need to lash out, to strike back.

“Wolf,” the voice laughed. “Wood.”

The bottom dropped out of Nicholas’ gut as he put the pieces together and realized the Beast already knew him. He released the Punisher with a shout and swung hard, high, as fast as he ever had. He heard the shriek of the wind and the cracking scattering of leaves and twigs, and a few small, wetter tick-tick-thuds - and best of all, he heard the hellish little voice give out a small oof.

From much further away, the voice said, “Not bad. We’ll keep our distance.”

Around Nicholas’ shoulders, a few pieces of insect carapace tumbled down, already disintegrating. “No,” Nicholas growled. “Come out here. Fight me, coward.”

“What for? We have all the time in the world. But you don’t, do you?”

Nicholas reined his growl in and listened hard again.

A small sigh. “We are not who you’re looking for,” the Beast Lord said. “Does he truly believe we are the source of all this? We never took him for such a fool before.”

“The fuck are you talking about,” Nicholas snapped, taking a step forward through the moss.

“We live where we thrive,” said the voice, with a sudden low, buzzing quality rising beneath it. “Just like you humans. But unlike you, we will survive what’s coming. The world was ours before your kind and his kind, and it will be ours long after you're both gone. We don’t mind much what you do in the meantime. It’s at least a little funny to watch.”

In the now-deep shadows, a pair of faint green eyes flickered alight. And then another pair, not entirely aligned with the first. And others, and others.

“The boy-king who rules with a million knives,” said the lord of beasts, “thinks he lost something here half a century ago. He thinks we took it from him. As if it were within our power to take. More fool him.”

The eyes surged forward and the buzzing sound rose louder. Nicholas hefted his sword and took a well-prepared dash towards the nightmare creature coalescing there in the dark. His swing was fast enough, his aim true - but Punisher passed through the cloud of eyes and only a few of them winked out, while the rest kept buzzing and shifting and rearranging and rising, rising from the ground.

For a heartbeat, the creature rose into a patch of twilight and Nicholas got a glimpse of it. Dragonfly wings an armspan wide flickered on either side of a face like a mask made of nothing but eyes and teeth. A vaguely humanoid shape formed beneath it, child-sized, so that the whole being looked like it was just a toothy grin carrying away a kid in its maw - except for the fact that the child-body crawled with so many small insects that Nicholas wasn’t sure there was anything solid beneath the swarm.

A few larger, bisected insects fell from the body, pushed out by the reforming swarm. The Beast said, “Take those. That’s the last snack you’ll get, bitey wolf.” Then the figure darted into the air, laughing, and vanished into the tree canopy.

Nicholas dropped his sword, yanked up the crossbow and fired four parting shots in under a minute, ripping the skin on his fingers with how fast he operated the mechanism. One bolt fell to the ground with another bug wriggling its death throes on the point, but Nicholas understood now that it would do no good. Lord of beasts, his ass. All along, he should have been asking what kind of beasts.

In the sudden silence of the darkened forest, a mosquito buzzed past Nicholas’ ear.

He screamed in rage, thrashing the bug away. A nearby tree took the brunt of his sudden, unleashed anger - he grabbed up Punisher and chopped into it twice, three times, four times, swinging as hard as he could, until the trunk cracked and the canopy tilted precariously. He yanked the claymore out of the wood one last time and planted it hard into the ground, leaning over its hilt on crossed arms, head lowered, breathing roughly.

He needed to get himself under control. He needed to think. He needed - he needed -

He needed to know why he was fucking here at all!

Faces swam into his racing mind. Livio’s dead-eyed stare, Milly’s smiling eyes. Nicholas dug a shaking hand into his pocket and clenched his fist around the wolf figurine, its pointed ears pricking his skin with how hard he held it. For them. For the scared, teary-eyed little boy Livio had been long ago, before his gaze went flat and hollow. For the young woman brimming with hope and laughter who had saved Nicholas from ending up broken in the same way. For the love he knew he was still capable of feeling for those few people in the world worth fighting for.

On their names, he’d sworn.

He thought he’d have months to do the job. He thought he’d be tracking something tangible, coming up with a plan of attack, and hauling it home like a carcass after a hunt. He’d known the forest was dangerous, but this was nothing he could have ever prepared for.

But all Nicholas Wolfwood had ever had to offer in this world was a quick and painless exit from it. And he’d thought… for a foolish little while, he’d thought he might be able to offer a way to make things better instead. A salve for the world’s hurts. A quest for the grail.

He’d been an idiot. He knew what he was good for, and it wasn’t healing.

Nicholas looked up from his sword, breathing calmed. He shoved the figurine back in his pocket and picked up his weapons. He looked down at the small pile of dead insects, each oozing a faintly luminescent goo, and kicked one back into the trees. If the Beast meant to starve him out, he would at least starve on his own terms.

He whistled for his horse, who came to him with uncharacteristic reluctance, nostrils flaring. Numbly, he checked his packs. Picked up the Punisher’s wrappings and threw them over his shoulder.

At least he already knew there was a perfectly good campsite nearby.

-

Nicholas didn’t sleep for three days.

Nets, he'd thought. Bolo nets. Bolo net traps. He’d need cord, so much cord, and flexible branches, and heavy weights. Smoke to subdue the insects. Wet greenery in a big fire.

He stayed awake the first night just planning, thinking up designs and methods. 

He didn’t bother to move on or try to find the road again; he refused to be made a fool of twice in a row. Instead he left Angelina at the small campsite while he scoured the immediate surroundings for supplies. He collected reeds and branches from a willow hunched over a nearby creek, and filled a bag with stones.

When he went back to his horse, he spotted a small orange and white face peering at him from behind a tree. He dropped his armloads and darted for his crossbow, but he was too late; the fox had disappeared.

“Fucker,” he snapped.

The woods didn’t answer.

He spent the rest of that day and night and the next day tying nets and binding weights and collecting firewood. His hands bled. He found the cloth that Milly had tied around the sandwiches she’d given him, long eaten now, and he tore it up to bind around his fingers so he could keep working.

As darkness fell on his third evening awake, he packed a pipe and sat back to smoke it, eyes on the canopy overhead. The woods were more beautiful than any place on earth he’d ever seen, but they locked the sky away. He’d looked to the sky for his whole life when he’d wanted to see something beautiful, untouched by filth. Now it was gone, and the beauty of the forest only taunted him.

He’d been judicious with his rations and paranoid about checking them, but so far nothing had changed. He ate a handful of dried fruit while he smoked, thinking. Would a dense enough cloud of smoke keep his supplies safe while he slept? Could he maintain a smoky fire for hours and also get enough rest to push him through another few days?

He had to try, at least. So he set up the fire, got it burning hot, and set green branches in a pyramid over it. The wet stuff sputtered and cracked and spat out sparks that singed tiny holes in Nicholas’ clothes, but the smoke arrived thick and fast. He coughed as it enveloped him, eyes watering. He soaked a leftover scrap of cloth from his makeshift bandages and tied it over his nose and mouth.

He pulled his supplies as close as he dared to the live flame, leaned back against a pack, and decided to risk an hour’s nap before he needed to toss more greenery on the fire.

He managed it once - waking up and re-stoking the blaze just before the smoke dissipated - but the next time he closed his eyes, thirty-six hours of hard labor and racing thoughts caught up with him. Nicholas slept deeply, his face covered with a smoke-saturated rag, dreaming of the entire forest burning to the ground.

A loud, angry neigh broke him from sleep’s grasp. He blinked awake in a moment, just in time to see Angelina’s hooves coming down right on top of him -

No - right next to him. His eyes darted down and he saw a crawling horror the length of his forearm climbing over the top of the saddlebag he’d laid down next to. Its questing mandibles had just started to brush his sleeve when a solid hoof came down with a few hundred pounds of horse behind it, smashing it to paste.

And also crushing the pack beneath. Nicholas scrambled upright, calling, “Whoa, Ange, whoa!” He reached for her dangling lead, caught it and tugged her a few steps away before she could break her ankle or demolish anything else. “Angelina, shh, hey,” he said, arms wide, empty palms showing. She kept whinnying and tossing her head for a moment, but his soothing tone eventually got to her. “Hey,” he said, able to step close enough to hold his hand out for her to smell.

She sniffed. She recognized him. She stepped forward immediately and bumped her nose into his chest, head down, clearly upset.

Nicholas dropped her lead and scrubbed both hands down the sides of her neck. “Shh, girl, shh,” he murmured, while she snorted and tossed her tail and stamped her filthy hooves. “Thank you,” he told her. “Good girl, thank you.” He looked down at his pack, about to say, “What the hell was that -?”

But his words died in his throat. Looking closer at the pack, he realized the giant centipede-thing had hardly been the only thing amiss with it.

Slowly, he left his horse and walked over to the pack. The bag was made of leather, and the leather pieces were more or less whole, but the stitching that had once held it together was completely obliterated. He nudged it with a boot, flipping the dead monstrosity and top flap off towards the cold fire.

Everything inside was a mess of filth and crumbs and insects either crushed flat by Angelina or scurrying to get away from their fresh exposure to the morning light. Back to a rock they could hide under.

Nicholas started stomping, and didn’t stop until his boot was caked in dirt, ichor, and flakes of carapace. He breathed hard, looking at the ruined saddlebag and mentally running down the list of everything that had been in it. All of the waybread. All of the fruit, the jerky, the precious sachet of salt, his spare clothes. He hurriedly checked the other saddlebag; everything in it was safe, untouched - but the only things in it that were edible were a sack of grain for boiling into porridge and the packet of herb candies. His tobacco was there. His spare gear, blanket, bedroll, weapons. Throwing knives, for what good they’d do him.

“Angelina,” he said, hauling all his gear onto his person, “don’t let me go to sleep. You can’t let me sleep again, understand?”

She didn’t, of course, but she worried for him. He could tell she knew that things were going badly. He buried his face in her mane, grateful at least for her warmth and solidity.

Far, far above them, a giggle drifted down through the branches. Nicholas scrunched his face against Angelina’s black coat, fury and fear struggling inside his chest. He waited for the sound to subside before he raised his face.

Through a distant gap between trees, he saw a flash of orange fox-fur.

A quick check of his campsite-clearing showed that all his reed nets and well-rigged twig-spring mechanisms had been chewed into sawdust and left in ruins. He couldn’t even bring himself to be angry or surprised. Of course the little fuck-lord had let him work on it for days before ripping it out from under him and rubbing his nose in how stupid he’d been to ever think smoke and nets would were a good idea.

Nicholas went back to his horse, rubbed her neck one more time, and said, “Moving again today, girl. We gotta hunt.”

So Nicholas picked the deepest, most forbidding part of the woods he could see and walked straight towards it. If he was truly trapped then he would plunge himself deeper into the heart of it. He would push towards the center, towards the bait, towards whatever held this mess of nature and magic together. He probably wouldn't make it; he didn't really believe he would. But he'd be damned if he didn't at least try to die with his sword pressed to this fucking forest's throat.

Nicholas tied Angelina's lead to her saddle and only controlled her with verbal commands and low whistles. She followed him at a distance, bemused and agitated by the treatment - but he needed her clear in case he needed to attack. He bore the weight of his only remaining pack and his claymore on his back, crossbow in his hands, half a dozen bolts stuck through his belt for easy reach.

He pushed his lank, unwashed hair back from his face, took a deep breath, and cleared his mind. All that mattered was prey. The quiet thump of blood in veins. The twitch of a paw. Feathers shifting.

Nicholas stalked.

Hours ticked past. He fired three shots into the tree cover, all misses, but he heard the rustle of alarmed creatures that meant he'd at least been correct with his guesses. The cheerful sunshine that had stuck with him through his entire journey began to fade - cloud cover, he wondered? Rain? But when he looked up and listened, he heard a faint, low hum. Narrowing his eyes at the highest leaves over his head, he realized that they were wriggling. Crawling. Gray specks crowded the gaps in the canopy, swarming tight, blackening the sun.

He chose a small rise and squatted for a while, smoking and waiting for all the light to die. He hadn't seen a creek or spring all day, though the moss beneath him was springy with dew. The insects' buzz rose and fell around him like breathing. When he opened his sack of dry porridge to check on it, he wasn't even surprised anymore to find that it had turned into a heap of pinworms and beetles. He tossed it out into the undergrowth. At least it lightened his load.

He finished his pipe, drank the last of his waterskin, and stuck one of the hard herb candies in his cheek. It was sweet and bitter.

In the distance, a rustle. He brought up the crossbow, sighting along the smooth arcs of wood. He slowed his breath to almost nothing, waiting in absolute stillness. Behind him, far away, Angelina let out a soft whinny.

Flash of orange. Nicholas loosed the bolt. There was a yip and cry, and a flurry of frantic movement as the fox staggered into view and then froze. Nicholas loaded another bolt with precision and speed, eyes never leaving the fox, muting its pained keening in his ears; he raised the weapon again, finger tight to the trigger -

And the fox met his gaze. Its eyes were a deep cobalt blue, like no fox Nicholas had ever seen. It was crouched nearly flat to the ground, ears against its skull, crossbow bolt sticking out of its hindquarter, and its eyes were so... so fucking human.

Nicholas' mind flashed abruptly to the bandits on the eastern road. No one rides around on four hundred pounds of stew meat like that, the leader taunted in his ear. A whisper from the dead.

His finger slowly lifted from the trigger. The fox watched him, eyes gleaming with terror and agony and judgment and intelligence far beyond anything a wild creature should ever have. Nicholas would never eat Angelina. He would die first. Throughout this entire game of chicken with the Beast Lord, his horse had not been harmed once. In fact, she'd been aided - provided plentiful food and water and easy ground for travel. She’d grown sleek and healthy and... and fattened up for the slaughter.

Nicholas lowered the crossbow, feeling sick.

The fox's ears twitched.

Nicholas wouldn't save himself at the expense of his horse. He wouldn't save himself at the expense of anyone or anything that didn't deserve punishment. He knew he wasn't worth that trade.

He wasn't going to succeed here; it sank into his gut, a cold, leaden truth. He was going to starve or die of thirst, probably sooner rather than later. He should stop trying to save himself. What use was it? He was a wolf in these woods. He should stop fighting like a human, and fight like the animal he'd always been told he was.

Nicholas dropped the crossbow on the ground and rose to his feet. The fox shot away in an instant.

Nicholas turned and whistled for Angelina, walking down the rise to meet her halfway, leaving the crossbow behind in the moss.

"Hey, sweet girl," he said as she met him, snuffling at his raised hands. His voice was hoarse, his throat thick. He rubbed her nose, leaned his face against hers and breathed in the warm, musty animal smell of her. His chest ached with a grief he'd only been putting off since the moment Chapel had given him this mission. Not for himself, but for the world; for Livio, doomed to follow him into this hell, and for Milly, to whom he was breaking his promise.

Nicholas moved his hands to Angelina's bit and bridle and began tugging straps loose. She wobbled her head, uncertain. "Yeah," he said, throat tight. "I know. Here." He pulled the bit out and dropped it on the ground. The bridle shortly followed.

Angelina nickered at him and swung her head to watch him as he walked along her side. She tried to take a half-step away as he took hold of her saddle and uncinched it. "Alert," he told her in his command-giving voice. Her ears flicked towards him, her body suddenly very still.

He pulled the saddle off and dropped it to the ground. She stood there bared of any human baggage, beautiful as ever. This place had nurtured her more in a few weeks than he'd been able to give her her whole life. He stroked his hands down her side, feeling her smoothness one last time.

Then he stepped back, put his hand on his sword hilt, and barked, "Angelina, hie."

Training took over; she bolted away from him at top speed, back through the mossy forest, away from the cloud of thinking insects that wanted him dead. One of the very first things he'd ever trained her to do was get out of the Punisher's range and away from any potential crossfire. He should have realized from the beginning that the safest place for her had never been at his side.

He pressed his thumb into the catch of the Punisher's wrappings, popping them free. The heap of canvas and leather fell to the ground with a soft thump. He stabbed the tip of the sword into the moss to keep it upright and swung his last pack off his shoulder. From its inner pockets he took his set of alchemy vials and the figurine of the wolf. The rest he tossed aside, abandoned.

He looked up at the dark, vibrating sky. "I'm not waiting around to go out slow," he told whatever could hear him. "If you have any scrap of mercy at all, let me die bloody."

The buzzing rose in pitch to something like a cackle.

Nicholas looked forward and began to walk.

Around him, the forest slowly came back to life. Out of the corner of his eye he saw squirrels darting up trees, birds hopping along branches. After fifteen minutes of walking, he heard the gushing trickle of a stream up ahead. The sky stayed dark, the buzzing heaving up and down in a sound almost like laughter.

He stepped wide over a knotted root and then he heard it: something hoofed, crushing and crunching through the undergrowth. Something big. Its steps were slower and less graceful than Angelina's, but more powerful. Whatever it was, it was heavy, and it was getting closer.

Nicholas lowered his sword from his shoulder and held it in a loose low guard, continuing to move forward without any rush.

Crack. A small sapling toppled in the near distance. Nicholas saw the shadow of something dark in the tree line. He stopped walking and waited, taking each hand off of Punisher's hilt one at a time and rotating his wrists to stretch them. His knuckles popped. He settled his grip again. He waited.

The thing that stepped out of the woods was bigger than any boar Nicholas had ever seen. Its head was level with his; its shoulders loomed out of the undergrowth before a body the size of a draft stallion. It was dark and coarse with brindled hair, and its tusks were as long as Nicholas' forearms. It snorted wetly, blasting hot, humid air into the distance between them. Ten yards, then eight. Six. It wasn't rushing him yet, but Nicholas wouldn't be goaded into attacking first.

Then the boar turned its head and Nicholas saw that its eyes were bloodshot and writhing. From the socket, a small worm wriggled out beneath a weeping, pus-tainted eyeball. And Nicholas realized that the boar was no more under the Beast Lord's control than any warm animal could ever be - but that the swarm living inside the boar, eating it alive and animating its corpse? Yeah. That was all the Beast's doing.

The boar snorted again, tossed its head, opened its sharp-toothed jaw and screamed.

Nicholas met its charge with a sidestep and a downward curve, aiming for the front right patella, and he succeeded at taking off a huge chunk of flesh but the bones beneath remained stubbornly unbroken. He used the momentum of the impact to spin himself clockwise, Punisher whipping upwards and then around and down into the space where the beast's hind flank should be -

But it was faster than he'd expected, already turning to reorient, and his elbow was much too close to a tusk. Nicholas ducked and the tusk whiffed above his shoulder by a hair. Nicholas swapped his dominance to his other hand and drove up with Punisher, opposite shoulder throwing all he could into a pierce that should have emerged through the boar's spine, but the boar kicked the blade with its back hoof and staggered sideways, taking only a deep gouge in its side.

The boar should be bleeding by now, but it wasn't. Worms dropped out of its wounds. It screamed again, gathered its weight on its back legs and surged forwards. Nicholas barely dodged far enough to keep his guts inside where they belonged, but the boar's razor-sharp tusk sheared through his gambeson and shirt and deep into the side of his chest, sending a gobbet of meat flying that didn't bear thinking about. Nicholas took Punisher's weight in one hand, used a fencing move to jab the point into the boar's rump, and snatched out one of the alchemy vials he'd placed within easy grab.

The boar jerked free of the sword and made a diagonal charge, hooves sliding in the churned-up moss and wet dirt, one tusk already shining red with blood. Nicholas jerked the seal out of the top of the vial with his teeth, cracking the glass, and drank the liquid inside - just as the boar slammed into him with shattering force, obliterating Nicholas's ribs and the rest of the vial. Nicholas yelled in pain, knocked back a dozen feet into a tree trunk, spine crackling as dangerously as his ribs.

But the potion was already scalding its way down his throat and firing out into his veins, liquid power. Heat built in his chest and gut rapidly, his senses growing sharper, his body impossibly faster. He lifted Punisher in both hands and pushed forward from the tree, his blood steaming away into pink mist as his wounds sizzled closed. Broken bones scraped and shifted inside him, dragging his skeleton back together. The potion made his skin burn and his nerves sing with agony, and he knew it wouldn't last long. Make the most of it.

He opened his mouth and let out a primal scream, matching the monster in front of him; he brought his sword up, blade already marred with gore; he charged.

After that, he was aware of no details beyond the shriek of metal, the fire in his gut and head, the agony in his muscles, and the speed and recoil of impact after impact after impact. He knew he took one of the boar's eyes, its back knees, opened its gut until organs spilled out, but it kept coming. His shoulder wrenched out of place with the force of his sword swings; he took a tusk in the kidney, a fanged bite that shattered his pelvis, but he kept going, as long as the sack of bone shards and meat he called a body was still standing he would keep going - his sword dug into the boar again and again, a wolf with locked jaws, ripping away at its enemy until its last breath -

The boar slammed him to the ground with a force that sent shockwaves through Nicholas' body. The burst of alchemical fire in his blood was starting to cool. He saw the boar rearing, its shining intestines dripping from its belly, its hooves just above his head. He swung Punisher up, five feet of folded steel with a razor edge between him and certain death. He felt the sword go in; he felt the hooves come down.

Then, only black.

Chapter Text

Nicholas Wolfwood woke up, which was not something he’d thought would ever happen again.

He pulled in a careful breath and flexed his fingers. He opened his eyes by a sliver, squinting against the blur of light and shadow that was all he could make out. He laid his palms against the ground beneath him, tensed his stomach to sit up -

Immediately, he was slammed back by a wave of pain. A groan ripped out of his throat and any tension he tried to gather in his muscles dissolved into a watery-feeling weakness. Sharp jolts of alternating pain and numbness seized every inch of his flesh. He struggled to take a full breath, chest tight.

A voice said, “Oh, don’t move!”

Nicholas jerked his head towards the voice and groaned again as the motion sent rolling waves of pain through his skull and neck and spine. He squeezed his eyes shut and blinked them wide, aggressively trying to clear the blurriness and reflexive tears.

“Stop, umm, crap, the numbing - where’s the numbing -“

Objects rattled and bumped nearby. Nicholas’ vision slowly cleared as he blinked furiously, hands pressed against the ground again. The ground was strangely... soft and fabric-like. Next to him, footsteps thump-thumped against something that didn’t rustle like grass. There was light - multiple different sources of light - and as colors began to return, Nicholas picked out a perfectly square patch of sunlight.

Square? A window?

The room slowly came into blurry resolve. And it was, in fact, a room. Overhead, there was a pitched ceiling instead of a canopy of leaves; the light came not just from the open window, but also from several candles and a fireplace, all gently crackling. Nicholas pressed his hand down into soft fabric and realized that he was lying on a bed. He hurt more badly than he could remember ever hurting, but he was alive, and he was in a bed, in a house, in -

Where? In where? Where the hell was he?

“Here,” said the voice, and the footsteps thump-thumped closer again. “This’ll help until I can get some tea made. Just give me a -“

Now that Nicholas had had a moment to orient himself, he was able to brace for the pain and move despite it. He couldn’t sit up - something horribly wrong with his abdomen wouldn’t let him - but he could move his arms just fine, sore as they were. As soon as the owner of the voice got within reach, Nicholas shot a hand up and grabbed where he presumed the blurry figure’s throat to be.

“Hggck,” said the voice. Definitely the throat.

Nicholas squinted up at it. At him? A few more blinks and Nicholas could finally tell he was looking at a man, tall and gangly, with a thatch of blond hair blown dandelion-wild across the top of his head. His eyes were a clear blue-green, wide and worried. But not for himself, despite the fist around his neck. He was clearly looking at Nicholas’s stomach.

“Don’t,” the man wheezed, “don’t pop the stitches - take it easy -“

Nicholas let his hand go slack and drop back to the bed, too confused to know how else to react. But he at least remembered from prior experience that doctors didn’t appreciate being choked out.

The blond man rubbed his throat with the back of his right hand and let out a little whistle and a breathy laugh. “Wow,” he said, and coughed. “Uh. Don’t need to test your grip strength.”

Nicholas tried to ask a question, but all that came out was a wheeze.

The blond man held up the object in his right hand so Nicholas could see that it was a small, sealed jar. “The big guy stomped on your throat,” he said. “Windpipe got kind of crushed. But it’s getting better! You heal fast.” He gave Nicholas a winning, slightly doofy-looking grin. “But you’re gonna be hurting for a while, and this’ll help the surface pain and keep infection out. So? Can I put some on, or -?”

Nicholas realized the man was asking if he could apply his salve without getting attacked again. Nicholas squeezed his eyes into a long blink and nodded as best he could, though it made his brain feel like it was sloshing like soup.

“Okay.” The man shifted the jar into his left hand and wiggled the cork out, laying it on a nearby surface before digging his fingers into some kind of clumpy green-brown goop. “Oof. Zazie really did a number on you, huh? They don’t usually get this pissed.”

Nicholas managed to dryly whisper, “Za…?”

“Zazie?” The man glanced up at Nicholas’ face, then back down at his torso. “Oh, they don’t always introduce themselves. You know, bugs? They’re mostly bugs.”

So the Beast had a name. Some mythical creature it was. Nicholas hazily wondered why he’d never been told, or if anyone else even knew. How did this guy know, for that matter?

“Who,” Nicholas breathed, gesturing his fingers towards the other man.

The blond man had spread his concoction over several spots on Nicholas’ body and the goop started to kick in, finally. Nicholas’ skin went numb everywhere the man’s fingers had been. The man moved his ministrations further up, to Nicholas’ neck. With his face much closer so Nicholas could see him, he gave a sunny smile and said, “I’m Vash.”

Just that? Nicholas stared at him, demanding more with his eyes. Just a name was worthless. Explain yourself, he wanted to yell - explain impossible beds in impossible rooms in impossible forests, explain the words “they’re mostly bugs,” explain every God damned thing that had happened since Nicholas first walked beneath that canopy of leaves - !

And - as Nicholas’ eyes darted around, they landed on Vash’s other hand, the one not currently applying salve to Nicholas’ boar-indented neck. It was not a human hand. It was not made of flesh. It was made of… wood? Twigs? Which moved and curled and creaked around just like a real hand.

Explain, Nicholas screamed internally, but all that came out was a small moan.

“You’re probably confused,” Vash said, which made Nicholas snap an accusatory, baleful glare back onto him. “But, uh,” Vash said with a sheepish little laugh, “you seemed like you were in a tough spot, so I stepped in to help. Hope you don’t mind.”

That explained less than nothing. It just raised more questions.

“I’ll make some of that tea,” Vash said, vaguely flustered, and darted away like he’d just excused himself from an awkward conversation. Except that Nicholas couldn’t even say anything.

His vision had cleared up enough for Nicholas to take better stock of himself and his surroundings. He was definitely lying in a bed, bare-chested but still thankfully wearing pants. No boots or socks. One of his trouser legs was ripped up to his thigh to expose a swath of bandages wrapped firmly around his shin and two sturdy poles which were presumably holding some bones where they ought to be. He slid his eyes to the side, searching, and his gaze landed on a heap of filthy, half-demolished belongings beneath the open window. His boots were there, his sword… but also his last pack, the one he’d left behind. And Angelina’s bridle and saddle.

The square window was set into a wooden wall, thick planks patched at their seams with clay. The room was far larger than Nicholas’ quarters back at the Eye of Michael, but smaller than most houses he’d ever been in. And as far as he could tell, he was looking at an entire house in one room. The bed occupied one corner, with a broad, cluttered desk across from it, and a squat fireplace beneath a gray stone chimney on the furthest wall. There were two chairs at a table, and cabinets and shelves hung all over the walls, crowded with all kinds of stuff.

Also, there were plants everywhere. A few small flowering things sat in pots on windowsills or shelves, but mostly Nicholas was preoccupied by the huge array of dried or drying green things hanging from the rafters in neatly tied bundles. The whole room smelled herbaceous and warm, and a little like bread.

Nicholas tracked his gaze back to the man. Vash. Who had… rescued him, he supposed. Vash poked the tip of his finger into a small pot hanging over his fire, jerked his hand back with a hiss and stuck his scalded finger in his mouth. How… how exactly had this guy rescued him?

Was Nicholas dead, and this was an extremely strange afterlife?

No, don’t be stupid. Nicholas blinked hard and brought his hand up to his own throat, lightly touching the drying gunk Vash had spread there. Numbness slowly bloomed on Nicholas’ fingertip. It was effective gunk, whatever it was. As long as he didn’t move, he could almost pretend he wasn’t still half-dead.

He had so many questions and no way to ask them, so all he could do was watch as Vash puttered around. The blond took his pot off the fire and set it on a thick, scorched cloth on the tabletop, then picked up a jar and started spooning some kind of powder into the pot. He paused after three spoons, looked considering, then added another. He stirred for a minute, then laid the spoon aside and took up a ladle and a small stoneware cup with no handle.

Vash finally came back to the bedside with the steaming cup and said, “Sorry, you’ll have to sit up.”

Nicholas blinked at him like he was stupid.

Vash raised an eyebrow. “Don’t give me that,” he said. “Your abdominal wounds are already almost closed, you know. The stitches were just to be sure. Most people don’t survive getting disemboweled, so it seemed like something I shouldn’t leave up to chance.”

Disemboweled. Broken leg, crushed neck. God knew what else. Even Nicholas shouldn’t have survived that, Eye alchemy or not.

Vash set the cup down on the small table next to the bed, held his hands out and said, “Let me help.”

Nicholas looked pointedly at his inhuman hand. Vash followed his gaze.

“Oh, hah,” Vash said, immediately putting that hand behind his head and flashing a sweetly disarming smile. “Yeah, it’s - that’s a long story! But it’s fine, I promise, it’s just a charmed bundle of branches! I have to renew the charm every few days or it falls apart, and sometimes I forget, but I promise I just renewed it yesterday, so it won’t break or anything. It’s pretty strong!”

Nicholas stared at Vash, eyelid twitching. That still explained nothing helpful, God dammit.

But he finally huffed and conceded to the assistance with a slight nod. Vash stepped forward and gently worked both his hands behind Nicholas' neck and under his shoulders. With surprising strength, Vash lifted Nicholas' upper body to a higher angle and grabbed more pillows from somewhere over the headboard to stuff behind Nicholas' head and shoulders.

Nicholas wished he could keep himself neutral, but the pain that ripped through him from the movement was unmanning. He sucked in sharper breaths, unable to hold back the croaking noises of agony that gripped his chest and throat tight. His vision swam, head spinning from the shift in blood flow, and his eyes watered reflexively. He felt a tear spill and streak down his face. This was humiliating.

Vash murmured, "Sorry, sorry," through all of it, his tone gentle and calming. Nicholas wondered if he really was a physician.

Vash took his hands away and let Nicholas sink back into his new elevation, breathing hard. Now that Nicholas was slightly more upright, he could see himself better - he could see how bad his injuries really were, even through the stitches and the greenish paste and the various bandages.

He should have died.

"Here," Vash said, and Nicholas' watery gaze wavered over towards him and the cup he was holding. Vash gestured with the cup, silently asking to hold it to Nicholas' mouth.

Nicholas managed to raise a hand instead, and closed his fingers around the warm ceramic. His fingers pressed against Vash's as the man handed the cup over. Vash's skin was much paler than Nicholas', smooth and unmarred. No calluses on his fingertips.

"Just so you know," Vash said, "that tea's going to make you sleepy. You need to rest. But I don't want you to think I'm drugging you or anything."

Nicholas wanted to say, But you are drugging me. This is literally a drug. But he understood what Vash meant. He gave the smallest nod to show he understood, and took a sip from the cup. The liquid inside was hot but not scalding, and it was so intensely bitter that Nicholas scrunched his face up immediately in rejection. He had to work to be able to swallow, not only from the taste but because his throat barely functioned.

"Sorry," Vash said again, with a sheepish laugh. "Yeah, it's pretty nasty. But drink all of it, okay? It's not effective if you don't get the dose right, but I guessed your weight when I carried you in here. Two, two ten?”

Nicholas took another swallow, grimacing and staring at the weird little man.

"Oh!" Vash snapped. "I've got something that'll wash the taste out. And you should eat a little anyway, so -" He darted away, back to the fireplace and table covered with kitchen wares. He fussed around with dishes and his ladle and a large cast iron pot that had been pushed to the back of the table. Then he grabbed a handful of something out of the rafters and crushed it over two filled bowls.

Nicholas finished his cup of... medicine, or tea, whatever it was. The dregs were gritty and even more unpleasant than the first sip, a slightly burnt and decaying flavor hanging on the back of his tongue. He wanted to cough, but when his throat tightened, it spasmed and his whole abdomen crunched with momentary pain. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing so he didn't scream or vomit.

"You okay?" asked Vash, much closer.

Stupid question, Nicholas thought at him as aggressively as he could.

"Guess that's a stupid question," Vash said, and Nicholas opened his eyes to stare at him. Vash smiled ruefully. "Here, trade you that for this." He took the cup and offered the bowl instead. It was full of a brownish liquid with some floating specks of dried greenery. Vash said, "It's just mushroom and vegetable broth I made yesterday - I was going to make soup before M - my friend stopped by to say you were in trouble, so I ran out and then kinda forgot - it's not warmed up, do you want me to warm it up?"

Nicholas slowly shook his head and took the bowl. Vash was giving him more of a headache than the boar already had. He tipped the bowl up and took a drink - and blinked, because the broth actually was delicious, rich and earthy and seasoned just right. The crushed herbs brought a bright top note. Wild onion, maybe? Nicholas took another swallow and realized that the motion came a lot easier, presumably because the tea was finally working to block out his pain.

"Is it okay?" Vash asked, fiddling with his empty teacup.

Nicholas gave him a long stare.

"Oh," Vash said. "Uh, I'll just - I'll let you eat." He went back to the fireplace, setting aside the teacup and picking up his own bowl of broth. After a quick taste, he made a happy noise. "Oh yeah, that came out good," he said, raising a thumbs up to Nicholas from across the room. "Maybe I will still make that soup. Got some carrots I need to use up -" And Vash went on, seemingly mostly talking to himself, making an out-loud to-do list of chores and tasks that faded into meaninglessness.

Nicholas blinked slowly again, looking down at the bowl, which was starting to sway. He tipped it back and drank the rest of the broth in a few swallows, throat seeming to move easily and painlessly now. He let out a breath, bowl lowered to his lap in nerveless fingers, and the room gently rocked side to side as he tried to look over to where Vash was still puttering at the fire. Nicholas finally took in what Vash was wearing. It was all black... loose black trousers with black socks, no shoes; a short black tunic with long sleeves and a high neck that went up to his chin. Nicholas thought it a little odd, because Vash seemed like the kind of bubbly person who should be covered in color. Like Milly, with her bell-chime laughs and sunshine smiles. She loved green... green and yellow, sometimes a light blue; she'd had a blue necklace he'd given her once... just a piece of glass, not a real stone worth anything, but she'd worn it for years until she lost it and she'd cried and cried...

Nicholas' eyes slid closed and he pried them open again. Vash's hair was only long on the top; the back and sides were cropped close to his head, and the color was different. Dark, like the soil beneath ripe wheat. Wheat-head. Spiky like a broom made of dried stalks, bundled up for sweeping. Nicholas wheezed a brief laugh, brain sliding quickly down into nonsense images of holding Vash upside down by those long legs and sweeping the floor with him.

"Ohh, hey," Vash said, drifting closer to the bedside. He blurred along the way, black and yellow mixing. Nicholas' eyes closed without his permission again and when he opened them, Vash was right there, face close. Those eyes were the kind of color Vash should be wearing, Nicholas thought. Greeny-water-blue. Storm sky in the spring before the winds came howling down. Calm before a storm color.

He worked his throat but no sounds came out to explain himself. He was so tired and so heavy all of a sudden. Something pulled out from behind his shoulders and he went more horizontal. Hands touched his chest. Scars littered his skin beneath the lightly curled black hair, some more intentional than others.

A gentle voice said, "Rest. You're safe."

Nicholas lost consciousness.

-

The next two times he woke up were much the same. The quality of the light through the window changed with the passage of time. Once, the fire was low; the other time, it was freshly stoked. And the food that Vash offered him was different each time, first the same broth again but warm and filled with chunks of soft-cooked carrot and potato, and second a thin, savory porridge. He gave Nicholas the foul medicine first each time, and hovered later as Nicholas gradually passed out. Nicholas tried to speak, but his throat was still too far gone.

Both times, Vash filled the silence with idle chatter, explaining nothing of consequence.

The third time Nicholas woke, it was dark outside and Vash was talking quietly to himself. Nicholas rolled his head to the side, seeking out the other man, and saw him sitting at the table in one of his chairs. He was shirtless and hunched, his left arm laid across the center of the table, his right hand gripping and moving over the tangle of wood.

Nicholas watched for a few minutes, realizing that Vash was reanimating his arm with the charm he'd mentioned. And it was his arm, not just his hand - the branches transitioned into skin just below his bicep. It was too dim in the room to make out much more detail. Vash was more or less facing the bed, so Nicholas couldn't see his back, and his chest was hidden by his posture.

A low, flickering, purplish light bled out from between the branches for a moment, and Nicholas could swear he saw a few dark flowers bloom across the top of Vash's arm. But Vash quickly scrubbed them off, crushing the petals in his flesh hand. His left arm twitched and moved, and Vash sat up, curling his fingers and flexing his elbow.

"Who are you?" Nicholas croaked into the silence.

Vash's eyes flew wide and he looked up to meet Nicholas' awake gaze. "Ah!" he said - almost squeaked - and he snatched up a bundle of black fabric from the back of the chair he was sitting on. He wrestled the tunic over his head so fast that Nicholas couldn't get much of a look at him. He'd seemed to have a few discolored patches on his chest.

"Huh?" Vash asked, his disarming grin returning. "I'm Vash! Did I not say? Or is your memory messed up? I didn't think you had a concussion, but I could've been wrong. How many fingers am I holding up?"

Nicholas wanted to get up, go over, and shake him. But he wasn't quite that healed yet. So he settled for testing the limits of his recovered voice, and rasped, "Stop playing stupid, broom-head. Who are you?"

Vash went still, lowering his hand. It was so transparent that he was trying to come up with a believable lie that Nicholas just sighed. Finally, Vash's shoulders slumped and he shrugged, still grinning. "I don't know what you want me to say," Vash said. "I just live here, is all. I have a little magic." He raised his branch-hand and waggled his fingers. "Zazie leaves me alone, and the woods provide plenty. It's a nice little life!"

Nicholas shook his head against the pillow. What Vash was saying was fucking impossible for so many reasons he couldn't begin to list them. And even though his voice was coming back, his throat still hurt like a son of a bitch, so he didn't feel like trying to battle through Vash's nonsense.

"How long?" Nicholas asked, gesturing vaguely at himself.

"Oh, four days or so?" Vash said, tucking his hands into pockets in the front of his tunic that Nicholas hadn't noticed before. "I've changed the poultice a couple of times and it looks like we managed to head off any infection. That's good! And with how fast you're healing, you'll probably be good as new in a week? Up and around tomorrow? It'll take a few days to stretch, you know, get everything honed again like before." His eyes flickered down to Nicholas' chest, which was partly covered by a blanket but still showing plenty of skin.

Honed, huh? Nicholas thought about leering at Vash's poorly hidden interest, but he wasn't in the headspace for it. Being stampeded by a boar the size of a small house was a real blow to the libido, it turned out.

"And then you'll kick me out, doc?" Nicholas rasped.

Vash raised his eyebrows. "What? No! Of course not, you can - you can stay as long as you need. Or you can go. Whatever you want!"

Nicholas stared at him, perpetually bemused by this impossible physician-hermit. "You're not even going to ask why I'm in the woods, are you," he said, his voice down to a strained whisper.

Vash’s expression shifted. His grin stayed up, but his eyes lost some warmth. Neutrally, he said, “They’re just woods.”

Nicholas wanted to scream. But his throat hurt too badly to speak again, and he swallowed with difficulty and gestured at his neck.

Vash’s expression warmed and opened right back up. “Oh - the poultice dried out again - how’s your chest feeling, do you think you could sit up on your own?”

Forced back into silence, Nicholas decided to simply go along with Vash’s kindness for the moment. He was able to push himself upright even though it burned like hell, and being able to move under his own power was a huge relief. He let Vash touch up the poultice and check his bandages, but he could at least arrange his own pillows.

Or… Vash’s pillows. It finally occurred to him that there was only the one bed, and if he’d been in it for four days, then Vash had to have been somewhere else. He tapped Vash’s arm for attention and gestured at the bed, then pointed at Vash, eyebrows furrowed.

“Hm?” Vash blinked owlishly for a moment. Then he got it. “Ohh! No, it’s fine, I’ve been sleeping outside. Spring weather’s nice! I have a futon out there.”

Nicholas relaxed, but not by much. Outside was where the Beast and its fucking bugs lived. No matter when he next had to camp outdoors, it would be too soon. The sight of a ceiling overhead instead of those God damned trees had been a comfort every time Nicholas had woken up these past days.

“The best thing I have for pain is still that tea,” Vash was saying, shifting some things around on the table. “But I can make it weaker if you don’t want to go straight back to sleep. It won’t completely knock the pain out, and it might still make you drowsy… Sorry, what was that?”

Nicholas hummed again and pointed at the pile of his belongings under the window.

“Yes! Uh, yeah, I grabbed what I could - my, um, friend told me where the bag was, so -“

Nicholas pointed more insistently and gestured bring them over as best he could.

“Sorry!” Vash said, darting to the stuff and picking up Nicholas’ pack. “Sorry, I’m slow, hah.” He brought the bag over.

Nicholas almost rethought himself when he saw how filthy the bag was, and how clean and lovely Vash’s woven blanket was that had been lying over Nicholas for days. But Vash seemed unbothered, so Nicholas accepted the bag in his lap and started digging around in it.

At the very top was his gambeson, stinking and filthy and bloody and torn, but carefully folded. Inside the folds were his wolf figure and the leather wrappings for his alchemy vials. He opened it and peered inside - four vials still. Drinking one right now would haul his body kicking and screaming back into full health, and then he wouldn't have to deal with these aches, his helplessness or his inability to speak.

But he didn't particularly want Vash to see that, because he didn't want to lay all his cards on the table or waste a vial. And Vash was still looking at him, expression open and trusting in a way that unsettled Nicholas deeply. So Nicholas rolled the vials back up in the wrapping and shoved them back into the bag.

Instead he dug deeper and found the sack of tobacco, oddly untouched by Zazie’s fuckery. He got out his pipe, dug out a pinch of dried leaves, and started packing it.

“Uhh,” Vash said.

Nicholas flicked a glare up at him, jamming the tobacco in tight.

Vash wrinkled his nose and scrunched his mouth, but then he sighed and said, “Okay, but when you can move again you’re doing that outside.”

Nicholas lowered his pack to the floor by the bed and pointed at a lit candle.

Vash gusted out an aggrieved sigh but he went to get the candle regardless, and was even nice enough to bring a small bundle of spills as well. Nicholas took one of the flimsy strips of wood and caught a flame to bring over. He puffed until the leaves caught, waved out the spill, and gave Vash a raised thumb.

“That’s not going to help your throat,” Vash told him.

Nicholas blew out a small cloud in his direction.

“Gah!” Vash retreated to the kitchen table to get started on a new pot of painkilling tea.

-

Nicholas next woke to the bright, glowing sunshine of late morning. Birds chirped outside the window and a perfect breeze blew through the open door. The room smelled of fresh bread. He swallowed, mouth watering, and managed to push himself upright without making a big production out of it. A close look at his abdomen showed only tender red flesh where his gaping wounds had once been; in another week at most, the skin would finish puckering into true scar tissue.

He touched his throat. Although it was sore, it felt no worse than having been put in a chokehold by an over-enthusiastic sparring partner. He could swallow just fine, and when he let out a low hum it wasn't even raspy.

Vash wasn't within immediate view. Nicholas slowly, carefully turned himself and dropped his legs down the side of the bed, bare feet touching solid ground for the first time in, what, a week? Under the torn trouser leg, Vash had removed the splints keeping his bones straight, although there was still a bandage around his shin. The beginnings of scars plowed through his leg hair there, too. Must have been a compound break, the kind with bones sticking out.

He must really have been a mess of meat when Vash had found him and pieced him back together. He still wanted answers about that, but to be honest, right now he mostly wanted to find out where the fresh bread smell was coming from, and he was prepared to fight anyone who got in his way.

Tentatively, he edged his weight off the side of the bed and onto his legs. His previously broken shin howled with pain, but his knees and ankles held up fine. He shuffled carefully forward, holding the edge of the bed and then the wall.

His route towards the kitchen area took him past the open door. As soon as Nicholas stepped into the open frame, a blond head perked up from where it had been bowed in concentration. Vash jumped up, half-tripped over the chair he'd been sitting in, stumbled into the doorframe, bonked his forehead on the wall, slapped a hand to the spot, and said, "Hi! You're up!"

Nicholas watched all this unfold with growing incredulity. This man rescued him. This man. The Beast Lord left this man alone in the woods to live a happy little cottage life.

He couldn’t begin to unpack all that. Instead he just said, “Smells good in here.”

Vash broke into a smile. His eyes crinkled and dimples sank deep into his cheeks. They were about the same height, with maybe an inch in Vash’s favor. Nicholas was caught again by the color of his eyes - clear, deep blue-green. One of them had a small mole beneath it, towards the outer corner. And - was that an earring?

“Wait,” Vash said, smile dropping as he looked down the length of Nicholas’ body. “Oh, no no no, sit down! Get - don’t stand in the - here -!”

Vash threw Nicholas’ arm around his shoulders to take his weight off his bad leg, and Nicholas didn’t fight it. He let Vash help him towards the kitchen table, pull out a chair and lower him into it, fussing all the while. “How’s your leg?” Vash asked, and “I have a walking stick, you should use that - Are you dizzy, do you need water? Painkiller? Is your throat still sore? I -“

Nicholas interrupted him by reaching across the table to a tray covered by a breadcloth. Underneath were, in fact, two loaves of bread, still steaming. Nicholas glanced up at Vash, fingers hovering.

“Yes!” Vash said, pushing the whole tray towards Nicholas. “Yeah, eat! Here, I have butter - and crabapple jam, and the blueberries are starting to come in so there’s some of those, but they’re still a little sour, sorry - and I can make eggs, do you want eggs?”

Mouth already full of warm bread with nothing on it, Nicholas hazarded, “Yes?”

Vash scurried around for the next several minutes, bringing Nicholas about a dozen different jars and spoons from all over the place, darting outside and then back in to grab a bowl and then back out again, and then returning with the bowl loaded with smallish, brown-speckled eggs. He came back to the table to grab a spoonful of butter, then had to hold the spoon's handle in his mouth because he’d forgotten to actually get a pan and deal with the fire.

“Do you, uh,” Nicholas asked, watching him spin in a circle looking for who-knew-what, “do you get many guests? Out here?”

“Nope!” Vash said, muffled by the spoon, and then, “Ah-hah!” as he found the ceiling herb he wanted. He went on tiptoe to pull down a bundle.

Nicholas was afraid that distracting him would end up with Vash falling into the fire and setting the house ablaze, so he shut up and spooned some sort of preserve onto another chunk of bread. He’d lost track of which jar was which. It tasted incredible, whatever it was.

By some miracle Vash managed to scramble a panful of eggs without any catastrophe. He pulled plates out of a cabinet and split the contents of the pan between two, but not equally - he put the significantly larger portion in front of Nicholas. Vash sat down with the other plate.

“Thanks -“ Nicholas began.

Vash shot out of his chair again, saying, “Fork! And tea! Water? Juice?”

“What?” Nicholas asked.

“Never mind,” said Vash, and was off again.

He was dizzying to watch and his constant motion made Nicholas feel exhausted. When he came back again with more utensils, a pitcher, a teapot, and pockets full of cups, Nicholas said, “Sit down” in the same grouchy way he would talk to Angelina when she wasn’t acting right. Vash blinked at him, but actually obeyed.

“Sorry,” Vash said, putting cups on the table. He lifted the teapot in offering.

“Rather not fall asleep facedown in a plate,” Nicholas said, eyeing it.

Vash grinned. “It’s not that kind of tea,” he said. “Just mint and rosehips.”

“Okay,” Nicholas said, though he’d never been a tea-drinker before in his life. Vash filled his cup.

Finally, the two of them actually had a moment to sit together at the same table and break bread. Nicholas tried not to inhale the eggs (to which Vash had added some of that dried wild onion again) too fast, although he still managed to put away twice as much as Vash in the same amount of time. He hadn’t eaten anything so good in months. Even the tea was nice, kind of fruity, although to Nicholas’ palate it still tasted mostly like hot leaf water. It tasted a hell of a lot better than creek water treated with Conrad’s alchemical purifier.

After Nicholas had demolished an entire loaf of bread, he finally regained enough self-control to look at the contents of the table and realize he couldn’t keep being a pig in good conscience. Vash had only eaten a couple of eggs, one piece of bread, and some of the bowl of dark purple berries he’d laid out.

“Full?” Vash asked.

Nicholas looked up and realized Vash had been watching him, glowing with pride and pleasure. “Uh,” Nicholas said, pushing his plate back. “Yeah, I’m good. Don’t let me eat you out of house and home.”

But Vash's smile only widened and he said, “Oh, trust me, you can’t! I have plenty, don’t stop because you feel like you have to or anything.”

“No, I…” he trailed off. Nicholas’ gaze still lingered on the abundance of food. He still had so many questions. But his hand reached for the berries almost without his permission. Vash pushed them over to him. The berries were tart and strong and popped when he bit them, the flavor lingering on Nicholas’ tongue. The bowl was empty in a minute. “Sorry,” Nicholas said, and sucked some dark juice off his thumb before it could stain.

Vash was giving him a funny, strained look. “Don’t be sorry,” he said, plastering the grin on again.

“Shouldn’t overdo it, I guess,” Nicholas said, feeling slightly flushed for no good reason. Well, he supposed the sudden influx of good food and warm tea was the reason. “Thanks for this,” he added, gesturing awkwardly at the empty plates and then, vaguely, at the bed.

“No need to thank me,” Vash said. “I can’t help it, you know? I can’t leave somebody in a tight spot if I know I can help.”

“Still.” Nicholas cleared his throat. It still stung when he did that, so he picked up his cup of tea. After taking a swallow, he frowned into the cup, thinking. He cleared his throat again, slower, and said, “Hey, uh… broom-head, I got a question.”

“I told you my name’s Vash, right?” Vash said, brows furrowing.

“Yeah, I heard you,” Nicholas said. “I’ve had a whole bunch of tea and broth and stuff, and laid in one spot for… six days?” He gave Vash a suspicious look. “Why don’t I need to piss?”

Vash instantly blushed an incredible dark pink all the way to the roots of his spiky hair. He put a fist to his mouth and coughed, then said, “It’s, um, I did a charm - I hope it’s okay - I just didn’t have any other way to deal with -“

“Wait,” said Nicholas. “You did a charm on me?”

“Yeah,” Vash said. “Sorry! I can undo it now that you’re up.”

“Do,” Nicholas said, lowering his voice dangerously. “I don’t like being magicked.”

Vash shoved his chair back and stood up fast. “Yeah! I hear - I understand you. Just a second.” He darted to a shelf next to the fireplace mantle and picked up a small object.

Nicholas’ stomach was trying to freeze up around the good food as he fought against the urge to be pissed at Vash. He understood it, he really did. What Vash had done was a pretty common medical charm - it had been put on Nicholas before, and for a lot longer than six days - and the longer it stayed active, the worse the results were once it was lifted, so six days mostly spent sleeping wouldn’t actually be that bad. And how else was Vash supposed to deal with an immobile, full-grown man in his only bed? So, yes, Nicholas didn’t really blame Vash for what he’d done, but…

He did not like being magicked. Especially in any way related to his body. Especially not without his knowledge. It made him tremble with barely-contained… something. Not quite rage, but something that was the cousin of rage.

Vash stopped in front of him, holding up an hourglass that fit in the palm of his hand. The center of the hourglass was stopped with a small wax plug, and all the sand was in the top half. In Vash’s other hand he held a gnarled but sturdy walking stick, which he offered to Nicholas. Still red in the face, Vash said, “I can show you where - you’ll want to be in the outhouse already, probably. When I break it.”

Nicholas nodded and stood from the table. Vash led him to the door and pointed to the obvious smaller building nearby, past an abundance of homesteading things that Nicholas badly wanted a closer look at. Later. Right now, he wanted magic off of him, out of him, before his skin started itching any more than it already felt like it did.

Behind him, Vash unscrewed the top of the hourglass’ wooden frame. He pulled a long needle out from where he’d stored it in the collar of his tunic, poked the needle into the sand and wiggled the wax plug loose. It dropped into the bottom half of the glass. As soon as the grains began to fall, the minor time-stop charm started to unravel.

Sounding truly miserable, Vash called, “I’m sorry!”

Nicholas opened the outhouse door, called back, “It’s fine, Spikey, don’t worry about it,” and closed himself inside.

Out at the cabin, he heard Vash plaintively say, “Spikey?”

The cousin of rage dissipated from his belly and the phantom itching passed before it could really begin. Nicholas unbuttoned his ruined pants and could only laugh to himself, so strangely bemused by and endeared to Vash for all he’d done. Even this, invasive as it was.

He sat down - and finally caught a whiff of himself in the enclosed space, and recoiled. He thought that if he survived the next half hour, the next imposition he would make on Vash’s hospitality would definitely be to ask him where the hell he could go to bathe.

-

Chapter Text

That first day Nicholas was able to move around, Vash wouldn't let him leave the house. And he was right not to, as Nicholas' strength and stamina drained out of him faster than water through a sieve after walking around for a short while.

"The pool where I go to wash is a ways off," Vash said, "and I don't want you putting your leg through that hike."

Nicholas thought momentarily about pointing out that Vash was strong enough to carry him - he'd done it before - but he let it go. He wasn't sure if he could deal with being carried by Vash while conscious. The man's unassuming strength did things to the pit of Nicholas' stomach, along with his dimples and sleepy-looking eyes and golden hair. It had been longer than Nicholas cared to think about since the last time he'd slept with anyone, and that had been paid for; it was longer still since anyone had actually wanted him. Vash's gaze still fell to Nicholas' chest and bared leg sometimes, lingering, but it could just be because he was minding Nicholas' wounds.

So Nicholas let Vash help him back to the bed, and Nicholas apologized for his stench, and Vash just laughed it off, saying Nicholas couldn't help it and it wasn't really that bad. Nicholas begged to differ, but Vash was being kind.

Vash was relentlessly kind.

A mild dose of the painkilling tea didn't quite knock Nicholas back to sleep but left him drowsy and mellow all afternoon. Vash took the opportunity to measure him with a piece of marked twine, then pulled an off-white long shirt and a pair of black pants out of a trunk. He cleared the table of kitchen wares and spent the rest of the afternoon letting out the seams of his spare clothes so they'd fit Nicholas. And chattering. A gentle, nonstop ebb and flow of words, which just sent Nicholas deeper into drowsiness.

Nicholas woke up enough to devour another meal when Vash put a pot over the fire and filled the room with the smell of stew. Once again there was no meat in the food, but the stew was so hearty that Nicholas couldn't bring himself to care. The second loaf of bread also did not survive the evening. Vash made a stronger dose of painkiller tea and Nicholas went back to bed.

In the night, Nicholas woke once to the sound of soft singing. He couldn't see Vash anywhere. Must be outside. Vash's voice was clear and sweet, and the tune scratched at the back of Nicholas' mind with vague familiarity. Like it was something Miss Melanie might have hummed to him as a small child.

It made his chest ache. He stayed awake to listen until Vash drifted into silence.

The next day, his leg was markedly better and he could walk with only soreness, not sharp, shooting pains. After breakfast he picked up his pack and sword and said to Vash, "If you don't let me bathe today I'll shove you in the outhouse and block the door."

Vash gave a dramatic whine and shoulder-slump, but it was all show. His eyes were bright with humor and cheer. He gathered up the clothes he'd altered, some food, and a lump of soap, and tied them in a bundle that he slung over his shoulder. Then he handed his walking stick to Nicholas.

"Why take the sword?" Vash asked. It wasn't accusatory, just curious. "There's nothing out there that'll hurt you."

Nicholas gave him a disbelieving stare, hoping his physical condition spoke for itself.

Vash flushed and added, "I mean, in my - area. My space. Zazie keeps clear for, I don't know, a mile or so around my house? The pond's only a quarter mile away."

Nicholas sighed, still burning with the desire to shake Vash for better answers, but knowing he wouldn't get them. "It's been almost a week and I haven't cleaned it," he said, lifting the claymore. "It's criminal to do that to a blade."

"Oh," Vash said. "You want me to clean it? I don't mind -"

"No," Nicholas snapped, grip tightening protectively on the hilt.

Vash raised his hands in quick surrender.

As Vash led the way out of the house and into the woods, Nicholas finally got a good chance to take the place in. The cottage was small, one room as he'd assumed, built from logs and daub and shingled with slabs of bark. There was a broad porch around three sides of it, excluding the side where the gray stone chimney jutted up several feet above the rooftop. The porch was covered with all sorts of things - the futon where Vash had been sleeping, more tables, more bundles of hanging plants, baskets of dried foods, sheaves of long, fibrous leaves and stalks tied up in cylinders. Stoneware jars and crockery were lined up under the edge of the porch.

Outside the porch were all sorts of low fences marking garden patches full of young vegetable plants and sprawling herbs. The fences did nothing at all to stop the handful of squat, round, speckled birds that wandered the yard, constantly squawking. They weren't chickens as far as Nicholas could remember, but it had been a few years since he'd seen a living chicken.

When he asked, Vash said they were guinea fowl, and he started pointing and naming each one even though they all looked the same. The names slid right out of Nicholas' head. He watched the fattest one pecking a beetle out of the ground and his mouth watered as he wondered how it'd taste. But Vash clearly kept them for eggs, so Nicholas doubted he'd get a chance to eat one, unfortunately.

Further out from the gardens were a couple of fields planted with grain - not the tall wheat stalks that Nicholas remembered from the fields outside December, but some other sort of grass. It wasn't very tall yet, but summer hadn't even technically begun. Or had it? Nicholas wasn't sure of the calendar day. The weather was steadily warming, but it wasn't horribly hot outside.

"There's other fields around to the west," Vash explained as they walked, "but I try not to plant more than I can manage. I don't need to make a surplus, anyway, just enough to feed myself. And visitors!" he added, looking at Nicholas.

"Thought you didn't get those," Nicholas said, limping along the footpath.

"Well," Vash said, stymied. "I mean, there's - I have a friend."

"The one who told you where I was?" Nicholas asked.

"Yeah," Vash said. "She does her own thing, but she drops by sometimes."

"Oh, she," Nicholas said, leering.

"No, I -" Vash started, turning faintly pink. He stuttered into silence and looked away from Nicholas, out into the trees. "No," he said simply.

"Okay," Nicholas said. "Sorry."

Vash shrugged and laughed with exaggerated ruefulness. "I'm not her type, anyway," he said.

Nicholas bumped him hard with an elbow, and Vash staggered. "She your type?" he asked, grinning.

"Not really," Vash laughed, bumping Nicholas back and then yelping when Nicholas made an over-wrought show of losing his footing and stumbling over the walking stick. "Oh shit, are you -" Vash started, arms shooting out to catch Nicholas.

Nicholas straightened up, totally fine, and bonked Vash's shin with the stick. He grinned at the look on Vash's face.

"You - you ass!" Vash spluttered at him.

"Too gullible, Blondie."

"That's not my name!"

Soon they made it to the pond, which turned out to be a wide pool in the middle of a running creek. A short waterfall - only a couple of feet tall - formed the head of the pond, and the downstream trickle cut between some piled rocks that dammed back a large portion of the water. It was clear Vash had done some work on a natural formation to better suit his needs. The near shore of the pond had been cleared of growth, leaving only scrub grasses.

"It's about twice as deep as I am tall out in the middle," Vash told him, "so watch your step. This is the shallower side, but the slope goes pretty sharp around where that log is sticking out, see? Do you..." He trailed off, looking at Nicholas with that oddly strained expression again. "D'you need any help, or -?"

"No, I've got it," Nicholas said. "Wouldn't mind the chance to have some alone time. Promise I won't drown."

"Oh!" Vash said. He swung the bundle he'd brought to the ground, then backed up a few steps down the path. "Yeah, I understand. I've got chores to do, so -" He gestured vaguely back towards the cabin.

"Not going anywhere, Spikey," Nicholas told him, thumping the walking stick on the ground next to his bare feet to point out his obvious limitations. "Besides, your cooking's too good to just run off."

Vash cracked a warm grin.

"I'll follow my nose back," Nicholas promised.

"Okay," Vash said, looking more at ease. "Take it easy on the leg. See you later!" He turned and trotted away.

Nicholas watched until he was out of sight. Then he gusted out a long breath and scrubbed his hand over his face.

Being around Vash made the whole world feel... not quite real, somehow. He knew the world to be a darker and grimmer place than someone like Vash could possibly exist in, and yet there Vash was. Stubbornly existing.

He dropped his things, found the lump of soap in the bundle Vash had left him, and finally stripped out of his ripped pants and horrendous underwear. He bent down and carefully unwrapped the bandage from his leg, prodding the new scars and hissing at the soreness.

Nicholas stepped into the water and scowled at the temperature. He adjusted quickly, though, as it was cool but not freezing. And then, as he got fully submerged, it simply became one of the most decadent and mind-melting sensations he'd ever felt. He could feel layers of sweat and grime peeling off of him that felt like they'd been collecting for years, not just a few weeks. He couldn't help moaning faintly as he dunked his head and scrubbed fingers into his hair, dislodging an amount of filth that probably would have turned his hair black if it hadn't been already.

He set to work with the soap, which was smooth and buttery and didn't feel at all like the chunks of lye and grit he'd used back in December. It smelled like flowers. Nicholas started to feel a little drunk on the pure pleasure of getting clean, smelling like perfume, and shedding a lot of his aches in the weightlessness of the water. He soaped his hair up three times, because each time he dunked his head to rinse, he couldn't help succumbing to the indulgence of scratching his scalp while his hair floated around him in a loose halo.

Once he'd finally scrubbed himself raw all over, the tenderness and warmth of his skin in the pleasantly cool water started to get to him in a different way. He'd washed between his legs already but he found his hand returning there, without soap this time, pressing fingers into the crease of his hip and then further down.

He let his other arm float freely and brought his fingers over to his cock in a light tease. The pleasure of bathing shivered across his whole body and sank into his skin, pouring down his veins to collect as warmth in his belly. His cock twitched faintly under his hand, eager for the attention.

Slowly, he ground his palm down against it and let himself melt, partly floating in the pond as he arched his neck to keep his face up for air. His dick fit perfectly into the crease of his palm, leaving his fingers free to push further down, opening up his slit. He didn't like anything inside - hated it, actually; it always hurt - but when he was horny enough, like now, the folds themselves felt delicious to touch. Usually he could get enough slick out to help with jerking off, too, but being underwater nixed that.

The lack of slick didn't matter this time. His breathing picked up as he brought his fingers back from his slit to his cock, jerking it loosely between two fingers and his thumb. Fully hard, he had almost three inches to work with. The heat in his belly felt fizzy, almost throbbing with need.

As soon as he got too close for his rational mind to be able to stop him, Vash snuck into his head. Nicholas made a faint noise, working his cock a little faster, letting his eyes slide closed. That burnished-gold hair looked so silky, and his lips were plush - they'd be so soft and hot wrapped around Nicholas' dick, those storm-sky eyes looking up sweetly as Vash curled his tongue and sucked -

Nicholas came with a groan and shudder, losing his footing in the lakebed. The pleasure hit him low and rolled through him in waves, wringing him out from the core. He'd been pent up for a long damn time and apparently his body was fucking tired of waiting to be taken care of.

He drew a shaky breath and found his footing again, standing upright and letting the final tremors pass. He was immediately far too sensitive and too tired to keep standing. He sloshed towards the shore on shivery legs, feeling all his body weight returning tenfold as he left the water.

Heavy and exhausted, he lowered himself to the grass by the water's edge and sat there for a minute, centering himself. His first train of thought was that he shouldn't be thinking about Vash like that. The man was kind and generous and more than a little goofy, and he'd taken Nicholas in without thought to what sort of a threat Nicholas might pose. And though there was no way Nicholas would hurt the man physically, not after all he’d done, there were other kinds of threats. Nicholas refused to be that kind, either.

His second train of thought began with, What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

That one was harder. He put his outstretched arms over his raised knees and bowed his head, gently dripping dry. He'd left home with a perfectly straightforward task, difficultly aside. Capture a mythical creature and bring it back alive; don't get killed along the way. It turned out he couldn't fulfill either of those things. His current status of 'not dead' was entirely due to the intervention of others.

If he went back out into the wilderness, the same thing would likely happen again, except this time Zazie would have come up with new ideas of how to bat him around like a cat with a half-dead mouse. He could ask Vash to help him take the Beast down, but... he had a feeling that wouldn't be an easy ask. Vash had some kind of truce with the swarm, and Nicholas had no reason to think Vash could capture Zazie any more than Nicholas could. Just because Vash was physically strong and could do a little magic didn't mean he was cut out for fighting. He certainly didn't act like he was.

Nicholas turned his head to the side and pressed his face to his cool, flower-soap-scented bicep, grimacing. The Beast had said... what had they said? That the Emperor had lost something in these woods a long time ago, and believed that Zazie was the one who had stolen it. But Zazie claimed they hadn't. So whatever it was that the Emperor actually wanted, maybe it wasn't the Beast. Maybe it was an object, some kind of power source that the Emperor meant to use to... renew the land, or heal the sick Plants.

Or, for all Nicholas knew, maybe the Emperor didn't plan to do anything good at all. Maybe he wanted this power source for other, nefarious reasons that he would never allow some peon like Nicholas the Punisher to understand. That seemed the most likely, to be honest.

But his predicament hadn't really changed: if he didn't return by the end of the harvest with whatever the Emperor wanted, he'd be assumed dead and Livio would be sent in his place. Maybe... maybe if he waited for next spring, Nicholas and Livio together would be able to take down Zazie? Maybe if they could subdue the Beast somehow, Zazie would tell them what the actual power source was? And Nicholas could decide whether he actually wanted the Emperor to have it?

God, that was crazy talk. There was no way. And if he found the power source and didn't take it back to the Eye, then what? What was he supposed to do with something like that? Would Livio even let him double-cross the sect or the Emperor? Who knew how much more brainwashing Livio might be subjected to in a year of Nicholas' absence.

Fuck. That was the barbed splinter in the middle of the wound, wasn't it? Livio. Milly. If Nicholas waited - if he could convince Vash to take him in for that long, even - then Livio and Milly would think he had died. He couldn't do that to them. And he couldn’t just leave them there alone, with no way of knowing if they were okay - if Livio was being tortured; if Milly was slowly starving to death.

All he wanted, truly, was to go back, steal both of them away, and escape into nowhere with them. Anywhere. There had to be something worth finding outside the blight, outside the Forgotten Woods, outside of the known world. Had to be. The blight didn't go on forever, did it? The woods didn't go on forever? If they did... if they did, then what was the point...?

He just wanted to be free.

At long, long last he raised his face to escape his own spiraling mind. His stomach was grumbling, and Vash had packed him some food. He'd eat, he'd clean his sword, he'd go back to the cabin... and he'd just have to figure everything out moment by moment. He scrubbed his hand over his face and looked up.

Across the water, up on the small rise at the head of the waterfall, a fox stood in the open. It stared down at him with deep blue eyes. Its hind leg was wrapped in familiar-looking bandages.

Nicholas stared at it. After a moment, it jerked its head up and yipped. Then it spun in a circle, walked away a few steps, walked back to the waterfall, stared at him, and yipped again.

"Okay," Nicholas muttered to himself. "Vash fried the wrong kind of mushrooms with breakfast."

The fox yipped at him again, more aggressively this time. He would swear the fox was telling him he was being stupid.

"Let me put some damn pants on, at least," he called out.

The fox plopped down, still watching him.

"What the hell," Nicholas muttered, and pushed himself to his feet.

He was mostly dry, and the fresh clothes wicked the rest of the pond water away. Vash had packed him a pair of soft linen shorts as well as the pants and shirt. Nicholas pulled all of it on, tucking the shirt into the pants out of habit, as a loose shirt tail would get in the way of his gambeson. Which was ruined beyond repair, he remembered, and sighed.

He looked up at the fox and down at his belongings. He bent to pick up his sword, and the fox flattened its ears and started to snarl. Nicholas set the Punisher back down on the grass and raised his hands in surrender. "Fine," he said. "Whatever you want."

Barefoot, clean, and finally dressed to a semblance of decency, Nicholas made his way around the side of the pond towards the small rise where the fox still sat. When he was within twenty feet of the creature, it stood up and limped away into the trees, glancing back once to make sure he was following.

The fox led him deeper into the woods, pausing a few times to sniff the ground. Nicholas made sure to note the route in his mind, but the fox didn't seem to be trying to get him lost or lead him outside of the mile-wide armistice zone Vash had mentioned. Soon, the trees opened up to a mossy clearing awash with blooming spring flowers. Shades of red, yellow, and purple bobbed everywhere, and the scent that drifted up was intoxicating.

The fox scurried through the flowers, sniffing a few of them, and then returned to Nicholas. It stood a few feet away, looking at him.

"What?" he asked it.

Then it seemed like his eyes blurred, or like he blinked without blinking. There was a moment when his vision wasn't quite focused on the world around him. He took a step back reflexively, combat instinct reaching for a hilt over his shoulder that wasn't there.

The world righted itself in an instant, and what was also not there was the fox. Instead, a petite woman with short black hair stood where the fox had been. Dangling gold glinted at her ears and there was a bandage wrapped around her upper thigh, but otherwise, she was totally naked.

"Ah," Nicholas said, and turned around.

A no-nonsense, completely ordinary human voice behind him said, "What, now you're a prude?"

Nicholas choked on nothing. "Excuse me?" he demanded, about to turn around again to give the fox-woman hell, nude or not.

"Fine, fine," said the voice, and Nicholas heard the abrupt rustle of fabric. "Vash gets weird about it, too."

Nicholas turned back to look at her. She hadn't moved, but she was now wearing a white cloak that fell to just above her knees. It was fastened up the front with knotted blue cords, and gold-embroidered slits in the sides let her arms emerge so she could cross them over her small chest. She gave Nicholas a stern, studying look.

"Exactly how long were you watching me?" Nicholas asked, crossing his own arms right back.

She rolled her eyes. They were cobalt blue, just like the fox's. "We're even now," she said. "You didn't eat me and I didn't let you get killed."

Nicholas put two and two together quickly. "Vash's friend," he said.

"Yes," she said, raising her small chin. "And just because I knew he would save your life doesn't mean I trust you around him. He's too trusting as it is."

Nicholas snorted. "Yeah, I noticed that," he said.

Her calculating look finally eased. The corner of her mouth twitched. "Well," she said. "He'll let anyone keep their secrets to themselves because he's too damn nice, but I'm not. Explain yourself, knight."

Nicholas barked a startled laugh. She glared at him, all five-foot-nothing of her, probably a hundred pounds soaking wet. He shook his head, amusement at the pure absurdity of the situation bubbling up through his chest. He turned to the nearest tree and limped towards it.

"Don't walk away from me!" said the woman. "I'm serious, I have ways of making you talk!"

Nicholas gave another hearty laugh, turned to lean on the tree and sank down to sit, carefully aiding himself with his hands. "Calm down, Foxy, I'm just sitting," he said. "My fucking leg hurts." He made it to the ground and stretched his leg out with a sigh.

"Oh," she said. Then, after a beat, "Mine does too, actually." And she sat down right where she was, facing him.

He watched her arrange her legs to the side so that her bandaged thigh wasn't pressed to the ground. He gestured at it. "Sorry about that," he said.

She looked at him for a long moment, then seemed to decide to accept the apology. She nodded. "Understandable in the circumstances," she said.

Nicholas said, "I didn't know you were -" He waved vaguely at her human-ness.

"You didn't know I was sentient but you still chose not to kill me," she said.

"Well," said Nicholas. "You seemed... smart. I don't know."

"I think it was more than that," she said, studying him.

He crossed his arms and relaxed against the tree, watching her. "Interrogate if you want, Foxy," he said. "But some shit I'm keeping to myself."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "I have a name."

Nicholas raised an eyebrow, waiting.

"It's Meryl," said the fox.

He raised his other eyebrow. "Meryl," he repeated. "Not a name I would think of for a... weird, magic, talking fox-person."

"Weird!" she said, affronted. "You're weird! You’re all gloomy, your smoke stinks and you have a stupid sword.”

He blinked. "My sword's not stupid," he objected.

"It's too big!"

"No it isn’t! Using a long blade is a matter of technique, not -"

She waved him off, disinterested. “I don’t care. Like I said before," she said authoritatively, "I demand that you explain yourself, knight."

"I'm not a -" Nicholas cut himself off, rubbing his fingers into his eyes in exasperation. "I'm a Brother of the Eye of Michael," he said. "Not exactly a knight. More of a priest."

"Priest!" she cried, clearly mocking. "Absolutely not."

"What would you know about it?" he snapped. "You're an animal!"

She crossed her arms in a huff and glared at him.

"A... pretty lady-animal," he amended, waving at her. "Whatever, you live in the woods. What would you know about December and the Emperor, anyway?"

"Plenty," she said acidly. “That man is evil. I despise him.”

"Who, the Emperor?" he asked, disbelieving. "The God-Emperor Millions Knives, you hate him personally? What'd he do, stomp on your flowers?" He glanced around the beautiful glade.

But she went strangely quiet and solemn. "Something like that," she said, cagey.

Nicholas gazed at her for a long minute. Then he said, "I'll tell you why I'm here if you talk too, pipsqueak. I don't fucking understand these woods, and the bugs, and -" He waved his hand back in the direction of Vash's home. "Whatever's going on there," he finished.

Meryl chewed her bottom lip for a moment. Then she said, "Fine. Question for question."

Nicholas nodded. "You first," he said generously.

"Who are you?" Meryl asked. "Or I'll just keep calling you stupid-sword man."

"The sword's name is Punisher," he said irritably. "And I'm -"

"Wait," Meryl interrupted him.

"What?" he snapped.

For the first time, she looked less like she wanted to fight with him and more like she was concerned. "You were just going to tell me your real name," she said.

He shrugged. "Yeah, it's -"

"Stop!" She looked more concerned now. "You just tell people your real name? All the time?"

He stared blankly at her.

"When people have your name they can charm you," she said. "You don't know that?"

He kept staring.

"Are you really that stupid?" she asked, finally veering back into antagonism.

"Excuse you, Meryl," he snapped at her.

"Yeah, try to charm me with that name," she snapped back.

"Charm you how, idiot?" he asked. "I don't have magic! Almost nobody has magic! The only people with magic in the real world just become alchemists or medics or Plant workers, no one's going around charming people like it's some kind of threat. There's a hell of a lot of dangerous things in the world, but that -"

"Who told you it wasn't dangerous?" she asked fervently, leaning forward. "Really, where did you learn it wasn't dangerous to give out your real name? And whoever told you that, did they have some kind of power over you? Does it benefit them for you to remain ignorant?”

Nicholas snapped his mouth shut. It was - it was common knowledge, wasn't it? Well, he supposed that it had only been Conrad who'd ever explained anything about magic to him. Chapel disavowed it. Kids the Eye took in to train never had any magic aptitude; the only things they looked for were alchemic tolerance and physical strength. The only charms Nicholas had seen before now were small medical ones to stop a few body functions long enough for larger changes to be made surgically, or to prevent decay and rejection after surgeries. He'd never seen anything remotely like Vash's arm, or even like a fox that changed into a person or clothes that appeared out of nowhere.

Meryl the fox looked satisfied and triumphant, watching whatever was happening on Nicholas' face. He schooled himself into neutrality, and said "Fine. What makes it a 'real' name, anyway? You seem comfortable with Meryl."

"I chose it," she said. "After someone I knew a long time ago. She was a town crier in July.” Meryl looked down at the moss. "I loved her. She died in the Typhoon.”

"July," Nicholas echoed.

She shrugged. "I look young for my age."

He stared at her for a moment. Then he sighed and looked away, thinking.

He'd been Nico when he was very, very young. But as soon as Chapel had taken him in and had tried calling him by the full version of Nico - by what was written on the slip of paper he'd been left with at the orphanage - Nico had bitten Chapel's arm hard enough to draw blood. After that, Chapel had taken a long, hard look at him and finally said, All right. Nicholas, then.

It had been one of the reasons he'd stayed. Chapel had named him Nicholas and helped him grow up in the way he'd needed to. Nicholas couldn't remember a time before he understood that his body was a ticking time bomb - and the Eye had so casually defused that bomb, told him he was Nicholas the Punisher, given him identity and purpose and a place to belong.

But then... the rest of it... the cruelty and degradation, the starvation, the training, the things they'd done to his body that he hadn't wanted just because he'd given them access for something that he'd needed... the way they'd taken in Livio after Nicholas had objected to his first order to kill, so obviously twisting Nicholas to their purposes with a hostage, demanding that if you don't, he will. And then making Livio do it all the same, and more besides.

'Nicholas' was a creature force-grown in a cage in the dark. It was his name, but he hadn't chosen it. He'd loved it at first - and he still felt that it suited him - but if there was any name in the world that could be a danger to him, surely it was that one.

He thought of Milly and the slip of paper he'd made her promise to burn because of the first name written on it. She'd never said that name aloud, because she understood why it was vile to him. But the other name, the family name - she was the only one who'd used it, because she'd thought it sounded handsome. He did too, really. It was the Eye's rule to abandon family names, or he'd have used it more.

Hopefully it didn't count as a 'true' name, since almost no one knew him by it. He said to Meryl, "All right, fine. Call me Wolfwood."

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, then shrugged and said, "Good enough."

Nicholas said, "So I assume Vash isn't that guy's real name either, then."

Worry flickered over Meryl's expression. "No... it is," she said. "Like I said, he's too trusting."

"Oh," Nicholas said. “Well. I can't do magic, so he's safe from me."

She grimaced. "He'd be safe from you regardless," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"He's stronger than he looks," she said.

He didn't respond to that. He'd seen Vash's physical strength - some of it - but he had a feeling that wasn't all she meant. And he had a sneaking suspicion that much like how Meryl looked perfectly ordinary when she wasn't being an actual literal fox, it was possible that Vash was also not as human as he looked.

"Why are you being so protective of him, if he can take care of himself?" Nicholas finally asked.

"He can," she said, "but he doesn't. He worries me."

"Hm," he said. "Like how he lost that arm, huh?"

She pressed her lips thin, annoyed. "One question at a time," she said. "I get my next one."

"Fine."

"Why did you come into this forest?"

"You know so much about the Emperor, apparently," he said. "Why don't you tell me?"

She glared at him.

"Same reason members of the sect have been coming for years," Nicholas said. "I'm sure you had your eye on them, too. "

Meryl huffed, caught out.

Putting on a faux-formal voice, Nicholas said, “‘You shall capture the Beast Lord and bring it forth alive before the end of the harvest, so the Lord God-Emperor may use its hoarded power to renew the land.' Or words to that effect."

Meryl's brow scrunched. "Why does he want Zazie? Zazie's not hoarding anything except grubs."

Nicholas shrugged one shoulder. “Bug-kid didn't seem to know either. Said the Emperor lost something here a long time ago and thinks the Beast Lord has it."

If he hadn't been looking right at her, Nicholas might have missed the flash of understanding in Meryl's expression. He kept his mouth shut, watching her closely. For half a heartbeat, she'd grasped something that had horrified her - and then she'd shut herself off, closing her feelings deep inside. Her face became a blank slate.

She said, “Well… maybe they do. They love to hide things and play games - even I haven't found all of their favorite hiding spots after all these years."

"Yeah?" Nicholas asked, keeping his tone casual and interested.

"They can be infinite different forms," Meryl said, "but there's a core to their mind. Like a hive queen. If you can catch that, I think you can cut them off from the rest of their collective."

"Good to know," he said. "And you're telling me this, why?"

Meryl gave him a hard look, chewing the inside of her lip. "It's not because I like you," she said at last, "or because I have anything against Zazie, really. I mean, they're frustrating and disgusting, but they're part of the forest just like I am. It's you people. If you don't fulfill this stupid mission, there'll be another one of you, won't there? And another one and another one, blowing up the woods and shooting at me and riling up Zazie and bothering Vash. For years! I don't want to deal with you people anymore. And you seem slightly more sane than the last few who came around, so I might as well help you instead of waiting for the next lunatic."

It was a very good lie. Believable and well-delivered.

Nicholas raised his hands in mock surrender and said, "Fine, good, I appreciate the help. Promise once I catch Zazie I'll fuck off and leave you and your boyfriend alone."

"Good," said Meryl heartily. "And he's not my boyfriend."

"No kidding," Nicholas said dryly.

"You don't understand all the ways love can look," Meryl said acidly. "I doubt you know how to love at all."

Oh, this bitch. Nicholas was ready to walk away from this conversation right now so he could cool off. He didn't bother responding to her, just gave her the flattest, stoniest look.

It actually seemed to fluster her. Like she might have overreached in what she'd meant to say. She refused to meet his eyes, shifted her legs and stood up, brushing grass from her cloak.

Stiffly, Meryl said, "I can travel the woods freely and you can't. I’ll scout Zazie's hideouts and look for their queen. As for capturing them - you came at the worst time, because they get stronger in the warm weather. If you can wait until autumn, when it starts getting colder, you'll have a lot more luck. Winter would be the best time."

"Harvest ends before winter starts," he pointed out dryly. "And I'm supposed to be back before the end of harvest, or they'll send the next lunatic. I can guarantee you don’t want to deal with him.”

"Fine," she said. "Well... in autumn it'll still be cool enough to give you an advantage. So you need to wait out the summer and let me scout. We can come up with a plan when it's closer to the right time."

"For as protective as you are of Vash," Nicholas said, "you do realize you just demanded that I stay with him for a long damn time. There's nowhere else I can go."

Meryl... actually flushed a little and glanced down. "Like I said, I don't really think you're a danger to him,” she said. “And... the only person he has is me, and I don't... settle down very well."

She toed at the grass, a beat passing as he watched her.

"He's lonely," she said at last. "I've been keeping an eye on the house, while you... He looks happier with you around. Someone he can take care of."

"I won't need to be taken care of for long," Nicholas said.

"Someone to talk to," she pressed.

She was finally telling the truth again; he could tell. He sighed.

The thought of spending an idle summer with Vash's cheerful company and incredible food sounded too good to be true. But Nicholas reminded himself that there would be more to it than that. He needed to understand whatever Meryl understood, and he needed a plan. At least this gave him time to regroup and come up with one.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll ask Vash if he minds me hanging around a little longer."

"Thank you," Meryl said, and he could tell she meant it.

Then his vision blinked-without-blinking again, and where Meryl had been was the fox. Nicholas scrubbed his eyes with one hand; he hated how that magic felt. Meryl yipped softly at him, turned, and vanished into the undergrowth between trees.

Nicholas bumped his head against the tree trunk. He sat there for a while longer, digesting everything Meryl had said. He wasn’t good at being idle. He was sure he’d go stir-crazy in Vash’s cottage with nothing to do, knowing his loved ones were living in miserable, existential danger far, far away, and knowing that a stranger was working on the mission he’d been tasked with.

But he didn’t want to push that misery off onto Vash, who had done nothing to deserve it. He’d only been kind and caring and generous - and like Meryl said, he was lonely. Nicholas hadn’t needed Meryl to tell him that. It couldn’t be clearer.

As the sun rose high, Nicholas finally heaved a sigh and pushed himself to his feet. He wanted a smoke, and he still needed to clean his sword. And after that… surely he could find something to do.

-

The cottage lay at the end of the path like a bright patchwork quilt of different crafts, garden plots, wandering animals, and flowers. The early afternoon sun lit it clearly, as there was enough of a break in the tree canopy here to create a pool of sunshine. The whole place looked soft and warm and inviting. With a pang, Nicholas thought, Milly deserves to be here, not me.

Out in the middle of it stood a lanky figure in black, his mop of gold hair shining in the light. He was holding one of his speckled guinea hens like a baby, scratching into the feathers on her chest with his living hand and saying something to her with a little smile. His single earring flashed in the sun. His clothing made him a point of darkness that struck a discordant note against the sprawl of colors that made up the rest of the cottage and fields.

But when Vash looked up, the brightness of his expression made Nicholas forget how somberly he dressed. Vash set the bird on the ground. It made noises like a rusty door hinge and scampered away as Nicholas approached.

“Hi!” Vash called. “I made fresh bread. Do you want an egg sandwich? Come sit down, you don’t need to push that leg too hard -“

Nicholas limped up to him and held a hand out. Vash cut off mid-sentence and looked at the hand, confused. With a sigh, Nicholas reached out and took Vash’s right hand and shook it. Vash’s eyes widened as he finally clocked what was happening.

“Realized I never introduced myself,” said Nicholas. “Name’s Wolfwood.”

Vash’s face cleared of bemusement and he beamed, dimples sinking deep. His hand gripped Nicholas’ firmly, his palm warm. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, voice going a little soft. “Wolfwood.”

Vash’s lips and tongue forming around the unfamiliar name sent a frisson down Nicholas’ spine, settling as an uneasy warmth in his belly. Everything about Vash was beautiful in a way that put Nicholas on edge. The family name, so much darker and more evocative than his real one, sounded poetic when Vash said it.

Nicholas had spent the last couple of hours thinking of dozens of ways he could try to bring up the idea of staying in Vash’s house after he’d finished healing. He’d decided his best options were slow burns in which he worked up to the proposal after proving his value at various tasks and chores. He’d been prepared for it to take days.

But now, looking at Vash face to face, their hands still trading heat, with Vash’s wide-open-sky kindness gleaming in his eyes… Nicholas opened his mouth, all his plans swept out from under his feet, and after a moment he simply asked,

“Can I stay?”

And Vash said, “As long as you want.”

-

Chapter Text

Nicholas used the walking stick for two more days. On the third morning, he tested his leg and felt nothing remotely wrong with it. He leaned the stick against the door, found Vash tending the birds outside, and said, “You’re moving back to the bed. I’ll take the porch from now on.”

“What?” Vash asked. “But the bed’s more comfortable and you’re my guest, so it’s only right for -“

“I’m not taking up your bed for however long,” Nicholas said. “Being a good host means doing what the guest wants, right?”

“I - hold on,” Vash said, “I don’t think that’s how it works -“

“C’mon, yes it is,” Nicholas needled.

“I don’t - I mean - I guess if you want -“

“Exactly,” Nicholas said, throwing his arm around Vash’s shoulders and pulling him towards the cottage and the fireplace. He said, “You hungry? Let me cook for you for once.”

Vash flushed bright pink and Nicholas spent the rest of the morning overly pleased with himself.

Vash was a delight to tease. He flushed easily, and whenever he lost an argument he would whine, “Wolfwood, you’re so pushy,” while failing to bury a grin. It brought a childishness out of Nicholas that he thought he’d lost. He found himself drifting back to how he used to be years ago, in the orphanage and as a younger man, when Milly would chase him in the fields, and when Livio still laughed.

Vash gave as good as he got once he accepted that Nicholas was no longer vulnerable or hurting. He threw harmless things at Nicholas’ head with alarming aim and ducked return blows, tricked him with bogus or impossible tasks, and laughed like a maniac and ran every time Nicholas came after him with a broom.

Nicholas shouldn’t have wasted any time worrying he’d be bored. The days were packed with work to do. He’d never experienced a landscape that was fertile and thriving, so he hadn’t known the amount of labor that went into cultivating it. But the work was varied and interesting to learn, and Vash was excited to teach Nicholas anything he wanted to know. Nicholas refused to be useless, so he soaked up every instructive word Vash said.

The weather slowly grew warmer as days turned into one week, then two. Around the cabin, grass shot up and the guineas grew even fatter on the groundswell of hatching insects. Eggs were plentiful; they were Vash’s main source of protein other than the store of tree-nuts and flower seeds he’d harvested the year before.

Nicholas had been momentarily disappointed when Vash finally confirmed that he didn’t eat meat - but the disappointment faded fast. Nicholas had never eaten this well before, and he didn’t really care what was in his meals, only that they were hot and plentiful. The fact that the food tasted amazing was just added bonus. He’d lived on scraps and gnawed bones as an orphan, and on cold ascetic rations as an acolyte. Only Milly’s family had ever been able to provide him a hot, home-cooked meal. And even those had become scarce over the years.

Vash’s food stores were an absolute marvel. He kept perishable things in his cold-house - a shed just off the side of the porch that was less than half the size of the outhouse, which was heavily charmed to reflect heat away from its interior. It was hot to the touch, but billowed chilly mist as soon as the door was opened. Vash had explained how the mechanics of the charm worked, but it still hurt Nicholas’ head that making the box hotter also made it colder. Inside, Vash had all sorts of things - excess eggs, out-of-season fruits, nuts that would go rancid in the outside air, oils pressed from different kinds of seeds, and even hard, aged cheeses.

As soon as Nicholas was hale enough to explore Vash’s entire homestead, Vash introduced him to the source of the cheeses: a small flock of sheep that Vash let roam more or less freely in the sparse woods around his cottage.

“-with the flipped-out ear is Emmeline,” Vash said, pointing, “and then this is Rosa, who's working on her second baby. Tonis over there was the first."

Nicholas held a hand down for one of the sheep to sniff, but it didn't seem interested. They hadn't liked him at all as he'd approached, the whole group shying away from a strange new person - but then Vash had whistled at them and they'd turned right back around, heading for Vash's knees. They butted and rubbed against him like big dogs, leaving huge streaks of white wool fibers stuck to his black clothes.

It was even worse now that Vash had moved among them, naming each one and giving them all a solid ear-scratching. Nicholas couldn't help laughing at his two-tone outfit. There was a high-tide line around his hips above which he was still more or less black, but beneath that he was a disaster of shed wool.

"You should've worn white," Nicholas told him.

Vash looked down at himself and joined the laughter. "I know, I know, it's so bad in the spring."

"Don't you have to cut it off at some point?" Nicholas asked, echoing vague memories of overheard talk about shearing and lambing seasons of old. Most of Vash’s sheep looked short-haired already, but not all of them. A couple, including Rosa, were looking heavy and ragged with their buildup of wool as deep as the width of Vash's palms.

"Oh, I don't actually shear them," Vash said. He dug his fingers even harder into Rosa's coat, scratching down her back. She leaned hard into him, her stubby little tail flicking back and forth. "It's called rooing. The coat just sort of - oh, you're finally ready, huh, girl? Yeah, here... see..." Vash dug his hands down under Rosa's wool until they completely disappeared - and then a whole chunk of wool lifted away like a flap of skin, and hung down Rosa's side. She bleated and headbutted Vash's thigh.

"The hell?" Nicholas said, watching as Vash kept scrubbing his hands beneath the thickness of the wool and it peeled off in chunks.

"In spring, the fibers break near the skin," Vash said, still casually peeling a sheep like it wasn't the most bizarre-looking thing to do. "And I only help out if I catch it like this, or if I need to collect the wool. Otherwise they'll get it off themselves by rubbing on trees. You want to help?"

"Uh," said Nicholas, "sure." He put a hand down on Rosa's back.

The wool turned out to be dense, greasy, and pungent, and Nicholas' black pants looked just like Vash's by the time Rosa was fully peeled out of her winter coat. Rosa's fresh undercoat was soft as baby's hair, and she seemed to strut with extra pride at being refreshed for the summer. She even deigned to headbutt Nicholas' knees.

"She likes you," Vash said, grinning.

"I'd like her better roasted with garlic," Nicholas joked.

Vash had gotten used to Nicholas' baseless threats of eating the animals, so instead of looking hurt or worried he just giggled and leaned over Rosa's back, rubbing her enormously swollen belly. "No, girl, don't listen to him!" he stage-whispered to the sheep. "Besides, you won't think that once she lambs," Vash said, leaning his head sideways on Rosa and looking up at Nicholas angelically.

"Uh?" Nicholas said, distracted by Vash's face.

"We can make fresh cheese!" Vash said. His enthusiasm was pure and vibrant.

"Oh," said Nicholas. “Yeah… cheese."

"You have a funny look on your face, Wolfwood."

"What? No." Nicholas tore his gaze away from the bent-over, adorably beaming Vash and squatted next to the pile of wool. "What do you do with this?" he asked.

"Depends," Vash said, straightening up. "If I kept and worked all the wool every year I'd be drowning in yarn and never have time for anything else. But I might keep this and spin it. You want to learn how?"

"Why not," said Nicholas, who didn't have the first clue about any process behind any textile, ever.

"Okay! Bring that up on the porch, then."

Nicholas looked back down at the greasy, smelly heap and wondered what he'd gotten himself into.

Hard work, it turned out, but rewarding work as well - just like everything in and around Vash's cottage. Days blurred together as it seemed like Vash showed Nicholas a different task he'd never done every day, sometimes two or three times a day. Nicholas had lived his whole life on what he could steal or what was rationed out to him. And so, so many things out in the real world no longer came from natural sources like this, only from the tubes that jutted out of the sides of dying Plants. It made Nicholas wonder if the talents and techniques for doing these jobs were being lost as those who used to live by them were now dying by the slow suicide of alcohol and idleness, helped along by malnutrition.

Once the heap of wool was washed and dried, Vash showed Nicholas the right flowers to crush and salt for a dye. The wool came out a soft peach color that made Nicholas think longingly of Milly and her love of beautiful things. Every day he found a new reason to wish she could be here. She deserved this more than he did.

Nicholas rubbed some dyed fibers in his fingers and noted, "You know how to make a hell of a lot of colors for someone who doesn't wear any."

Vash looked up from washing the dye off his hands in a basin and blinked at Nicholas. "Oh?" he said. "I just like black."

A lie. Everything Vash put his hands to came out colorful and vibrant, even his cooking.

"You in mourning or something?" Nicholas prodded.

Vash's gaze met his for a moment, then slid away. He didn’t answer.

Nicholas didn't push any harder.

-

One late afternoon found Nicholas sitting with Vash on the porch, struggling to master a drop spindle and failing miserably. He missed the step of carding the wool; his arms never got tired, so he could have done that forever. Twisting the carded wool into finished yarn was less about persistence and more about delicacy and balance. His tension was always wrong, his thread constantly lumping or breaking.

Vash glanced up from his perfectly even strand of locked wool fibers and said, "You're a hunter, right? So you never had to learn this? I remember they used to call this sort of thing womens' work."

Nicholas lost control of the spindle again and his scant few inches of yarn broke in his hands. He muttered a curse at it, then said, "I'm not a hunter by trade, I'm clergy."

"Really!" Vash said, perking up with curiosity. "Haven't seen you praying."

Nicholas snorted. "It's a technicality," he said. "I'm in the service of the God-Emperor, and I ain't gonna pray to him."

"The... who?" Vash asked.

"He who carves the land with a million knives?" Nicholas said dryly. "I know you live in the middle of nowhere, but it's hard not to know about him. For one thing, he's immortal."

Vash was silent for a significantly longer beat than Nicholas expected. He looked up at Vash, happy to abandon the damn spinning for a minute.

"Spikey?"

"Oh," said Vash. "Yes. I think I remember that now."

It was a weak attempt at a lie, not even a little bit of effort to sound sincere. Vash's resting facial expression was usually a mild half-smile, but even that was gone now. He was watching his thread with neutral concentration.

"Vash," Nicholas said. "How much do you know about how it is outside these woods?"

Vash was quiet for a moment, then said, "I hear things. My friend lets me know what she finds out."

Nicholas hadn't told Vash that he'd already met Meryl. He wasn't planning to. The deal that he and Meryl had struck would only upset Vash. So Nicholas said, "Well, if she doesn't actually leave the woods, she probably doesn't know either. Not many people come in, do they?"

"No," Vash said. "I - there have been a few, who I met before Zazie got to them. I helped them however I could, but they always wanted to press onwards and I couldn't... I'm not sure what happened to them afterward."

Bug food, Nicholas assumed.

"But it's been a while since the last ones came through," Vash said.

A while, he said. Sitting there all innocently, looking no older than his early twenties, offering no explanation or excuses about why the math made no sense. Nicholas knew Vash couldn't have run into travelers any more recently than a decade ago. Probably longer.

"These things I don't know how to do," Nicholas said, holding up a puff of wool and waving to encompass the surrounding field with its birds and gardens and apiary and millstone and drying racks - "I don't know because no one does these things. There are no sheep out there in the real world. They all got eaten a long time ago. No farms, no livestock - nothing grows and nothing can live. Not in quantity, anyway. The only reason people are still alive is because there are enough Plants that haven't died yet to keep us just barely fed. The specialty producers have all been broken back to the basics just to keep up with demand. Plants pump out food and water until they get sick enough that the Emperor's private forces show up to take them away and put them out of their misery. And we all ration our supplies out a little thinner and pray we can make it through another year. That's how the world works. And that's why I don't know how to fucking spin yarn, not because it's a job for women."

Vash's spindle hung from his fingers, slowing, unattended. He wasn't looking at Nicholas but he wasn't looking at his work, either. His gaze was unfocused, his expression blank.

After a beat too long, Nicholas regretted how heated he'd gotten. It wasn't like Vash had any control over the outside world, and Nicholas couldn't blame him for staying in his safe, isolated home. Even if he'd known that the rest of the world was suffering while he lived in prosperous abundance, that didn't mean Vash had enough to share with an entire population. He only barely had enough to share with one guest.

"I'm sorry," Nicholas said. "It's not - none of that is your fault. I wasn't angry at you."

Vash still didn't say anything, but he visibly swallowed.

"I can't do this," Nicholas said, twisting the wool between his fingers. He stood up and laid the spindle on his chair. "I'll get some dinner started."

Almost mechanically, Vash said, "You should try again when you're less frustrated. A clear mind helps a lot."

"Yeah," Nicholas said. "I'm sure you're right."

He went to collect some of the early-summer parsnips and mustard greens from one of the garden patches, but it did not escape his notice that before he walked away, Vash's yarn - which had gone lumpy - quietly broke.

-

Despite Vash's protestations that the bed was so much more comfortable than the futon on the porch and that as a guest Nicholas deserved the former, Nicholas truly couldn't tell a difference between them. They were both the most comfortable things he'd ever laid down on. He'd never had a problem waking up in the morning before living here. The futon was stuffed with dried grass and wool fluff, the pillows stuffed with down, and Nicholas never wanted to leave them.

Spring had absolutely shifted into summer, whether Nicholas could name the calendar day or not. The shady tree cover broke the growing heat, and every few days the sunshine gave way to long, steady rains that soaked the ground and kept the animals and plants all watered. The porch was deep, the futon backed snugly against the cottage wall, so no matter how hard it rained Nicholas stayed dry. He'd never found it comforting to sleep in rainstorms before - rain had always meant that he was going to be damp and miserable no matter what he did. But here, even if he was technically sleeping outdoors, rain couldn't touch him. He listened to its constant pattering and learned to relax to it.

Vash fussed about Nicholas being outside in all weathers, though. One warm, stiflingly still afternoon, Vash looked up at the steel-gray sky and said, "It's going to be bad tonight, Wolfwood. I really don't think you want to be out there."

"Well, I'm not swapping with you and sticking you out in it," Nicholas told him.

"Would you at least move inside?"

"I promise I'll be fine, Blondie," Nicholas tried.

"Please?" Vash said, looking at him with those eyebrows. Damn him.

So Nicholas hauled the futon awkwardly in through the door while Vash pushed tables and chairs into crowded corners to make space for it. The one-room home simply wasn’t big enough for two beds. “This is ridiculous," Nicholas said. "I wouldn't blow away. There's not even any leaks out there."

"Just let me have this," Vash groused at him. "I don't want to live with you being outside all night in a summer thunderstorm, okay? What if you got sick?"

"You absolute mother hen," Nicholas sighed, rolling his eyes.

Vash gave an exaggerated pout. Once the futon was settled, Vash said, "Oh, speaking of mothering, I think Rosa might lamb tomorrow or the next day."

"Yeah? Then cheese?"

Vash laughed. He went to the fireplace to stir the soup bubbling there. "Cheese in another couple of weeks," he corrected. "The baby needs milk first."

"Pssh," Nicholas scoffed. "Babies."

"Oh, you're going to love it. You'll be putty for a baby lamb," Vash said with smug certainty. "I can tell."

"What about me says I'm weak for cute things?" Nicholas demanded. "I eat cute things all the time. Show me a cute thing, I'll skin it."

Vash just looked over at him, those damn dimples going again, and said, "I bet you're good with kids."

Nicholas huffed.

"Tell me I'm wrong."

Nicholas collapsed back onto the futon and crossed his arms. Outside, the clouds finally broke and rain began to patter down. In the distance, a low rumble of thunder broke through the sounds of the forest. The guineas had stopped their constant squawking, probably hiding inside their sheltered scrapes. The sheep had a weather shelter, too - Nicholas had seen them sleeping in it, mounds of fluff all wedged in together with their noses sticking up. It was very cute. 

Nicholas conceded, "Kids haven't had a chance yet to do the things that piss me off. They deserve time to grow up and fuck up for real before they start getting punished for it."

Silence. Nicholas pushed himself up on his elbows to see that Vash was giving him one of those soft smiles - what Nicholas had started to think of as his real smile. It wasn't overpowering like his enormous beams, or a smooth mask like his resting expression, or the dead-eyed smile that screamed that he was lying. This one was almost uncertain, like Vash didn't know how actual happiness looked but he was trying, and it touched his eyes more than his other expressions ever did.

"There you go, Blondie," Nicholas said, and it came out softer than he meant it to. "Honesty looks good on you."

Vash's smile flickered and his eyes got wider, more vulnerable for a moment. His gaze darted to Nicholas' mouth for half a heartbeat. The cottage was warm; outside, rain fell harder.

Vash broke first. He turned back to the fire and said, "Why are you lazing around already, Wolfwood? Dinner's done."

So Nicholas got up and didn't push the moment, because Vash had clearly retreated. When Vash handed him a bowl of food, though, Nicholas brushed their fingers together. Vash smiled at him again, but it was one of the sunshine beams - too bright to see whatever was lurking behind it.

They ate and laughed about other things; they played chess with a set Vash had made himself from carved wood blocks and wool-felt figurines of animals. Outside, the thunder rumbled and crashed, and the rain whipped down nearly sideways. Nicholas thought that if he'd been outside, he might have gotten wet after all. He wondered aloud how the gardens would survive the beating. Vash gave him a little half-smile, endeared by the concern.

The cooking fire died down and Vash didn't stoke it again, just poked the embers. The air of the rainstorm was warm and humid, and a live fire made the cottage cloying. When it was late enough, Nicholas stripped out of his clothes to sleep in only his linen shorts, turning his back to Vash as he did so - a move that was nominally modest but which he knew would bring Vash's attention to his broad back and thighs. Even if Vash wasn't interested, Nicholas could still have fun teasing him like this.

Nicholas turned around to see how Vash was taking it. In the dimness of the cabin, Vash stood out as a void as dark as a starless sky, topped with a dandelion-fluff of spun gold reflecting the barest light from the glowing firebed. Nicholas felt himself freezing up, his intent to tease flung back at him by Vash's otherworldliness. Nicholas was once again reminded of his strong theory that Vash wasn't human.

After a moment, Vash said, "Good night, Wolfwood."

"Night," Nicholas muttered.

Vash went to sleep fully clothed.

-

Rosa went into labor after the rain stopped: two days later, just after dawn. Wind through the trees kept sending down great showers of water that made it sound like the rain was still going, but only inside the woods. Out in the watery sunshine, Vash had laid out a bed of dry hay for Rosa to do her business.

She bleated and moaned through the three-hour process, and since Vash was the only one who knew how to help her out, Nicholas was relegated to the task of comforting her. He sat on the ground, rain-dampness soaking up from beneath the dry hay to make his ass cold and wet, and held Rosa's head in his lap. He scratched behind her ears and rubbed her back, not sure he was actually helping.

Meanwhile Vash had his hands in unspeakable places and whenever he lifted them they were covered with a thick slime of mucus and blood that made Nicholas' stomach churn. He never stopped smiling, though. "Good presentation!" he said cheerfully. "Just helped move the neck a little, and unlocked an elbow. Rosa's got this, don't you, girl?"

The sheep yelled unhappily in Nicholas' face.

When the lamb emerged, Vash swiped mucus out of its nose and mouth with practiced motions, checked that it was breathing, then laid it next to Rosa's belly. He stood up, a mess of straw and gore, beaming. "All done!" he told Nicholas.

"Wait," Nicholas said. He looked down at the sheep. "Really?"

"Mm hm! I'll check that the afterbirth's passed in a few hours, but right now it’s just time for them to meet each other."

"She didn't really need us, did she?” Nicholas said, scratching her ears one more time before pushing himself to his feet.

Vash shrugged. "It went well when she birthed Tonis, too, so I wasn't too worried about her," he said. "But I've dealt with complicated lambings before so I don't like to take it for granted. It’s a girl, by the way. What do you think about Eunis for a name?"

On the hay pile, Rosa had sat up and started aggressively licking her baby, who squealed and flopped its terribly disproportionate legs, bewildered by being alive.

"I like Eunis," Nicholas said, and realized that Vash had been entirely right about him. He was going to let this baby sheep walk all over him and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Vash went on about his day like nothing much had changed, but Nicholas hovered near the mother and baby while he smoked a pipe and shelled a pile of spring peas. He found himself missing Angelina terribly. It was something that had been bothering him for weeks but which he kept to himself out of long habit. He knew she could take care of herself, that the forest had provided her plenty of food and water, and that at least while Nicholas had been around, Zazie hadn't hurt her. But that might have only been to screw with Nicholas' head. What if the Beast had already killed and devoured her? What if she'd broken a leg by slipping on the moss in some rocky dell and died slowly and painfully? What if... what if she'd made it all the way back out of the woods by some miracle, but had been killed for meat by townsfolk…? Or made it all the way back to December, so everyone there would think he'd died...?

He couldn't keep thinking about her. She'd be okay. Once he could get out of here, he might even be able to search for her. He should have asked Meryl if she'd look for Angelina while she was out roaming the woods. Maybe the next time he saw the fox, whenever the hell that might be, he could ask.

Nicholas sighed and rubbed his eyes. Out in the yard, Eunis the lamb had managed to wobble up onto her feet and fall down twice. He watched her for a few minutes, chewing idly on his dead pipe. Then he shook his head, knocked the ashes out, and moved on from the finished peas to the basket of peach-colored wool roving and the drop spindle he hated. He picked it up, twisted an end to the yarn, wrapped the spindle the way Vash had taught him to, and tried again.

First he rolled the spindle off the inside of his leg too hard and it spun right off the porch, trailing broken fibers after it. He cursed, fetched it, and started over. Too slow of a spin; weakly locked yarn that broke when he tugged it. "How," he growled at the damn thing.

"Wolfwood, bread's done," Vash called from inside the cottage. "I'm leaving sandwich things out for lunch, but I'm going to go wash first, I'm disgusting."

Nicholas started the yarn again. "All right," he called back, and his yarn broke as he wobbled the spindle too hard. "Hell with this," he said, and put all the junk back into the basket for Vash to deal with.

He got up and stretched, groaning. Vash came outside with a second set of black clothes tied into a bundle and the small sack he kept his soaps and washing-things in. "I'll be quick," Vash said.

"No need to rush," Nicholas told him. "You stink like blood, you need a good soak.”

Vash winced but laughed it off. "Yeah, birth is messy," he said, scratching the shorn back of his head. Nicholas had never seen him cut his hair; it was like it just grew that way. He had seen Vash shave, not that the fine blond fuzz on Vash's chin needed much effort. Nicholas' beard grew twice as fast and he had to fight with it all the damn time because he disliked the heat and itching of letting it grow in.

Meanwhile, Nicholas hadn't gotten a chance to cut his hair in a couple of months by now - maybe three - and it covered the back of his neck and tops of his ears in a way he didn't care for. Milly had cut it for him for years, since the first time he'd asked her to, after he'd strongly impressed upon her that he was not, nor would he ever be, pretty. She'd laughed at his threatening earnestness and said of course he wasn't, he was handsome; why would anyone think otherwise?

Longer hair made Nicholas slightly ill at ease, but he didn't mind it too much yet. Vash might be willing to take a whack at it with a sharp knife if Nicholas asked nicely. He’d tried cutting his own hair, rarely; it never ended well.

Vash said, "Keep an eye on Rosa for the afterbirth, all right? Once that's passed she should be all good, no chance of infection."

"I will," Nicholas promised.

Vash smiled and left down the path towards the bathing pool, waving over his shoulder.

Nicholas went in and idly put together a lunch of slabs of buttered bread loaded with aged cheese and pickled vegetables. He sat at the table inside to eat it, open door in the corner of his eye. He could hear Rosa and Eunis both softly bleating at each other as they adjusted to their new arrangement of being separate.

He finished his food and sat back so he could see better through the door. Both ewe and lamb were standing and moving around a little, baby bumping against mama's knees at every step, refusing to move far from a teat. The sight made him smile.

He couldn't stomach the idea of trying to spin again. He didn't like feeling incompetent. Instead, he moved away from the door long enough to find his pack, long since cleaned and repaired, to dig out one of his shorter hunting knives. On a shelf over the fireplace, Vash had set a small collection of interesting bits of wood, knots and branches he'd decided not to burn for firewood for whatever reason. Vash had already told Nicholas he was welcome to do anything with them that he felt like. At first Nicholas had been bemused: do what, exactly? There were endless chores to do and no point in sitting around fiddling with sticks that should have just been burned in the first place.

But by now he'd seen all the beautiful - and not-so-beautiful, wonky and imperfect - things that Vash could make. From untold years of harvesting and dyeing wools and crops of flax for linen, he'd spun every kind of yarn and thread, woven his own fabrics and shaped them into anything he needed and many things he didn't. He made soft little figures using wool felt and a long needle; he wove and sewed and embroidered; he filled his little house with color and life.

Nicholas couldn't get the hang of spinning to save his life, but he found himself wanting Vash to see him be competent at something for once. If not sword fighting, and if not hunting and butchering, then at the very least Nicholas still had one knife skill left to show off. He just hadn't done it in many years.

He picked a lump of wood that felt right. It had a marbled sort of pattern from a long-ago parasite or fungal infestation, which might have killed the tree but had left behind a crazed grain that looked good for his purposes.

He turned the wood in his hands, knife held lightly in his right palm, and considered where to start.

Until he was interrupted by an unholy, piercing scream.

Nicholas was out the door in a heartbeat, wood dropped, knife up. The yard was a flurry of movement, with loose, hollering sheep thundering off into the tree line while guineas made noises like the screech of twisting metal and scattered with explosive flaps of the wings they hated to use. At the center of the alarm were Rosa and Eunis, Rosa bleating her entire heart out at her baby - no, at the thing on her baby - and flinging her hooves and head forward to crush it or butt it or get it off of her lamb somehow.

Eunis was the one screaming, a sound that made Nicholas' stomach turn to ice because he had never known an animal could sound so much like a human child. The lamb staggered and fell, thrashing, as a dark green-and-black thing with too many legs and eyes and segments crawled onto her back and clung, wicked-looking, dripping mandibles spreading wide -

Nicholas snatched up the lamb in one hand and ripped the monstrous insect off her with the other, just as the mandibles snapped shut with a loud clack. Its claws had been buried in her skin and as they tore free they left bleeding streaks that made her cry even harder. Nicholas dropped her back to the ground, conscious enough of her safety to try to be gentle but also acting too fast to put much thought into it, and then he grabbed the giant centipede-thing's head just under its weeping mandibles and twisted.

A spray of ichor rained down from the headless thing. Nicholas dropped its head and stomped on it, crushing the mouthpieces into fragments, and he went to his knees with the still-squirming body and held it to the ground so he could stab, stab, stab into it until it finally stopped moving.

Shaky and breathing hard, Nicholas stood up. He looked at the mess on the ground, then at the ichor on his hands that burned and stung. He dropped the sticky knife and turned to the sheep.

Rosa had fled completely. She was cowering with a couple of her herd-mates beyond a distant fence. Eunis couldn't seem to stand up, and her screams had turned into low, moaning bleats that Nicholas didn't like the sound of at all.

"No," he said, kneeling by her to look her over. The scratches weren't too deep, but - there was a deeper cut along her neck that hadn't been from a clinging centipede leg. The insect's snapping bite as Nicholas yanked it away must have caught her.

"No, no, no," he kept muttering, picking her up and holding her with one hand while he darted up to the porch and into the house. "Vash!" he yelled uselessly, knowing the man was too far away. Nicholas knew where he kept his medicinal mixtures but he only knew the ones for numbing and clotting - not the ones for poison - if there were any for poison -

Eunis' breathing was getting shallower, and Nicholas wasn't going to do nothing. The bathing pool wasn't that far. Nicholas dumped a load of parsnips out of a basket, shoved the entire shelf-load of ointments and salves and things into it, held the lamb close to his chest to keep her steady, and set off from the cottage at a dead sprint.

He'd been down the path enough times to know when to jump over a root and which spots were deep enough to be muddy from the rain. His boots still skidded in the damp earth as he pushed himself faster, feeling Eunis' breath going thin and slow against his chest. Was the poison paralyzing her? It seemed like her legs had gone stiff.

The pool was just up ahead - Nicholas could hear the patter of the short waterfall - he rounded a high shrub -

"Vash!" he bellowed.

There was a splash as Vash jumped in alarm and slipped off whatever rock he'd been sitting on near the waterfall. He vanished beneath the surface for a second before popping back up, spitting, hair stuck to his face. He shook his head wildly and looked across the pool to Nicholas, who was sliding to his knees by the water's edge.

"What?" Vash called, looking between Nicholas, the lamb, and the spilled basket of medicines. His eyes went wide and his shoulders surged into motion to propel himself through the water. "What?" he yelled again.

"The Beast," Nicholas panted, "Crawling thing, size of my arm, bit her - poison - she's poisoned -"

As Vash surged out of the water, pulling himself forward with his right hand, Nicholas realized that he'd gotten himself across the pond on the swimming power of one arm. The wooden left one was missing. And as Vash pulled himself completely onto the shore, Nicholas realized… Vash had no feet. One leg ended just above the ankle, the other above the knee.

And the rest of him...

Vash heaved himself over on his one knee and dropped to his opposite hip to sit, muddy hand already reaching for the lamb. "No," he said, feeling her chest for movement. Her breathing had stopped. "No - there's a heartbeat but her throat's closed - the swelling -"

"Tell me what to do," Nicholas demanded.

"Open her mouth -" Nicholas held her jaw and Vash jammed his finger onto her tongue, pushing it down. "I have - did you bring - there, there, the one in brown glass - I need a pipe, or a reed, or -"

For two harrowing minutes Vash directed Nicholas to uncork medicine, strip a reed stalk down to a short tube, and hold the lamb still while Vash struggled to do something fiddly with her open mouth that looked impossible to manage with one hand. He filled the reed with liquid from the bottle, thumb over one end, wiggled the reed deep and blew through the tube into her throat. He caught a breath, refilled the reed and pushed it deep with a wince, and did it again.

"Tongue's going blue," Nicholas said, struggling to keep his hands steady.

"I know," Vash said, throat thick. Whatever he was trying was clearly not working. ”Not like this, please not like this," he told the lamb, and dropped the hastily made reed-tube in the mud.

"Vash," Nicholas snapped. Now wasn't the moment to break down.

"Stop," Vash said, and the first tear rolled off his face. "Stop, give her to me."

"If you're not even going to try -"

Vash forcibly took the lamb out of Nicholas' grasp, holding her to his chest with his one hand, balanced by the stump of his other arm. He clutched her tight, face streaking with tears.

Nicholas had been looking at Vash this whole time, but he hadn’t let himself really see him. Sitting there hugging a dead lamb, soaking wet and smeared with mud, Nicholas finally got to see what was under the mourning clothes.

Vash was a wreck. Nicholas couldn't find an inch of skin outside his face and hand that wasn't scarred all to hell. Some of the injuries looked to have removed entire chunks of flesh, leaving behind craters and gouges in his body. Some of the scars had the tell-tale marks of old sutures, some didn't; some were pale and some were an angry red, as though they'd never fully healed. Small bits of metal littered Vash's skin, and Nicholas realized they were bolts or closures that must have once held pieces together, or maybe pinned bones in place. And his missing limbs...

They were... not entirely gone, anymore. But unlike the charmed bundle of twigs that Vash usually called an arm (and, Nicholas supposed, also a foot and a leg), the vines that were now steadily growing out of Vash's stumps were black as pitch and moved with unnatural grace. They twisted and twined into each other, forming a knee and two feet; an elbow, a forearm, a hand - and while they grew, they thickened and creaked with a sound like wind through distant branches.

And then, they bloomed.

Nicholas fell backwards on his ass in his haste to get away. Dark violet blossoms budded and split open along Vash's vine-limbs like open sores. Pricks of light collected in the flowers' throats like dew. Vash shifted to kneel in the muddy grass by the pool, newborn lamb still cradled to his chest, two hands now doing the cradling. Nicholas could feel a power that crackled in the air itself - it tasted like hot iron against the back of his tongue, made the hairs on his arms stand up. Vash's hair started to lift from his face and head as though drawn by invisible static.

Soft indigo light danced around the lamb's neck. Vash leaned his head down and pressed his forehead against her tiny body.

And - as fast as it had all begun, it stopped. Vash's hair regained its usual weight and fell across his face. The thick, electric feeling in the air vanished. The blooms on Vash's limbs slumped, the lights inside them winking out, and they began to drop petals which drifted into thin smoke before they even touched the ground.

And Eunis bleated once, loudly, and wriggled out of Vash's hands. She dropped to the ground, stood up on shaky legs, and wobbled a couple of steps towards Nicholas before plopping down again.

There wasn't a scratch on her.

"Vash?" Nicholas asked, throat bone dry.

Vash looked up. Nicholas’ heart was still pounding like a drum, but he realized in that moment that Vash wasn't frightening - he was frightened. Naked, terrified, and... faintly glowing. Thin blue lines formed intricate markings inside and around his eyes. They were fading fast, but Nicholas got a perfectly clear look at them.

And he recognized them. Plant markings.

Vash had never looked so vulnerable or so stricken. His expression looked almost like grief, even though it was obvious that Eunis was fine now and the crisis was over.

“What are you?” Nicholas croaked, as the markings faded to a faint glimmer in the whites of Vash's eyes.

Everything eldritch had vanished except for Vash's new vine-limbs. He looked down from Nicholas and seemed to just now notice them. He spasmed all over. He grabbed his left arm with his right one and started yanking on it and viciously twisting it, muttering, "No, no -"

"Hey," Nicholas said, scrambling to intercept. "Hey, stop. Vash. Stop!" He grabbed Vash's flesh and blood wrist, pulling it away from the black-vine limb.

Vash could only give a weak moan of protest.

“It’s a hand, isn’t it? Like your other hand?” Nicholas asked.

“Don’t look,” Vash rasped. “Don’t look at me.”

Nicholas let go of Vash’s wrist and held his head instead, pale face framed in dark hands. He put his face close to Vash’s and said, “I’m looking and I don’t see anything wrong.”

Vash’s face crumpled in abject misery. He was trembling hard. His breath hitched.

“Why would Zazie,” he rasped between heaving breaths. “They’ve never… before… I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry -“
“Hush.” Nicholas tried to rub his fingers on Vash’s head comfortingly, but something made his hand slip. He pulled his hand back to look and saw a few strands of Vash’s hair clinging to his damp palm. They were long like the puff on top, but dark like the color of the short area. Nicholas shook them off; he already had enough things to worry about. “You’re okay,” he told Vash. “And the bugs are just dicks. Don’t worry about them, they're just fucking with you like they did to me.”

Above them, a mosquito-whine of a voice some distance away spoke up and said, “Tsk, tsk. That was a waste of power.”

Nicholas instantly craned his neck up to see. Above them, sitting midair with crossed “legs,” was the Beast in their buzzing mask of many eyes.

Nicholas jerked into motion, immediately letting go of Vash and looking for something to throw. But the Beast just stretched their legs out and pretended to stand. Nicholas could see the bugs that formed its body crawling into the different positions.

“No need for more wasted effort," said the Beast. "I’ll go. But, Typhoon - tell your vixen to leave me alone, or next time it'll be her.”

With a nauseating buzz and whine, the Beast rose higher and darted away towards the trees, losing form as they went, until what disappeared was nothing more than a cloud.

Next to Nicholas, Vash had slumped sideways to the ground, his wet hair clinging to the muddy bank of the lake. He made a faint sound like he was trying to talk. Nicholas leaned over him, faces close. "Vash?" he asked, putting a hand on Vash's shoulder.

"Mer'," Vash mumbled.

"I'll warn her," Nicholas said. "Hey, stay awake."

"W'wood," Vash hiccuped. Then he passed out with a sigh.

"Ah, shit," Wolfwood muttered, shaking the unresponsive man. "Dammit, Blondie -"

Next to him, Eunis gave a demanding baa and bumped her nose against his hip. It made her fall down again. Her white legs were all dirty by now from mud.

"Fuck," Nicholas groaned. "Okay. Give me a minute, kid."

He gathered the scattered bottles and jars of medicine back into their basket, trying to wipe off as much dirt as he could. Then he bent over Vash and grabbed both his arms to pull him up - but the black-vine limb cracked dangerously in his hand, and chunks broke and flaked off. He laid Vash back down and took a closer look. The vines were turning from a living blackness to a dark, dry gray, crackling as they slowly lost integrity. While Nicholas watched, Vash's vine-foot fell off.

"Well," Nicholas said. "I guess you'll be lighter."

He waited for the vines to fully disintegrate, trying to rinse Eunis' feet in the meantime. She was sounding more and more upset. Dying probably made a baby hungry. God, Nicholas couldn't think too hard about what all had just happened or he would need to scream, and he didn't have time to indulge in screaming right now.

Once the vines were all ash, Nicholas hauled Vash up onto his shoulder, Vash's head hanging down Nicholas' back. Nicholas had to hold him firmly by the top of the thigh to keep him from slipping, and under any other circumstances Nicholas might have gone warm in the face from the proximity of Vash's bare ass. But right now the scars were vivid in Nicholas' vision, and Vash was soaking wet and growing cold.

Nicholas couldn't get the man, the lamb, and the basket all at once, so he settled for a hunched, miserable walk back to the cabin with an unconscious Vash over one shoulder and a squirming, bleating lamb clutched firm under his other elbow.

Rosa could probably hear her baby from a mile away, and once the cottage came into view, she was there at Nicholas' feet hollering just as loud as the lamb. He squatted and put the lamb down next to her.

"Here," he said. "All fixed."

They did a wobbly little circle around each other for a minute as Rosa tried to sniff and lick her baby while Eunis tried to chase the teats that kept moving. Finally, Rosa stopped and Eunis latched on and settled in for the long haul.

Nicholas hupped Vash more firmly onto his shoulder and made his way to the cottage porch.

He didn't want to put Vash in his bed all muddy, so he lowered Vash to the futon instead, then went to grab some water and a rag. He wiped Vash down, disregarding the dirt that got on his own sleeping spot. Once Vash was clean, Nicholas picked him up again - under the shoulders and his one knee, this time - and carried him indoors to his bed.

Vash was cold to the touch and shivering hard by now. Nicholas wasn't sure if it was from the open air on his wet skin - but that seemed unlikely, since the summer air was warm, and the pond wasn't particularly cold either. It seemed more likely that Vash was in some sort of shock from whatever he'd done. Nicholas didn't understand it, but it was clear that Vash had given something to the lamb, maybe something he'd had to take from himself - and maybe he shouldn't have.

Nicholas pulled the thin summer blanket up to Vash's shoulders and cursed, looking around for the thick winter quilt Vash had packed away a couple of weeks ago. He hadn't seen where Vash had stored it. He went to the fireplace instead, poked up the embers that were still smoldering from Vash's morning baking, and added some logs until he got a decent blaze going.

The bed was too far from the fire for an immediate effect, though. Nicholas went back to Vash, who had curled up small under the blanket, shuddering and jerking in his unconscious state.

"Dammit," Nicholas said, and stripped out of his clothes. They were covered in mud, lamb blood, and ichor. He'd feel bad about the mess on the floor later. In just his shorts, he climbed onto the bed next to Vash and pulled him close, wrapping his arms around Vash's chest and holding tight to his chilly, clenched hand.

As the fire slowly rendered the cabin sweltering, Nicholas willed his body heat into Vash and finally allowed himself to think.

The first thing he let himself think about was the lack of anything besides a patch of fine blond hair between Vash's legs. It was impossible to tell, among Vash's absolute mess of scar tissue, whether any of the ones on his chest were similar to Nicholas' own. But Nicholas couldn't help the way his heart pounded at the thought that Vash might be like him. Nicholas had never known anyone like him before.

He was so full of questions... and a strange, fluttering feeling in his belly that wasn't lust, although his physical attraction to Vash hadn't wavered. This felt like protectiveness. Like the clenching in his chest when he looked at Milly or Livio or Miss Melanie. It was almost a sense of urgency, or desperation. A need to stay close and help them however he could.

The other thing Nicholas finally let himself think about, as the afternoon wore on and Vash's shivering slowly eased, was what he'd seen out there by the pond.

The show of impossible power. The markings on Vash's skin.

He mulled over everything he'd heard - Zazie's taunts, Meryl's lies of omission, Vash's half-truths. And, as much as he didn't want to, he came to a conclusion that was the only one that made sense. It was a ruinous thought. He hated it. But the more he thought it, the more true he knew it was.

Vash was the thing the God-Emperor wanted. The hoard of power, the source of the magic that kept the Forgotten Woods alive. Vash was the thing the Emperor thought Zazie had stolen, but they hadn't. Meryl had become afraid for Vash's life as soon as she'd realized that the members of the Eye had been unknowingly searching for Vash all along.

And Vash... somehow... was the Typhoon. Vash, who was in perpetual mourning, who did not kill any living thing, who was impossibly old, had done... something... fifty years ago, which had resulted in the destruction of July - and the beginning of the blight.

Vash had damned the entire world to a long, slow death by starvation.

And Wolfwood feared that even knowing that wasn't going to be enough to stop him from falling in love.

-

Chapter Text

“Vash? Vash!”

Distant yelling drew Wolfwood up from an uneasy dream of sitting in a clearing, unable to move because his legs were broken and mangled. They didn’t hurt. The bones that jutted out of his flesh gleamed a clean white.

On the other side of the clearing, dark violet flowers had begun to bloom. They’d slowly whispered open, one by one, a wave moving towards him - and he’d known that if they reached him, something terrible would happen.

He blinked, and the dream faded quickly. In the real world he was still lying in Vash’s bed, and beneath his broad arm Vash had somehow squirmed himself around to face Nicholas’ chest. Blond hair ruffled gently beneath Nicholas’ exhales, and between their bodies Vash’s hand was pressed against Nicholas’ collarbone. It was all very warm. Nicholas’ back and face were dewed with sweat. Vash seemed drawn into the heat, his breathing deep and easy. He wasn’t unconscious with shock anymore, just asleep.

The dim, yellowish quality of the light outside said it was already evening. Nicholas muttered a curse and focused on extracting himself from Vash’s bed without waking him. If Vash had had more limbs to cling with, Nicholas would have had a harder time, but as it was Vash’s single hand could only twitch and vaguely reach out as his heat source retreated. Vash’s face scrunched momentarily. Wolfwood tugged the blanket up higher around his shoulders. Vash grumbled something incoherent, sighed, and slid back into deep sleep.

Nicholas turned to the side and dropped his feet to the floor. He rubbed a finger into the corner of his eye, looking with dismay at the heap of filthy clothes and boots in front of him. Vash had only resized the one set of clothing for him. He didn’t want to go around in nothing but underwear, though, so he would have to resort to what was left of his own clothes.

“Vash?”

The voice outside sounded a lot closer. Nicholas looked up at the open door, realizing he recognized it.

He went to his pack and grabbed out the wad of clothing - cleaned, at least, but not exactly intact - that he’d been wearing when Vash took him in. He hauled the pants on, the one ripped leg flapping open, and went to the door still working the fasteners.

Meryl was out in the yard, trotting full-speed towards the cottage, looking like she was on a mission. She was wearing her white cape and carrying a big bundle of things in her arms, including the basket full of medicines that Nicholas had abandoned at the pond. All around her, the guineas were shrieking and running to hide. Well, in their defense, she was a fox.

She opened her mouth and started once again to yell Vash’s name.

Nicholas jumped off the porch and strode towards her, whisper-yelling, “Shh! Keep it down.”

Meryl stopped abruptly in her tracks, staring at him. Nicholas realized belatedly how he must look, emerging from Vash’s house with a glower, no shirt, and half-fastened pants. He hurriedly tugged on the shirt he’d grabbed. It was full of boar-tusk holes and rips, but better than nothing. Meryl looked vaguely horrified, like she hadn’t quite decided how to react yet.

“He’s asleep,” Nicholas told her, which didn’t really help his case. He gusted out an annoyed breath and said, “And I’m not - I didn’t do anything to him.”

“What?” Meryl yelped, eyes widening. “No! I don’t care if, I mean, that’s, he can -” She broke off, puffing with annoyance. She raised her bundle, which Nicholas realized also included the clothes and toiletries Vash had taken with him to the pond when he’d gone to wash. “I found all this,” she said, “and I was worried something had happened!”

“Something did fucking happen,”  Nicholas said, and she looked taken aback by his acid tone. “The Beast happened,” Nicholas told her. “Because they were warning Vash to warn you to stop poking your fuzzy little snout in their business. You’re not very good at sneaking, are you?”

“What?” Meryl asked, a dozen different emotions chasing each other across her face. “What do you mean, Zazie happened? What did Vash -?”

“He fucking -“ Nicholas waved his hands uselessly, “- lit up, and turned into a, a tree-person or something, and bloomed all these damn purple -“

“What?” Meryl said, choked, and her armful of things slid to the ground.

She looked horrified. Devastated. It made him pause.

Nicholas looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Pick those up. Gonna get dirt on his clothes.”

“I -“ she whispered, and looked down at the pile. “Oh,” she said, and grabbed up Vash’s clothes, holding them tight to her chest.

Nicholas sighed and stooped to gather the things that had spilled out of the basket yet again. “Why don’t we do a question for a question again,” he said, “but this time, you tell me the whole God damned truth about who and what Vash is.”

For a moment it looked like Meryl was going to rally. Like she might actually come up with some retort, her scrappy claws out and teeth bared, ready to fight Nicholas for Vash’s honor. But then her struggling expression collapsed into exhausted worry, and Nicholas realized that she wasn’t the same as she had been when they’d talked in the clearing weeks ago. She was haggard in a way that spoke of lack of sleep combined with constant motion. Nicholas recognized it from himself.

Meryl hugged Vash’s clothes tighter and said, “I need to see him first.”

Nicholas sighed. “Don’t wake him up,” he said. “I don’t know how much rest he needs after something like what he did, but I figure more is better.”

“It is,” Meryl said, falling in next to Nicholas as they both walked back towards the cottage. “He’s slept for weeks before.”

“Oh,” Nicholas said. “Well, I might wake him up before that.”

“Sometimes it’s harder than you’d think.”

They both fell silent as they entered the cottage. On the bed, Vash had rolled over again and pushed the blanket most of the way down his torso, like he was finally too hot. The fire had died down but the house was still baking.

"He'll smother in here," Meryl whispered, frowning at Wolfwood.

"He was freezing before," he snapped back, also in a whisper.

She made a face at him and then turned back to the bed, bare feet padding silently over the floor. She laid Vash's clothes gently on the foot of the bed, looking up at him. Her hand raised momentarily, as if thinking of touching - but stopped midair, fingers drawing back.

Nicholas put the basket of medicines on the table, gathered his filthy clothes from the floor, and said, "C'mon, leave him."

Meryl reluctantly followed Nicholas back out of the cottage. All her fight seemed to have left her. The faint purple of exhaustion bruised her eyes. She sat on the edge of the porch, hugging her knees.

Nicholas sighed at her. “Feelin’ talkative yet?” he asked.

“No,” she said stiffly. “Just… give me a minute, would you?”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, resisting a headache, but gave her her space anyway.

Nicholas drew some water from the big, covered tub in the yard that held what Vash used for wash-water. There was a well nearby with a pump handle - charmed, like so many of Vash's things were, to make the pumped water clean and safe to drink - but the big tub with the wooden cover didn't need to be drinkable. It was for rinsing off sweat, washing dirt off vegetables, and watering the garden plots.

Nicholas filled a smaller basin from the large wash-water tub and dropped his clothes in. He searched around until he found the ribbed washboard and the soap, then settled down to do laundry the way Vash had showed him how to.

The only sound between them was the rhythmic splashing of suds as Nicholas worked the blood and grime out of his clothes. Meryl watched him for a while, then stood up and wandered. She peered inside the door, as though hoping Vash had woken, but when it was clear he hadn't, she stepped off the porch and started walking around the yard, bending over plants here and there, touching leaves, smelling flowers.

When Nicholas had gotten the clothes clean and the water changed out for rinsing, Meryl approached him again, this time with her hands full of guinea eggs. She said, "Can you cook? Sometimes after… things like this… he won't eat. For a long time."

He looked at her and at the eggs. He supposed she was a fox, and she probably ate prey animals out in the woods. Her nature was to bite the life out of smaller things and swallow their meat and blood still hot. No wonder she didn't live with Vash and share his meals. She looked so fragile, holding a handful of eggs and asking for help.

"Yeah," he said. "Can you rinse these and hang them up?"

She nodded, and they switched tasks.

Nicholas took the eggs inside. He didn't want to stoke the fire again in the hot cottage, so he filled Vash's small pot with the eggs and enough water to cover them, dug out a pit in the crackling embers, and wedged the pot into the hot coals. Eventually they'd be cooked enough to peel. He didn’t need to do too much else to gather a decent meal. The morning’s bread was already made, and it only took a minute to load the table with jam, pickles, and cheese. He went back outside to pull some of the late radishes, and washed and trimmed them. Vash liked them raw.

Meryl finished the laundry at the same time Nicholas finished laying the table. Despite all their walking around, creaking the floorboards, Vash still hadn't roused.

On the porch, Meryl said, "Come with me to the trees? I want to collect some wood for his arm."

He nodded and followed her.

Under the twilight shade of the trees, in the falling evening, Nicholas finally started talking. He told Meryl everything that had happened in the last day, what Vash had done and what Zazie had said. She only interrupted him once, to quietly point out which sizes and shapes of twigs were best for Vash's charm-work. He'd collected a hefty armful by the time he was done with his explanation.

"This is plenty," Meryl said, looking at the load of branches they had between them.

“Zazie called him Typhoon. You know I can do some basic math here.”

“Hm.”

"You got anything else to say?" Nicholas asked dryly.

"It's not my place to tell you everything," she said, not meeting his eyes. "It's his life story and he's older than I am. But yes, Vash was living in July when… then.”

"Is that when he got all those scars?" Nicholas asked.

"No," she said simply, and started walking back towards the cottage.

"He's still wearing mourning," Nicholas said. "Fifty years on."

"If he wore black for a year for every person he lost, he'd still be wearing it when the sun dies," Meryl said.

Nicholas fell silent. Vash had lived in July. And with what he knew of the man... there's no way Vash caused the Typhoon on purpose. He clearly blamed himself for it, for whatever reason, but Nicholas couldn't wrap his head around something that cataclysmic being Vash's sole fault.

When they reached the house, night had fully fallen. Meryl's white cloak stood out, tinted blue by the darkness. It made Nicholas think of the color of the markings in Vash's eyes. The color of healthy, fully functional Plants, ones who weren't blighted or sick.

Meryl paused in the doorway, blocking Nicholas’ entry.

“Move it, short stuff,” he said.

"You're awake!" she cried, darting into the room.

Nicholas stepped inside and saw that Vash was blinking blearily at Meryl, still rubbing his eyes with his raised hand. "Meryl?" he whispered.

Nicholas watched her lay down her bundle of twigs at the foot of his bed, by his clothes, and then fling herself onto him for a hug. He gave a soft oof. She started murmuring to him, a mix of apologies and worry, and he wrapped his one arm around her narrow shoulders and murmured back, "It's okay, I'm glad you're safe, it's fine."

Nicholas looked away from them, stomach twisting. He laid his own burden down and went to the fireplace to pull the pot of eggs out of the coals and stoke up a small flame so they could have some light. Once it was going, he used a spill to light a few candles as well. He really wanted a smoke, but he'd been faithful about not doing it inside the cabin for weeks now, and he found himself unwilling to let Vash out of his sight.

"Wolfwood," Vash croaked.

Nicholas didn't react to him immediately. Instead he went to the table, poured a cup of water from the pitcher, and brought it over to the bed. He held it out without a word.

Vash slowly blinked at him, reached out and took the cup. He just held it. "Thank you," he said. "For getting me back here."

"Drink," Nicholas said, nodding at the water. "You sound like one of the damn birds."

Meryl nudged Vash's shoulder for emphasis, and the man finally took a sip. "Thanks," he whispered again.

"Do you want to do your charms first, or should we bring you dinner in bed?" Meryl asked.

"What?" Vash asked, looking helpless.

"Food," Nicholas said shortly. "You need it."

"I... I'm not really hungry, it's..."

"Don't make me force feed you," Nicholas said bluntly.

Vash stared at him, mouth falling slightly open.

"And I'd help him do it!" Meryl piped up. "Come on, get dressed and get your arm on and eat, you'll feel better. Please, Vash."

He looked between both of them. Wolfwood crossed his arms. Finally, Vash crumbled under the weight of their care, drank the rest of his water, and handed Meryl the cup. "Give me a minute," he mumbled.

Meryl leapt off the bed, took Nicholas by the elbow, and pulled him to the door. "Come on, give him some privacy," she hissed up at him.

"Now who's the prude," he said, entertained by her confidence that she could drag him around as if he weren't allowing her to do it.

"Don't be an ass!" she snipped.

Behind them, Vash softly laughed. The sound undid a knot of tension that Nicholas didn't realize had been building up in his shoulders. He'd grown so used to Vash's smiles and energy that seeing him... lose himself... had twisted up something deep inside Nicholas' core. He let the small weight of Meryl's hand on his arm draw him along until they were sitting on Vash's porch chairs.

Meryl said, "You know, there's mud all over the futon. Isn't that where you're sleeping?"

"Shut up," Wolfwood said, and she shrugged.

They waited for a polite enough length of time, listening to the rustle of fabric and the click and clatter of sticks. It was still too early for the moon to be up, so the yard was washed in deep darkness, the only light from above being the faint glow of the stars. Out in the dark, the yellow-green pinpricks of fireflies began to flash on and off. Gentle yellow firelight leaked out to the porch from the open door and window.

Quietly, Meryl said, "Wolfwood... thank you."

"Hm?" He looked at her.

"For staying with him," she said. "And for caring."

He could only meet her huge, soulful blue eyes for a moment before looking away. His stomach was tied up in so many knots. Vash was his prey, his mission - full of volatile power, maybe the key to healing the world, to saving Milly and Livio's lives and so many others - but he was also Wolfwood's friend, now, and kind and gentle, and excruciatingly undeserving of being hunted like an animal or of being handed over to an authority that would surely kill him.

Wolfwood didn't know what to do.

After a little while, the floorboards inside began to creak with footsteps. Footsteps meant feet, and feet meant Vash's charm-work was done. Nicholas stood from his chair and moved into the door frame, leaning on the wood.

Vash stood there looking as normal as ever, all four limbs complete, once again shrouded in his black tunic and pants. This time he hadn't bothered putting socks over his feet, though, and the wood-on-wood sound of his steps was more of a scrape than his usual muffled thumps. He ran his hand through his hair, giving Wolfwood a sheepish smile that just barely sunk one of his dimples into his cheek.

The desire to kiss him hit Nicholas with an urgency that hurt. His stomach cramped and the breath left him. His skin tingled and itched with a desperate want, not necessarily for sex but for contact, just to tear the tunic back off over Vash's head and get to touch his ruined skin and hold him until the fear and uncertainty had nowhere left to live inside Wolfwood's crawling skin because he would be filled with Vash's warmth instead.

Meryl pushed past Nicholas' elbow, swatted him for being in the way, said, "Vash," and threw herself at him for a proper hug. He hugged her back, breaking eye contact with Nicholas so he could pick her up, laughing.

"I'm so sorry," Meryl said, though she'd already apologized. "I had no idea Zazie would -"

"It's okay, look, I'm fine," Vash told her, smiling. He set her down. "It got a little hairy but Zazie didn't manage to hurt anyone."

"That's not what Wolfwood said," Meryl objected, smacking Vash on the chest. "He said Zazie killed a lamb and you brought it back."

Vash's eyes flicked back up to Wolfwood's. After a beat too long, he said, "Ah... can't hide anything now that I'm outnumbered, can I?"

Nicholas' heart thudded sickly. He broke from Vash's eye gaze and went to the table instead. He said, "Get over here and sit down, Blondie. It's been all day, you need to eat something."

"Yes!" Meryl said, pushing Vash by the hip.

"All right, all right," Vash conceded with a laugh, and allowed himself to be pushed into a chair and be presented with a plate of food.

Nicholas gave Meryl the other indoor chair and pulled one in from the porch for himself. Vash had four total, two at his table and two outside - as though to always have a spot ready for a friend. This wasn't the first time that Nicholas had thought about the loneliness of keeping empty furniture cleaned and ready for people who would never come, but it hit him even harder now, knowing all that Vash had lost. No wonder Meryl had asked him to keep Vash company, even for a little while.

Vash picked at his food, but ate enough to satisfy Meryl, at least. She tried some of a radish and wrinkled her nose, mostly sticking to eggs herself. Nicholas had to wonder how her digestion worked between her two forms. Was she a fox who became human, or a human who became a fox? Her preference for animal protein suggested the former. He wondered where she was from, and if there were more like her. Perhaps she was dreadfully lonely, too.

Nicholas ate mechanically, barely tasting the buttered bread with preserves as he watched Vash retreat into his happy, smiling shell. When Meryl asked about the lamb, he dodged the issue at hand and started talking about the mechanisms of anaphylactic shock and his medicines instead, and musing about what sort of poisons or chemicals Zazie's monsters carried.

Nicholas interrupted him mid-sentence. "None of that's the point," he said bluntly. "You brought Eunis from the dead. My understanding of magic has always been that that's impossible."

Vash's smile faded. He looked at Wolfwood for a moment and said, "I didn't heal her from fully dead. Her heart had only just stopped, and there were still electrical impulses in her brain. You can bring a human back from that with the right sort of electric shock, too."

Nicholas glowered at him. "You didn't give her a shock," he said shortly. "You resurrected her. She didn’t have a mark on her. And I know Plant markings when I see ‘em."

Vash broke eye contact and looked away. "Yeah," he said.

"So you have the powers of a Plant?" Nicholas pressed. "How did you get them? Is that what's kept you alive for so long?"

Vash blinked and looked back at him, mouth ajar. "Oh..." he said quietly. And then, "No... Wolfwood, I'm not a human who took this power somehow. I was never human."

Nicholas waited.

"I am a Plant," Vash said plainly.

Nicholas stared. He huffed and rubbed his eyes, trying to squeeze out the headache starting to form. He looked at Meryl instead, who just nodded. He looked back at Vash.

"Plants don't look even remotely human," Nicholas said, "and you..."

Vash raised a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "I was born this way," he said. "From one of the silent sisters. Me and my brother. We've always been free to walk and talk and make our own decisions. But we can do a little of what Plants do, too - make matter out of nothing, take and transfer different sorts of energy. And we're both strong with magic."

"Brother," Wolfwood said, mouth dry.

"Yes," Vash said. He looked sad. "My twin. Nai. But he rejected that name."

Nicholas couldn't taste the food he'd just eaten anymore. He dropped the piece of bread he'd been holding, unfinished. He swallowed hard.

"He started going by Knives a long time ago."

Nicholas stood abruptly from the table, chair legs scraping the floor. His heart was thundering, his mouth tasted sour. He said, "I can't -" But he didn't even know what he couldn't do. Hear this? Believe it?

Sit at a table and break bread with the God-Emperor's twin brother for another moment?

Think about what any of this meant without screaming?

He left. It was all he could do, as his mind raced and his feet seemed to move of their own accord. He needed... he needed Milly to talk to, or a sparring partner to fight, or a simple and destructive task he could lay his hands to until his body was too exhausted to hold any more confused emotion. He missed his horse. He needed to press his face into her neck and breathe until he calmed down.

It made a grim sort of sense that the Emperor had never made it known to the Eye of Michael that what they were really searching for was his twin. It opened the Emperor up too much to being understood as a person instead of a god; it gave the Emperor a face, when he took great care not to have one. His spiked, many-eyed masks had changed over the years, but never into anything that looked even a little bit human. He rarely appeared and never spoke aloud, anyway, leaving all the declarations to his Voice, Bluesummers.

So, assuming they were identical - under the blades and the armor and the greatcloaks, behind the layers of grandiosity and intimidation - the God-Emperor Millions Knives was nothing more than a thin, pale, blond man, barely taller than Nicholas? Of course the Emperor could never have let his underlings see him like that.

And… Wolfwood had never been more filled with leaden certainty that if the Emperor got what he wanted, the world wouldn't be healed. If the Emperor was like Vash - functionally immortal, and with command of powers that maybe really did make him a god - then the blight itself didn't make sense. Nothing made any sense outside these woods. Nicholas had thought it was the inside of the Forgotten Woods that was full of madness, but maybe it wasn't - maybe this place was the last bastion of sanity in the world, the last place where things worked like they were supposed to. Where green things grew in the ground and water flowed downhill and the only bullies were insects. Where the only people for miles around were kind, and generous, and forgiving - and so lonely, because the world was so broken, and maybe there really was no way to fix it.

The Nicholas of four months ago had always felt like the world was a wide-open, endless space, thirsty and starving but still alive, and the Forgotten Woods were a beating heart of hope that only needed to be pierced to release a flood of life back into the world. Now, Wolfwood found himself feeling the inverse. That the woods were the whole world, or all of it that mattered, and it was small and green and still breathing, but it was being slowly crushed by the infinite rot encroaching from outside. A green heart inside a squeezing fist. And if that rot reached the core - reached Vash - then whatever chance of salvation the world had left would be snuffed out.

Nicholas had made it into the cover of the trees, scattering slow-moving fireflies as he crushed through the undergrowth. His shoulder hit a tree trunk and he stopped and leaned there, breathing hard, fighting back the hot thickness clinging in his throat and chest. He wished to God he was more cruel than he was. He wished he was like all the other members of the Eye, their minds scrubbed of guilt, confident in their preemptive absolutions, incapable of feeling the concept of sin. If he could be like that, then he could make this choice and live with himself. But he couldn't.

If he could convince Vash to come with him to December… fulfill his mission, deliver his mark… Milly and Livio might be saved. At least for now. The world might still end, a slow and crippling exit for the human race as they finally dried up and blew away, but at least for a while... Milly and Livio and Miss Melanie and the orphanage and all the citizens of the realm would live at least a little longer. See a few more sunrises. Eat and laugh again. They deserved that.

But convincing Vash to go with him to December would be monstrous. He didn't think he could pull off a deception like that, or go through with a betrayal that cut that deep. He'd known other members of the Eye who enjoyed baiting starved dogs into violence by taunting them with bleeding prey. He imagined taking Vash up to the steps of the cathedral and leaving him there, a scarred rabbit in front of a fanged mass of predators.

He was one of those predators. He'd come into these woods as a wolf, not a man. And Vash had bared his throat by taking him in, trusting him, teaching him... sharing bread and laughter and work... singing to the night sky while a monster slept in his bed.

"Wolfwood?"

Nicholas jumped, turning his back fully to the tree he was leaning on. Having something solid at his back made him feel safer.

Vash's footsteps in the forest floor were nearly silent. A candle bobbed through the darkness until Vash drew close enough for the light to bring him into focus. His brows were drawn down.

"Here," Nicholas croaked.

Vash moved towards him. He looked so sincere in his concern. It hurt, it hurt, Wolfwood wanted to scream at him not to care so much, not to love what didn’t deserve it. Vash said, "Meryl left for the night. The moon's rising, it's late... I think you should come get some sleep. Hard things are easier to talk about in the morning."

Wolfwood choked out a laugh. "That's shit," he said, hoarse with unshed emotion. "It's always easier to tell the truth in the dark. Daylight is for lying to yourself.”

Vash stepped closer. “Wolfwood,” he said quietly. “Please come back.”

Nicholas pressed his hand to his face and said, slightly muffled by his palm, “When you took me in, the injuries - I can heal from a lot, but not…” He heaved in a breath and dragged the words out of himself. “You did it to me, too, didn’t you?” he asked. “You brought me back.”

Vash stopped. For a long minute, he was silent, his face drawn into a look of pain. At last he said, “You weren’t gone… not completely. I didn’t really bring you back, but… I couldn’t let you go.”

Nicholas' eyes stung. In his core, he felt that cousin of rage once again.

“I know you don’t like being magicked,” Vash said. “I’m so sorry.”

And the awful thing was, he meant his apology sincerely. Wolfwood knew that. “Why?” he asked, cracking. “It takes something out of you, doesn’t it? Something that never comes back. And you wasted that on me.”

“It’s never a waste,” Vash objected, stepping even closer again. He was within Nicholas’ arms’ reach now. He held the candle a little to the side, so there wasn’t a live flame blocking the space between them. “Everything deserves to live,” Vash said. “No one has the right to take the life of another.”

Wolfwood squeezed his eyes shut against Vash’s eyes reflecting the firelight. “I have,” he said. “You must know that. You’re not a fool.”

“I know,” Vash said. But he didn’t sound disappointed or accusing. Wolfwood blinked his wet eyes open to look at him again. “But everyone deserves to live,” Vash said. “And that includes you.”

Wolfwood stared at him, fury clawing helplessly at his guts, drowning in Vash’s conviction. “Why?” he asked again, but he meant it more broadly this time.

Vash’s tongue momentarily touched his lips and he said, “When I saw you, after Meryl led me to you… I knew you had fought so hard. You never gave up. And I’m a coward, because I stopped fighting a long time ago. I know everyone deserves to live, but more than that…” Vash let out a small sigh, taking one last step towards Nicholas, close enough to feel the air moving with his breaths. “I saved you because I’m selfish,” Vash confessed, barely above a whisper. “Because I thought, he’s so much stronger than I am. And so beautiful.”

Wolfwood closed the distance between them and only hesitated for a moment with his lips a hair’s breadth from Vash’s. Vash's free hand came up to brush over the curvature of Nicholas’ cheek and jaw as he pressed their lips together. Nicholas found Vash’s waist and held on tight, pressing into the kiss like he was poisoned and Vash was the antidote.

It was stupid, it was impossible. Nicholas knew this was a mistake, that it would hurt him and that it would hurt Vash more, but right now it hurt so much worse not to. Vash tasted of bread, the staff of life. He was Wolfwood’s salvation and Wolfwood was the snake in his garden, but none of that mattered, because Vash’s body was close enough to hold, his mouth was warm, his hand was in Wolfwood's hair, and he was making a small sound in his throat like eagerness or impatience.

Wolfwood pulled back and said, “Don’t drop the candle, I don’t want to be interrupted by a forest fire.”

Vash’s eyes crinkled as he breathed a laugh. “Come back to the house,” he said, taking Wolfwood by the hand.

Wolfwood let himself be led.

His heart had slowed its racing from a panicked horror down to a simpler thrum of anticipation. It still sat high in his throat, though, and it felt like he studied the back of Vash's head for a year while they crunched through the leaves towards the glow cast by the cottage windows. Behind them, fireflies resumed their lazy patrol of the tree line. Guineas had started to return to their scrapes after being scared off by Meryl, and they warbled sleepily at Vash and Nicholas' passage.

Up the step to the porch, and then through the open door. Vash blew out the candle and set it on the table to cool. The light from the fireplace was dim, dying down without new fuel. Nicholas felt too warm, but the fire wasn't entirely to blame for that.

Vash turned back towards him, pulled him close, and the next kiss was anything but sweet.

Nicholas drank Vash's urgency in and returned it in kind. Every thought of complication, mission, power, or betrayal fell out of his head as soon as Vash opened his mouth and made it clear that he knew what he was doing and what he wanted. His sweetness sometimes came across like naivety; he dashed that notion into oblivion with the movements of his tongue, the press of his hips, and the hands that pushed Nicholas' shirt up without hesitation.

"Bed?" Nicholas asked against his mouth, breathless.

"Wait," Vash said, hands suddenly tightening on Nicholas' sides.

"Vash," Nicholas said, almost groaning. His lips were still tingling and he ached to push Vash down and smother him in touch.

Vash let go of Nicholas' waist and put his hands on Nicholas' face instead. He leaned close, foreheads nearly touching, as his thumbs brushed Nicholas' cheekbones. "Do you want this?" he asked, voice taut.

"You have to be kidding me.”

"I'm not human," Vash said quietly. "I'm not like what you think I'll - I have scars, and I -"

"I've seen you," Wolfwood said, closing the distance and dragging Vash into another kiss.

Vash kissed back needily but he broke it too soon. "I know," he said. "But I didn't get a say in that. And it's been a long time."

More than fifty years, Nicholas realized with a jolt low in his stomach. And he thought he'd been in a dry spell. He struggled for words but all he could manage was the truth. "I want you," he said, strained. "Vash - I don’t care about - about anything, I don’t want to think about any of it, I just want you -"

Vash made a sound like Wolfwood had knocked the air out of him, dragged him back into a rough and insistent kiss, and walked them to the bed. To Nicholas' mouth he said, "Stay, stay with me," between kisses, and Wolfwood replied, "Not going anywhere, Spikey."

Nicholas' hand roamed down Vash's back and Vash grabbed it to draw it lower, firm in what he wanted. Nicholas grinned into the kiss and squeezed his handful. Vash’s ass wasn’t as flat as his everyday clothing made it look, and the curve fit perfectly in Nicholas’ palm. Vash's knees bumped the bed and he sat abruptly, pulling Nicholas down on top of him. Nicholas straddled Vash's thighs and ground against him, his tongue dragging along Vash's teeth, Vash's hands pushing up his shirt again to drag fingertips through his chest hair -

And - Wolfwood paused for a moment, a realization hitting him as he rolled his hips against Vash's again. There was a shape there that had absolutely not been there before. Vash was getting hard.

"Wolfwood," Vash said, pressing up, "please..."

"What's," Nicholas started, "uh, what are you -" He brought his hand between them, feeling the front of Vash's pants.

Vash's expression shifted, his lips pressing together as he closed off. "Don't worry about it."

"What d'you mean, don't -"

"Not yet," Vash said, pulling Nicholas' hand away and holding it tight. "Please?"

He didn't know exactly how to react, but - Vash's eyes were pleading and storm-dark, and Nicholas wanted to tell him that whatever shape Vash was didn't really matter to him, he was only confused because there definitely hadn't been anything there before - but explanation died in his throat. "Whatever you want, Spikey," he said. "Tell me what you want."

"To see you," Vash murmured.

A little unfair, Nicholas thought, a little one-sided, but even as he thought it he was already pulling his shirt off. He'd almost forgotten he was still wearing the boar-ruined clothes. One of the tears ripped wider in his urgency.

Vash shifted under him and Wolfwood let him stand and swap their positions. At Vash's insistence, Wolfwood collapsed onto the bed and lifted his hips to let Vash tug his pants and shorts down. Naked, the air in the cabin wasn't too warm at all - the breeze through the open door brushed Nicholas' skin and he shivered, strung taut and sensitive from arousal, from the hungry way Vash was looking at him and then touching him, balancing over Nicholas on his wooden hand and roaming his chest with the living one.

"Can you feel...?" Vash asked, brushing over Nicholas' nipple and looking up at his face.

The zing was powerful. Nicholas hadn't really thought his chest was that sensitive before. He nodded, unable to speak. The surgery had left his nerves connected; one of Conrad's ironic little kindnesses.

Vash leaned down to kiss his chest, taking a nipple in his mouth and laving it with his tongue. Vash’s warm fingers explored further, tracing his navel and following the trail of hair down to his cock, which was straining up. At the first stroke of Vash's finger, Wolfwood gasped out loud, unprepared for how good it felt to be touched by a hand other than his own.

Vash moved to the other nipple and kept exploring, fingers slipping below his dick and into the soft warmth of his folds.

“Wait,” Wolfwood gasped, tensing with abrupt discomfort.

Vash froze, raising his head to look at Nicholas’ face. His fingers stayed where they were, petting but not going further.

“Nothing inside,” Nicholas said. He meant it to sound confident and nonchalant, but he could hear the pleading in his own tone. He winced.

“Oh?” Vash blinked, as if he’d expected worse. “Of course!” he said. “Just tell me what you want.”

“I don’t -“ Nicholas looked at him for a moment, unable to think. Finally, he managed, “You can fuck my ass, but nothing in the front, that’s all.”

Vash blinked again. This time he removed his fingers, hand coming back up to Nicholas’ waist. “Do you want that?” he asked.

Nicholas tried not to squirm, already missing the heady heat of a moment ago and wishing they could skip this part. “It just,” he said, “it hurts there.”

“Oh…” Vash furrowed his brow. “No, I meant do you want me in your ass?”

“I -“ Nicholas’ turn to blink. “I’m fine with it, just slick up with something first.”

“I didn’t - do you want it?”

Nicholas squinted at him. “Ass doesn’t hurt, and the front does, so yeah, that’s what I’d rather.”

“Wolfwood,” Vash said, finally exasperated, “I don’t need to fuck you anywhere. If you want me to fuck you because it feels good to you, then I will, but I’m happy not to.”

Nicholas’ mouth opened - then closed again. He’d never had the right kind of cock to do the fucking, so he’d always been the one fucked, and it had always been a chore just to convince whoever he was with that the hole supposedly “made for it” was off limits. He’d adjusted to taking a cock in his ass years ago, finding it a perfectly acceptable trade-off for a hand on his dick at the same time or a mouth afterwards. Vash was noticeably hard, so presumably had the right kind of cock for… he’d just assumed…

“I -“ he started, heart thudding unpleasantly. “I don’t -“

Vash’s expression fell and then softened, and he dipped his head to take another kiss. Rough and hot again, re-centering them in the moment, the urgency that was trying to slip away. Wolfwood kissed back, grateful for the reprieve from explaining himself in ways he’d never even thought to question.

“What I want more than anything right now,” Vash said against his lips, “is to taste you. Can I?”

All Wolfwood could do was nod feverishly. He understood that.

Vash kissed his jaw, his neck, the dip of his throat, before finally sitting up and moving down the bed. He held Wolfwood’s hips, thumbs rubbing into the dips at the tops of Wolfwood’s thighs. His flesh hand was warm and soft, his wooden one cool and hard, and the contrast made Nicholas’ skin prickle with confused excitement.

Vash settled himself so he could lean down, breath suddenly warm and humid against Nicholas’ hardness. Nicholas twitched, feeling himself leak a little; he’d never been this worked up from sheer anticipation and kissing before, and he was as turned on by the circumstance as he was frustrated by the desire to be touched more.

“Perfect,” Vash said, apparently to Nicholas’ dick, and then he drew his tongue up its length before closing his lips around it and -

Wolfwood cried out, one hand flying to Vash’s hair, the other gripping a wad of sheet. He spread his legs as wide as he could, letting Vash shoulder his way in. It might have been a long time for Vash but whatever he’d learned in the past must have stuck, because he was doing things to Wolfwood that he’d never felt before. Vash was generous with his tongue and saliva, opening his mouth wide and pressing his whole face into the act of licking, sucking, swallowing, and giving Nicholas a scalding cavern to fuck into. When he retreated to just sucking on Nicholas’ cock it was almost too much, the pleasure stinging sharp and high over the low, throbbing swell of need that was slowly building in his hips and stomach and spine.

Nicholas had paid for the privilege of losing his virginity, and the woman who’d taken the job had called his dick cute. She’d also called his other parts words that still felt like brands in his memory - hot, weeping sores of words that he couldn’t even think without seizing up. And she’d treated him gently, like he might break.

After her, he’d avoided sleeping with women, even though on the surface he found them just as attractive as men. Men he’d slept with had called what was between his legs all kinds of things, too, but they usually said it with a meanness that was almost comforting. When they aimed to shame and mock, Nicholas knew how to shut them out or shut them down, and only take what he needed from the encounter. Brutality made sense. It was different if someone was aiming to comfort him. To coddle. That hurt.

He’d had partners who were game enough to give sucking his dick a try before. A couple had even managed to finish him off without him needing to intervene with his own hand. He’d always been a novelty to them, and they’d acted like they were doing Nicholas a favor by even being willing to experiment. None of them held a candle to Vash.

Vash didn’t treat him with any delicacy at all, didn’t act like he thought Nicholas would break; but neither did he treat his actions like an attack, a confrontation that he needed to win. He didn’t aim for simple efficiency, either. He didn’t seem to have a single thought in his head besides hunger.

Wolfwood felt the low throbbing starting to unfurl heat through his limbs like embers stirred up from the bottom of a fire. He was making sounds he would feel undignified about in any other circumstance, but - he couldn’t think, every tiny shred of his consciousness was centered on the lips and tongue and hints of teeth that were working him into a mush of nerves and pleasure and dripping, open wetness. Vash’s tongue lapped through his slit, remaining politely outside his hole but not avoiding it either, apparently starved for the taste of his slick, and that thought alone made Wolfwood pulse out more of it, which made Vash moan and double down.

“Vash,” Wolfwood gasped, bucking his hips up. He pressed on the back of Vash’s head, holding him down, and Vash moaned again, jaw wide, the whole flat of his tongue drenching Wolfwood’s slit and cock. Wolfwood had never felt before like he was so close to actually fucking someone’s throat. The fire in his hips and belly had also never stoked this high before breaking, and he felt unmoored, unsafe, wildly out of control.

Vash made a wet, choking noise in the back of his throat while he worked, and the combination of hot suction, the brush of teeth, and the thought of Vash gagging on his cock finally threw spark to tinder. Wolfwood all but screamed as the fire tore through him, as much pain as pleasure, spasms rocking his core. His scalp even tingled with pleasure, it was so much. And Vash kept working him through it, tongue busy, while a pressure that Nicholas didn’t understand kept clinging on just below his navel, almost like a full bladder but not exactly - and he held onto it, held it back, panting loud, until Vash sucked him just right and made a noise that sounded like pleading - and then Wolfwood was coming again, close on the heels of the first one but this time with a very physical, totally unexpected gush of release that had him crying out and begging for Vash to stop, stop, stop.

Vash let his cock go but remained at his slit for another moment, licking up whatever the hell had come out of him. Wolfwood’s face was scorching hot as humiliation started to set in, along with confusion. Had he just pissed on Vash, why was Vash still going, he’d never come that hard or twice, he was dizzy from exhilaration, he was dizzy from the letdown of it finally being over, he was shaking from the fact that even after all this time his ticking bomb of a body could still do things that he’d never even thought of, and he didn’t know if it did those things because he wasn't man enough or was the wrong kind of man, and he hated it when his body surprised him, usually, but now he felt so good and Vash -

Vash was next to him, actually, holding him while he shook. Wolfwood realized, belatedly, that he was crying. He was gulping rough, wet, unsteady breaths and clinging to Vash’s wooden arm so hard that twigs were crackling. He let go abruptly, horrified.

“Sorry,” he croaked. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh.” Vash pressed his face to the side of Nicholas’, and when Nicholas finally dared to look at him, he looked… dreamy. Hazy-eyed and slack with pleasure. “You’re okay,” Vash murmured, and in one way it was a little like being coddled, but instead of feeling like a twisting knife in Nicholas’ guts, this coddling made something inside him stretch out towards it like a flower seeking sun. “You can’t hurt me,” Vash said, rubbing Nicholas’ chest with his artificial hand. The barklike texture was odd but the coolness was soothing.

Nicholas pulled him in and kissed him hard, still struggling to wrap his mind around what had just happened. Vash's chin was wet, his lips salty. It didn't taste bad, which made Nicholas' stomach settle a little. Vash let himself be pushed onto his back and rolled on top of, and being out from beneath the weight of another body helped to calm Nicholas' nerves even more.

Vash even kissed dreamily, now. Like he'd gotten something out of sucking Wolfwood off that Wolfwood didn't understand. His experience of sex was mostly transactional and turn-based, one person's pleasure being another person's work. But Vash was flushed dark and breathing raggedly, and Wolfwood wanted nothing more than to finish taking him apart.

Wolfwood pushed his hand under Vash's tunic, feeling the lumps and runnels of his scars. Vash's hand found his and gripped it through the cloth, his belly jumping under the touch, and he broke the kiss to say, "Just kiss me, please, don't worry about me."

"I'm not worried," Nicholas said, frustrated. "I want you to feel good."

"I do," Vash said. "I do, I promise."

"Please," Wolfwood begged. "Vash, please, I want to touch you, please let me."

Vash wavered, finally meeting Wolfwood's eyes. His reluctance made perfect sense to Wolfwood, and it was why he couldn't just let Vash hide himself without pushing back. Nicholas recognized it; it seemed so much like his own tortured relationship with his body.

"You said when you saw me hurt, you thought it meant I was strong, because I’d fought,” Wolfwood pleaded. "Don't you see that it's the same?"

Vash's blush went darker, his eyes wider. If anything, he looked near the verge of tears. He shook his head jerkily and said, "It's not - I came here, I hid from being hurt again, I gave up -"

"If I'd ever had somewhere like here to hide from being hurt, I would have," Wolfwood told him. "Anyone would, Vash. You deserve not to hurt, you deserve good things - to eat and laugh, to not be alone -"

A tear escaped the corner of Vash's eye as he shook his head against the pillow. "I know what I did," he croaked. "Nothing can ever make it right, I can't..."

"I don't care what you did," Wolfwood said, and kissed him. Vash gave a soft sob into his mouth. "I don't care," Wolfwood repeated. "I've killed and you don't treat me like a monster."

"You aren't," Vash said, thick and wet.

"Neither are you."

Vash crumpled. He turned his head away and tears pooled against the side of his nose, and Wolfwood kissed beneath his eye and then moved to his jaw and neck, nosing at Vash's earring.

"Please let me touch you," Wolfwood begged again. "Just a hand, and you don't have to let me look."

Vash's breath hitched. He tilted his head up to give Wolfwood more access to his throat, shuddering in some muddled combination of arousal and misery. Wolfwood kissed his throat and held his waist and wished so hard that he could be enough to drive the misery away.

At last, Vash heaved in a deep breath, made a noise in his throat, and grabbed Wolfwood's hand to shove it down the front of Vash's pants. The decision he'd reached couldn't be clearer.

Wolfwood murmured "Thank you" into the hollow of Vash's throat and started to feel around for where to start. Under his palm he felt the immediate presence of a cock, or at least something close enough to one as to make no difference. It felt more or less like other cocks that Nicholas had handled, except its shape thinned towards the tip and it felt quite wet and soft all over despite being hard enough to stand up. It was a little thinner than the average, maybe, but Nicholas didn't have a huge amount to compare it to.

It would do. Wolfwood fitted his hand around it and pulled upwards, and Vash's reaction told him all he needed to know: it gave pleasure. Nothing else about it really mattered.

Wolfwood moved to Vash's side, lying down next to him and using his free hand to draw Vash back into a proper kiss. He worked Vash's cock firmly and steadily, not teasing but also not rushing, and Vash kissed him hard and bucked his hips into the motion. After a minute, Vash raised his leg over Nicholas' knee to get even closer, his breath coming in choppy gasps.

"Could you -" Vash panted. "Faster - please -"

Wolfwood made a sound almost like a growl and picked up his speed. He was getting turned on again just from the sounds and faces Vash was making. Maybe he understood Vash's reaction to sucking dick more than he'd previously thought.

Vash made a strangled noise and abruptly shoved down the waist of his pants, shimmying to get them below Wolfwood's hand. It gave Wolfwood more freedom to move, and he jerked Vash's slick cock hard and fast.

"Ah!" Vash spasmed, grabbed a fistful of Wolfwood's hair in one hand and his shoulder with the other, and he pressed close and stilled and moaned long and loud as he finally spent himself over Wolfwood's knuckles.

Shuddering, Vash released his death grip on Wolfwood's hair but left his hand there, carding through the dark, too-long strands. His face was ruddy and streaked with sweat and tears, and he looked like he might cry again, but instead he only leaned his face to Wolfwood's and closed his eyes.

Vash was so trusting, it made Wolfwood ache. He set his damp hand on Vash's bare hip, tugging them close together, chests touching, legs entangled, ignoring the mess for now. He was curious, of course, about whatever was going on between Vash's legs, but he didn't try to look. He didn't want to push further than was right. Looking at Vash's face was engrossing enough, anyway.

After a long minute of catching his breath, Vash opened his eyes and met Wolfwood’s. They lay in wordless silence for another moment, and then Vash idly scratched through Wolfwood’s hair again and asked, “Are you all right?”

Wolfwood gave an incredulous snort. “Am I?” he asked.

Vash’s mouth curled up in a small grin that was only pretending to be bashful. He said, “It seemed like you were… taken by surprise, that’s all.”

Wolfwood’s face grew hot. “I - that was new on me, yeah,” he admitted grudgingly.

“Never made someone squirt before?” Vash teased. “Seem like you’re the kind of man who’d pride himself on it.”

Wolfwood’s mouth drew down tight, and he said, “Never slept with women much.”

Vash seemed to understand where he’d misstepped and he let it go. He kept playing with Wolfwood’s hair, and the slow, gentle rasp of his short nails on his scalp was enough to make Wolfwood forgive a multitude of sins. “Do you want it to happen again?” he asked instead, voice going darker.

With an even hotter face, Wolfwood licked his bottom lip and said, “Wouldn’t mind another anatomy lesson, Blondie.”

Vash smiled, one of his real ones. His cheeks pushed his eyes nearly closed and he pulled Wolfwood in for another kiss, hampered by his inability to stop smiling.

After some time, Wolfwood finally accepted the reality that his hand was wet and cold and getting sticky, and that he couldn’t do much of anything else until he did something about it. He pulled back from Vash, his lips tingling and oversensitive, and said, “Hold on, I need to…” He scooted back and sat up, leaning over the edge of the bed to grab his boar-ripped shirt to use as a rag to wipe his hands. When he looked at Vash again, he froze with the shirt mid-scrub between his fingers. Vash’s pants were still low enough to see between his legs, and there was nothing there again but blond hair.

Vash could only laugh at whatever Wolfwood’s face must look like. Cheeks flaming, he hiked his pants back up to his waist and turned his face into the pillow.

“Could I get a little explanation, maybe?” Wolfwood asked, exasperated. “Not askin’ for every single detail here.”

“It’s sheathed again,” Vash said, muffled by pillow.

Wolfwood tossed the shirt back to the floor and laid down again, pulling Vash close by the waist and throwing his bare leg over Vash’s clothed one. “Sheathed?” he repeated. He looked down the length of Vash’s black-shrouded side and murmured, “You know, I’ve heard really terrible bards call a cock a love-sword before, but I didn’t think it was so literal.”

Vash gave a startled, undignified hrk noise, then started laughing, slow at first but building to an irrepressible giggle-fit that just made Wolfwood want to hold him tighter. He grinned into Vash’s hair.

By the time Vash had laughed himself to exhaustion and Wolfwood had kissed the laughter-tears off his face, the fire had died down to nothing but a few glowing coals and the night air was cool enough to ease the stifling warmth in the cabin. Vash eased out of the bed for a moment to go blow out the other lit candle on the table. When he came back to the bed, he stood there for a moment, looking down at Wolfwood.

Wolfwood looked up at the bright spots of Vash’s light hair and pale eyes in the dark, his vision adjusted enough to see that Vash’s face was drawn with care and longing. Wolfwood didn’t say anything. Lying naked in the man’s bed already said everything he could want to say.

Vash raised his hands to the neck of his tunic and pulled it up, shucking it off over his head to reveal the scarred torso Wolfwood had already seen. Where his wooden arm attached to his flesh, there were small raised lines under his skin, like roots under soil. Everything strange about him was also so beautiful.

Vash climbed into the bed, pants still on, and pulled the thin summer blanket up over both of them. He met Wolfwood’s eyes again. He didn’t have to say a word aloud for Wolfwood to know what he was asking. Will you stay?

“As long as you want,” Wolfwood whispered.

-

Chapter Text

Movement at his side nudged Nicholas awake from a deep, dreamless sleep. He cracked his eyes, expecting sunlight but finding none. Through the square window, the black of night was just beginning to lighten to gray.

Vash was sitting up next to him, on the edge of the bed, silently pulling on his tunic.

Wolfwood hummed and reached out for a handful of black fabric. He let it slide through his fingers.

Vash turned to look down at him, and his open, easy expression erased Nicholas' worry. He smiled and leaned down to say, "Sorry, I tried not to wake you."

"Mmm," said Nicholas, which he hoped translated well enough to stay.

Vash brushed his living fingers over Nicholas' head, pushing back his hair, and leaned down to kiss his temple. "I'm always up at dawn," Vash said, sounding amused. "Old habit. Sleep as late as you like."

"With you," Nicholas mumbled.

Vash moved his kiss down to Wolfwood's mouth. "I'm not going far," he promised.

Vash stood and walked away. It was true that he'd always gotten up first, making his rounds of the homestead to check on the animals and do some garden work while it was dark and cool. Nicholas lay there and watched the light in the window ease towards sunrise, listening to the distant sounds of Vash walking around in the yard and the opening volley of squawks from the guineas.

Then he blinked and it was late morning, bright and warm. He sucked in a breath and rolled his head over. He hadn't meant to go back to sleep, but maybe yesterday had taken more out of him than he'd thought. He blinked at the ceiling, clearing blurriness from his eyes, and tried to remember the dream he'd just emerged from. It was sliding away fast. All he remembered now was looking up and seeing vast, empty sky. It had been months since he'd seen more than gaps through the canopy.

Something smelled good. Wolfwood groaned and pushed himself up onto his elbows. At the fireplace, Vash looked up at him and grinned. "Good afternoon," Vash said, his tone teasing.

"Shuttup." Nicholas grimaced and swung his legs out of bed. He was quickly reminded of how naked he was. He blinked down at his crotch, yawned, and scratched his neck, before getting up and stretching his arms over his head.

A glance at Vash showed that the man was not unaffected by the display, but even with pink cheeks he was still determinedly focused on whatever he was cooking. Nicholas snorted at him and went out into the yard to see if the clothes Meryl had hung up yesterday were dry.

He came back in, dressed, and shared a late breakfast with Vash at the table. They didn't speak beyond talking about the food. Vash still preened when Nicholas complimented his cooking, but everything felt different now. Loaded and uncertain.

Finally, fiddling with a cup of one of Vash's many varieties of herbal tea, Wolfwood said, "Are we gonna talk about it?"

Vash sipped from his cup, sitting forward in his chair and bouncing one knee in a gentle but incessant rhythm. "Hm?" he asked, face neutral.

"Vash," Wolfwood said. A hint of begging.

Vash looked into his cup. One of his curiously-prominent incisors caught his lip for a moment. He said, "Which part?"

Nicholas looked at him for a long moment. There was the matter of who Vash was. And there was the matter of what Vash... what they both... wanted. Wolfwood had a terrible feeling that the two things couldn't coexist for long.

"I...," Wolfwood tried. "I'll run out of time. Eventually."

Vash bit his lip again. "When?"

"Harvest," Wolfwood said quietly.

Between them, words hung unspoken. Stay? As long as you want.

Vash emptied his cup of cooled tea. He pushed the cup back and fiddled with his left hand, picking at the bark. Nicholas wondered if it felt like picking at scabs, or if the wood had no sensation at all. Finally, Vash said, "Midsummer."

Wolfwood made a questioning sound.

"Summer solstice," Vash said quietly. "It's in eighteen days. I'll tell you everything then." He looked up, eyes pleading.

Nicholas swallowed. "And what do we talk about before then?"

Vash offered a small smile, as sad and pleading as it was sincere. "Anything else?" he said.

"Last night?" Wolfwood suggested.

Vash's smile warmed, lost some of its sadness. He huffed a laugh. "Eighteen days of uncomplicated?" he asked, tilting his head in challenge.

"We can do that," Wolfwood said, mouth too dry despite the tea, wishing he could say that he wanted to have uncomplicated for so much longer than that, that he didn't ever want midsummer to come, that he didn't want to know anything else about Vash except what made him feel good. But he didn't need to say it. It was clear that Vash already knew.

Vash's teeth touched his lip again, followed briefly by his tongue. His gaze wandered down to Wolfwood's mouth. "When does uncomplicated start?" he asked.

Wolfwood stood up and pulled Vash out of his chair and towards the bed. They both tasted like breakfast and berries and mint tea.

Vash still didn't fully take off his clothes, but Nicholas spent a lot longer this time with his hand down Vash's pants while they kissed, feeling the shape of everything and getting intimately familiar with Vash's process of 'unsheathing.' Wolfwood knelt over Vash, pressing down his hips with his own weight and devouring Vash's mouth while he found out that Vash did have something like a cunt, actually, shallow and too tight until his cock slid out and left a deep, hot cavity behind that took Wolfwood's fingers easily. Vash cried out and squeezed hard around his fingers, and there was definitely something else very inhuman happening down there because too many wet, curious tendrils kept ticking Wolfwood's hand in a way that was definitely not just pubic hair brushing against him, but... Wolfwood didn't care. He only stopped fingering Vash when Vash begged to come, and it became clear that his cock, just like Wolfwood's, was the primary source of his pleasure, and that he couldn't generally come from internal feeling alone.

When Vash took his turn between Wolfwood's legs - again with his mouth - it was just as good as the night before, although Wolfwood didn't let out one of those bizarre gushes again. He was glad for it, honestly. It had felt incredible but also terrifying, and he just wanted his body to be familiar to him, damn it. Vash still treated his hole to a delicious amount of attention while not pushing inside, which made Wolfwood so much wetter than he was used to. It was the most he had ever been listened to during sex, and he felt like it might kill him.

"You have to let me taste you someday," Wolfwood panted after he finished.

Vash sat up and wiped his chin, pink-faced, and said, "I don't know if you want -"

"I'll decide what I want," Wolfwood growled, and Vash made a startled little sound that he caught and swallowed fast, but which made Wolfwood's chest warm. He knew he'd win this one, and soon.

But for the moment they were sated, the sun was high, and time flowed onward with or without them. The sky was bright and beautiful and there were chores to do. Everything felt like a dream.

Vash properly washed his face and splashed Nicholas from the basin, and then shrieked with laughter when Nicholas chased him down to drag wet hands through his hair to make it stand up. They checked on the birds, the gardens - the sheep, most importantly of all. Rosa bleated at them placidly while Eunis nursed, and Vash gave them all vast amounts of ear scratches and back rubs, pressing his smiling face into their short, soft coats.

In the afternoon, while Vash sorted and re-shelved all his scattered medicines, Nicholas almost tripped over something on his way to the fireplace with a fresh pot of water. He cursed; Vash laughed at him. He danced his fingers over the back of Vash's neck, which he'd learned was ticklish if touched lightly enough, and Vash gave a yelp and ducked the abuse.

Nicholas looked around for what he'd stepped on and found the chunk of wood he'd taken off Vash's shelf... yesterday? Only yesterday? It felt like a year had passed in a day. His stomach soured as the weight of everything that had changed in twenty-four hours bore down on him. But there was no point in dwelling on it now; they'd chosen their eighteen days of peace, and he didn't want to waste it.

He picked up the piece of marbled wood and turned it in his hands, his original idea finally returning. He went and found his knife. It needed a proper cleaning; the blade was sticky and there was ichor staining the wood grain of the handle.

While he scrubbed his knife with a wet cloth at the table, Vash spoke up. "Wolfwood, when you said that - that you have pain, in your -" He glanced over and met Wolfwood's raised eyes. "Front," Vash settled on.

Wolfwood grunted noncommittally.

"Is it only when something's inserted?" Vash asked.

Wolfwood raised an eyebrow.

Doggedly, Vash pressed on. "Do you have a burning feeling or any blood when you urinate?"

Wolfwood raised both eyebrows.

Vash scrubbed his face, looking pained. "Please?" he asked.

Wolfwood gave in. "What of it?" he asked shortly. "I took a lot of alchemical treatments for a long damn time. Some of 'em did things I wanted, some of 'em left me with problems." He shrugged. "There's worse things to live with." He glanced pointedly at Vash's inanimate hand.

"So you..." Vash trailed off, giving Wolfwood a long, caring, almost stricken look. "I can make you a medicine," Vash said, finally. "A salve. I know it'd be uncomfortable, but... if you could put it inside, once a day, for a week or maybe two, it'll help. No pain or bleeding anymore."

Nicholas sat there looking at him, taking in this information. It didn't want to sink in. He'd just... always been this way. It was fine, because he'd gotten what he needed out of all the medicines, all the procedures, and he'd always thought the negative tradeoffs were worth it. And Conrad had said it was normal to feel pain -

Conrad had said.

"It looked to me like mucosal tissue atrophy," Vash said. "Which is completely treatable. Any decent alchemist would know..." But he trailed off, clearly understanding plenty without Wolfwood needing to explain it to him in excruciating detail.

Nicholas worked his throat, had to swallow a couple of times, and finally managed, "Make your salve if you want, it's all the same to me."

It wasn't. But Vash nodded and turned away, leaving Nicholas to cope in peace.

-

The days flowed by in a blur of warm breezes and quiet comfort. Both of them clung to their agreement not to broach certain subjects. The vibrant novelty of sex was a constant distraction, but the times spent bare and panting together were only brief moments that punctuated something so much bigger. So much more time was given to laughter, working, eating, bathing, and sleeping than could ever be taken up by fucking. Everything had a weight, now, though, which it hadn't before. Every day was one closer to the solstice.

As summer rose to its peak, every meal was loaded with food ripe off the stems. When Vash deemed Eunis chunky enough with baby fat and not likely to be shorted in her meals, he started taking a small amount of milk each morning from Rosa. It stayed fresh enough in the cold-box that a few days' collection was finally enough to make a batch of cheese. Vash did arcane things with yeasts and cultures, stirred a sour-smelling pot of milk and additives over a low fire, strung up the result in a linen sack and told Wolfwood to have faith and be patient.

Two days later, the cheese was perfect - salty, crumbly, rich, a little tangy. Vash picked tomatoes and herbs and greens, made bread, dolloped on a thick cream concoction he made out of eggs to preserve them, and the resulting sandwich almost made Nicholas weep, it was so good.

He found himself telling Vash about Milly one afternoon while they sat on the porch. Vash was spinning yarn out of the last of the sheeps' shed fleece; Nicholas was leaning his chair back on two legs, his bare feet up on the edge of the big washtub, knife and wood block in his hands.

"She'd love that color," Nicholas said, meaning the pale green Vash had dyed this batch of wool. "She wears mostly browns, because she works the fields and that way the dirt doesn't show so much, y'know. Worked, rather, when the fields were worth working. But she'd always spend a little more than her parents wished she would on some nice fabrics, when she could afford it, and she could sew. So she'd make herself hair wraps or shawls, something with color she could wear where it'd stay clean."

"She sounds nice," Vash said, smiling with his eyes focused on his work. "And you sound like you really love her."

"I do," Nicholas said. "Not like... I'm not being unfaithful to her with you or anything. But I've loved her all my life. She fed me when I was starving. Literally and figuratively, I suppose."

Vash was quiet for a moment. The only sound was the scrape of Nicholas' knife on wood. Then Vash murmured, "It's bad out there, isn't it."

Wolfwood sighed. "Told you already, Spikey."

"I wish Meryl had told me sooner," Vash said quietly, his smile fading.

"She couldn't know," Wolfwood said. "If she doesn't go all the way to the city. She doesn't even leave the woods, does she?"

Vash shook his head. "Why would she? We're safe here," he said, dry, an acid accusation directed inward.

"Staying safe ain't a sin, Vash," Wolfwood said, tired. "Taking care of yourself is the only real obligation any person has in this world."

Vash's lips thinned. He didn't answer.

-

Meryl visited more often, contrite and seeking to atone for the disaster that had resulted from her being caught snooping into Zazie's business. Vash forgave easily, but it was clear she hadn't forgiven herself. She didn't eat Vash's food much, but she played board games with him and talked and made him laugh. She pestered him near-constantly about whether he was taking care of himself, whether he needed anything that she could collect and bring to him from further afield. He always said no.

She sniffed the air near Nicholas on one of her visits, nose drawing up in little wrinkles. She was supposed to be helping him trim and peel carrots, but she wasn't very good at it.

He pushed her shoulder.

"Ow," she said, pushing him back. She sniffed again and gave him a knowing glare.

"Stick your nose in a muzzle, short girl," he told her.

She glared even harder. "I know you and Vash are -"

"Yeah," he cut her off, eyebrows raised, "I figured out your secret investigation technique, and strangely enough I do know what I smell like."

Like Vash. Like Vash's sweat and his mouth and his release and his soaps and his everything. And frankly, he wished he could smell like it forever, because Vash smelled sweet and a little floral, with some sort of dark, musky note that lingered longest and made Nicholas slightly feral. A feeling that was not helped by sometimes catching a whiff of his own tobacco smoke on Vash's skin and clothes.

Meryl chewed her lip and looked back down at her half-peeled carrot. She said, "It's not that I'm mad about it."

"Good," Nicholas told her.

"I know it's not my business." She half-heartedly dug her short knife in and mutilated the vegetable some more, leaving it free of rootlets but misshapen. "I just..." She sighed.

Nicholas liked to rag on her but he understood her feelings, really. She only had one friend in the world. If someone had shown up out of nowhere back in December, looking as untrustworthy as Nicholas knew he looked, and had started cohabitating and sleeping with Milly, Nicholas would have had opinions about it. Even if he knew it wasn't his place to. Even if he’d outright invited it because he'd ached for Milly not to be lonely.

He sighed, finished his last carrot and took the half-peeled one out of Meryl's hands. He cleaned it up, then handed her the bowl of greens and trimmings. "I don't want to hurt him," he told her.

They both understood the thorny nature of the statement. He wasn't lying; he didn't want to. But he didn't know how much control any of them had over who would get hurt, in the end.

"I know," she said, looking forlornly down into the bowl of peels. Then she blinked, frowned, and held the bowl up at him. "Wait, why the hell did you give me this?" she asked.

He laughed and told her to go feed them to the sheep, ruffling her black hair and getting a swipe at his arm in return. Even in human form, her fingernails could be as sharp as fox claws.

Before she left that evening to go hunt her own bloody dinner, Nicholas stopped her at the edge of the yard. He asked, "You're not still hunting for Zazie's hive-queen, are you?"

Her shoulders slumped. "No."

"Good." He furrowed his brow at her. "Why did you even try in the first place? I know you were only trying to draw my attention off of Vash. You could have just lied to me."

She looked sheepish. "I'm nosy," she said with a shrug. "And if it'd worked... maybe I could've gotten you to go off and tangle with Zazie and probably. You know. Get killed, or just disappear, and not end up hurting Vash by staying too long.”

He gave her a flat glare.

She crossed her arms. "Well, I feel differently now," she huffed. "Mostly."

Nicholas rolled his eyes at her. "Fine," he said. "Listen, I know I have no right to ask you favors, but... I want to know if you've seen my horse out there anywhere. Black quarterhorse mare, sixteen hands -"

"I've seen her," Meryl interrupted him.

His heart leapt. "Where, when?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It's been a few days, so I'm sure she's moved again. She looks fine."

"The little bugfuck hasn't hurt her?"

She snorted at the name-calling. "No. Zazie eats decay, mostly - they're a scavenger. They don't usually kill living things outright. There's always enough small death in a forest for them to eat well. They like to play rough with sentient creatures but they mostly ignore animals."

Nicholas let out a long breath, calming his nerves. Angelina was fine. Living well off good grass and fresh water, with a whole wide world to occupy her. Surely she was better off without him, much as he missed her.

Meryl asked, "Do you want me to try to catch her?"

Nicholas barked a laugh. "No," he said, "she'd crush you. She's a trained warhorse."

Meryl made a face at him. "I could take her," she muttered. "I'm smarter than a horse."

Wolfwood ruffled her hair again and she snapped her teeth towards his hand. He ought to leave Angelina to live her life, but... "If you see her again," he said to Meryl, "could you... I don't know, lead me to her? Or..." No, Zazie would try to kill him again if he left Vash's truce zone. Nicholas rubbed the bridge of his nose, at a loss. "Never mind," he said. "It doesn't matter. As long as she's okay."

Meryl softened and she said, "Ask Vash, I'm sure he has charms that could help."

Nicholas waved her off, muttering that he didn't need help.

But he ended up asking Vash about it anyway, in bed, in the dark, feeling vulnerable. Vash listened to him awkwardly describe his relationship with his horse. She'd been given to him broken-spirited and listless, obedient but barely alive, and he'd done all he could to try to bring her back. Maybe horses needed to be broken, that was the word for the training process and everything, but... there was broken and there was broken, Nicholas said, and Angelina had been ready to lie down and die at only three years old. She'd been given to Nicholas because she was useless, according to the stable master, and Chapel was petty and wanted Nicholas to train in mounted combat but had wanted, as he always did, for Nicholas' training to involve the highest possible chance of hurting himself or others.

The first command Nicholas had ever successfully trained Angelina to obey was to come to him, and she did it because he was the only person who treated her with any kindness or dignity. The second command he'd taught her was to run away from him. To get out of the range of his sword. It worked because he already knew he could ask her to come back from any distance, and she would, because she trusted him.

"I should have trained her to run away from the city completely," Nicholas said, looking out the dark window. He was on his back, Vash half on top of him. "I should've trained her to recognize the symbol of the Eye and bolt from anyone wearing it."

Vash stroked across Wolfwood's chest, ruffling the dark, wiry hair, and said, "It would've been cruel to send her away from you, after all that."

"But I did anyway," Wolfwood said, tight.

Vash leaned up and kissed him, living hand cupping Wolfwood's face. "I have an idea," he promised.

The idea was for a mimic charm in the form of a small figurine, which Vash worked on all the next day. He called it a fetish. It was made from a little wad of wool felt into which Vash carefully embedded a collection of bird bones and feathers, all accumulated over the years from natural deaths in the woods. Vash used his long needle to carefully push and tuck the wool fibers around the bones, creating something almost like an armature of a real bird skeleton inside the fluff. He covered the thing with feathers, bound down with twine, and finally carefully attached a sparrow skull where the head should be, making sure the beak was mobile.

Vash called Wolfwood to the table when it was done. In front of him he had arrayed the tiny felt bird, a hollow reed, and a plate with a little honey.

"I'll need to charm you," Vash said, looking serious. "Briefly, and only on your voice. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, I can think of something else."

Nervous tension clenched in Nicholas' gut, but Vash looked almost comically sincere, and Nicholas had never been done the courtesy of having so much forewarning. He gave Vash a crooked smile and said, "Trust you not to knock me out and go digging around in my guts, Spikey. Do what you've gotta do."

Vash looked like he wanted to say something else to that - then sighed, let it go, and picked up the bird fetish. It didn't have wings or legs, but Vash had already explained that it didn't need them. Vash said, "Put the honey on your tongue. When I point at you, give Angelina's return command, just like you would if she were around."

Wolfwood raised an eyebrow but dabbed up a sticky fingerful and wiped it on his tongue as ordered, and waited.

Vash nodded, murmured briefly over the fetish, then took the hollow reed and wiggled it into the beak. He held the fetish and reed up to his mouth, looked up at Wolfwood, and pointed.

Wolfwood thought, you asked for it, tucked his fingers in his mouth and let out the eardrum-obliterating whistle that he used to get his horse's attention over long distances.

Vash flinched and nearly ducked under the table, eyes wide, but he was too occupied with his charm to react otherwise. He was blowing steadily through the reed into the skull. He stopped, took a breath, glared at Wolfwood, and murmured a few final syllables over the fetish. On Wolfwood's tongue, the honey suddenly gave a sharp tingle and crackled hot, though it didn't burn - and then the sweetness disappeared. Wolfwood grimaced and rubbed his tongue on the roof of his mouth.

Vash set the bird figure on the table and said, "Holy shit, if I'd known I would've put wax in my ears!"

"Didn't ask me what the command was," Nicholas said smugly.

Vash complained at him all the rest of the evening that his ears were still ringing. Wolfwood just laughed and called him a baby.

With the fetish carefully tied into a strip of cloth, Vash said all they had to do now was let Meryl take it with her out into the woods. "It can do one perfect mimic," Vash said, "but with that kind of volume, she can probably get two or three echoes out of it, too. And here I was thinking it'd be a one-use charm."

"What can I say," Wolfwood drawled, settling back into his chair on the porch with his whittling in his hands. "I got skill."

-

Nicholas hadn't really decided whether he was going to use the salve Vash made for him until the moment he muttered "fuck it," and did.

He used his pinky finger at first, gritting his teeth as it stung and burned going in, stopping short against a tightness that felt like a solid wall of muscle. Frequent sex had at least made him get wet enough times in the last week that the skin inside didn't feel papery, or tear when he took his finger out. He was generous with the salve, which had something in it that made it feel cooling. Vash had started explaining the alchemy involved when he'd handed over the jar, then looked at Wolfwood's blank face, trailed off, and said "never mind."

Nicholas didn't really want to understand it. He didn't like thinking about this part of his body. But he reminded himself that not wanting to think about it was how Conrad and his physicians had gotten away with experimenting with it however they'd wanted for so long, without Nicholas understanding enough to know that he could demand something better.

And it was better. Within a few days, the faint but ever-present irritation in his groin had faded to nothing. Pissing didn't sting. He could bathe without grimacing at the touch of water on thin skin that was constantly rubbing raw. Every time he pushed a finger inside, it went easier.

Fucking Conrad. The moment Nicholas ever saw him again, it was death on sight. That churning, oily feeling that was the cousin of rage rose up Nicholas' gullet every time he thought about the alchemist these days, after seeing how Vash worked with the same materials and techniques but with such different goals and outlooks.

Nicholas had never known it was possible for alchemy, or any kind of physic for that matter, to feel good. Only necessary. Tolerated. Alchemy and magic were for forcing the physical world into the shape you wanted it to take, and Nicholas had accepted that it made sense that the world would rage against that mistreatment and push back viciously at every chance.

Not so with Vash's magic. Vash didn't force anything, he seemed to simply... ask. And matter granted what he asked for as if it had chosen to do so. He described his false limbs failing after a few days as them getting "tired." He talked about potions and medicines as "coaxing" chemicals out of plants and into people. He said that the fundamental principle of the physical world was balance, and that matter was willing to do almost anything if you showed it how and provided counterbalance.

Vash sometimes talked in depth about alchemy - though he called it a different word, chemistry - even though he knew Wolfwood didn't understand the details. But Wolfwood didn't mind his deep ramblings, because it was clear Vash had carried a lot of information around inside him for a long, long time with no way to express it, and the impromptu lectures were mostly for Vash's own enjoyment.

Once, when Wolfwood yawned after half an hour of alchemy talk, Vash stopped mid-explanation and started babbling apologies. Wolfwood told him he didn't have to stop; Wolfwood liked his voice. Vash went pink and chewed his lip, flustered and pleased. Wolfwood's sincerity was then somewhat undercut by how thoroughly he distracted Vash from finishing whatever he'd been explaining.

Nicholas had been using the salve for a week when, one night, Vash slipped the point of his tongue into Nicholas' hole while he jerked his cock with his living hand - and Nicholas came so hard he saw white and did that thing again, what Vash had called squirting. He was a little more prepared for what the warning signs felt like this time, and instead of tearing himself out of his body, it felt more like he'd torn into himself - some deep pocket of sensation, of need, that had scarred up tight so long ago that he'd never known it was there. For several endless heartbeats after his peak, he felt empty and wanting.

Vash jerked upright with wild-eyed apologies falling from his lips, saying he hadn't been trying to push, Wolfwood was just more open now and he'd misjudged the pressure, and he'd been distracted, and -

His chin dripped. Wolfwood rolled him over, pinned him down, and licked his face clean. Vash was squirming and panting and no longer talking coherently by the time Wolfwood made his way down his chest.

"Please?" Nicholas asked, hands on the waist of Vash's pants.

Vash let out a choked whine and finally broke his resolve. He pushed his pants down and his fingers tangled with Wolfwood's as they both rushed to yank the clothing off at the same time.

"I can explain, I - AH," Vash said, because Wolfwood had not spared more than a passing glance at what it all looked like before swallowing as much as he could fit in his mouth.

He did take his time to look, it just took second priority. Vash's cock had no structure like a glans or a head the way Nicholas was used to, and instead of one urethral opening it had a scattering of dimpled pores along the underside like freckles, which oozed the slick that Nicholas had felt several times before. The slick tasted a little vegetal, like sap from inside a broken flower stem.

His cunt, such as it was, was not buried inside a multitude of folds, but a simple slit that split the skin beneath his cock. The space inside was hot and damp but not gushing. When Wolfwood gave it a taste it was less sweet than the precome-nectar - more of a musky, dark taste, sweat and earth. It clearly didn't self-lubricate the same way a human cunt did, presumably because the slick from a different Plant's cock would be enough to ease the way in. Wolfwood wondered if every Plant was shaped the same, then, able to both fuck and be fucked. Damn, wouldn't that just solve a lot of the problems that humans had? Except humans would find some way to make up new problems, he was sure.

The other thing about Vash's cunt, which was hard not to notice, was that it was full of squirming tendrils. The ones towards the outside lips were the longest, up to three or four inches. They writhed around the base of Vash's cock like illustrations Nicholas had seen of sea monsters in books, or like the spray of pistils in the center of a dramatic flower.

"Wolfwood, Wolfwood," Vash was panting, "please -"

"You're perfect," Wolfwood told him, and went down again.

For the first time able to fully bring his mouth and both hands into the task, Nicholas worked the base of Vash's cock with one hand, sucked the tip, and fingered him hard, all the way through finishing in Nicholas' mouth. Slippery release poured out of his cock in a fine pulse, sharp and green-tasting. The tendrils writhed and stuck against Wolfwood's chin with tiny paps. After he let Vash's cock slide out of his lips he gave the things an experimental lick, closing his mouth around a few just for fun.

"Ah, ahah," Vash laughed a little hysterically. "They don't - they don't have sensation like, like the nerves for pleasure, but I can feel you doing that - ah, they're kind of ticklish, actually -"

"What part of you isn't ticklish?" Wolfwood flicked a few and Vash squeaked. They withdrew into his cunt like a flower closing up after sunset. In the few minutes it took him to come down from his peak, his cock softened and shrank, slowly retreating to safety.

"The, um," Vash mumbled, "the cilia would... cling to another... if there was another Plant, they'd twine to keep the, um, to keep close for a few minutes so fertilization could have time to -"

"You don't have to explain it all," Wolfwood told him, gathering him into his arms and pulling him into a kiss. "Unless you just want to."

Vash kissed back. After a moment, tension left his shoulders and his kisses became tinged with relief. He mumbled, "thank you," into Nicholas' mouth, and Nicholas figured it was because he could look at Vash's body and not see anything monstrous about it.

If there was any way Nicholas could bring the Punisher to bear on every person who'd ever made Vash feel monstrous, he would. Right after Conrad. Get in line.

-

"This one?"

"Um... also a horse riding accident."

"Again?"

"Different horse," Vash said defensively.

Wolfwood groaned. "And clearly an arrow hole, here," he said, poking his finger into a divot in Vash's skin, which made Vash squirm.

"Ticklish!"

Wolfwood relented. He brushed his hand down Vash's thigh, to where his skin stopped and cool bark began.

The wooden limbs were warmer than room temperature, but not as warm as flesh and blood. They lacked the fine motions of skin filled with nerve endings - they didn't twitch and shiver like Vash's shoulders and sides, or give softly under a firm touch like his stomach. But the wood wasn't dead and unfeeling, either. Vash said he felt touch against the wood in a muffled way, as though through thick padding. Wolfwood could squeeze and manipulate the wooden limbs in ways that would bruise or break a flesh one, and Vash would only groan with pleasure. He said it felt like having a deep, untouchable itch finally scratched.

Vash started talking without Wolfwood having to ask. "A boy was going to be hanged," he said quietly, looking at the ceiling. "I convinced the judge - well, he was a gang leader really, this was back before there was much law to speak of - I convinced him to let me take the boy's sentence. And I got them to bargain with me that if they hanged me upside down and I survived for five days, they'd let me go."

Wolfwood nearly choked. "What the hell? No one can survive that."

Vash curled his mouth up, but Wolfwood wouldn't really call it a smile. "That's why they thought it was funny enough to agree," he said.

"Vash..." Wolfwood said.

"At first it was only my feet," Vash said. "They were decaying already when I was released. No blood flow for too long. So the town doctor took them off. The right one healed up okay, but the surgery site of the left got gangrene and they had to take more."

"What had he done?" Wolfwood demanded.

"Hm?"

"The boy to be hanged."

Vash finally turned his gaze to Wolfwood. "It doesn't matter," he said.

"Yes, it does, if it was worth -"

"It doesn't," Vash said slowly and firmly, "matter."

Wolfwood stared at him in silence for a long moment. Finally, he asked, “Did he kill someone?"

Vash only looked back at him, expression neutral.

Wolfwood said, "Meryl told me how much she worries about you. The more I know, the more I understand."

Vash murmured, "You don't know anything."

Wolfwood sat up, anger starting to simmer in his belly. "I understand plenty," he spat. "You sold your body in scraps like indulgences. A pound of flesh for free absolution to just anyone? Vash, there isn't enough of you to take a wound for every single sin mankind's ever committed."

Vash slowly rose onto his elbows, looking pale.

"The only person you're obligated to take care of in this world is yourself," Wolfwood said.

Vash drew his brow down. "You think I shouldn't have taken care of you?" he asked plainly.

"Not out of obligation," Wolfwood snapped. "Is that why you saved me, Vash? To hang yourself again for someone else? Because it'd been so long and you missed being a martyr?"

"Get out of my bed," Vash said stiffly.

Nicholas left.

It was hours later and the sun had nearly set by the time Vash came and found him, sitting under the sheep shelter and trying to interest Eunis in different clumps of pulled-up weeds. She was only willing to nibble the clover so far. She'd abandoned Nicholas twice already to go get a drink from her mother. When Vash approached, she baaed and wandered away again.

Vash's eyes were red and puffy. He sat next to Wolfwood in the dirt, pulling his legs beneath himself. After a while, he said, "I saved you because I was selfish. And lonely." His voice was hoarse.

"It isn't selfish to be lonely," Wolfwood said.

"It can be," Vash sighed. "Can't it? I don't think anyone deserves to die, but some people can deserve... nothing good."

Wolfwood thought about the people he knew who - well, who he thought deserved a messy and painful death, but who at least fit Vash's definition of deserving "nothing good." Chapel. Conrad. Bluesummers.

The Emperor.

Vash wasn't like them. In no world, under no circumstances, could Vash possibly be like them.

"You're such a fucking idiot," Wolfwood grumbled.

Vash blinked at him, looking hurt.

"You're too good for your own good," Wolfwood said, and reached over to put his arm around Vash's shoulders and haul him sideways into Wolfwood's lap. Vash flailed but went down willingly, a small laugh torn out of him. He ended up with his upper torso on Wolfwood's lap, his head against Wolfwood's opposite arm, and he settled there without complaint.

Wolfwood tugged up the sleeve of Vash's tunic and traced another scar. "Let me guess," he said.

Beneath his hands, Vash stiffened. For a second, Wolfwood worried he'd picked another terrible story - but then he saw the pink flush creeping up Vash's neck.

"Okay, you're not going to believe this, but -"

Wolfwood said, "No, you have to be kidding me."

"It was the, um, the foal of the first horse I told you about -"

"This can't be another horse accident!"

"I think his mother taught him to recognize me! I wasn't trying to ride him, even, it was just -"

"Vash -!"

-

Three days before the summer solstice, it was swelteringly hot outside. The cottage was cool enough at night, but during the day the need to use the fireplace for cooking rendered it unbearable to stay inside for long.

Vash declared that he wanted to cool off, and without waiting for discussion he led Wolfwood to the bathing pond. His fingers lightly hooked through Wolfwood's were a silent promise all the way there.

The water was cool, and the rocks by the short waterfall made an excellent seat for Wolfwood to hold Vash astride his thighs. Wolfwood paid no mind to how long they stayed there, kissing until they needed to breathe, chasing a slow pleasure that felt worth every moment spent on it whether it crested or not. But in the end Vash finally tensed and gasped, and Wolfwood followed shortly after with his fingers on his own cock, dragged over the edge by the look on Vash's face.

Wolfwood wasn't sure how long afterwards he spent laying back against the edge of the pool, stone cool beneath him, mossy bank pressed to his back, his head tilted up to watch the play of light through the leaves. Vash lay on top of him, head on Wolfwood's shoulder, face turned in towards his neck.

Wolfwood asked, "What song is that?"

Vash stopped humming. Wolfwood wasn't sure he'd realized he was doing it out loud.

"My mother used to sing it to us," Vash said.

"Mother?"

"Well. The human woman who raised us."

"How long ago?" Wolfwood asked.

Vash didn't answer. He trailed his fingers down Wolfwood's arm.

"What happened to her?" Wolfwood tried.

Vash let out a quiet sigh. "Her name was Rem. Short for Remembrance. Virtue names were common then." He smiled faintly. "She didn't want us to be burdened like that, so she gave us small names. Mine means beautiful, and Nai's means apple."

"Apple."

"They're both archaic," Vash said. "Rem loved history. She came from the old world, before..." He trailed off.

Wolfwood raised an arm and propped his elbow on Vash's shoulder so he could draw fingers through his damp hair. "Before?" he prompted.

Vash didn't speak for a while. Wolfwood wasn't going to push again. If Vash said nothing else, he'd consider the conversation over.

Finally, Vash said, "There's a history to this place that was lost early on. There are other worlds than this. Separated by... not exactly distance, but something like it. It only takes a step to move through a gate, but opening one is nearly impossible."

He let out a long breath against Wolfwood's chest. "The people here... every human being... didn't originate in this world. The world they came from was dying - had been dying for a long time - and the only thing they thought might save them was the technology they'd developed to open ways between worlds. First they used it to open small gates, bring through enough material goods to survive. Then they stabilized those gates by bio-engineering - or alchemizing, I suppose you would say - creatures who could manipulate and maintain them. But that wasn't enough. The world was almost dead, and the only way to survive was to move the entire civilization to another."

Wolfwood's head spun gently as he watched the leaves rustling in the breeze. Some of the words Vash was saying made no sense to him at all. But... picking through the meanings, he extracted the only conclusion that made sense. He said, "Humans made Plants?"

Vash hummed an affirmative. "At first they didn't know what they'd done," he said. "They didn't think Plants were truly alive. That they had wills and could think and feel."

"All Plants can...?"

Vash murmured, “Yes."

The horror came slowly at first, a prickle across his body like little claws sinking into his flesh. But it didn't take long for Wolfwood to start putting piece after piece after piece into place. The picture he created was devastating. The Plants out in the world... everyone knew they were alive, he supposed, but in the same way a tree was alive. Did a tree feel it when insects chewed its bark? Did a tree feel pain, or know that it was dying? No. Of course not. And Plants...

Wolfwood thought about the blue markings that glimmered over their skins slowly fading to dull pink and eventually to a dark red like an open wound. The worst ones he'd ever seen, the ones closest to death, had started to split along their markings. A rotten ooze had leaked from their sores into their bulbs, staining their liquid cradles a filmy red.

And they were conscious in there.

Vash said, "I don't know exactly how or why Nai and I were born, but I have guesses. There's some human in us. I think a Plant somehow accessed human genetic material and decided to make someone who could speak for her and her kind. They can't communicate with humans as they are."

"Vash," Wolfwood said, throat tight, "Plants are dying. The blight gets into them and - tears them apart. If the Emperor is like you, then how... why..."

Vash turned his face to Wolfwood's skin and murmured, "Not now. Not yet, please."

Wolfwood held Vash's head to himself, wrapped his other arm around Vash's shoulder, and said, "You understand what the Emperor's doing, don't you?"

"Yes," Vash said, breath hot on Wolfwood's collar. He sounded miserable.

"What is the blight, Vash?"

Vash held Wolfwood tighter, resisting the outside world. Resisting whatever terrible knowledge he held inside. His breath shook. Finally, he said, "Me."

"What?"

"We have our own gates," Vash said faintly. "Nai and I. We can bring matter through from other dimensions. He's better at that than I am."

Hoarsely, Wolfwood asked, "Is that how you saved me...?"

"No," Vash said, clinging close and shuddering. "I can do something Nai can't. I can send things away."

"How does... how does sending matter away heal a wound, or -?"

"It doesn't," Vash whispered. "I don't send away matter. I send away time."

Wolfwood lay there for a while, trying to wrap his head around it. It... it made a horrible kind of sense. Eunis the lamb had gone from just past the point of death to the state she'd been in five minutes previously, as if those five minutes had been unspooled from her life and snipped away. His own injuries should have killed him - unless they'd been frozen in time, or their severity had been turned back by even a few seconds. To the moment before his spine had cracked or his heart had burst.

"It has to do with density," Vash was mumbling. "My power touches something like an event horizon outside this dimension. Extreme density causes time dilation -"

"Vash," Wolfwood said, "stop. You know I don't understand you."

Vash let out a sharp little breath. Finally he said, "It's dangerous. I'm dangerous. I... we... should never have been born."

Wolfwood held Vash tight. There was nothing he could say. Without Vash... without the Emperor... maybe this world would have been healthier. Safer. Maybe not. The same could be said of Wolfwood. He was his own kind of blight, manufactured by the Eye and let loose to ravage the world.

But he'd chosen his path, and Vash hadn't chosen anything. Vash hadn't chosen to be born. Maybe his existence was a threat, but he was also a miracle. Not just what he could do; him.

"If you hadn't been born I wouldn't have met you," Wolfwood said. "And I'm a selfish son of a bitch. I'd rather have a world with you in it."

Vash wrapped his arm around Wolfwood's neck, breathed out damp and warm against his clavicle, and held on.

Above them, birdsong echoed through the trees. The summer sun was high and hot. The breeze held no easy answers.

-

Chapter Text

“Wolfwooooood!"

The man in question was currently squatting in the middle of a patch of squash, pulling weeds. He stood up, shaded his eyes and peered towards the trees, where the wail was coming from.

Vash stuck his head out of the cottage door. "Wolfwood?" he called.

"I think that's Meryl," was all Wolfwood had time to say, before he caught sight of the woman herself running towards the fields like her life depended on it.

"WolfWOOD!" she shrieked again, and behind her a thundering rhythm made Wolfwood's heart leap.

He dashed out of the vegetable patch, accidentally breaking a few stems, and threw himself into the path just in time for Meryl to duck beneath his arm and keep sprinting towards the cabin porch. Behind him, Vash yelped as Meryl presumably threw herself towards him. But Wolfwood didn't care about that, because an enormous, sleek black angel had just entered his field of view.

He let loose a wild whistle, beaming wide, and yelled, "Whoa, girl!"

Angelina broke from beneath the trees and kept galloping towards him, throwing her head up and whinnying. Her smooth gait broke up as she tried to haul on the brakes, but it was hard to bring several hundred pounds of muscle and tendon to a halt from going full-out. He stood his ground, whooping with her, confident.

Wolfwood stepped aside just in time to not get trampled. She'd managed to slow herself down enough for him to have plenty of time to grab her mane with both hands and run a few steps alongside her before combining a leap with his arm strength into a relatively smooth bareback mount. She threw her head again, whinnying, and reared onto her hind legs. Wolfwood clamped on with tight knees and buried his face in her mane, laughing.

"Yeah, Ange, whoa, it's me," he said. "Whoa! Shh, girl."

Finally Angelina started cooling off. He used knee pressure and tugs in her mane to direct her, turning her sidelong to the house so she could trot off the rest of her speed along a different garden path. The guineas, affronted as usual, were screaming their disapproval at a distance. Wolfwood remained leaning down along Angelina's neck, quietly telling her how much he'd missed her, letting his voice soothe her mood. She jumped a couple of times with her front feet, snorting and shaking her head, too excited to stay still.

"Good girl, good girl," he murmured as he brought her around in the last leg of the cool-down walk, back towards the cottage. "Did you even miss me? You got fat out there, almost can't close my knees. You don't need me at all, do you? You did good, shh, whoa."

When he finally looked up, Meryl and Vash were both staring at him from the cabin porch. Meryl's mouth was hanging open. Vash was flushed bright pink.

"This is Angelina," he said to them, as if they couldn't tell.

Meryl got her wits back about her and said, "I saw her miles from here. When I set the charm off I didn't realize she'd lose her damn mind!"

"Ahh, sweet girl," Wolfwood said, thumping and rubbing his horse's neck, grinning. "You did miss me, huh?"

"She's bigger up close," Meryl said. She shuddered and took a step backwards towards the cottage interior. "Too big. No thanks."

Vash stepped forward and came down the steps, looking up at Angelina and then Wolfwood on her back. Wolfwood had spent months getting used to looking up at Vash; now Vash had to tilt his head back, and Wolfwood couldn’t help smirking.

"Sure you should be getting so close, with your history with horses?" Wolfwood laughed down at him.

"She's gorgeous," Vash said, reaching up a hand towards her nose. "Can I?" he asked, glancing at Wolfwood.

He shrugged and scratched at Ange's mane again. "Don't maul him," he told her.

"Wait, she understands that?"

"No," he snorted.

Vash hovered his hand close to her snout anyway. She flared her nostrils and huffed at him, shaking her head. Wolfwood knew her well enough to read the moods of her snorts.

"Vash, I think you shouldn't -"

With wide, dewy eyes, too busy being awed by Wolfwood's big, gorgeous mount, Vash touched Angelina's velvety nose.

"Ow!"

"Yeah, I was trying to say," Wolfwood said dryly.

Vash cradled the hand that had gotten chomped. Angelina hadn't gone in hard, just a warning nibble. Vash still backed away from her, looking betrayed. He told the horse accusingly, "I just think you're pretty!"

Wolfwood laughed so hard his sides were aching by the time he finally slid off Angelina's side and thudded down onto solid ground. He immediately rubbed her nose and cheeks and she whuffed with pleasure and thumped her head into his chest. "Leave him alone," he told his horse. "He's just an idiot."

"Hey!"

Wolfwood wrapped his arms around Angelina's neck, pressed his face into her mane, and smiled.

-

Midsummer dawned to a muted sky. Clouds piled into each other, blocking the sun, covering the whole sky in a dim dove-gray. Vash looked out the window from the bed and said, "It'll rain later."

Wolfwood held him around the chest, refusing to let go. Vash didn't fight him this morning - he hadn't gotten up before dawn, and showed no hurry to get up anytime soon. As long as they stayed in bed, Wolfwood thought, they didn't need to break their peace.

But the birds were talkative and the air grew warm and Wolfwood's stomach growled, and the steady march of time couldn't be denied. They ate in silence. Wolfwood felt like he was waiting at a deathbed.

Wolfwood brushed down Angelina while Vash did his daily rounds of the yard to make sure nothing was amiss. The gray sky grew dimmer, though the fuzzed-out white circle of the sun itself was visible through the cloud cover. A slight breeze picked up through the trees.

Vash finally walked over to Wolfwood and offered a hand. "Come with me," he said.

Wolfwood took the hand and followed.

They walked into the woods in a direction Wolfwood hadn't gone before, opposite the way to the bathing pool. The trees grew dense and deep very quickly. Every time a small flying insect fluttered around Wolfwood's head, he batted it away nervously. Vash looked back at him and gave a humorless smile, but did not assure him that they were safe.

Wolfwood estimated they'd gone nearly half a mile from the cottage when Vash's steps slowed. He pulled Wolfwood along into a clearing, and Wolfwood finally saw what they were there for.

The tree was massive and ancient. It was an explosion of crazed limbs; what was trunk and what was branch was nearly impossible to discern. Even the smallest end-branches were still as thick around as Wolfwood's forearm, the trunk at ground level three times the width of his body. It split and sprawled from barely a few feet above the ground to further up than the eye could make out. Its bark was coated in thick lichens and moss. Birds and small rodents and lizards and insects swirled on and around it, chittering and scattering, looking as small as dust motes in comparison.

Wolfwood looked up into it as he moved closer. It made him feel small and overwhelmed in a way he hadn't felt since first entering the cathedral of the Eye as a child.

"You said you missed seeing the sky," Vash said, drawing Wolfwood's attention back to him. "That it feels claustrophobic in the forest."

Wolfwood managed, "Yes?"

Vash smiled and nodded upward without a word.

Once Vash started climbing, Wolfwood followed his movements carefully, stomach in his throat. He'd never been afraid of heights but there was something very different between the top of a manmade stone crenellation and a disjointed ladder of moss-slick bark that swayed constantly with wind and his own movements.

He made the mistake of looking down to check their height at one point and realized he was above the tops of the next-nearest trees, and that he could see directly down into a bird's nest. They had to be eighty, ninety feet up.

Vash glanced down and said, "Almost there."

Wolfwood sucked his teeth, tightened his mouth, and looked upwards again.

At what Wolfwood estimated to be close to a hundred and thirty feet in the air, when the branches he was climbing were finally getting narrow enough to concern him, they emerged from the canopy.

The view was stunning. A rolling sea of green leaves rippled with waves as the wind skimmed along it. Birds scattered upwards like tiny jewels and darted back down like falling rain, songs mingling everywhere.

The sky, even dim with cloud cover, was magnificent. Wolfwood was finally able to see all the vast patterning of the clouds' shapes, their movement, their dappling of lights and darks - not just a glimpse here and there of a pale curve beyond the trees. The wind gusted hard enough to blow his hair back. It blew strong up here with no obstacles to break it up.

After a moment Wolfwood realized that he couldn't see the edge of the forest. From here, it looked like the whole world was a lush paradise. No glimpse of the red and gray that marked the blight; no hint of rot, even in the clean scent of the air. For miles in every direction, the Forgotten Woods stood proud and thriving.

But isolated. Wolfwood thought about how the woods had seemed from the outside - big, yes, but also so utterly contained. Firmly bounded. A pocket of green shadow, dark and malevolent, forbidding to all but the craziest or most suicidal of travelers.

Perspective was a hell of a drug.

Wolfwood looked over at Vash, clinging to a nearby branch and looking out with a wistful longing. If this was all he could see - the only amount of perspective he'd gotten in fifty years - then no wonder he thought the world was doing all right. That he'd been forgotten, and that being forgotten was synonymous with safety. Wolfwood looked at Vash's blue-green spring-storm eyes staring up into the wild emptiness of a world that had left him alone to die and wondered if that's what Vash had intended for all these years: to quietly lie down and decompose. However long that might take.

"I used to come up here all the time," Vash said, gaze roaming. "It's been years."

"You can't see outside the woods," Wolfwood observed, trying to sound neutral.

"No," Vash said. "But the song is a little clearer up here. Or it used to be."

"Song?"

"My sisters," Vash said. "My mothers. The other Plants. They share so much, here." He tapped his temple. "Across almost any distance. Nai and I could always hear them. They're loudest when they're in pain, but..." Vash looked over at Wolfwood. "I haven't heard them in years," he said. "I know it's no excuse, but I thought..."

"You didn't know they were sick," Wolfwood finished for him.

Vash gave a bleak smile. "I thought they'd forgotten me. And that that was for the best."

"Is the Emper... is Nai blocking them from you somehow?" Wolfwood asked.

"I'm not sure. Maybe." Vash let out a long sigh. "Maybe it's me who's just not listening right anymore."

"If you'd known they were in pain," Wolfwood asked, throat tight, "would you have come out to help them?"

Vash was silent for a long time, looking out at the trees. Finally, he said, "I don't know. I wish I could say yes. The last time I did..." Vash trailed off. He finally looked over at Wolfwood and asked, "You want to climb down? This is too much to say up here."

The descent was easier now that Wolfwood had some faith in the sturdiness of the branches and knew the best path. The sky was once again swallowed up by green. Beneath the canopy, everything was abruptly so much darker now that Wolfwood's eyes had adjusted to bright daylight, even dimmed by clouds. The cloud cover rendered the space beneath the trees into cool twilight even though it was near noon.

When they were still twenty feet or so off the ground, and the part of the tree they were in had transitioned from branches back to what might be gnarled and disjointed trunks, Vash stopped at a broad fork and sat down. The fork created a mossy cradle that was easily big enough for two, so Wolfwood took the hint and joined him. They weren't quite parallel, but their legs touched, and Vash was close enough to reach out a hand and take Wolfwood's.

Vash said, "I can tell this faster and in a way easier to understand if I use something like magic. It'll be inside your head. If you let go of me it'll stop. Any time." He looked caring and sad.

"Like magic?" Wolfwood asked.

Vash quirked up a corner of his mouth. "Is it magic if it's just me?" he asked. "No charms. Just biology."

Wolfwood was forever bemused by Vash's insistence that all of his mysticisms belonged to their own distinct categories. As far as Wolfwood was concerned, it was all magic. But he squeezed Vash's hand and said, "I don't mind you being in my head, Spikey. You're already there."

A little warmth returned to Vash's smile and he gave a brief huff of a laugh. "This won't be so sweet," he said. "Remember, if you let go it'll stop."

"I hear you."

"Then relax. And I'm sorry."

Before Wolfwood could ask what Vash was apologizing for, a few small black eruptions sprouted along the top of Vash's arm. They didn't quite look like vines - more like feathers, or semi-solid smoke. They spread up his hand, his fingers, until the dark down touched Wolfwood's hand - and all at once he felt like he was falling.

Somewhere distant and hard to place, Vash's voice softly said, "My brother and I grew up fast..."

-

Vash is a few weeks old when he begins to form memories. He is trying to walk. A large figure with a dark cascade falling from their miles-in-the-sky head is beckoning him. He is growing dreadfully upset until he reaches her legs and she lifts him up so, so high, and he gurgles and bats at her face with small hands. She makes booming sounds and he understands love.

Vash rapidly becomes dissatisfied in his mother's arms, aching for something else he cannot name. She makes soothing nonsense noises and walks with him, miles above the earth, a giant with indeterminate features, arms like the tree branches that - somewhere - are holding up a version of him who will come later.

Vash is laid down from the heavens to the earth, to the softness of a bed, and with him is himself. No. His mirror image. His hands find his other half and they pull each other clumsily close. His twin makes noises and Vash understands them, somehow, and is fulfilled.

-

Vash is at a window he is too short for, standing on his toes and peering out from behind a curtain. Behind him, his brother jumps onto his shoulders, dragging him down with a squawk. They wrestle. Rem laughs at their antics but warns Vash to be careful at the window.

"She didn't want anyone to know we existed. It wasn't safe."

Outside there are so many people, always on the move, always building new and greater things. Vash can barely see them from his secret peep-holes. Inside Rem's home there is always plenty to eat, new toys to play with, books to read, and lessons to learn. Vash and his twin want for nothing. But Vash is a year old and his body is the size of a ten-year-old human and he desperately yearns for a bigger world.

"They won't understand how you got so big in just a year!" Rem says, lifting him and laughing.

"I tried to stay small," he tells her. "I promise I tried!"

"You can't help who you are," Rem tells him, kissing his forehead. "You don't have to try to be anything you're not."

But Vash wants to try to be human because he wants to know who lives outside their home, in their village. It is a village, Rem says, because it is small for now, but soon it will be a town and then even a city! She says that when it is a city, they will finally be safe.

Vash's brother looks out from behind curtains, too, but he is quiet. He leans his head on the windowsill and sighs.

Vash knows that he will give his brother the world if it will make him happy.

-

Their living sisters call them out, and they go at night, hoods over their heads. They find the source of the singing they've always been able to hear. They begin to learn the songs. Something in them is fulfilled, and they glow so bright with the knowledge. If they cannot see humans then they can see their sisters, at least, and not be so lonely.

Vash is happy, his forehead pressed to his twin's and both of them pressed against cool glass, long-fingered hands caressing the other side of the transparent wall that separates them, as if reaching out to hold them the way Rem would always do.

Their sisters, their mothers, their voices, their kin. But Rem doesn't like for Vash and his brother to go out and see them. She says it's dangerous, to just wait a little longer, a few years longer. She begs them to stop going.

She knows she can't stop them if they don't agree. Vash wavers; his brother does not.

They keep going out to sing.

-

Their dead sister is deeper in the facility. The living sisters warn them not to explore, but the boys have grown accustomed to not listening to their mothers.

Their dead sister looks like them. She is rotten in her fluids. She is leaking from open wounds like blooming flowers made of meat. Her teeth are jagged and cracked, her gums black. Her milky eyes are open.

"Her name was Tesla."

-

People are screaming. Vash is screaming, his leg broken by a villager's kick, clinging to his brother who clings right back and shakes with fear. Rem is above them, so much smaller in Vash's eyes now that he is older, but somehow also towering above him like she used to when he was a baby. He's found out by now that humans don't remember being babies. But he remembers so much.

Rem's long black hair blows in the wind and she spreads her arms like crow's wings to protect Vash and his other half from the frightened, enraged mob. An arrow shaft sprouts from the bodice of her pale dress. Its fletching-feathers are black like her hair; the arrow seems to belong in her.

Vash can't remember all that she says to the mob, but he remembers that the entire event was brutal and over so fast, even though it seemed to take a hundred years. His voice is ruined from screaming, his whole body burning and ice-cold at the same time. Beside him, his brother hasn't made a sound.

Then Rem is on the ground with more arrows in her and Vash is with her but his twin is no longer there. Rem's mouth moves and Vash doesn't want to hear her. He can only block out the rising chorus of screams and hold her and hold her and hold her and

and then she is lighter because he is only holding her head, and he wails at his brother, his other half, "Why? Why? Why, Nai?"

And Nai looks down at him, covered in blood and writhing razor-sharp metal, teeth bared, breathing hard. Vash is a wreck among the disassembled parts of the people he has watched from his window for his whole life, people rebuilding a civilization that he has been eager to join all along.

He'd thought Nai was eager to join it, too. But Nai looks down at him and says, "We're like Tesla. They'll kill us. Rem could never have protected us forever."

Vash crushes his open, howling mouth against Rem's tangled hair and lets out a grief that sounds nothing like his mothers' songs.

"The only one who can protect you is me. Vash, I love you -"

-

Silence dropped, profound and nauseating. Wolfwood's hand was sweating where it clutched against his chest. His breathing was harsh and ragged.

It took him a moment to reorient himself and look over at Vash, who was gazing at him, unsmiling, full of worry. For him. As if Wolfwood was the one owed any concern here.

Wolfwood struggled to find words. He still felt nauseous, the phantom smell of viscera haunting him. His leg throbbed as if it remembered being broken by a vicious beating from a rabid mob. He'd found the expression on Nai - Knives - the Emperor's - face to be unsettlingly sympathetic, as he'd gazed down at an injured Vash and looked like he would turn the world inside out and crush its beating heart in his fist to keep anyone from hurting Vash ever again.

It was hard not to agree with the sentiment.

Wolfwood's hands tingled at the memory of holding the weight of a mother's severed head. In his mind's eye, it had Miss Melanie's face.

"Let's go home," Vash said, sitting up astride his branch.

Wolfwood followed Vash back through the woods in silence, thoughts racing, until the cottage came into view and a crushing wave of relief rolled over him. He wondered if this was how Vash felt all the time, constantly retreating further inward into to a life so small and simple. If leaving the house meant confronting what Wolfwood had just remembered, he'd stay fucking put, too.

The cottage and its endless supply of small tasks were enough to keep Vash from simply lying down and never getting up again. Wolfwood didn't know if he would have had the strength to build the cabin and create the tasks in the first place.

"I'll make something to settle your stomach," Vash said, uninflected, as they entered the house. Wolfwood hadn't said he felt sick; it must have showed on his face.

He pulled Vash to a stop before the man could disappear himself into idle busywork. Vash wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Vash..." Wolfwood started.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that," Vash said quietly. "It's not fair to make anyone else feel that."

"You didn't make me," Wolfwood objected. "I said yes."

"I should have just told you without -"

"Vash," Wolfwood cut him off. "I'm glad you showed me."

Vash's mouth twitched. "No, you're not," he said softly.

"You're pissing me off now," Wolfwood said, stomach still twisted up and now with irritation added to it. "I'd rather know."

"No one else should have to -"

Wolfwood gripped Vash's arm tight enough to be unkind, cutting off his words, and said, "He sent me. Do you understand? You already know I work for the Emperor. My mission was always to bring him this thing he'd lost, this thing he wants more than anything else in the world. Some kind of source of power he never fully explained to any of us. I know it's you, Vash. I think - he may not think you're alive, exactly, but he thinks your power is, and I'm just his muscle to drag you back to him."

Vash stood in silence for a long minute. Then he looked up, met Wolfwood's eyes, and smiled. "I know," he said.

Wolfwood's mouth tasted sour. "All along?" he asked.

Vash raised a shoulder. "Not exactly, but it wasn't hard to piece together."

"And you still trusted me?"

Vash's smile widened.

"You're a damned idiot," Wolfwood told him flatly.

"No," Vash said, and raised his wooden hand to Wolfwood's face since Wolfwood hadn't let go of his right arm. The bark scraped lightly across Wolfwood's cheek. "I knew what I was doing," Vash said. "Those are the eyes of a kind man. You push yourself to embody a demon that you aren't."

"You don't know that," Wolfwood croaked.

Vash kissed him.

It was slow and firm. Wolfwood resisted at first. Vash didn't try to deepen the kiss but he didn't let Wolfwood go, either, and after a moment Wolfwood loosened his grip on Vash's right arm and sank into the warm, uncomplicated press of lips. They stayed there for long enough that Wolfwood had to pull back just to breathe.

"I'm not doing it," Wolfwood told him. "I'm not taking you. You're staying right here where it's safe."

Vash breathed out against Wolfwood's mouth and said, “No, I'm not."

"What?"

"I can't keep hiding," Vash murmured. "The world is dying, you said so yourself."

"No - you can't -"

"It's not in my nature," Vash said, "to leave anyone in a tight spot if there's a chance I can help."

Wolfwood felt the floor falling away beneath him. He felt both too constricted and too unmoored. He moved both his hands to the front of Vash's tunic and held onto great handfuls of it, throat stuck around everything he needed to say, the rage he needed to yell in Vash's face, the pleading that he knew wouldn't help. Vash had decided this weeks ago, he now realized. Vash had decided to fulfill Wolfwood's mission before he first pressed a kiss to Wolfwood's lips. His grace period before the solstice had not been to put off making hard choices, but to put off telling Wolfwood that whatever he thought didn't matter, because Vash was always going to sacrifice himself. Wolfwood couldn't imagine any version of Vash who wouldn't.

Lead settled deep in his chest. Why did it have to be his coming here that finally got Vash killed? He couldn't imagine living his whole life without meeting Vash, but he'd take that deal if it meant Vash would stay safe. Instead Wolfwood had been the Emperor's perfect honey trap, his words luring Vash out in exactly the way that violence never could have.

"Show me the rest of it," Wolfwood croaked. "I want to know."

"Wolfwood..."

"Show me."

But Vash just put both his hands over Wolfwood's where they gripped his tunic. "I've lived a very long time," he said quietly. "Long enough to know there are things humans shouldn't be made to feel. I accidentally showed something to Meryl once... it took her years to speak to me again." Vash loosened Wolfwood's grip from his shirt and raised one hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to Wolfwood's knuckles. "So let me make tea and tell you the rest the painless way, all right?"

Wolfwood couldn't argue. He sat down at the small table. All the strength left him and he felt numb watching Vash go about heating up some water and adding chunks of dried roots and herbs into the teapot.

The tea, when it was done, was spicier and more medicinal-tasting than Wolfwood had expected. It wasn't one of Vash's soothing blends. Wolfwood wrinkled his nose over his cup and looked at Vash, who shrugged one shoulder.

"Ginger," he said. "Gets hotter the longer it ages. Honey helps. Want some?"

Wolfwood shook his head. The bitter, spicy, slightly unpleasant flavor helped him center himself. And it did settle his stomach after it had a minute to work.

"So," Wolfwood said. "Knives loves you."

Vash flinched. He took a sip of his own tea - also unsweetened, as though they both needed the punishment to keep themselves grounded. Vash said, "The day the villagers found us - we were in the Plant facility, right where Rem asked us not to go. Our sisters were helping us try to understand what we could do. We lost track of time. Nai was covered in living metal, and you've seen what I... well. We didn't look human. We were frightening." He ran his wooden finger around the top of his cup. "I don't blame people for how they reacted," he said quietly.

"I do," Wolfwood said, tightening his hand around the cup. "You were kids."

Vash gave a thin smile. "Not to them," he said. "Anyway... it doesn't matter. After that, we had to live on our own. I thought... as long as we looked normal, we could fit in. But Nai didn't like that. He didn't want to stop practicing his power or learning from the other sisters. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stayed with him. To keep people safe from him. I could talk him out of violence, at least for a while. And... I didn't want to be alone.

"We traveled, we grew up... we both changed. The world changed. People settled in, started to build up little towns into whole cities. Everywhere was fertile, there was a construction boom, a population boom - it was starting to be a golden age for humanity. Food and music and dancing and love and -" Vash let out a sharp breath, mouth twitching with a longing grin. "It was incredible and all I wanted was to be a part of it, but I had Nai to look out for. And he seemed to be getting better, he really did… he didn't want to attack human settlements, he didn't keep arguing with me about seeing Plants and humans in opposition. He started reading more, keeping journals. He seemed interested in finding other solutions, maybe seeing if - if he could talk to some Plant engineers, start working together with humans to make life better for the Plants who couldn't... couldn't advocate for themselves."

Vash looked into his cooling tea. "I abandoned him," he said. "One summer day. I wrote him a letter. He'd never have let me leave if I'd told him I was going. He'd seemed to be doing so well, and it had been so many years, and I just… wanted to be free."

Silence settled between them for a long moment. Wolfwood knew Vash would go on if he stayed quiet, but he couldn't help needling, "So you started 'helping people out' when they were in tight spots."

"Yes," Vash said simply.

"And taking hits for people who couldn't -"

"I heal fast," Vash interrupted him. "And I can survive a lot. Better me injured than someone else killed."

"Spikey," Wolfwood said hollowly. Hopelessly.

"Besides, I don't think I was that reckless," Vash said, grinning again in the way Wolfwood hated most. "I'm just long-lived. Eventually you collect more injuries than one human could get in a lifetime."

"A hell of a lot of humans can get none in a lifetime," Wolfwood retorted.

Vash just shrugged. He swallowed the rest of his bitter tea and grimaced. "I've always had bad luck," he said.

Wolfwood's eye twitched. Part of him perpetually wanted to strangle Vash. "You left Knives alone," he prompted, "and somehow the bastard got it in his head to start a cult and declare himself a god?"

Vash raised a shoulder. "I don't entirely know what he did," he said. "He wasn't going by any titles I knew of when I saw him in - when I last saw him." He tripped over his words, swallowed, and poured himself more tea just to have something to focus on.

"July?" Wolfwood asked.

Vash nodded, twisting his hands around his freshly steaming cup.

"The Typhoon," Wolfwood said.

Vash looked into the middle distance between them, eyes pointed at the table but unfocused. "That's," he said slowly, "what I accidentally... what Meryl saw. When I was... reliving it. Here. Years later." He swallowed; his throat clicked. “I couldn’t remember anything at first. I was just living and then I was… I was in all this rubble, and it smelled like blood and… cooked meat.” His nostrils flared slightly as though he could still smell it. “And I was hurt. I didn’t have -“ He flexed his wooden hand.

“Knives cut it off?”

Vash gave a jerky nod. His brow furrowed. “Even now it’s hard to remember the details,” he said. “But his blades were out and he’d killed so many people, to get my attention, and I - I know I felt myself touching something - too big. Too much, I couldn’t control it. He forced my gate open somehow. I don’t…” Vash trailed off.

“You said that you undo time,” Wolfwood said. “You, what, undid July?”

“No,” Vash said, sounding far more certain. “Nothing that complex. The energy coming through me was unstable and I tried to - to compress it, to keep hold of it, but I couldn’t. It exploded.” He took a deep breath. “Knives was badly hurt. It was the last thing I saw. His… body.” He let out the breath through pursed lips, slow and steadying. “I wasn’t sure he was still alive until you told me. I’m not surprised he thought I’d died, too.”

Wolfwood said, “But he always knew your power was still here, somehow.”

Vash gave another humorless smile. “Hm. Because he must have something that resonates with it.”

Wolfwood shook his head, not understanding.

Vash raised his wooden hand, palm up. “A piece of me,” he said.

Wolfwood’s stomach went cold.

“And he needs more,” Vash said. “My physical form, whether I’m truly alive in it or not, to unlock my gate again. To force something through.”

“Into this world, or out of it?” Wolfwood asked, mouth dry.

“Both, I think,” Vash said. “There’s a kind of feedback between Nai and I. A bond that strengthens us. And makes us malleable.” He tilted his head, gazing at the tabletop. “Between us, with the power to create and dismiss all things, amplified by however many Plants he’s hoarded, unspooling time from them to bring back their vitality… who knows? He could do anything he wanted. He could remake the world however he sees fit.” Vash let out a small, final sigh.

"And you want to walk right into his fortress, where he has total control," Wolfwood said dully. "He'll skin you alive."

Vash thinned his lips. "I don't intend to let him," he said. "He'll talk to me. I know he will."

"Yeah, but what'll he do after he gets tired of talking?" Wolfwood asked. "And by sheer numbers... what, you think the two of us are gonna take out the entire infrastructure of the Emperor's guard? The cult? The Eye alone, we're talking upwards of twenty fully-trained assassins, and that's not counting the alchemical mutants and the acolytes who haven't undergone drug trials. I could take any two or three of the best of them in a spar but this won't be training, this'll be a massacre."

"I don't want to kill anyone," Vash said. "And I don't want you to, either."

Wolfwood's brows shot down. "Absolutely not," he snapped. "I'll do what I need to."

Vash looked up and met his eyes, steadfast and cool. "Please," he said.

Wolfwood would never, never have wavered before these last few months. The look on Vash's face made him feel sick - because he knew Vash wasn't going to kill even to protect himself, and he wanted so badly to be the devil who could protect Vash even against his own wishes, but also - he didn't know if he could, anymore. He didn't know if he could look Vash in the eyes and promise not to take a life and then break that promise. He'd broken more promises in his time than he could count, but breaking one to Vash, one this big, made him feel like he was standing over a bottomless pit. But at the same time, not making the promise in the first place also felt impossible.

Vash released him from his internal hell by seeming to accept his silence as some sort of answer. He broke their eye contact and looked back down at his tea cup, no longer steaming. Wolfwood's throat was stuck tight.

"There'll be time to think about strategy," Vash said. "All I need is to get past whatever guards are in place, nothing more. I think when Nai knows I'm coming, he'll want to see me."

Wolfwood couldn't muster any more objections, although he felt them.

"Besides," Vash said, "you'll be fulfilling your mission, won't you? They should just let us walk right in."

That hit like a sucker punch to the gut. Wolfwood hunched over his empty cup, knowing no amount of ginger in the world would untwist his stomach now.

"I'm sorry," Vash murmured. "I didn't mean that to sound cruel. I know you'll have my back."

Wolfwood nodded miserably, not looking up.

After a long silence, Vash said, "I'll need a little longer to get ready to go. Another week?"

He asked it reluctantly, as if he wished he could ask for longer. Wolfwood suspected Vash didn't need anywhere near that long, but he wasn't going to argue with taking a week. The longer he could put off... all of it... the better.

"A week," Wolfwood agreed.

-

Chapter Text

The first thing the next morning, Vash asked to see Wolfwood's old clothes. Vash spread the ripped gambeson out on the cleared table and gave it a critical eye. "I can repair this and make it sturdier," he said. "If you're all right with me changing it."

Wolfwood shrugged and gestured for Vash to do whatever he liked.

While Vash worked at the table indoors, Wolfwood spent the next few days taking his sword up and putting in ruthless hours of practice. He'd let himself go soft here. He was enhanced in ways that made it nearly impossible for him to lose skill, but he'd also never eaten this well and gotten this much sleep for so many weeks at a time. He'd put on a few pounds, rounding his figure out from starved musculature to something sleeker. It was just enough to make him need to put in serious work to adjust his swings of the Punisher to his new distribution of muscle and body fat.

Meryl crept into the clearing one day, watched Wolfwood demolish a tree trunk for a while, and in a momentary lull asked what he was up to. He explained that they were leaving.

She said, "I have to talk to Vash," and darted away.

Wolfwood shook the sweat out of his eyes, pushed his hair back, and sighed. She'd have as much luck as he had - none. Vash was walking out of his safe den in four days and baring his throat to the wolves, and nothing could talk him out of it.

Later that evening, Meryl found Wolfwood again. Her eyes were red and puffy and she sounded awful when she said, "I'm going with you."

His stomach twisted but he couldn't find it in himself to say no. Instead, he said, "Get those claws sharp, short girl."

She jerked a nod, turned and blinked her shape, and a fox darted off under the trees. Going to lick her metaphorical wounds, Wolfwood supposed.

The gambeson was in pieces when Wolfwood went back inside, and Vash was fitting each panel with an extra layer of something pale and stiff. Wolfwood ran his fingers over some of it.

"Resin-treated linen," Vash said shortly, not looking up. "Tougher than it looks."

"As long as I have range of motion."

"You will." Vash finished pinning pieces together and pushed the pile away. Outside, it was full dark. The fireflies winked in the tree line like a taunting mimicry of Zazie's eyes. Vash stood up and finally looked up at Wolfwood with red-rimmed eyes; he looked nearly as wrecked as Meryl had. "I wish she wouldn't," Vash said, voice trembling.

"She has to, Spikey," Wolfwood told him with a sigh. "She loves you."

Vash looked down and closed his eyes against tears.

"It's why we all have to," Wolfwood said. "It'd be so much easier not to care."

Vash nodded and pressed himself against Wolfwood's chest, and Wolfwood held him like that for a long time.

-

Vash finished the gambeson and Wolfwood practiced in it. It was no heavier for whatever Vash had done to it, and he'd actually made the fit around the shoulders a little better. For an entire day, Vash sat on the porch and watched Wolfwood do drills and work with his horse. Vash's hands were full of yarn and string; Wolfwood had assumed he was doing idle busywork to stave off nerves.

Instead, in the late afternoon, when Wolfwood went to the wash-water tub to splash the sweat off his face, Vash stepped down off the porch next to him with a coiled handful of... something. Wolfwood looked at it and asked, "Gonna braid some yarn in Angelina's mane? Can tell you right now she won't go for it."

Vash gave a small, tight smile and said, "No, just figured I ought to get some practice in too."

"Hm?"

"I used to be a pretty decent shot," Vash said, uncoiling his handful to reveal a long, doubled-over band of braided wool and leather strips. Actual leather, Wolfwood was interested to note. At the center of the band there was a small lengthways slit, no more than two inches long. It tickled the back of Wolfwood's mind, but he couldn't remember where he'd seen something like it before.

Vash walked out into the yard, found a small stone, and tossed it in his hand a couple of times. Then he fitted it lightly between the taut sides of the slit, dropped the length of the band to only hold onto the ends, and began to swing it in a broad, lazy arc.

Sling, Wolfwood realized. The old-fashioned kind that didn't stretch. He'd always assumed it was basically impossible to aim with one; in the old days, shepherds had used them to scare off wolves, but mostly with the noise.

Wolfwood nearly opened his mouth to say something to the effect of "you aren't gonna scare off anyone in the Eye with a few rocks, Vash," but he was cut off by a deafening crack. Vash had brought the sling around in one last arc, let go of one end of it, twitched his wrist and shoulder so fast Wolfwood couldn't even tell exactly how he'd moved - and on the other side of the yard, a branch crackled and fell off the tree Wolfwood had been using for target practice all afternoon.

Wolfwood walked up to Vash's side while the man gathered the length of his sling and examined it for broken threads. "Decent shot," Wolfwood said flatly.

Vash shrugged a shoulder. "That went a little left. I'm rusty."

Wolfwood walked onwards towards the tree. He examined the place where the branch met the trunk and found the stone Vash had slung embedded firmly in the wood grain at a spot that had already been weakened by a chop from the Punisher. He tried to wiggle the stone out of the tree and couldn't get purchase on it, it was so stuck.

Across the yard, Vash called, "Stand still?"

Wolfwood froze, looking back. Vash was lazily swinging the sling again, reloaded. Wolfwood gave a nod and stood stock-still next to the tree.

Crack. A puff of splinters blew out of the tree trunk next to Wolfwood's leg. He looked down; the mark in the trunk aligned exactly, a few inches horizontally, with his knee. If it had hit him there he sure as hell wouldn't be walking anywhere anytime soon. Maybe ever again.

"Better," Vash called.

Wolfwood walked back to him. "I take it you don't go for head shots," he said, trying to pretend he was fine, that adrenaline wasn't singing loud through his veins, rushing heat out to his limbs and pooling thick in his belly.

"No," Vash said, looking at the band again. "Need to reinforce this," he muttered, fingering some stray fibers.

"I'm beginning to see how you got so many scars," Wolfwood said. "Popping a kneecap just pisses people off even more than they already were."

"It gives me a chance to run," Vash said, frowning at the ground.

"Yeah, and you outran all these arrows," Wolfwood murmured, poking his fingertips against Vash's belly where he knew at least three pale pock marks were hiding under the black tunic.

Vash huffed and took Wolfwood's hand away. "I did," he said. "Actually. Archers aren’t great at aiming when they're in pain."

"So it's wrong to kill but not wrong to hurt," Wolfwood said. "To maim."

Vash stepped back from him, scowling. "When you're alive you can keep making choices," he said. "Maybe better ones. Doesn't mean there aren't bad people out there who need to be slowed down, at least."

"So they have time to sit and think about what they've done," Wolfwood said dryly. "Like rubbing a dog's nose in its mess."

"Why are you being such an ass?" Vash demanded.

The adrenaline was still coursing warm through Wolfwood's extremities. Why was he being such an ass? He supposed it was because Vash was on the verge of entering his world. He'd been in Vash's for these past months - this pocket of kindness and plenty that had never felt entirely real. He'd never thought Vash was a fighter. But now here he was with his armor-making skills, his proficiency with a weapon, his serious attitude, and Wolfwood was finding himself angry that... that all of that had been here all along. Hidden beneath the idyllic veneer. He'd never actually been in a place without violence because such a place didn't, and couldn't, exist.

"Are you going to break your brother's kneecaps?" Wolfwood asked Vash, acid in his tone. "Knock him out and tie him up so he can think about his bad behavior?"

Vash stared at him, nostrils flaring. After a long moment, he said, "I don't know."

"You don't have much time to figure it out," Wolfwood said, mouth dry, and turned and left.

-

It rained on the last day they spent in Vash's cottage.

They'd packed any food that would keep for travel, and left the vegetable patches untended for the whole week. Wolfwood's original saddlebag was packed full to bursting, a quilt for a bedroll folded up tight and tied on top. Angelina seemed to sense that they were moving on soon, and hung close to Wolfwood whenever he was outside. When the rain began, she retreated to the trees for better shelter, flicking stray drops off of her ears.

Wolfwood realized while watching Vash tell all his animals goodbye that he didn't have a single creature living here who depended on him. When Vash left, they would still live just fine off of forage and bugs, scraping their winter coats off on trees and incubating their own eggs on into the future. Vash seemed to think they wouldn't even miss him. That they'd done him a kindness by keeping him company all these years.

Nothing in the cottage needed Vash. Without him, it would simply fill with dust, creaking alone, its charms of convenience all wearing down to nothing. The sheep and birds might wander away over time. Squash and herbs and flowers would reseed themselves in random patterns, until the mint finally overtook it all. Beasts would explore the slow ruin. Wildflowers would bloom in the wheat fields.

The cottage didn't need Vash. He needed it.

They'd both retreated indoors when the rain began nearly an hour ago. Wolfwood couldn't find another knife he hadn't sharpened or crossbow bolt he hadn't re-fletched, and was at loose ends. He eventually went over to the fireplace mantle and picked up the small object that he'd been working on for weeks, his callused hands remembering how he'd done this craft before, when he was young.

The wood hadn't obeyed him as perfectly as he'd wanted it to, but the final shape was recognizable. The marbled worm-markings in the wood grain added to the effect exactly how he'd hoped. He picked at it for a moment with his fingernail, hunting down any potential splinters, but he couldn't find fault with it. Vash had seen him working on it now and then for weeks but hadn't pushed for a closer look.

Vash was, at the moment, sitting at the cleared table and working on a piece of clothing Wolfwood had never seen before. It was black leather, thick and tough. Vash was rubbing beeswax into it, his face drawn.

Outside, warm, thick raindrops pattered down. Wolfwood thought about the cold, wet spring day he'd left December. He half expected that if he tasted the rain now, it would be as salty as tears.

Wolfwood went to the table and sat down across from Vash, looking at the heap of what appeared to be armor. Vash had pulled it from a trunk he'd never opened before in Wolfwood's presence, a smallish one that had been pushed deep beneath the bed. Wolfwood picked up what turned out to be a pant leg, smoothing his thumb over the leather. It was supple enough that he didn't believe it had sat in that trunk untouched for very long - a year at most.

"You take care of this," he noted.

Vash hummed. He buffed out the last smear of wax, leaving the leather buttery-soft but still tough.

"Vash," Wolfwood said, stomach heavy. "Look at me."

Vash sealed up the jar of wax first. He smoothed his hands over the armor in front of him. Finally, finally, he looked up.

Wolfwood wasn't even sure what he wanted to say. There was no way to convey it all. He would beg to have the cup taken from his lips, except Vash wasn't God, and they were both doomed to drink together. Maybe that was comfort enough.

"Here," Wolfwood said, holding out the small object in his palm.

Vash slowly took it. It was a bird, a hawk maybe, its beak whittled sharp. The marbling of the wood suggested feathers. Its wings were spread.

Vash ran his living thumb over it, looking as overfull as Wolfwood felt. He didn't say anything for a while, just studying the workmanship and tracing the feathers to the wingtips.

Finally, he said, "Thank you, Wolfwood. For everything."

"It's Nicholas," Wolfwood said, the words slipping out without conscious thought.

Vash looked up and met his eyes.

Wolfwood rubbed his mouth and chin, heart thudding with a little extra speed. He shrugged and said, "Meryl told me not to share my real name. Because of magic or something."

Vash's mouth twitched into a real smile, one of the most honest ones Wolfwood had seen in days. Wolfwood's heart skipped a beat and came back faster than ever. "Oh," Vash said, laughing, "did she? She has kind of an old-fashioned sense of how magic works. And that's saying something coming from me."

"What does that mean?" Wolfwood asked.

"It isn't as simple as a name giving someone power over another," Vash said. "'True names' aren't written in stone at birth or anything. I could know the full name of a stranger I'd never met before and if I cast a charm on them it wouldn't have any extra strength." He smiled at the wooden bird, flipping it in his hands. "It's about closeness, really. A name is something built between people." Vash looked up at Wolfwood. "The word 'Vash' is just a sound. To my brother, Vash is someone different from who Vash is to you, or to Meryl. That bond, that understanding, is what magic can leverage. If I loved someone, if I knew them beyond all doubt... I wouldn't need a name at all. I'd only need what I call them. What they are to me. Maybe, call it... what my soul has named them, with or without conscious thought."

Wolfwood swallowed hard. "Oh," he said.

"If Nicholas is who you want to be, then I'll change what I call you," Vash said softly. "But you've already given me your real name."

"Vash..." Wolfwood said quietly.

Vash interrupted him with a big smile, laughter in his eyes. "Actually if you used Spikey to charm me, it would work just as well," he said. "Or Blondie."

"My soul didn't name you Blondie," Wolfwood said, trying to scoff so he wouldn't tear up.

"Didn't it?" Vash asked, a little teasing. "I like it."

"Blondie's an idiot," Wolfwood said hoarsely. "And Spikey annoys me. But Vash -"

Vash watched him with wide eyes.

"I think I love him," Wolfwood said.

Vash let out a long breath, his mouth forming a soundless "oh."

Wolfwood shook himself, rubbing the corner of his eye. "I dunno, sometimes Vash gets on my nerves, too," he croaked.

Vash's chair scraped back. Before Wolfwood knew what had hit him, he was being pulled up and into a heated kiss, Vash's arms going around his waist and the back of his neck to hold him firmly flush. Wolfwood gasped with relief at not needing to keep thinking about what he'd just said, allowing Vash's tongue into his mouth, groaning and gripping Vash's hips right back. There was an urgency to Vash that wasn't exactly frantic, because there was still time - just enough time to have enough of each other to know that they could never truly get enough of each other, but that was tomorrow's tragedy.

Wolfwood found himself stumbling Vash over to the bed, his heart as loud as the rain that pattered hard against the roof. Vash shrugged out of his clothes without a moment's hesitation, spreading his legs now as if he'd never been afraid to be seen, and it made Wolfwood's chest seize tight. He got his own shirt off but lingered between Vash's legs, sliding his fingers along the ridges where wood met flesh, following them with his tongue. Vash had said the stumps were ugly and Wolfwood didn't have to get so close to them but Wolfwood begged to disagree; they were sensitive and Vash was self-conscious of them, both of which Wolfwood took as a personal challenge.

Vash let out a pleased breath and drew his living fingers up through his slit to part it. His cock was still tucked away inside. Now that he let Wolfwood see him, Wolfwood loved watching the process unfold.

Wolfwood kept thumbing and kissing over the most sensitive parts of Vash's leg, the one that stopped above the knee. His skin's transition into magic construct happened to be placed exactly where the inner skin of his thigh was the softest and most unblemished, full of unsullied nerves just waiting to be played by Wolfwood's mouth. Vash let out a moaning sigh as Wolfwood sucked dark spots into the skin, flicking red marks and then soothing them.

"Wolfwood," Vash groaned, pushing one finger into his slit just enough to tease at the underside of the cock that was starting to peek out. "Ah, don't... don't make it hard to walk," he half-laughed, ending by biting his lip as Wolfwood gently nibbled on a purple mark.

"These are a reminder of my disapproval of your plan," Wolfwood told him.

"You can be disapproving all you want to my face," Vash said, grinning.

Wolfwood bit him again and Vash yelped.

By the time Wolfwood reached Vash's slit, his cock was halfway free, standing slim and taut with its halo of tendrils just starting to unfurl. Wolfwood sank his mouth around it with a sigh, eyes slipping closed, tonguing the thick, slippery fluid up along the hot weight of it. Vash made a helpless sound, his hand finding the back of Wolfwood's head and staying there, petting. For a heady few minutes, Wolfwood just breathed in Vash's sweetness and musk while he eased the cock the rest of the way out of its sheath and teased more and more slick out of its pores, until Vash's legs were trembling around his head and the hand in his hair was gripping in small spasms.

When he thought Vash was close, Wolfwood slid off and sat up, hands dropping to his belt. Vash was red-faced and panting, dumbstruck by Wolfwood suddenly stopping, whines of complaint caught in his throat.

"I want you to fuck me," Wolfwood rasped, jerking his pants and shorts off and hurriedly kicking them away.

"What?" Vash asked, dazed. He looked Wolfwood up and down, lingering on the cock that was already swollen hard and shiny with slick. "Oh," Vash said, taking a shaky breath. "Yeah, I - it'll take a minute to get you prepped, I have some oil that would -"

"Not in the ass," Wolfwood said roughly, throwing his leg astride Vash's hips and scooting himself into place.

"Wh- wait, what? Wolf -" Vash cut off into a broken gasp as Wolfwood squeezed his fist up Vash's length and rubbed its tip between his own folds.

Wolfwood's heart was racing. He'd been thinking about it for several days now, every time he used that salve Vash had made him. It had gotten so, so much easier to put inside. And it felt... different. Instead of his smallest finger he now used his index or middle fingers - or, most recently, both - and he'd begun to linger in curiosity, amazed at how much wetter he could get than he'd ever been before, and how that wetness seemed to lead into endless depths. He'd been clamped tight for so long that he hadn't known how deep he actually went. Or how good it felt, sometimes, if he got the angle just right.

"Wait," Vash was saying, hands gripping Wolfwood's hips, "wait, wait -"

"Ah - fuck," Wolfwood hissed, pressing the head of Vash's cock into himself. It was... not good. Too fucking big, stinging and burning in the old familiar way. Wolfwood's fingers were thick, though, and he'd thought, since he could get two in there, and Vash's cock was relatively slim - why not? But his body was rejecting what he wanted from it yet again, the fucking piece of shit.

Vash pushed him away with that impossible strength he kept hidden in his wiry frame, rolled Wolfwood roughly onto his back, and pressed him down with his wooden hand solidly in the middle of his chest. "Wait," Vash said again, brows drawn.

Wolfwood put a hand over his eyes. "I thought it'd work," he said through clenched teeth.

"Wolfwood -" Vash sounded exasperated. He forcibly moved Wolfwood's hand from his eyes. "All I said was wait," he said, huffing. "Could you give me a second to process?"

Wolfwood blinked at him.

Vash rambled on, "'Hey, would you consider fucking me in a way I've never done before?' 'Oh wow, that sounds like a big decision, thanks for asking, I'm into it!' 'Here's how I'd like it to work!' 'Nice, let's see what we can do to make that good for you, maybe start with some oral?’" He stopped, breathing hard, still staring down at Wolfwood.

Who blinked again, mouth open but no words coming to mind. His entire worldly experience said, Men love to fuck a cunt, no discussion needed. But his heart and his current, present brain were far more invested in what Vash was saying.

Vash lifted his hand and sat up on Wolfwood's thighs, looking down with exasperation and, thankfully, patience. "So, you're using the salve," Vash said, not really intoned as a question.

Wolfwood licked his lips nervously. "Yes?" he said.

"It's helping?" Vash asked.

Wolfwood nodded, his face going hot against his will.

"Can I feel?" Vash asked. He moved his hands to the tops of Wolfwood's thighs, thumbs teasingly close to his wet folds. "If you're really healing so well," Vash said, voice going low, "and you want me inside you, then would you let me inside with something other than my dick first?"

Wolfwood's brain shorted out and filled with static. He'd been momentarily afraid that he'd ruined the mood, or that he'd ruined his own arousal at least, but, uh - no. No, his capacity for arousal was not at all impaired. Just Vash's voice was enough to make him clench and get wetter.

He nodded fast.

Vash said, "Good." He moved, pushing Wolfwood's legs apart and shifting himself between them, hands pinching at Wolfwood's thighs right where Vash now had a collection of lilac and dark pink bite marks. "And I really want you right now," Vash said, a tease of darkness in his tone, "but for future reference, when someone says wait you should listen."

Wolfwood opened his mouth, but he was too stunned to form a cogent reply. "Sorry," he rasped.

"Don't be," Vash said, kissing Wolfwood's thigh and leaning down. "This time."

Then his mouth engulfed Wolfwood's cock and thinking became blessedly impossible. Vash focused entirely on Wolfwood's dick, drawing him up from his folds, pushing the hood back with his tongue and overworking the nerves immediately. Wolfwood heard himself let out a loud whine but couldn't stop it, his leg jerking involuntarily as though thinking of kicking Vash away. But it felt too good to demand that Vash stop, he just - he was overwhelmed, he was dragged so close to the edge so fast, he might not be able to -

Vash slid a finger fully inside him, seated to the knuckle, far deeper than Wolfwood could go himself, and he curled it gently upwards.

Wolfwood came with a shout. He wasn't expecting it, it tore out of his core like Vash had just reached in there and pulled it out with that one damned finger. It felt so fucking different from other orgasms - deep and thudding inside him in time with the blood in his ears, pulses of pleasure that felt like bleeding out. Vash kept moving his finger against that damned spot, too, which kept making pleasure throb in his hips and spine.

Finally, finally, Vash let go of his cock with a wet pop, blinked down at Wolfwood, and said, "Wow, I didn't realize the salve was working that well."

This time, Wolfwood did kick him.

Vash fell back on his ass, laughing, pink-cheeked and cherubic in his smugness. Wolfwood squeezed his thighs closed and bit the inside of his mouth through the last of the wracking shivers. He felt hollow and itchy in a way he'd never associated with sex before Vash. As his nerves settled he let his legs splay apart again, dropping his knees to the sheets, boneless.

"Good?" Vash asked.

"Shut up," Wolfwood told him.

Vash climbed back on top of him and laid down to steal a kiss. Wolfwood allowed it, drifting into languid comfort as Vash gently worked his lips and tongue into a tingling mess. Vash was still hard, pressed into the seam between Wolfwood's hip and thigh, and he slid his hand between Wolfwood's legs to massage his whole sex with one broad, warm palm. It made Wolfwood feel drunk on hedonism. As powerful as that first orgasm had been, he could tell it wouldn't take much to bring him to another.

"I want to finger you again," Vash murmured. "I'll go to three and if you still want me to fuck you after that, I will."

Wolfwood nodded hurriedly, clenching in anticipation. He felt fluid dripping down to the sheets. Vash dragged his fingers through the mess, raised his hand to his mouth and sucked the shine off, eyes on Wolfwood the whole time.

"Fuck," Wolfwood rasped.

"Patience," Vash said, pushing Wolfwood's legs wider.

Vash's index finger nearly felt like nothing, now. Wolfwood took a moment to accept how staggering of a change that was, since for most of his life the idea of fitting a whole finger in there would have been like asking him to pull his own teeth out for fun. Attempts at quick fucks in the back rooms of churches and inns had resulted, more than once, in Wolfwood threatening to rip off the next finger that tried to give him an exploratory poke.

Now, one finger was good but two were phenomenal; Wolfwood couldn't speak anymore as Vash worked them in and out, drawing Wolfwood slowly back to that dangerous edge without even a hand on his dick. The spot inside that Vash had touched before was still just as sensitive, and if touching his cock had always felt like a high note of pleasure then Vash's fingering felt like a bass drum. The pleasure was a dark, tight hunger.

Wolfwood dared to give that hunger voice. "More," he said, voice shaky.

"Yeah?" Vash eased up closer so he could lean over Wolfwood's chest and lick one of his nipples. He pulled his two fingers out and came back with three, and said through a grin, "Next time I'm gonna teach you to ask politely."

Ah, it was tight, and there was a little burn, but it passed quickly. Maybe because one peak had already relaxed him, maybe because Vash's calming presence was enough to make him melt, maybe because gradual stretching worked the same in the front as the back and Wolfwood had never given himself enough time to adjust before. For whatever reason, this time, the mild ache of a tight stretch felt right.

"How's that?" Vash asked quietly.

"Please," Wolfwood groaned.

"Please?" Vash's tone was teasing.

"I'm close," Wolfwood said, squeezing his eyes shut. "Would you -" He cut off in a pant as Vash curled his fingers.

"Do you still want me to fuck you?" Vash asked gently. "This is enough for me -"

Wolfwood snapped his eyes open and nearly snarled. "You're not getting out of fucking me, Spikey," he said.

Vash let out a startled laugh.

"Now," Wolfwood demanded.

Vash giggled, "All right, all right, give me a second -!"

Vash shifted upright and licked his fingers clean without seeming to even think about it, which made Wolfwood groan. He reached down and tugged his cock between three fingers, distracting himself from how empty he felt with a wash of familiar nerve-buzzing pleasure. He ran hot and cold all over with anticipation, nerves creeping back up on him the more Vash positioned himself, propped between Wolfwood's spread legs.

Vash pressed his length alongside Wolfwood's and stroked them together for a moment, kissing Wolfwood hard before breaking to ask, "You all right?"

Some dark, ugly voice at the back of his mind was hissing wife, mother, submitter, whore, the same things it had hissed since he was barely old enough to comprehend it. But Vash overwhelmed the perpetual undercurrent of self-hate. His gaze drowned it out. Why had Wolfwood ever thought his eyes were the color of an impending storm? They were the bathing pool, clear blue water tinted green by warm sun through leaves. Vash cleansed a thing just by perceiving it. Vash didn't look at him and see someone dressed up as a thing they weren't: he saw a man, he wanted Wolfwood as a man, he wanted Wolfwood as himself regardless of identity, of names on pieces of paper, because Vash's soul had named Wolfwood with enough depth of clarity to cast deep magic on him, but Vash loved him enough not to do that to him even though he could.

Wolfwood nodded, head spinning. He held the back of Vash's neck as he pressed inside.

There wasn't much added stretch, just a comfortable fullness that pressed relentlessly on that spot inside that felt like a beating heart of pleasure. Vash put his living hand between them and gently rubbed at the base of Wolfwood's cock, thumb sliding slowly up and down the length. Wolfwood hooked his calves over the backs of Vash's thighs, toes curling against flesh on one side and bark on the other, and it reminded him of nothing so much as horse riding, with the way he could squeeze his knees to give Vash directions. All the while, Vash kissed like he was drowning and Wolfwood was air.

Vash pulled back a little more and thrust in faster, hitting Wolfwood with a shock of pleasure that made him break the kiss with a punched-out moan. Vash's tendrils twitched through Wolfwood's coarse pubic hair, tugging at random, which was an odd sensation but not terrible. It certainly wasn't enough to distract from the delirious surges of warmth and shivers wracking Wolfwood's core.

"Wolfwood," Vash moaned against his neck, muffled by dark skin, "you feel so good..."

"Hhn," was about all Wolfwood could manage, trying not to drool as Vash moved in deep, steady thrusts that dragged his entire length out on every stroke. It filtered through to his conscious mind that Vash was just as drenched in pleasure as he was, and that he was doing that, Vash was pink-faced and hazy-eyed and blissed out because of him - and for some reason that was enough for Vash's next thrust to knock Wolfwood's careful internal balance into a cascade of sensation that had him clenching and gasping and surging his hips against Vash's, demanding more even as one swell of pleasure was already cresting.

"Ah, sh- shit, do you want me to - to stop -" Vash pushed himself up on one shaking arm, his other hand leaving Wolfwood's cock for the moment.

"I'll fucking kill you if you do," Wolfwood said, trying and failing to growl, mostly just panting. "Fuck - Vash -"

"Do you," Vash gasped, pistoning his hips in a close, short rhythm that had Wolfwood's navel feeling like there was a hook behind it, preparing to rip him open and pour out more visceral ecstasy than he was sure he could handle, "d'you want me to pull out when I’m close, or -"

"No," Wolfwood said, "no, no, ahhh yes, Vash, Va-ahh!"

Vash had sat up on his knees, jerked Wolfwood closer with a bruising grip on his hips, and the change in angle wiped Wolfwood's mind completely blank. He could hear himself saying disconnected words, mostly affirmations, but he couldn't care less how humiliating he might find his behavior at any other time because all that mattered was Vash's hot, slick length filling him and Vash's wet fingers on his cock and Vash's pretty little noises in the back of his red-flushed, sweat-slicked throat - Vash's throat bobbing hard on a gasp of Wolfwood's name, Vash shuddering all over and losing rhythm and grinding deeper, deeper, shorter, sharper, wetter, louder -

It took one last rough thumb dragged over the head of Wolfwood’s cock to break him. He no longer gave a fuck about mess or noises, he just needed it to keep going until he wasn’t dying from it anymore; the pleasure was nearly unbearable but the only way out was through. He couldn’t hear anything over the blood in his ears. He was vaguely aware of it when Vash pulled out, because he felt strange and cold and empty, but then Vash was lying over him and tangling their fingers and pressing his face into Wolfwood’s hair, his knee firmly wedged between Wolfwood’s legs, and he was hoarsely whispering things that Wolfwood didn’t know if he was entirely ready to hear. Not now. Not like this, his mind still half-dead.

Wolfwood silenced Vash’s murmurs with his mouth and they came down, slowly, into a reality of over-exerted muscles and cooling mess. Wolfwood played briefly with Vash’s cock as it retreated, making Vash shiver and groan complaints, and sucked his fingers clean once the length had finally vanished. Vash watched him through mostly-closed eyes, gaze warm and muzzy.

After a long, long time in easy silence, Vash finally murmured, “All right?”

Wolfwood closed his eyes against the world. He said, “I’m fine, Blondie.”

“Am I really an idiot to ask?”

Wolfwood blinked and looked at him. Vash was smiling softly. Blondie’s an idiot, Wolfwood’s own voice returned to him. He couldn’t repress a grin when he said, “No. But I’m okay. You?”

Vash kissed his neck and hummed a yes.

The sun hadn’t gone down yet, although the late afternoon sky was dark with the drizzling rain. They’d made the bedcovers uninhabitable, so after a quick cleanup they abandoned the interior of the cottage for the porch. They didn’t bother with dressing for decency. The warm, humid air caressed their skin as they settled, curled against each other, on the sparse futon that used to be Wolfwood’s bed.

They watched the rain fall in silence.

-

Chapter Text

In the gray light of dawn, Wolfwood slowly cinched up the ties of his gambeson. Across the small room, he watched Vash tug his ancient but well-maintained leather armor up each leg and over his hips, adjusting the material against his artificial limbs multiple times. The top was a separate piece that covered his neck and chest but left his arms bare, and exposed an amount of stomach that Wolfwood would normally think impractical for a melee fighter. A long glove went over his right arm, hugging above his elbow and only encasing his middle and ring fingers. He strapped boots up his calves.

As Wolfwood spent time folding and tucking Punisher's wrappings and buckling its straps, Vash opened his small trunk and pulled out another item of clothing Wolfwood had never seen. Over all of his black leather, Vash shrugged on the first color Wolfwood had ever seen him wear: yards upon yards of an intense blood red. Of all the color Wolfwood had ever envisioned Vash wearing, this was not something he would have fantasized about, and it filled him with strange unease.

The coat was long and layered, almost looking like robes or vestments instead. The bottom hems were tattered but patched, Wolfwood noticed, as if from many repeated cycles of destruction and repair. They nearly touched the tops of Vash's boots. Slits in the sides allowed for total freedom of motion, and made all the panels of fabric swish and flare with every movement. The top clasped snugly across Vash's chest with metal-enforced ties; a cowled neckline slumped backwards into a potential hood.

Vash picked up his sturdy walking stick and wrapped the length of his newly-made sling around it, fastening the ends in a quick-release knot. He went to the mantle, where he'd laid a small pile of stones he'd spent the week gathering from the creek, and filled some hidden pockets inside the coat with them.

Wolfwood pulled the last leather strap taut across the Punisher's cross guard and fixed the spring-release mechanism in place. He stood up, swung the claymore across his back, fitted his bolt quiver to his belt, and picked up his crossbow.

Vash picked up his packed satchel and finally met Wolfwood's eyes.

"Ready?" Wolfwood asked gruffly.

Vash walked to the table without answering. He picked up the small, whittled bird that was still lying there, forgotten in the midst of other concerns the night before. He smoothed his thumb over a wing before tucking the figurine into a pocket inside the mantle of his coat.

The gesture felt like a knife in the gut. Wolfwood's own small pewter wolf was in his pocket, where he could barely feel it through his layers. There was no magic to the tokens; they weren't amulets against harm or vessels for luck. But Milly had pressed the wolf into his hands before he'd left home, and he'd found Vash, so... some childish, stupid part of him hoped that the hawk, pressed into Vash's hands, would bring him to something he'd never known he needed, too.

"Let's go," Vash said.

Peach tones were only beginning to touch the visible stretch of sky when they left Vash's cottage. Vash started to approach Angelina alongside Wolfwood, but when she snorted loudly at him, he hesitated and held his pack out to Wolfwood instead. Wolfwood added his own snort, but when he took the bags over to Angelina to load them onto her saddle, he gave her a mild thump on the neck and muttered, "Be nice."

There was no way they could both ride her even without all their gear, so she was back to being a pack horse for now. Once she was loaded down, Wolfwood fed her a couple of carrots and murmured, "One more indignity, hm? One way or another thing's'll be changing soon, sweetheart." He pressed his face into her mane, breathed in her smell (clean and washed since arriving at Vash's) and sighed it out.

He tried to enjoy his own state of cleanliness while he could, too. The pre-dawn morning wasn't too warm yet, but it was the height of summer now and he was back inside several layers of thickly padded leather and linen instead of the cool, loose clothing Vash had shared with him. He was resigned to sweating through his layers by noon. He might miss the bathing pool more than anything else here.

As the streaks of pink in the sky grew brighter, and Wolfwood stroked Angelina's nose one more time, Vash stood perfectly still in the middle of his yard. He brushed his hair back from his face, making some of it stick up in wilder than usual spikes. The garden plots were lush with a crop that would never be harvested. One guinea was scratching a worm out of the soft ground while another sat over a freshly laid egg that was doomed to lie there and spoil. In the distance, a few sleepy baas indicated that the sheep were waking up.

The cottage was very still. No smoke wisped from the chimney. The blankets inside were all folded on the bed. Dust would creep in to cover the table and all the little scraps of art that decorated the walls and shelves. The charm on the cold-box would fail after a couple of weeks, and the things still inside it would go rancid and eventually decay beyond even the point of stench. Dirt to dirt. Ashes to ashes.

Wolfwood thought about saying something, but he couldn't bring himself to speak. Vash's life had been far longer and bigger than this little place, and if there was a God with any mercy at all then his life would extend far beyond this moment, as well. But the time Vash had spent here was enough to match any average human being's entire life. It was what he'd built when he had nothing. It was what he'd built to prove to himself he could build instead of destroy.

Vash turned, gave Wolfwood a small smile, and started walking westward. He didn't look back.

After a minute, Wolfwood clicked his tongue at Angelina and followed.

-

About a mile into the woods, Wolfwood spotted a flash of orange dart behind a tree and come out the other side as a flutter of white, and then Meryl was falling in beside them like she'd always been there.

Vash opened his mouth to greet her, but before he could say a word she had reached over and snatched up a handful of his coat and scowled at him. "This thing again, really?" she demanded.

Vash made an indignant noise. "What's wrong with it?"

"You're visible from a mile away!" Meryl said. "I told you forever ago you should just dress normally and so much less trouble would find you!"

Vash turned his face from her and sniffed. "Just because you have no sense of style," he said.

“She’s got you, Spikey,” Wolfwood said.

“You definitely don’t get to talk about style.”

Meryl glanced at Wolfwood and added, “You really don’t.”

Wolfwood spluttered with indignity and ended up resorting to muttering his complaints to Angelina.

Up ahead, Meryl said, “Vash, I’m serious, the coat’s a liability.”

“How? Like he wouldn’t recognize me in anything.”

“But his people might not,” Meryl pled. “Wolfwood says he stays masked all the time, so no one even knows you look like him! If you just wore something plain, you’d be -“

“Safe?” Vash smiled down at her, driving in the absurdity. Wolfwood watched the two of them, no longer grousing under his breath. Vash said, “However we meet again, I’m showing up as myself. He has to look me in the eye and know that he didn’t change me. All right?”

She looked like she wanted to argue more, but her mouth twisted down as she realized how useless it would be. She fell silent, but she stayed near him as they walked onward, drifting close to him every now and then to let her shoulder bump his arm. She was so tiny in comparison to his lanky height, which the leather armor and red coat had only accentuated.

Wolfwood paused to swig from his waterskin. Since it seemed that Meryl was done haranguing Vash, he decided to pick a bone of his own. He tossed a stick at Meryl, whiffing past her ear to get her attention.

He said, “Short girl, I’ve been thinking. You fed me a load of horseshit about names and magic."

"What?" Meryl slapped the air beside her head, far too late to catch the thrown stick. She glared at him.

"Wolfwood," Vash sighed from up ahead.

"According to Vash -“ Wolfwood said.

"I didn't mean it like -" Vash tried.

"According to Vash," Wolfwood repeated, "Meryl's just as much your 'real' name as anything by now, because it's how he knows you. Am I getting that right?"

Vash tipped his face up to the canopy and heaved a sigh. "I don't want to argue about magic," he whined.

Meryl bristled. "Well, forgive me if I at least attempt to maintain some boundaries for safety," she snipped.

"Boundaries?" Wolfwood snorted. "I'll let you know if I ever see you setting a boundary."

Meryl kicked a rock towards him. He dodged.

"Smartass," Meryl said, and her tone sounded hurt enough that he finally clocked that he might have overstepped. "It matters to me, all right? It's nice that you feel safe giving your real name."

Wolfwood sighed. "Wolfwood is my real name, shorty. What does it even matter? Zazie knew it as soon as I walked into the woods."

Vash stopped walking and looked back, brow furrowed. "What?" he asked.

"They called me by my name," Wolfwood said.

"How did they know?" Vash asked.

Wolfwood raised an eyebrow. "How should I know what they know?"

Meryl kicked another rock half-heartedly into the trees and said, "Stop pissing around, you two. We've got a lot of distance to cover."

They spent the rest of the day walking in slightly tense silence. Wolfwood was listening for buzzing in the trees and had the feeling that the others were doing the same. Every now and then Meryl would blink down into her animal shape behind a tree and go bounding off and out of sight before returning, sniffing circles into the ground, and one time licking traces of blood off her chops. When she blinked back to human, she muttered something about stretching her legs, but Wolfwood doubted it fooled Vash any more than it fooled him. One less songbird or chipmunk, probably.

When the sun began to set with no sign that they were going to be accosted by a malicious insect swarm, Wolfwood gave a short whistle for attention and asked, "Camp?"

Vash nodded. Meryl made a face but came to a halt at the same time they did, at the first decent-looking clearing. She sat at the foot of a tree and watched for a full half an hour as Vash and Wolfwood unpacked bedding, made a fire, collected water and started a hot meal.

While he was brushing down Angelina, Wolfwood looked over at her and called, "Real helpful."

"It looks terribly inconvenient to be you," Meryl shot back.

Vash stirred whatever he'd put together in his pan over the fire and tsked at both of them. "Stop it," he said.

"You don't have to travel with us if we're going to bore you," Wolfwood told Meryl.

"I'm not leaving Vash," she said with a stubborn set to her jaw.

Vash sighed and looked up at the canopy. "I'm fine," he muttered.

"You haven't been away from home in fifty years!"

Vash sighed even harder.

"He's a grown-ass man," Wolfwood said. "You could stop babying him."

"Like you didn't try to talk him into staying where it's safe!"

"That's just being rational! I still don't like him going right up to the Emperor's front door and asking to be killed!"

"I'm right here," Vash said, small and buried beneath the growing argument.

"Don't like it? It's insane! You didn't do a damn thing to stop him, you just encouraged him to get in the worst trouble he's ever -"

"Like I don't know? If I'd known this was how it'd turn out I wouldn't have stayed an extra day in the damn house, I'd've taken my chances with the bugs -"

"Wait," Vash cut in, "what do you mean, you wouldn't have stayed if -"

"This seems to be going well," said a voice above all of them.

Wolfwood threw his currycomb so hard and on such instinct that it smacked a large dragonfly right out of the air. The insect and the comb thumped into the moss nearby. Meryl had blinked into fox-form and was growling, and Vash just sighed.

"Ouch," said the buzzing creature overhead. "How rude. That one had a family, you know; it had just laid eggs. Don't you feel bad for killing a new parent?"

"Fuck off," Wolfwood said, heart racing. Memories of the boar and the lamb stuttered through his head, and his palms sweated to get on the hilt of his sword.

"Zazie," Vash said, setting the pan of dinner aside from the fire so it didn't burn. He pushed himself to his feet, knocking leaves and grass from his coat. "I'm in your territory, I know. Please let me petition you for safe passage for myself and my companions."

The child-sized swarm bubbled and buzzed in a laugh. "Don't be so formal, Typhoon," they said. "You can go right ahead, we won't bother you. It's much funnier that way."

Vash gave Zazie an unimpressed look.

The swarm created the semblance of a hands-spread-wide shrug with their shape. "The wolf is quite correct," they said, fluttering downward and settling on a low branch of a tree. "The world, as it is, is dying. This doesn't bother us, because death is delicious." Their mask of many eyes grinned wide, teeth sharp. "A living world is always also a dying one. Plenty to eat. Plenty of amusements. Who could ask for better? But soon," they said, raising a "finger" to their mask, "the world won't be dying, it will be ending. And we don't care for that."

"I'm not going to let that happen," Vash said, sounding tired.

"Very good, very noble," said Zazie, buzzing low and dissolving for a moment to crawl along the tree bark towards another branch. "Very short-sighted, idiot behavior. Not surprising. Neither of you are good at the big picture. This is our world. You two infant gods and your human pets don't belong here at all. But humans do at least have the decency to die, and their decay tastes sweet, so we don't mind cohabitating with them."

"And Nai and I?" Vash asked.

"You, maybe," Zazie said. "Him, no. The entertainment has gone on long enough. A dying world is good. An ending world is unacceptable. It isn't his to end. You're going to end him, yes?"

"I'm going to stop him," Vash said warily.

"You're going to end him," Zazie said, and moved abruptly through the air into Vash's personal space. Wolfwood's hand seized on the hilt of his sword; Meryl darted forward - but Vash held up a hand towards them both. Barely an inch from his face, a large insect with dripping pincers crawled to the front of the swarm and spread its mouthpieces.

From behind the mask, Zazie's buzzing voice said, "And we're going to help you."

"Don't threaten me," Vash said softly.

Zazie gave a soft hum. "We offer to help and you say we threaten?"

"I don't accept conditional help," Vash said. "I will not kill my brother for you."

"For whom, then?" Zazie asked. The poison pincers snapped playfully before retreating. The mask leaned forward instead. "Well, it doesn't matter. Our help is unconditional. We will help whether you like it or not, in fact. Don't bother to call on us; we don't need your instruction."

They zipped backwards and rose up into the air.

"Where the hell you going?" Wolfwood asked, hoarse. He dropped his hand from his sword hilt and drew a dagger instead. "You talk a big game, but you can't even leave the woods, you little fuck."

Zazie turned inside out and reformed facing Wolfwood without otherwise moving. It made Wolfwood's stomach flip. "Pardon?" they asked. "What in the world gave you the idea that we can't leave the woods?"

Wolfwood's grip tightened on the dagger.

"What part of our world didn't you understand, mangy wolf?" A few smaller winged insects flew out of Zazie's form and brushed past Wolfwood's cheek, making him flinch. "We are everywhere and always have been. What eyes watch you when you think you're alone? We can see the Typhoon's copy now, in fact. He's playing his little song, waiting for the other half of his duet to come home, while the one who speaks for him tells him about the progress of the church's cleansing of the countryside."

"The - what?" Wolfwood rasped.

Zazie blew a raspberry and darted up into the lower branches of the tree canopy, bubbling with itchy-sounding giggles. "Things have changed, pet!" they called down. "Didn't we tell you that Typhoon shouldn't have wasted that power? It's been half a century since his dimension last resonated with this one. We weren't the only one who noticed!"

Wolfwood snapped his gaze down to Vash, who had gone ash-pale.

On the ground, Meryl blinked from fox to human and yelled up, "Get the hell out of here!" She picked up a piece of firewood and hurled it hard.

Zazie broke into individual insects and vanished, leaving only the faint whine of a few scattered mosquitoes.

"I hate that thing," Wolfwood muttered.

"At least we agree on something," said Meryl.

Vash went back to the fire and sat down. He picked up the pan of dinner and said, "Wolfwood, come eat before it gets cold."

"Vash -"

Vash gave him a look that squashed anything he was about to say.

Wolfwood sighed and went to pick up his thrown currycomb first, pausing on his way back to soothe Angelina, who had remained remarkably calm but was quivering with restrained anxiety all down her flanks. The whites of her eyes were showing. Wolfwood whispered calming nothings to her and rubbed her nose until she gave a small snort and lipped at his hand.

Wolfwood joined Vash at the fireside. On Vash's other side, Meryl had already tucked herself small, arms wrapped around her legs. She sniffed in the direction of the pan but Wolfwood couldn't imagine she was interested in the mix of vegetables and mushrooms, or the steaming barley that went with it.

Wolfwood shoved a big forkful of food in his mouth and asked Meryl, muffled, ”You still hungry?"

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Don't be disgusting."

He chewed towards her with his mouth open for a moment, obnoxious, and she turned her face away, pink high in her cheeks.

"C'mon, foxgirl. There's still a little light. Let me eat and then we can hunt together."

"I don't need your help," Meryl sniffed.

"Didn't say you did," Wolfwood said. "I haven't had meat in months. Without the little buglord interfering, maybe I can bag a couple of hares, smoke ‘em overnight.”

He glanced at Vash, who was saying nothing, just placidly eating his dinner. When Vash noticed that Wolfwood was seeking his attention, he raised his eyebrows. "Hm," Vash said. "Maybe you can."

Wolfwood didn't want to press the issue, but Vash's neutrality made him uneasy. He gruffly asked, "You all right with that?"

Vash quirked a smile, but it was an empty one. "I hope I never gave you the impression that I disapprove of anything you eat," he said. "Either of you."

Meryl huffed a sigh. "I don't want to have this conversation again."

Wolfwood looked between them. Clearly he was missing something older than he was.

"Wolfwood," Vash said, "it's fine. Really. You two should hunt. I can sit upwind when you cook whatever you catch. I'll be fine, I swear."

Wolfwood nodded and let it go. He finished his portion of the dinner Vash had made in silence. It was delicious and he didn't mind the lack of meat, really, since Vash knew how to make things hearty and filling without it. But he still wanted to get Meryl on her own, at least for a little while, because he had things to say.

The twilight gloom crept down among the trees. With the excuse of daylight quickly dwindling, Wolfwood cleaned and repacked his gear and picked up his crossbow and bolts. Meryl got up as well. Before they left the clearing, Wolfwood squatted next to Vash and briefly squeezed his shoulder. Vash covered his hand with his own and smiled at him - a real one this time, though small. It made Wolfwood feel better about leaving him, however briefly.

Out in the trees, Meryl had vanished. Wolfwood was a little rusty, having not needed to practice his wilderness skills in months, but his feet remembered how to find silent places to step, and his eyes remembered how to scan the trees and low branches for life signs. He let himself sink into the void of hunting instinct, crossbow held loose and low in front of him.

About a quarter mile from the campfire, far enough that he'd lost sight of the light but not so far that he couldn't find his way back even in the absolute dark, Wolfwood stopped and crouched. He closed his eyes and listened deeply. After a minute, he heard a leaf rustle off to his left - and then a sudden, explosive scurrying of noise, a few panicked chitters, and an abrupt silence.

He'd made no effort to lift the crossbow. He opened his eyes and in the very last wisp of failing daylight he watched a fox emerging from the undergrowth with a fat rabbit in her mouth, its head lolling on a broken neck.

Wolfwood smirked and shifted his position from a crouch to sitting. He put his crossbow across his knees and gestured Meryl closer. She gave him a wary look but came over and laid her kill down. She sniffed it a couple of times, then held it down with her front feet and dug her teeth in to rip a bloody strip of flesh free.

"Wanted to talk," Wolfwood told her. "Just you and me."

Meryl gulped down her bite and looked at him for a moment before going back to the rabbit.

"You care about Vash," Wolfwood said. "You've known him a hell of a lot longer than I have. I came into your careful little lives and turned everything inside out, and now everything you had is over and gone. Right?"

She gave a particularly vicious rip, her muzzle wrinkled up in a snarl. The body of the rabbit flopped grotesquely. He understood why she kept this part of herself away from Vash.

More quietly, Wolfwood said, "You know I didn't mean any of this to happen. Not like this. I’ve made some bad choices in my life, but those choices affected me. I took on whatever I could, short of dying, to protect the people I cared about. It didn't always work but I tried. And me coming out here was just following orders, yes, but I have a brother and a best friend back home who are on a knife's edge, you understand? So I had to come and I had to try. I couldn't have known that what was out here was him."

Meryl laid down on her belly, still holding the torn-up rabbit between her front paws and chewing off chunks of red meat. Her ears flicked towards him.

"If I could go back and not have met him," Wolfwood said. "If I could go back and tell you not to go get his help, to just let me die alone - if it'd keep him safe, I'd take that. I don't have much left to give to protect the people I love. Just my life. If my life would save his, that's a good trade to me."

She’d stopped eating. The rabbit carcass was down to tendon and visible bones. She licked her chops once - and then, abruptly, Meryl the human woman was sitting across from him, cross-legged. The rabbit lay between them. Wolfwood could smell its blood, coppery and cooling fast.

Meryl's mouth was smudged with red. She licked her lips again and then said, "I don't wish I'd let you die."

Wolfwood didn't say anything, just watched her and waited.

She sighed and looked down at her knees, curling her hands upward in her lap. "I want Vash to be alive and safe, but... there's a hollowness in him. Ever since July. At first I thought it was the memory loss, but one day he saw me with a goose. White and gray feathers everywhere, with blood in them. And somehow that made it all come back… maybe the smell, the feathers, I don't know. And when I went to him, because he was - he'd gone wrong - I saw all the memories he was reliving, and I ran. I stayed away for a long time. I... I don't know how badly I hurt him, by running.

"When I came back to beg for his forgiveness, he acted like I hadn't done anything wrong. He was smiling again and it looked close enough to real but there was still that... hollow place. The memories didn't fill it." She looked up at Wolfwood. "But you did. At least a little bit. Maybe I did, too, but it was just hard to see past my guilt. And I know, now, that he can stay safe and be hollow, or he can heal, but he can't do both. And... I'd rather see him healed."

Wolfwood let out a long breath. He held out a hand towards her. "We're his knights," he said. "Aren't we?"

She slowly reached out and took his hand. Her fingers were small but warm and her grip was firm. "His knights," she echoed.

"So," he said. "Let's try not to let the world end."

For the first time, Meryl gave him a real, if small, smile. Her teeth were bloody. He tightened his grip on her hand, pulsing with gratitude that she was on his side.

"Let's," she said.

He gestured at his own mouth with his other hand and said, "You got a little somethin' on there."

She actually laughed.

“You done with that?” he asked, poking the rabbit.

“Why, you want the rest?” she asked, wiping her face clean with her hands and running her tongue around the inside of her mouth to clear it out.

He barked a laugh of his own. “Nah,” he said. “I’m not going to cook meat around him. It’s the smell, isn’t it?”

She nodded, standing up and shaking leaves from her white cape, which was miraculously free of blood. He supposed it wasn’t a miracle so much as a matter of what was and wasn’t truly real. Right?

“You’re a fox,” he began.

She blinked at him, wide-eyed. “Incredible deductive powers,” she said.

He deliberately shoulder-checked her as he pushed himself to his feet. She stumbled and smacked him in the arm; he grinned. “Let a man finish a damn thought, why don’t you,” he said, dodging her follow-up blow. “You are a fox, I mean. The fox came first, the human came later?”

She relented; they fell into step next to each other, heading back in the direction of the campfire and Vash. “Yes,” she said.

“How’d that happen? I mean, how’s that work, were you born this way, are there others like you…?”

So, miraculously, she told him about herself. As they picked their way through the pitch-black woods, Meryl said that she had no true explanation, but that she knew she wasn’t the only person like herself in the world - she’d met others, fleetingly, in decades of wandering life. She didn’t know why they existed, or why becoming the thing that they were made them long-lived. She said Vash had some sort of theory involving long, strange words and a more intimate understanding of Plants, their magic or their science or both, but that Meryl had never really understood it.

The firelight was back in view, a distant warmth through the trees. Meryl said, “It was terrifying when I started waking up. That’s what it felt like - a long dream that slowly turned lucid. Instinct meant less and less to me, I would have these long flashes of consciousness, and I just… didn’t know how to move forward. I chewed my legs until they scabbed and ran from every noise, I was so frightened by having a sense of self. I was completely lost.

“And then… I made a friend. Or he decided to make me his. He was a great big brown bear, and I thought he was going to tear me to shreds when he sniffed me out at the tree where I was hiding. But… he told me that he knew what I was feeling. He showed me that even though he was a bear, he was also a man sometimes. I wanted him to teach me, so I followed him around, asking questions. Got on his nerves.” She smiled in fond remembrance. “He taught me how to be a person. He taught me everything he knew about magic, which maybe wasn’t much, but.” She sighed. “He told me to keep my name for myself, so there would always be a part of me that stayed wild. And maybe he was wrong about names and charms, okay? But I still think that what he taught me matters.”

They’d reached the edge of the clearing. The fire was low. Vash sat at the edge of the light, his knees raised, arms wrapped around them, chin propped up. There was no way he hadn’t heard them coming, but he barely reacted to their presence; he just tipped his head slightly to the side as if to better catch Meryl’s approaching voice.

Wolfwood asked, “How did you have a name before you even had language?”

Meryl tilted her head in thought. “I don’t know,” she said, as they finally emerged into the firelight. “I dreamed it, I think. Or I heard it in a song.”

Vash looked up at both of them, smiling warmly. “Good hunting?” he asked.

Wolfwood strode over to him and collapsed to the ground with a groan. “Nope,” he said, laying the crossbow aside and loosening his gambeson’s ties. “Too full of your cooking, made me lazy and slow. Keep fattening me up and you’ll spare all the little forest critters.” He nudged Vash’s side with his elbow.

Vash chuckled, not fooled for a moment by the lie, but he seemed to be put at ease by Wolfwood’s lack of dead animals.

“Come here,” Wolfwood said, wrapping his arm around Vash’s shoulders and pulling him close. Vash let himself be pulled. Wolfwood turned his mouth towards Vash’s hair, as much to breathe in his scent as to press a kiss to his head. “Don’t let anything Zazie said get to you,” he murmured.

Vash just hmmed. But he settled against Wolfwood’s side, some tension melting from his shoulders. Wolfwood decided that would have to be good enough for now.

Meryl threw an acorn over the top of the fire at both of them, declared, “I can’t watch you two be disgusting, I’m going to sleep,” kicked a divot into the moss, turned around once, and dropped down into her fox form with a huff. She curled up and tucked her face out of sight under her tail.

Wolfwood laughed quietly at her, threading his fingers through Vash’s hair. He said, “You should sleep, too. I’ll keep first watch.”

Vash opened his mouth, probably to argue about the need for a watch at all - but he looked into Wolfwood’s eyes and gave up without trying. He gave a rueful smile and pulled Wolfwood in for a real kiss. “Don’t wait too long to wake me up,” he said. “Even split.”

“Meryl ought to pitch in, you think?” Wolfwood said, half-smiling against Vash’s mouth.

“Yeah, you be the one to wake her up if you really think so.”

Wolfwood gave a thoughtful hum and said, “Nah, I’d rather keep all my fingers.”

“Exactly.”

“Go to sleep,” Wolfwood said. “I’ve got your back.”

When Vash finally fell asleep, it was with his head cushioned against Wolfwood’s thigh. Somewhere in the rustling darkness of the trees, an owl gave a low hoot. Wolfwood drew a lock of golden hair between his fingers and gave himself over to the long, lonely wait.

-

The rest of the journey through the Forgotten Woods was peaceful enough. Zazie didn't show up to taunt or try to disorient them. Wolfwood didn't make even a pretense of trying to hunt; Meryl bickered but without any real heat. Every day, the forest was pristine and gorgeous, and the weather was pleasant. Every day, they moved closer to the edge of the world.

They traveled faster than Wolfwood had when he'd entered the woods, back when he'd been uncertain, searching for something he didn't know how to look for. Vash had an uncanny sense of direction and never consulted a compass or anything resembling a map. He simply led them west, until on the third day they encountered the old, broken road. They grew quieter the longer they walked along its cracked and moss-sunken stones.

Six days after leaving Vash's cottage, they settled down for one last night in the woods. Vash had already stood very still on the ancient road, looking westward, and declared that they'd be out of the woods by mid-morning. They could have pushed onward for another few hours that evening, but without a word, they seemed to collectively agree that one more night in safety would be for the best.

So strange, Wolfwood thought, that the Forgotten Woods now represented safety to him. He could barely remember how it had felt to be comforted by the world he'd grown up in, despite all its rot and flaws. He hadn't known what 'better' could even look like. Now that he knew, now that he'd lived in all of the beauty and abundance that the world was supposed to be, he was afraid to turn around and see where he'd come from. That diseased, starving maw that was trying to close its jaws around the forest and devour the last shred of vitality in the world.

Meryl darted off into the trees once the small fire was crackling, leaving Vash and Wolfwood alone. Before she'd left, she'd caught Wolfwood's eyes when Vash's back was turned and raised both her eyebrows. Darted her gaze towards Vash in a quick and obvious suggestion. He'd pointed into the trees, brow furrowed at her, to say nose out of our business. She'd shrugged and run.

Alone by the fire, full of what might be their last decent meal eaten in comfort, Wolfwood leaned his shoulder against Vash's. He closed his eyes, trying to draw up the memory of this closeness without so many muffling layers of armor in the way. They'd not dared to strip down much at night, and both of them were beginning to ripen in the summer heat.

Even so, Wolfwood turned his face towards Vash and leaned his forehead on red fabric, imagining he could feel the warmth of the body beneath seeping through. Vash had pushed his hair back out of his face so many times that it was all but stuck that way now, loose gold spikes trailing back as if he'd been standing face-first into a strong wind, only a few stray strands brave enough to fall forward. Wolfwood wanted to laugh at him for it, but he couldn't.

"No matter what happens," Vash murmured, "I'm glad I met you."

Wolfwood's mouth twisted tight. He took in a deep breath and let it out slow to keep it from shaking. After a while, he cleared his throat and said, "Yeah. Me too."

Vash's arm came up around his shoulders, pulling him close. Wolfwood knew that Meryl was planning on taking her sweet time with hunting, presuming that he and Vash might want the privacy, but... Wolfwood didn't want anything besides this. He couldn't stomach it. He wanted to press his face into Vash's throat and pretend they were clean and cool in Vash's sweet-smelling bed, with a soft rain outside and the distant clucking of birds. He wanted to never wake up.

He didn't know how long it was before he finally raised his face. He felt different. Calmer, more centered. He looked into Vash's eyes and thought he wasn't the only one. Vash raised a hand to his forehead, brushed his hair back, and smiled. A real one, small and private, only for Wolfwood.

Fingers in his hair made Wolfwood pause and think for a moment. He swallowed and asked, "Spikey, ask you a favor?"

"Anything."

"Would you cut my hair?"

Vash blinked at him and then tracked his gaze up over Wolfwood's shaggy mane. His hair was long enough to curl over his ears now, and he had to swipe it up and out of the back of his gambeson's collar multiple times every day.

"Yeah," Vash said, ruffling said hair with a little grin. "But no promises on quality."

"Just don't shave me bald," Wolfwood said, jabbing him in the side, and Vash laughed.

Meryl returned an hour later to find Vash and Wolfwood not naked and dozing, as she'd presumed they would be, but still fully clothed and bickering about whose fault it was that a bunch of hair trimmings had fallen down the back of Wolfwood's clothes and made him itchy. The man's hair was still shaggy, but a good bit shorter. Vash was holding a dagger covered in stray black strands and arguing that he still wasn't done cleaning up the edges, so could Wolfwood sit still for one damn minute, maybe?

She rolled her eyes at them and didn't even bother switching to human, just walked past them as a fox and flopped down near the fire. She was full and already drowsy enough that their ongoing banter didn't put a pause in her downward drift towards sleep.

-

They could feel the edge of the forest approaching before they could even see it. The air grew warmer, drier, and a musty smell like old, powdered mildew began to drift towards them on the breeze. Wolfwood tried to remember if it had always smelled like this; he didn't think it had, although it was true that the fresh, clean air of the woods had been a shock to him when he'd first arrived.

And then they made it through the last of the thinning straggle of shrunken, unhealthy trees, and Wolfwood witnessed the land he'd always called home.

He had grown so used to color that the lack of it made him feel like his eyes had gone wrong somehow. The desolate vastness of the landscape in front of them was scraped to dry dirt, broken only by the jagged splinters of dead tree trunks and some bristles of gray, crumbling grass. A reddish-brown haze of dust hung in the air, fuzzing out the edges of the horizon. The road lay ahead of them like a shed snake-skin trodden into the ground, as dead as the world around it.

In the far, far distance, Wolfwood thought he could see smoke rising. But it was hard to tell.

He looked over at Vash, who had stopped in the middle of the road. On Vash's other side, Meryl was also looking up at him, eyes bright with worry. Vash's expression was completely blank.

Angelina snorted and stomped her front hoof. Nicholas broke his gaze from Vash and looked to her instead, running a soothing hand over her neck. He was tempted to order her to stay behind again. In the woods she'd have plenty to eat, no major predators -

She snorted directly into his face as if to say she knew what he was thinking, and her opinion of it.

"Okay, girl," he muttered. "But when you get hungry, don't complain to me."

She tried to chew on his shortened hair. He waved her away.

Vash said, "Let's go," and began walking.

-

Chapter Text

Trouble found them sooner than they'd hoped.

Outside of any tree shade, the late summer heat bore down on them like a great, hot hand trying to smother them against the cracked soil. Even the wind was hot, when it blew at all. Wolfwood quickly moved past any desire to complain. A lifetime of simply bearing it came back to him like bile up a throat; he could feel himself shutting down and locking away all that ease of self-expression he’d regained by being around Vash.

The wind also brought the undeniable scent of smoke. Faint at first, only every now and again, but it was there. They spent one miserable night in the open - and even though the sky was cloudless, the stars were blotted out by the filmy thickness in the air, dust or smoke or both.

The next morning, they passed their first burnt-out wreck of a house. Weeks or even months old. Wolfwood recognized it as the place from which two small children had run into the road to beg him for food. There was no sign of habitation.

Trouble found them not long after that. Even through the soupy air, sound carried far over the open plains: they heard the group of horsemen before they could see them. Metallic clanks said they were probably armored, and the speed of the thudding that reverberated through the ground said they were moving fast.

Vash - who hadn’t spoken since the day before - said, “Spread out so we’re not a single target and aren’t in each others’ range.”

“Ain’t gonna hit you, Spikey,” Wolfwood said dryly, but he drifted a few yards to the left anyway. He looped Angelina’s lead loosely over her saddle and told her, “Alert, fall back.” She flared her nostrils but dutifully slowed until she was a good way behind the rest of them, keeping her distance.

Meryl fell into fox form and slunk into the scrubby weeds off the side of the road, keeping low. She blended into the tawny dirt remarkably well.

Just as the riders came into view, Vash slipped the knot on his sling and unwrapped it from his walking stick. He tucked a rock into the sling pocket and rewrapped the length of it loosely around his fingers. Wolfwood didn’t reach for his sword yet, but he went ahead and fitted a bolt into his crossbow.

There were five figures, all in black. The horses varied in color and size, but the largest was a blue roan draft, nineteen hands tall at least, and its rider was a giant of a man in full plate armor. The metal was scorched a dull black all over, except for a symbol drawn huge on its chest in drip-streaked white paint.

Eye of Michael.

The ice that spread down Wolfwood’s spine cancelled out the scorching heat. He lifted his crossbow's stock to his shoulder and settled his gaze at the tip of the sighting notch. Without looking around at his companions, he called out, “Gray the Ninelives. Uses a morningstar, hell of a reach on it. Fifteen feet at least.”

The horses had turned in their direction and were rapidly closing in on them. Out of the corner of his eye, Wolfwood saw Vash amble forward and raise his hands into the air, walking stick in the left, sling hanging limply around his right wrist.

“Vash?” Wolfwood called, alarmed.

“Don’t shoot,” Vash said calmly. “I just want to talk to them.”

“Ninelives doesn’t talk,” Wolfwood said. “Ate a pitchfork to the face years ago. No tongue.”

“He can still listen,” Vash said. “And there’s four others.”

“Ninelives doesn’t listen either,” Wolfwood muttered to himself, but he fell silent as the massive bulk of Gray’s horse pulled up to an agitated, frothy-mouthed halt a few yards in front of them. Wolfwood tracked his crossbow sight over to the other riders, seeing as Ninelives’ armor didn’t have an entry point anywhere except the half-inch eye slit in his bucket helm.

Three of the riders behind him had the twisted, hunched look of the Eye’s mutants, those failed alchemical experiments who usually got used as servitors. But even though the lobotomized monsters were generally relegated to drudge work, they were still strong and quick, and Wolfwood had spent most of his early training being forced to spar with them. He knew not to underestimate them.

“Hello, friends,” Vash called out, striding another few steps forward. “Nice to see fellow travelers.”

Wolfwood muttered a curse under his breath.

“No need for any conflict,” Vash went on, scrunching his face up against the sun’s brightness and a burst of hot, dusty wind. “Why don’t we talk a minute? I’ve got some water here, your horse looks like he could use it.”

Ninelives let out a groaning rumble without words, whipping his reins against his horse’s neck for no reason. The horse shook its head away from the pain and flung foam to the ground.

The fifth rider finally emerged from the back of the group, trotting up to be level with Ninelives - though, Wolfwood noted, not within fifteen feet of him. And as Wolfwood aimed his crossbow at this last man, he realized that he recognized him.

“I speak on Sir Gray the Ninelives’ behalf,” called the man, who had pushed back his chainmail hood to show his face. His eyes darted from Vash over to Wolfwood and immediately widened. “In the name of the Emp- er- Nichol-?”

Gray rumbled again, louder.

“In the name of the Emperor,” the man spat out hurriedly, “you’re to be taken to December at once and there retained -“

“Midvalley,” Wolfwood called sharply, cutting the man off.

Midvalley did not look his finest. In all the time Wolfwood had known him, he’d always been vain. Bards and minstrels usually were, in Wolfwood’s experience. His black hair, once perfectly coiffed at all times, now hung limp around his sweat-streaked face. One of his eyes was swollen and blue-black, and his left leg was bulked out with bandage beneath the tails of a hooded chainmail shirt that was clearly ill-fitting. The black tabard over the chain was all ripped up, the symbol of the Eye daubed on it in the same white paint that marked Gray’s armor, except that on cloth instead of metal the paint looked childish and messy.

His hands looked dirty where they white-knuckled the reins of his horse. His hands had never looked dirty before - not wrapped around the neck of his horn when he played in the market for coin, nor clutching Wolfwood’s thighs when he’d also taken coin for… other services.

Wolfwood had known he wasn’t the only member of the Eye who visited Midvalley in his upstairs rooms over an out-of-business millinery, but he hadn’t thought the man was in danger of being sucked into the Eye’s clutches quite like this.

“You a Voice of the Emperor now?” Wolfwood called. “Bluesummers’ protege?”

Midvalley flinched. He was bad at hiding anything. Always had been.

“No,” Midvalley said. “I’m - we’re here to save people.”

“Save,” Wolfwood said flatly.

“Bring them back to the city,” Midvalley said, but his tone was thin and nervous. “Where they can be protected.”

“From what?” Vash asked casually.

“The blight,” Midvalley said. “And you are?”

Vash raised his shoulders in a loose-limbed shrug. “A traveler. We were just on our way to December, actually.”

Midvalley opened his mouth, but Ninelives growled again, cutting him off. Midvalley looked nervously in his direction, then back at Vash, and flicked his tongue over his cracked lips.

“So it was very nice to meet you,” Vash said, “but we can make our way from here. Just follow the road west, right?”

“No,” Midvalley said. “I mean - yes, but - we have to escort you -“

“He’s already with a member of the Eye,” Wolfwood called, tightening his grip on his crossbow, sensing something in the air inching closer to breaking. “I’m escorting him.”

“But you,” Midvalley said, “back from the Forgotten Woods - without the Beast Lord - you’ll need to be -“ He glanced at Ninelives again, tripping his horse a few sideways steps away from the brute. “To be punished, I think -“

“Midvalley,” Wolfwood said, around a heavy sigh. “I thought better of you.”

“What? They’re hanging the people they don’t press-gang, I didn’t have a choice, I -!”

Gray the Ninelives bellowed, a sound like a molten mountain erupting, and yanked a steel handle off of its housing against his back. A huge chain slid after it, shink-ink-ink like a massive metal snake, and with a flick of Gray’s wrist, the whole ungodly length went taut and freed the spiked iron ball that had been resting on the back of Gray’s saddle. The roan draft whinnied and half-reared, whites of its eyes showing as it followed the sounds of metal with its flattened ears.

“I’ll come quietly,” Vash said, sounding only mildly bemused. A real feat considering the threat display unfolding in front of him.

“We’re all going the same direction,” Wolfwood called out, one last ditch effort. “Ninelives, put that shit away. I haven’t failed my mission, I just need to talk to Chapel -”

“I’m sorry, Nicholas,” Midvalley said, leaning low over his horse’s neck. “Things have changed too much.” And he dug his heel into his horse’s flank and pulled the reins to try to turn and flee.

Hell broke loose.

Wolfwood couldn’t say the order in which it all happened: he loosed his bolt; Vash dropped the length of his sling and brought it up in an arc; Ninelives swung his massive morningstar; off to the side, Midvalley’s horse let out a pained scream. A river stone sank a deep dent into Ninelives’ helmet right above his eye-slit, sealing up at least half of his field of vision, which made his swing miss Vash by several feet. Wolfwood’s bolt erupted through Midvalley’s shoulder. Midvalley’s horse bucked and reared, blood flying from a fox-bite in its front ankle, throwing the musician hard off to the side where he slammed into the ground, screaming.

The three mutants charged.

Wolfwood dropped his crossbow and had Punisher in his hands before his conscious mind caught up with him. His vision focused down to action, reaction, impact and recoil; he knew these creatures, he knew their movements, their strengths, their patterns. He wove his way between two mutants, arms building up that good-hot ache with every blow he caught against Punisher’s length, using the advantage of his weapon’s weight and reach to keep all his enemies at a distance of his own choosing, until it was the right moment to close in on one with his own body’s momentum.

Around him, the ill-trained horses were screaming and scattering in a panic, unseating their riders at every turn. Between everyone’s feet, Meryl was a streak of orange lightning. The horses had been more or less trained to put up with their masters’ weapons, but not with a small carnivore snapping at their ankles with a bloody muzzle, yowling high-pitched and loud and refusing to act at all like a fox naturally ought to.

The familiar patterns of bladed combat were also consistently disrupted by thuds and tinks of projectiles on flesh or armor. The mutant in front of Wolfwood was in one moment raising a buckler and short sword, and in the next moment was spraying a gout of blood from a stone-sized hole in its forearm and staggering, swordless. Wolfwood had enough presence of mind to give his blade a quarter-turn at the last second, so that instead of cleanly parting its head from its neck, he hit its jaw with all of his considerable force behind the flat of a blade with a half-inch core of tempered steel. The mutant went down in a heap and didn’t move. Wolfwood barely spared a moment to consider whether he had actually made his swing non-lethal; it was doubtful.

Once the mutants were all down - dead or knocked out, Wolfwood didn't have the inclination to check - Wolfwood found himself closing ranks with Vash, whose red tails swirled just like the lazy arcs of the shepherd's sling that looked so innocent hanging from his fingers. Vash slid another river stone into the pocket of the long leather strap just as his shoulder backed into Wolfwood's. Both of them used weapons that required space, but not for a second did Wolfwood feel unsafe even with Vash starting up a fresh swing that Wolfwood knew could hit hard enough to pierce armor and annihilate bones. And Vash's closeness, his heavy breathing, belied no fear that Wolfwood would ever accidentally sweep him with the Punisher.

As a unit, they faced an unhorsed Gray the Ninelives. The brute bellowed again, reached up, and dragged his damaged helmet off. He threw it with amazing accuracy towards Midvalley, who shrieked and rolled away. Ninelives' face was the same alien landscape that Wolfwood remembered, his mouth cleft apart to show jawbone, nose gone, eyes mismatched widths of pupil-blown black simmering with pure rage.

"Nice friends you got," Vash told Wolfwood.

"Eat my ass, Spikey," Wolfwood said, and then, "Take out the eyes, I'll get his knees."

Vash gave an affirmative grunt. Gray raised his morningstar, rumbling. Wolfwood squeezed the hilt in his hands, a rush of heat and power flooding his limbs, the light pressure of Vash's shoulder against his own suddenly making him feel twice Gray's size and more perfectly centered in his own body than he'd ever felt before. Wolfwood laughed, a sound ripped out of him by sheer joy.

Combat met.

He and Vash melded perfectly, mirroring each other as they feinted to draw away the morningstar, one always dodging to the end of the spike-ball's range as the other one closed in, so that Ninelives could never fully control any sphere of distance. Within seconds, blood was streaming into Ninelives' eyes, impeding his vision, and Wolfwood had landed one solid blow to the back of a knee that had made him buckle.

A wild swing of the morningstar grazed Vash, making him shout and stumble a half-step, and Wolfwood saw red.

He redoubled his attack, keeping low and in Ninelives' blind spots, and with an effort that made his arms scream in protest, he managed to catch the point of his sword inside a small gap that opened between the scaled plates behind Gray's knee - and then he shoved.

Gray the Ninelives' knee burst inside his armor. Blood gouted around the blackened plates of metal. Punisher shrieked against the overlapping steel scales as Wolfwood dragged it free, slinging blood in a wide arc. Ninelives went down hard, bellowing in pain this time, his right leg totally useless. Now that his head was in range, Wolfwood raised the Punisher again, brought it around in a hard arc -

"Wolfwood!"

- and angled it up in the last moment, shearing off a flap of scalp instead of cleaving Ninelives' head in half like a rotten melon. Blood poured from the ugly wound, but the monster would probably survive it.

Vash closed distance with Gray, and all Wolfwood saw was a flurry of red before Vash brought around his walking stick - which, Wolfwood now realized, must have always been just another weapon in Vash's arsenal - and cracked Ninelines so hard at the base of the skull that his bellows of agony abruptly cut silent. Ninelives slumped to the ground, face mashed into the dirt.

Vash stepped back, breathing heavily and favoring his right side. Wolfwood couldn't take a moment to digest what they'd just done, because he was already diving towards Ninelives and shoving his hands into any spots in the armor that seemed at all accessible to the wearer. He found nothing, nothing.

"What're you looking for?" Vash panted.

"Alchemy," Wolfwood grunted. "Healing." He didn't want the beast downing a vial and getting back up behind their backs. But as far as he could tell, Ninelives didn't have any vials on him. Maybe he'd already used all of his allotment, or maybe he hadn't been granted any - every member of the Eye tolerated the drug differently, and maybe Gray was one of those who rejected it.

A sharp yipping broke his spiraling thoughts. He and Vash both looked over to Meryl, who was getting their attention from where she stood over Midvalley, alternately growling and snapping at him where he lay on the ground.

Vash headed towards Midvalley first. Wolfwood paused to whistle for Angelina, who came thundering towards them, tossing her head as if in pride at a job well done. Wolfwood wiped sweat off his face and grinned at her as she trotted up next to him to nose at his hair. "I'm fine, girl, calm down," he said, brushing away her attention as he made his way towards Vash and the pitiful excuse for a musician.

Vash had made it to Midvalley's side and knelt next to him, and was trying to say, "Shh, it's okay, roll over -"

"Fuck, don't - fucking touch me," Midvalley was overlapping him, trying to wriggle away and failing with a twisted grimace of pain. "Don't hurt me, I'm just a bard -"

"Mid," Wolfwood said, coming to a halt next to the fallen man. He stabbed his sword's gory point into the ground next to Midvalley's waist and rested his hands over the pommel, looking down with mixed pity and disgust. He said, "Stop whining."

"Whining," Midvalley spat, glaring up at him. He pointed a shaking finger at the crossbow bolt still stuck in his shoulder. "This isn't a splinter, Nicholas, you fucking shot me, I can't feel my arm - I might never play again -"

"That's your priority?" Wolfwood asked dryly. "Play for who, where?"

Midvalley pressed his lips into a thin white line.

His tone soothing, Vash said, "Midvalley, that's your name? If you'll work with me for a minute I can get you patched up. No reason to leave you out here like this."

Midvalley shifted his gaze to him. "What?" he asked.

"I can give you something for the pain, too," Vash said. "And prevent any infection. Let me take a look and I can tell you if any major nerves are damaged, if you should get back the use of your arm or not."

"Who the hell are you?" Midvalley demanded.

"A traveler," Vash said firmly. "Do you want help?"

Midvalley hesitated, eyes darting around the two men and the fox, and then he gave a jerky nod.

Wolfwood muttered, "How sure are you Gray's out?"

"Very," Vash said grimly. "And if he does wake up, Meryl can let me know, right?"

Meryl popped up to human shape and said, "Give me that stick and I can just put him back down myself."

Midvalley started and gave a yelp of alarm that turned into a pathetic groan of pain, ending in a whimper. "The fuck is even happening with my life," he croaked.

"Dance music and blowjobs pay better than selling your soul," Wolfwood told him. "Should'a stuck with what you knew."

"I didn't have a choice," Midvalley growled.

Vash looked up at Wolfwood and said, coolly, "Could you get me my bag? And try to round up the horses?"

Wolfwood sighed, knowing a dismissal when he heard one. He yanked his sword out of the dirt, making Midvalley flinch again, and headed back towards Angelina.

Wolfwood tossed Vash his pack, cleaned his sword, and unloaded Angelina the rest of the way so he could mount up instead. From his height on her back, he glanced down at Meryl - keeping watch on the knocked-out Gray and mutants - and at Vash, who was carefully maneuvering Midvalley out of his badly fitting chainmail to get at his shoulder. Wolfwood shook his head and set out after the scattered horses. He could still make out three of them in the distance, though the giant roan draft stallion and one of the others had fled so far, so fast, he'd be surprised if they ever turned up again.

It took him the better part of an hour, but he chased down the three horses he could still see. Once he had one of them, the other two were easier to entice over, since they knew their herd mate. One, the horse he thought he recognized as Midvalley's, was favoring its right front leg. He hopped off Angelina to get a closer look, sweet-talking the skittish mare until she finally let him get close enough to stroke her neck and lift her hoof. She had a pretty nasty bite wound courtesy of Meryl, but it had already stopped bleeding and the leg didn't look swollen so he was pretty sure the bones were intact.

"All right, c'mon," he told all the animals, hoisting himself back into Angelina's saddle with the other three leads in one hand. "Back this way, chk." He clucked in his cheek.

Across the plain, the hulk of Ninelives' prone body looked like a large boulder around which a huddle of other figures had stopped to make a bizarre camp.

Once they were in range of the scent of blood, his three stray charges started balking - but Angelina raised her head and whinnied at them, and Wolfwood could swear she was telling them to stop being such babies. He scritched her neck, proud of her poise.

"Other two are in the wind," Wolfwood called to Vash, dismounting. He clucked at the other three horses to follow him as he went towards the packs to get one of the big waterskins. All three of these horses looked like they hadn't been properly provisioned or groomed in days, if not longer.

Vash was sitting cross-legged on the ground next to a now-upright Midvalley, who was shirtless, cleaned, and bandaged. Midvalley's adrenaline seemed to have worn off and now he just looked exhausted.

Midvalley looked up at Wolfwood's approach and cried, "Sylvia!" He tried to push himself to his feet, but he was too shaky. Vash restrained him and he sat back down.

"This Sylvia?" Wolfwood asked, tipping water into the mouth of the mare with the bitten leg. "Sorry about the chunk Meryl took out of her."

"I'm not sorry!" Meryl called from where she was minding the unconscious.

"Is she all right?" Midvalley asked, reluctantly letting Vash continue doing whatever he was doing with long strips of black fabric. Wolfwood realized he'd ripped up Midvalley's tabard.

"Think so," Wolfwood said. "Just a flesh wound. Vash, mind if I use that goop of yours to treat this?"

"Not at all," Vash said.

Wolfwood made sure the other two horses weren't going to bolt, grabbed some medical items, and set to rinsing, treating, and wrapping Sylvia's fox bite.

"Why are you doing this?" Midvalley asked.

"I already told you -" Vash started.

"Not you," Midvalley interrupted. "Nicholas. I know you. You don't do this."

"Do what?" Wolfwood asked. "Care about horses? Always have."

"Care about - about me," Midvalley said, the agony of exhaustion drawing his face into haggard lines. He sounded like he might cry if he had enough energy or hydration to do so, but he didn't. "Fight the Eye. What the hell are you doing out here?"

Wolfwood scrubbed sweat off his brow, now at the point of wrapping some of Vash's linen bandages around Sylvia's ankle. She jerked and balked a little. He rubbed a soothing hand on her neck. "I don't think it matters so much what I'm doing," Wolfwood said, "as whatever the hell's going on in December. What's this about cleansing the countryside? And you not having a choice? Choice in what?"

"Starving or not," Midvalley said. He grunted as Vash lifted his arm and started constructing a sturdy sling around it with the black fabric. "About three months ago, the Emperor's people seized control of every single Plant regardless of how healthy they were. No one can operate one or get any of the resources they put out without permission, and permission means joining up somehow. And joining up means keeping the people who refuse to join up in line."

Wolfwood let Sylvia's hoof down. She bore her weight more easily on it. He found one of the carrots he'd packed aside for Angelina and held it out to her; he wondered if she'd ever even seen one before. She was wary, but she took it, and her crunching got more enthusiastic as she ate.

"So you joined up," Wolfwood said, keeping his tone neutral. "To get food." His stomach simmered with anger, but he restrained the urge to kick Midvalley.

"You can't hate every person who did it," Midvalley said, reading him. "Not all of us can deal with the prospect of rationing and starvation like you - you people."

"You people."

"You know," Midvalley said desperately. "The assassins, the elites. They say the alchemists were working on making you perfect, like the Emperor - making you so you don't need food or water or sleep, so you heal instantly and can't be killed."

Wolfwood barked a humorless laugh. "You've heard some exaggerations," he said. "People in their cups in a tavern say wild things. As far as I know, Conrad and his team never even got close to eradicating the need to eat and sleep. And we can all be killed." He finally looked down at Midvalley. "If you've got the spine to try."

Midvalley flushed with anger but he didn't take the bait. "Well, some dumbasses did have spine," he spat. "A lot of their heads are on spikes on the walls, and the rest are blowing through all the crop stores in their hideouts because they can't get Plant food anymore. It won't even matter if the Eye or the rest of the Emperor's men get them, because they'll starve before midwinter."

"It won't come to that," Vash said, quiet but firm. He finished tying off the sling and tucked in the ends of the fabric.

Midvalley glanced sidelong at him. After a moment, he plaintively repeated for the third time: "Who are you?"

"Go into the woods," Vash told him. "There's plenty of forage for your horse, and any spring water you find is clean. As for food, you'll have to feed yourself. Can you hunt?"

Midvalley stared at him and then fumblingly said, "I used to - a little. My aunt taught me to shoot before... wasting sickness got her. But I don't have a bow."

Wolfwood walked over to one of the fallen mutants and shoved it over onto its front with a boot. Across its back were slung a shortbow, a quiver, and a long knife in a sheath that it had never had a chance to draw. He said, "Here's your gear. If these assholes have any rations, take all of that, too. They can make their way back to the city when they wake up, if they don't cannibalize each other first."

"Wolfwood," Vash admonished.

Wolfwood shrugged. "They're not bright."

Midvalley nodded jerkily. He pushed himself up again, and this time Vash helped him stand. He stood there, shaky and hollowed-out, what little fight had ever been in him completely gone now. Wolfwood finally felt a shred of pity. He walked over to Midvalley, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said, "One way or another, we're ending this. When the weather gets cold, come out of the woods and check. It might be safe to come back."

"Safe," Midvalley said hollowly.

Wolfwood shrugged. "Some version of it."

"I couldn't join the rebels because of you," Midvalley said, staring at him from behind his mask of bruises and dirt. "Because I was ever close to you and the other cultists. The rebels called me a traitor and shut me out before I even asked the Eye to let me join their bread line."

That hit home. Wolfwood's stomach tightened and his anger melted into oozing guilt. He wouldn't have ever considered himself and Midvalley close - Midvalley was just one of the only people outside the Eye who was willing to touch him. To speak to him at all. Mid's willingness to take coin from cultists, to consider them remotely human, to get Wolfwood off without commenting on his body, had felt like such a reprieve from a world of people who despised Wolfwood for who he'd aligned himself with. Which he'd only done to protect himself and the people he loved. Hardly any different from what Midvalley had done.

"I'm sorry," Wolfwood said, and meant it.

Midvalley's mouth twisted at the corner.

Vash cut in and said, "You'll be safe in the woods. Call out as loud as you can that you're under the Typhoon's protection, and that if anything hurts you then the truce is off. Say it exactly like that."

Midvalley stared at him, eyes wide. His mouth formed the shape of the word "typhoon" without making any sound.

Wolfwood clapped Mid's arm, gently enough not to jostle him, and said, "Sorry about the shoulder. Vash, what was the verdict?"

"It'll heal," Vash said, and smiled. "Remember the stretches I showed you. They'll hurt, but you need to keep doing them to get your range of motion back. What instruments do you play?"

Midvalley mouthed for a moment, then croaked, "Horn, mostly. I can, uh, also. Lute. But I haven't played lute for years."

"Me either," Vash said. "Piano. But it never really goes away, does it?"

Midvalley said, "No. It doesn't."

Wolfwood said, "Get your stuff, Mid. Get out of here before Ninelives comes around."

So Midvalley collected what remained of his things, and Wolfwood helped by ransacking the mutants' saddlebags for food and shoving it all into one bag for Midvalley to take. Vash helped Midvalley into a shirt, ripped far enough down the front to not get stuck on his bound arm. The empty sleeve flapped in the breeze so Vash coiled it up into a knot. At last, Wolfwood let Midvalley step into his cupped fingers to help hoist him onto Sylvia's back.

"Don't push her," Wolfwood warned. "And once you dismount you're not getting back on, not with that arm. Just take it steady going east until you need to stop for the night."

"Ninelives -" Midvalley said, looking nervously back at the hulk, who had now been unconscious for a little over an hour.

"Won't be coming after you," Vash said firmly. "He wants me. They all want me, and I'm going the other way, so you'll be fine."

Midvalley stared at Vash for a moment. Then he looked down at Wolfwood and said, "Nicholas..."

"Not interested," Wolfwood cut him off.

Midvalley wrinkled his nose at him. "Was just going to tell you not to get yourself killed," he said, aggravated.

"Not your choice to make," Wolfwood said. "Might not be mine either."

"Well." Midvalley sniffed, mostly aloof, maybe a shred of sincerity deep down. "Fuck you, then." He held down his free hand.

Wolfwood took it, oddly touched. He gripped tight for a moment before letting go and slapping Sylvia's flank. "Go," he said.

With one last nervous glance back at Vash, Midvalley went.

-

They took the other two horses. It would prevent Ninelives and his servants from being able to follow anyone quickly, and it meant Wolfwood could finally release Angelina from the indignity of being a pack animal. Both of the other horses were chestnut geldings, not over-large, distinguishable by white socks on the forehooves of one and a white blaze on the forehead of the other. After a quick evaluation, Wolfwood loaded the packs onto Socks. Blaze seemed less like he might throw Vash.

"You can ride, can't you?" Wolfwood asked. "Without getting maimed?"

Vash eyed Blaze uncertainly, but he said, "Yeah, of course! Not every horse hates me."

Wolfwood wasn't convinced of that, as the blazed gelding that had seemed so placid started snorting and tossing its head when Vash got close. Wolfwood was reminded of the guineas shrieking and running every time Meryl came into the cottage yard. Prey animals recognized a predator, and whatever Vash was, it was certainly not low on the food chain. But ultimately the chestnut let Vash mount up without bucking him instantly, so that was a start.

Wolfwood hoisted himself into his saddle and then reached down to pull Meryl up behind him. She was light enough not to overburden Angelina, who was far more muscular than Vash's new mount. She'd been irritated at being talked into riding at all, but Wolfwood had pointed out that they would now be moving far faster than her short little fox legs could keep up with. (That had earned him a stone thrown at his ear.)

Angelina had been fed and rested and pampered so much over the summer that Wolfwood could feel her desire to cut loose and run all-out - it was a faint shivering in her flanks, something about the timing of her ear-flicks. But she was obedient above all else, so when he directed her to walk, she walked. Some hours they even went as fast as a trot. The other two horses were already too hard-worked for running, and Socks clearly wasn't used to being on a long lead without a rider.

Their horses' long strides and the lack of any other obstacles on the road meant that they made fast time regardless. When they stopped for the night, Vash looked westward along the road and said, "We'll see the city soon. Probably reach the outskirts tomorrow evening."

Wolfwood ate his dinner with a heavy stomach, watching Meryl slink into the stunted grass in a futile effort to hunt up any sort of prey. She might luck into a lizard or a wounded bird, but the chances seemed slim.

This was all happening so fast. He'd thought there would be a little more time before they reached December, but the horses had cut that short, and - and he didn't know what he would have wanted with that extra time, anyway. It was for the best to just get this over with.

One more evening to watch Vash sleeping, said his traitorous heart. And one more, and one more, and one more. Please don't take him from me.

But this would be the last time. Vash kissed him before he laid down with his head in Wolfwood's lap, and the kiss felt like a goodbye.

Stars streaked in the black dome over the dead land. Dust and distant smoke choked out the horizon. The fire's embers gave soft cracks and snaps as the wood cooled from molten-red to gray ash. Meryl had curled into a furry ball against Vash's side despite the heat.

Wolfwood knew he was supposed to keep watch, but his gaze never left Vash's face.

-

Chapter Text

December was on fire.

A dark haze of smoke smudged the sky above the walls of the city. The smell of burning wood grew stronger the closer they rode, and something richer and more mouth-watering started to come through in little whiffs as well.

Meat.

Wolfwood looked over at Vash more and more often as the day wore on, but Vash didn't show any visible reactions. Whatever was going on inside that golden head, he'd locked Wolfwood out. It hurt, but it was necessary, and Wolfwood understood Vash's silence as much as he wished he didn't.

Perhaps it was more accurate to say that December had been on fire, off and on, for longer than Wolfwood could possibly guess. Maybe weeks. There were no visible, leaping flames, just the slow ooze of smoke choking the sky. Something smoldering. Late afternoon finally got them close enough to see the walls, and Wolfwood knew that they ought to be able to hear some faint, distant noise by now - but there was nothing. December was silent.

Wolfwood whistled for attention and pointed the direction he wanted to take. Off the road, slightly north, so hopefully they wouldn't hit any outer patrols of more loyalists to the Emperor or the Eye. He didn't bother saying aloud that he had an ulterior motive; he could barely get the whistle out around the thickness in his throat, anyway. His mind was steadily filling up with images of Milly, of the Thompson farm, his imagination rendering it a smoking wreck like all the other outlying houses they'd passed on the way here.

If the farm was gone - if Milly was gone - or if she wasn't gone, if he found her in the soot, cold like a dead ember in an old campfire -

He couldn't speak, could barely breathe. He thumped Angelina's flanks to pick up speed, even though Socks and Blaze were panting in a bad way by now, their mouths dry, their eyes dull. Meryl clung tighter to the back of Wolfwood's armor, her small hands white-knuckled around his belt.

They reached the edge of the Thompson farm's long-dead fields. Deeply buried instinct blared an alarm in the back of Wolfwood's mind and he managed to pull up Angelina just on the edge of a scattered pile of rotten corn stalks. He called, "Vash, stop!"

Vash hauled on his horse's reins, and for a moment it looked like the animal was going to lose its temper - maybe bolt, maybe throw him. But something pulsed around Vash, some thick, heavy darkness in the air, and the horse suddenly stood stock-still, breathing hard, its nose flaring. Vash’s face and right hand briefly crawled with blue-white lines.

Vash leaned over his mount’s neck to try to pat it, saying, "Sorry, sorry, hush." It flinched from him. Vash looked miserable.

Wolfwood swallowed the bile creeping up his throat. He nudged Meryl back and dismounted, and lifted the canvas-wrapped Punisher from the back of his saddle. He held it at full length and stabbed roughly at the ground ahead of them.

The corn stalks shifted, bowing downward in a rotten slump. He poked harder, kicked at some of the stalks, and the deadfall finally collapsed inward, revealing the trap beneath. It wasn't too deep, only a couple of feet, but there were cruelly sharpened chunks of splintered wood at the bottom. Any horse that walked into that wasn't coming back out.

"On foot," Wolfwood said. "And take it slow. Eyes open for a farmhouse. Two stories, red roof."

"Why there?" Meryl asked, sliding off Angelina's back.

"Friend's place," Wolfwood said shortly. "If she's alive she'll take us in and we can figure out what to do next."

"Why go into a minefield if we don't have to?" Vash asked, boots thunking down. He walked ahead several paces to another heap of old straw and kicked it, but there was nothing beneath besides hard ground.

Wolfwood gazed down into the deadfall pit. The chunks of wood beneath looked familiar - he thought he recognized the wreckage of a set of pale-pine chairs that he'd sat in around the Thompson table during many a dinnertime. They had crude little crosses and flowers carved on the backrests.

"I think the traps are a good sign," he said. "Just don't fall for any."

Vash nodded and didn't argue. Wolfwood's chest felt tight for how much Vash trusted him.

For an interminable sunset, they picked their way through the fields. The sun had time to go from hot and high to low and glaring while they tested every square foot of old corn stubble before allowing the horses to step on it. Shadows rose from the ground like the smoke overhead. The sunlight was only weakly touching the tops of the city walls when the farmhouse finally, finally came into view.

Wolfwood's heart leapt; it looked intact. Warped, maybe, but still standing. He picked up his pace as much as he could, sweating and aching already but trying not to cut corners as the light failed and the trapped field became even more difficult and dangerous -

An enormous twang sang out from up ahead; Wolfwood barely had a chance to see a huge, dark shape flying through the air towards them; and then Vash was shoving him hard off to the side, and with a massive crash the giant projectile landed nearby, skidding through the dirt for several feet before coming to a crumbling halt.

In the falling twilight, it was hard to make out, but it looked like a chunk of December's wall. Broken masonry, even more broken now.

A distant, high voice drifted over the fields from the direction of the farmhouse: "Get gone! You want more?"

Wolfwood's whole body felt like it'd been electrified. He felt like he'd just downed a healing vial, blood-rush and agony included. He shoved Vash off of him and scrambled to his feet, and at the top of his lungs he bellowed, "Milly?"

There was a nightmarish pause. Vash pushed himself to his feet, too, knocking dirt off his coat. Then:

"Nicholas?"

He shouldn't run, but he did. Twice, his toes or the side of his foot slid precariously along the edge of a barely-missed trap; once, he heard a twang as he set off some kind of loaded tripwire, and felt the rush of air as a bolt or arrow missed him by inches. Behind him, he heard Vash yelling his name in alarm, but he couldn't stop.

"Milly!" he hollered again, and saw a shadowed figure split apart from a hulking mechanical shape squatting in the farmyard up ahead. The light was weak and smoke made everything hazy, but he'd know Milly's figure and gait anywhere.

Within a moment he was crashing into her, and both of them were trying to pick each other up and were perfectly capable of doing so and thus they were in stalemate, really, everyone's feet staying on the ground, but Wolfwood felt like he could levitate with her in his arms. The tightness in his chest and throat split neatly down the middle as if a sharp knife had sliced through his tough skin, and the tears and gasps and terror and rage all came bubbling out at once. Everything he'd ever known in this world was burning and broken and dead or dying and his life might not have been great, sure, but it had been his, and nothing would ever be familiar again -

Except her, who still smelled the same and felt the same and cried the same, her voice catching and hiccuping around his name repeated over and over. He kissed her hair, which was greasy and unwashed, and choked out, "I told you I'd be back, summertime, I told you," and she sobbed loudly against his shoulder and held him so tight he thought one of them might crack a rib.

He didn't know how long they were there, but it was long enough for Vash, Meryl, and the horses to safely catch up. Wolfwood felt Vash's hand brush his upper arm, and pried his eyes open so that Vash's face, gently smiling, wavered into view. The smile was one of his real ones. It made Wolfwood choke up harder.

Milly finally pulled back, scrubbing the heels of her hands over her face and sniffing loudly. She grabbed double handfuls of the front of Wolfwood's gambeson instead, holding on tight. Chin wobbling, she said, "I'm sorry I threw a boulder at you."

He burst out in a wet laugh and crushed her back into a hug, staggering around in a drunken circle with her while she joined in with half-crying giggles.

They turned in such a way that Milly finally caught a sidelong glimpse of Wolfwood's companions. She gasped and shoved away from Wolfwood's chest to cry, "Angel!"

Vash blinked at her, because she was facing him. But then she pushed past him to Angelina, who he was standing in front of. It dragged a short laugh out of him. Wolfwood grinned wide and Vash smiled back, full of enough understanding that nothing else really needed to be said.

Meryl piped up from the side and demanded, "Hi, who are you?"

"Oh!" Milly cried. "Hello! I'm Milly Thompson, pleased to meet you!" She turned from greeting Angelina towards Meryl and lurched towards her, hands out. Meryl's eyes went wide as she had both of her hands pulled up and into both of Milly's for a huge shake of greeting, which ended with Milly throwing her arms wide and hugging Meryl anyway. Milly babbled, "Any friend of Nicholas' is a friend of mine, I mean mostly, sometimes he hung around bad people, but no one he'd bring here could ever be a bad person, it's so good to see you -"

Meryl made a small eep noise from within the huge Milly-hug. Milly let her go and spun around to Vash mid-ramble; Vash's eyes also went wide and he tried to raise his hands, going "Oh, ahah, that's okay, it's nice to -" but he never had a hope of escaping. An oof thumped out of him when Milly drew him in hard.

"Milly," Wolfwood laughed, "this is Meryl, that's Vash. Milly Thompson -"

"Pleased to meet you both," Milly said, letting go of Vash and awkwardly dipping a half-bow, half-curtsy. She didn't wait for a response from anyone before whirling back to Wolfwood and saying, "Nicholas, I'm so glad you're here, it's awful - everything - oh, I don't know where to start."

"Inside?" Wolfwood suggested, and Milly scrubbed tears off her face again and nodded.

Wolfwood tied the horses up to a broken fencepost, whispering to Angelina to keep the others calm. Then they headed towards the farmhouse. Its windows were all boarded over, dirt heaped up against the walls in a crude earthworks barricade. Wolfwood, Vash, and Meryl all looked sidelong at the hulking piece of machinery that sat in the middle of the yard: a homemade ballista with a heap of masonry chunks piled up behind it, ready to be loaded. There was no sign of any other person, meaning Milly had to have loaded and operated it by herself. Wolfwood had his arm around Milly's shoulders as they walked, and he gave her a small squeeze.

Milly didn't even glance over at the siege equipment. She was saying, "It's been a while since we had any animals to put up, but part of the stable's still standing, Angel will be safe there. Where did the others come from? No, it doesn't matter. I don't know if there's enough hay, there was some mildew in the last hopper before - before - oh, we had to eat Tomas, Nicholas, he was such a good old mule and I felt so bad -"

"I'm sorry," Wolfwood said, squeezing her again. He realized that she felt a little smaller than she ever had before.

She reached the door and knocked loudly in a pattern before hauling it open. There was no one on the other side, and the room they entered was dark, though some light shone down the hallway from the kitchen. Milly called, "It's me!"

"Where's your family?" Wolfwood asked, frowning. The old farmhouse, so dear and familiar to him, was a ransacked mess. In his memory, Milly's dozen siblings were running around playing chase, the youngest jumping on the couches and getting yelled at genially by their elders.

"Big-Big Brother took a team south," Milly said anxiously. "To try and cut off some of the Emperor's men going off to take the last few Plants out of Octovern. There's a few hundred people down there, still, you know - its Plants were some of the healthiest left anywhere, so Ronnie thought, if they could make a stand there, it could really help - but I haven't heard back from them in a couple of weeks. Little Evvy is still here, and Ursula, and Phil from the old Miller place, you know Phil -"

"Milly," Wolfwood interrupted her. "How many people in this house?"

She chewed her lip, glancing at him. "Thirteen," she said.

"What are your supplies like?" he asked.

"Well," she said glumly, "we boiled Tomas's bones for broth last week, but now we're down to just the grain stores. What the rats haven't gotten to yet, anyway. The cistern's still pretty full."

His eyes had adjusted enough to the low light that Wolfwood could see the shadows that clung to Milly's face, hollowing the spaces where her cheeks had once been apple-round. He immediately dug into the pouch at his side for some of the leather-dried fruit and nuts he'd packed in there before leaving Vash's place. "Mills, you gotta eat, here -" he started.

"It's okay," she said with a strained smile, pushing his hands back, "I can't take your rations, you need -"

"No," he said desperately, "you don't understand, I have, we have plenty, we just came from - it's lush in the woods, Mills, there's so much life there, I don't need all of this -"

"I can't," she said. "I can't, Nicholas, I've - food's been making me sick, it's okay, I've got plenty of water -"

From down the hall, a small voice called out, "Milly, is that you?"

"Yes!" Milly called back, turning away from Wolfwood. "Yes, Gran, it's me!"

"Trouble outside?"

"No, no, it's good! Nicholas is back!"

"Wolfwood?"

"Come on," Milly said, gripping Wolfwood's hand hard and pulling him down the hall towards the kitchen.

They emerged into the low light from the sputtering hearth... and as Wolfwood passed through the door frame, he only had a half-second's animal instinct of warning telling him to move before a thick, ugly-looking knife came rushing towards his face. He raised his arm fast enough to catch the edge on his bracer, point of the blade glinting close to his eye. On the other side of the knife, he caught a glimpse of a young face twisted with rage.

Milly shouted and the knife drew back for another swing, but this time an arm darted out from behind Wolfwood, between him and the child. Vash's wooden hand caught and clamped around the blade. The kid tried to yank it back, but couldn't; it was stuck, Vash's construct creaking around the metal.

"Lina!" The admonishment came from an older woman near the fire, who was only just pushing herself up from a chair.

The kid - who Wolfwood might name a girl, except she was wearing boys' clothes - let go of the knife handle with an angry noise. "He's Eye, Gran! He's one of the worst ones! They just picked him for their stupid mission a few months ago, he's gotta be the Emperor's right-hand man -!"

Wolfwood burst out laughing; he couldn't help it. The kid, Lina, glared at him with tears in her eyes.

Everyone made their way fully into the kitchen: Wolfwood laughing, Milly fussing, Meryl snarling, Vash now trying to unwedge a kitchen knife from deep in the palm of his hand with a wince. Milly said, "Nicholas isn't like that, Lina! And I gave the all-clear knock anyway, and what if you'd gotten me -"

"Kid," Wolfwood interrupted, "they sent me because I was the thorn in everyone's side. They sent me to get rid of me. I've never even seen the Emperor up close."

"You're still Eye," she said, heated.

He spread his arms. "You see it on me anywhere? Fuck 'em and fuck their symbol. Now who's gonna actually tell me what's going on?"

"Before that," Vash interrupted, finally freeing the knife. He looked at Lina, who froze, realizing that a complete unknown - a stranger with an impossible, clearly augmented body, who'd just disarmed her - was now staring down at her with a giant knife. Vash, however, smiled, and turned the knife around to offer her the handle.

Lina took it, hand shaking.

"Hey," Wolfwood said mildly, "what's gonna stop her from trying to stab me again?"

"She's not going to stab anyone," Vash said, still smiling. He raised his hands placatingly. The wooden one had a deep gash across several branches. Wolfwood felt privately ill; he knew Vash wouldn't have hesitated to use his other hand, if the kid had been on the other side of the door. Vash said, "Lina, right? We're here to help."

"What the hell can you do to -"

"And we have food," Vash said.

Lina immediately bit her lip.

"Before we talk about anything else, I want to know if anyone staying here is injured or sick," Vash said. "Then we can make dinner and figure things out. All right?"

"Oh, bless you, young man," said the older lady everyone had called Gran, and she lurched the few steps towards him and threw her arms around his chest in a hug.

It turned out that the eerie silence of the house was due to the fact that everyone hiding inside it had grown too weak with hunger and fatigue to make a fuss about intruders. They were gathered in the large, barricaded living room, mostly dozing on heaps of quilts and bedding, and they barely looked up when Vash checked in on them.

The Thompsons had taken in as many people as they could the moment any fighting had broken out, and the whole farmhouse had become a fortress, holding strong in defiance of the Emperor's megalomaniacal orders. The Thompson farm had been an incredibly long-lived source of non-Plant food, and they had preserves and dried stores far greater than the cultists and their loyalists had counted on.

But their generosity and their indiscriminate acceptance of anyone who asked for shelter and a meal had meant that they ran through their stores fast. The energy to set up traps and guard the perimeter had petered out along with the food. Milly's eldest brother and a whole posse of people who still had their strength and wits about them had all set out to try to help defend Octovern's Plants - and if they had any success, the plan had been for someone to run back to December and fetch the others, to take them to fresher resources.

No one had come back. Milly, and Lina and her Gran, were the only people left in the Thompson farm with any vitality in them. The others were all weak and shaky when they weren't asleep. Having plenty of water meant everyone was able to hold out longer, but those empty stomachs were creeping up on them.

Milly and a handful of the others all said that they couldn't eat anymore even if they had food, because of how sick it made them. Vash dug in his alchemy pack and brought out chunks of dried root, which he split among the ill and told them to chew, and to swallow their spit but not any of the actual root fibers. Then Vash turned to Lina, still clutching her kitchen knife like a comfort object, and asked if she would help him cook.

While Vash and an awkward Lina and a no-nonsense Gran gathered around the hearth to put together a large pot of simmering vegetables, barley, and herbs, Wolfwood sat hunched in a corner of the kitchen floor with Milly next to him. She leaned against his side, head on his shoulder, his arm around her back.

Milly chewed for a while on the stick of root Vash had given her, then took it out of her mouth, swallowed hard, and said, "I'm afraid I'm dreaming you being here. I'm not, am I?"

"You're not," he assured her.

"I dreamed about you coming back a few times," she said. "Usually good dreams. But one time I dreamed I was at the edge of the woods and you came out all covered in blood - and the trees behind you started blooming with these big purple flowers, all sparkly. But dark. And it felt like the woods were heavy, and they were pulling you backwards away from me, and I tried to catch you but branches came out and grabbed you..."

Wolfwood held her tighter, unnerved, and murmured, "Shh, didn't happen. Not gonna happen."

"I guess I went to sleep hungry and it made my dreams strange." She sighed and chewed on the root again. "Nicholas... who are they, really? Where did they come from? Not the countryside, I know."

She was looking across the kitchen at Vash, who had managed to make Gran laugh and even gotten a begrudging smile out of Lina; and at Meryl, who was sitting awkwardly on her own near the door, where she had a view of the exit and kept glancing down the hall towards it.

"Short stuff, c'mere," Wolfwood called to Meryl, getting her attention. She looked hunted, twitchy. "Don't like being inside, huh?" he asked.

Meryl made a face at him but conceded to scooching across the room to sit in the same corner as Milly and Wolfwood. "Closed doors," she said shortly.

Vash's cottage had never had closed doors or windows. In here, it was dark, hot, and smoky, and a sense of illness permeated the air almost like a real smell. It hurt, seeing a place Wolfwood had always associated with warmth and comfort become so miserable. "I hear you," he said to Meryl. "We'll leave at first light."

"To go where?" Milly asked, alarmed, taking the root back out of her mouth.

"Into the city," Wolfwood said. "Gotta get Vash to the Emperor."

Milly pushed against his side. "You're not still - the mission, you're not -"

"No," Wolfwood said heavily. "Or yes. I don't want to." He let out a long breath. "Vash is -"

Meryl growled at him. Wolfwood wanted to growl back, but all he could do was glare.

"Vash can fix this," Wolfwood amended.

"How?" Milly asked, eyes wide.

From the hearth, Vash spoke up. Milly jumped, not having realized he was listening, but Wolfwood and Meryl were used to his silent attentiveness. He said, “The Emperor is my twin brother."

There was a clatter and clink as Lina dropped her kitchen knife. She scurried to grab it again from the floor.

She raised the knife uncertainly, as if thinking of trying another stab; Vash held out a cleaning cloth to her and said, “Here. There’s some soot on the blade."

Gran patted Lina's shoulder and said, "I want to hear what he has to say, dear."

Lina snatched the cloth, clearly embarrassed.

As if explaining the simplest thing in the world, Vash said, "Knives and I have fought before. Last time, July ended up destroyed. I don't want that to happen again. I'm going to go see him and make him stop what he's doing, no matter what it takes."

"No matter what?" Wolfwood asked sharply.

Vash turned his gaze to Wolfwood. For a fraction of a moment, Wolfwood could see the hesitation there, the pain, the indecision. But then it closed back off and Vash said, "There won't be another July." There was a finality in his tone that was forbidding, even to Wolfwood.

It was Milly, then, who softly asked, "He's your brother?"

Vash looked at her with a faint twitch and another flash of unsettled vulnerability. God bless Milly Thompson, Wolfwood thought; her sense of family cut through all else like a blade through a knot.

"So you're a monster like the Emperor?" Lina asked sharply. "Immortal and - and awful, with all the metal, and the -" She broke off, voice shaking, and backed up a couple of steps.

Her Gran caught onto her and held her. "The Emperor's blades killed her father in a crowd," Gran said by way of explanation. "Late spring, it was. Something happened... we don't know what, but there was a feeling like doom that hung in the air for a long moment, everyone in the country felt it. And then the palace roof exploded. There was - oh, how to even say it? A rain of knives, I suppose. Shards of metal that... melted away afterwards. And some people thought they could hear laughter. I don't know; I was outside town, but my son had gone with Lina to buy food."

"Don't talk to him, Gran," Lina said, small and frightened. "He's -"

Smoothly Vash cut in, "It's all right. I'll catch some sleep outside and move on when it's light. Please, eat - there should be enough for everyone, but I'll leave my pack and all the rations I have left, too." He gave an ironic little smile. "Not going to need it anymore."

"Spikey," Wolfwood said sharply.

Milly pushed away from Wolfwood and stood up. She took a step towards Vash and said, "You're not going outside. You're sleeping in a real bed, Mr. Vash. And you," she said, turning to Wolfwood, "and Miss Meryl, too. We're all going to eat together and be kind. Lina? We can be kind."

Lina bit back a sob, eyes cast down.

"I think I'm feeling a little hungry now," Milly said firmly. "This really helped." She held the chewed-on root tight in her fist. "So let's eat what Mr. Vash was nice enough to cook for us."

It was a tense and quiet meal, but at least the food was good. Lina scarfed her bowl so fast she certainly burned her mouth, and then she hoarsely excused herself to take the pot and the rest of the bowls to the living room to make sure everyone in there was fed. Her grandmother apologized for her and followed.

Wolfwood sat on the floor with his full bowl, once again next to Milly, with Meryl on Milly's other side. Meryl was holding a bowl because Milly had filled it and handed it to her, but she was only pretending to sip at the broth every now and then. Wolfwood didn't blame her for hiding her nature. Everyone in the house was tense enough as it was.

Wolfwood looked down into the steam rising off his soup and wished he could blame the fogginess of his vision on it. But he couldn't, because his throat was so tight he nearly couldn't swallow, and his stomach hurt in a way that had nothing to do with illness. He was so horribly aware of how well-fed he was, of the fact that he wasn't even all that hungry because he'd already had two square meals on the road today. The familiarity of the house pressed down on him, the dissonance of Vash's cooking in Milly's kitchen, people and talents so perfectly suited for each other - in another world, a kinder world, they should have met long ago and been friends, they should be able to laugh at each other's stupid jokes, but right now neither of them even knew the other was capable of being absurd. And Meryl - Meryl who couldn't be indoors, who was stuck in a trap here, would have loved Milly the fieldworker who was never inside, who spun around in the rain and tried to drink the falling water through her laughter.

But the world wasn't kind and Milly, his Milly, had now known starvation and violence and he hadn't even been here to protect her. Every day he'd spent in Vash's cottage began to turn sour in his stomach. Their little delays, the way they'd lingered even a moment longer than was necessary - wait until midsummer, wait another week - and what, just to fuck? Just to sleep (in each other's arms) and watch the stars (learn that the world can be beautiful) and talk about magic (his soul named mine) that Wolfwood didn't even understand -

A nudge against his side broke him from his dark reverie. Milly was smiling at him, her eyes watery. She held up her bowl in a little gesture and said, "It's good, isn't it?"

He squeezed his eyes closed but a tear escaped anyway. He scrunched up his face, scrubbed his wrist under his nose, sniffed, and said, "Yeah, Vash is a good cook."

She carefully put another spoonful in her mouth and he could tell that she was really pushing herself to do it. She'd eaten about a third of her bowl.

"How's your stomach?" Vash asked. He'd sat down nearby, but further than arm's length away. The distance was conspicuous.

"Better," Milly said honestly. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Vash, I just can't seem to eat much. But it's delicious!"

"That's fine," he said, smiling at her. "You may have some gastric atrophy. Eating small amounts more frequently is better than eating a large amount at once, so stop whenever you're uncomfortable, all right?"

"You're a doctor?" Milly asked. She looked into a fresh spoonful, then put the spoon down and set her bowl aside sadly. Meryl surreptitiously set hers aside as well.

"No," Vash said. He ate mechanically. Wolfwood wasn't sure he was even tasting it. "But I've been around a lot of doctors, and I've had a long time to learn."

"Oh," she said. "Like the Emperor, right? He says - well, he doesn't talk. But his Voice tells the story about when he came from heaven to this place. At the dawn of time, to make it heaven, too." Her tone went low and sad.

"We didn't come from heaven," Vash said a little sharply. He paused, and more softly he said, “And we’re not that old. We’re just people. We're not like everyone else, but we're not gods or angels or - we're just people. And he's wrong about a lot of things. When we were young, he was... very badly hurt, and he wants to make a world where that can't happen again, but he's -" Vash struggled for a moment, before settling on a simple, "He's wrong."

"I'm sorry," Milly said. Quiet, teary.

Vash looked up at her, questioning.

"I'm sorry he was hurt," she said.

Vash's eyes pinched at the corners and he looked back at his empty bowl.

Wolfwood shoved the rest of his food in his mouth in a few messy bites and put his bowl aside with a clank as well. He sniffed wetly and scrubbed snot off on his wrist, forcing his grief to be nothing more than a disgusting function of his body, and then he pushed himself to his feet. "Gonna check on the horses," he said. "Milly, come say hi to Angelina again. Give her a treat."

He held a hand down and she let herself be pulled up. She nodded to Vash and Meryl as they left.

Outside was still hot and smoky but it felt so much less oppressive than the house had begun to. Wolfwood hauled in a deep breath of the not-so-fresh air and coughed it back out. He'd brought out a waterskin and he took a slug himself before he went over to the three horses to give them a drink.

Milly followed him. "He's really the Emperor's twin?" she asked.

"His name’s Nai," Wolfwood told her. "Just a man. Looks like Vash, I guess, under all that scary crap he wears."

Milly accepted it with a nod. "And if Mr. Vash has powers like the Emperor does, he can really fight back." She reached up to pet Angelina's soft nose. "We might be okay," she said to the horse.

"Mills, where's Livio?" Wolfwood asked. His voice nearly cracked.

She leaned her forehead against Angelina's nose, not looking at him. After a too-long pause, she said, "I'm so sorry, Nicholas... I couldn't convince him to leave, I tried."

"Where is he?"

"In the city," she said, faintly, and he could tell she was fibbing somehow. Dancing around it.

"Milly," he begged.

"It was one of the first places they locked down," she said, looking up at Angelina's eyes again and stroking her neck. "Because they already had so many hooks in it, you know? From taking kids out to do tests on? So we never had a chance to try - I wanted to try to go get Miss Melanie, see if we could break in at night, maybe, but Ronnie and the others always said no. I couldn't do it by myself."

The orphanage. Wolfwood swallowed against a throat that felt like sandpaper and asked, "Is anyone still alive there?"

"I don't know," Milly said. "We haven't heard anything out of there all summer. There are some others, too, but mostly Livio and your... your teacher keep guard. I'll go with you tomorrow to look - you can talk to them -"

But Wolfwood barely heard her, because a certainty was growing in the pit of his stomach. He'd known it was coming for days, but it hadn't taken shape until now. It was a certainty defined by his own failures, by how long he'd waited to make the changes he should have fought for for his entire life - and defined, in some ways, by the emptiness of Vash's smiles, and by the kiss next to last night's fire that had felt like a goodbye.

“No,” Wolfwood said calmly. “You’re not coming.”

Milly stiffened. “You can’t stop me.”

So like Meryl. They’d get along well if they had a chance to know each other. He said, “You’re not coming with me. I need you to get Vash to the palace, or as close as you can. Meryl will go with you, too - she’s more dangerous than she looks, you and her can watch each other’s backs.”

“Nicholas -“

“I need you to do this,” he said. “I never wanted the damn mission anyway, right? And I still don’t. The Emperor wants Vash, and you’re gonna deliver that bomb right into his hands. You can do that, you know the streets as well as I do. You can find a way through.”

Milly was staring at him, her mouth turned down into an ugly moue, her chin trembling as she held herself back. She didn’t say anything because, he knew from experience, if she opened her mouth she would only be able to sob. She shook her head, eyes never leaving him.

“Please,” he said. Something inside him had cut loose, a tether finally severed. What mission? He’d discarded his symbol of the Eye before he’d even set foot in the forest. He’d been killed by the Beast Lord he’d been sent to retrieve. Everything after that hasn’t been mission, it’s been borrowed time. It’s been a vision of paradise like a mirage on the horizon, on a road that had always led to hell.

He felt like he was talking in a dream as he said, “Stay here, Milly. Promise me. Until the sun rises, stay here and don’t say a word. And after that - lead him where he’s got to go, and keep yourself safe.”

Tears spilled down her face. She shut her eyes and thumped into his chest, arms going tight around his waist like a vise. He held her hard, knowing he was probably bruising her malnourished skin. “Milly, I love you,” he told her, something he had no right never to have said out loud before. “I love you so much. You’re gonna live, no matter what, hear me? Once you’re done here, run away with Meryl. She’ll know where to take you. All these folks can go, too. There’s a little house in the woods - he won’t mind if you use it.”

He heard his name, muffled, sobbed against his armor.

“I’ll come back inside,” he told her gently. “I’m going to rest a while. You should try, too.”

Slowly, she regained her breath. She croaked, “Will you hold me until I can go to sleep?”

“Yes,” he said. “Come on, let’s get the horses situated first.”

They did the work in silence. There was a little hay left in the stable, and Blaze and Socks both ate like Milly had - like they weren’t sure they could handle nourishment anymore. Wolfwood filled the water trough from the cistern. He and Milly both spent a while brushing the horses down.

By the time they went back inside, the other occupants of the house were utterly silent. Vash and Meryl were still on the kitchen floor, Meryl curled up - still human - against Vash’s side. He had his arm around her small shoulders. Wolfwood stood very still for a long minute and tried to decide if Vash was truly asleep or faking, but ultimately, he couldn’t tell.

If he were holding Vash, skin to skin, he’d know. But now their suits of armor were on and he could no longer feel Vash’s every breath, or hear his heartbeat.

“There are so many beds no one is using,” Milly whispered. “Should we wake them to move or -“

“No,” Wolfwood told her. “C’mon.”

They went to Milly’s room. He’d only been allowed in here by Milly’s parents when he’d been very young, when they’d still thought he was - well. The Thompsons had had old-fashioned ideas about letting boys spend time in their daughters’ rooms. At least it meant they’d accepted who he was.

The bed was soft and made him ache for the memory of the cottage, especially once he had a warm body wrapped in his arms in the dark. But the horrors of smell and heat and fear still lingered around them, and he was acutely aware that the person he was comforting was not the person he would be betraying in a few hours.

He closed his eyes and let the hitching of Milly’s breath lull him into an eventual sleep.

-

Nicholas left while it was still dark. He moved silently through the black halls of his childhood sanctuary.

In the kitchen, a single coal persisted in the fireplace, the center of a thick log that had taken a long time to burn. In the faintest shades of orange-black, Nicholas squatted onto his heels to look at the people he had come to love.

Meryl was a tight ball of fur again. She’d have to explain herself in the morning, but Wolfwood wasn’t concerned about Milly accepting her for what she was. The smart-mouthed, fiercely loyal little fox spirit would wriggle her way through all of this and out the other side, of that Wolfwood was certain. He wasn’t going to get the chance to tell her how much he admired her, which was a shame.

Next to her, Vash had slid fully onto his side, his head cushioned by his wooden arm and a crumpled wad of his own coat. This time Wolfwood was certain that he was fully asleep. If he weren’t, those storm-sky eyes would open and look right through him. Pin his heart to his spine like an arrow.

Nicholas watched for a while, anticipating the moment when he would be caught, but it never came. Vash’s chest moved smooth and steady. His living hand was splayed over Meryl’s side. His hair spilled over his face, the low red light rendering it into molten iron instead of gold. His earring glinted.

Wolfwood pressed his fist against his mouth, brows drawn.

Then he stood up, silent as a ghost, and left the Thompson farmhouse.

He’d already gathered the only things he intended to take with him: Punisher, crossbow and ammunition, his armor with whatever was stored in its pockets, and his leather pouch of alchemy vials. He left everything else behind. Before he’d left the bedroom, he’d wrapped Milly’s nerveless fingers around his pewter wolf - returning it, since it had rightfully belonged to her for so many years.

Outside, the smoke seemed thicker than ever, smudging the landscape into a drunk’s watercolor. Years ago, he’d been nearby while Milly had been finger painting with some of her younger siblings. If you mix every color, she’d said, you get no color at all.

The cottage felt so far away and so long ago, like a fading dream. Wolfwood tried to remember the clearing where he’d first talked to Meryl. There had been flowers there. What colors had they been? He could no longer remember. Every time he tried to imagine a flower now, all he could think of was bruise-purple petals speckled with white light.

Wolfwood trudged towards December as dawn broke, the sun emerging sickly orange behind the smokescreen. It had just finished cresting the horizon when Nicholas found a substantial gap in the stone city wall. He climbed over the broken masonry, a predator returning to its territory.

Inside the walls of the city, he shed Wolfwood. He unnamed himself.

Sir Nicholas the Punisher had once been sent on a suicide mission, and he was back from the dead to have a few words with the man who’d given the order.

-

Chapter Text

Nicholas pulled a cloth from his belt and wiped blood off his sword, staring down at the walls of the orphanage he'd grown up in.

The canvas and straps that had covered the Punisher were far, far away, back on the street where the first of the perimeter guards had stood against him. A dozen fools with muscles bigger than their brains lay bleeding in the streets, forming a straggling trail behind him. He hadn't killed any of them. He was a different man from the one who'd left December so long ago.

The orphanage was a squat building of pale stone with a bell tower that rose from its center. The grounds might have been green sometime before Nicholas was born. Some degree of care for the land had lingered on in the property of the wealthy and the powerful, but no resources of clean water or nutrients had ever been wasted on the patch of earth around this place.

It didn't have a name, specifically, or at least not one Nicholas had ever known. He'd left the orphanage and moved into the Eye trainee barracks when he was ten and had never gone back. Every now and then he'd seen Miss Melanie, the house mother, out in the market buying Plant-made food and supplies; at first he’d hidden from her in shame at how he'd left, but later he hid from her because he was afraid she wouldn't recognize him. Or, perhaps, afraid that she would.

He'd changed a lot since the last time he'd passed through those gates.

The walls were tall and topped with iron points, difficult for a child to climb but not impossible to those determined enough. Nicholas had been one of the ones determined enough. He'd gone out to the marketplace or the Thompsons' farmhouse many times from this place, with his belly cramping because he'd given most of his dinner to one of the newer or scrawnier or hungrier kids. Miss Melanie had known he did it, and had told him not to, but she'd never told him to stop in the way she said the things she meant. She would spot him handing half of his bread to a kid who needed it more than he did and she would frown at him, but it wouldn't reach her eyes. Just like a fake smile. It never did anything to deter him; he knew he could get out and beg or steal whatever he needed, but the littler and more frightened kids could not.

Late in Nicholas' ninth year of life, Chapel had come to the orphanage and ordered all of the children to line up. Behind Chapel, the God-Emperor's master alchemist William Conrad had come down the line, looking at each child like livestock. He'd checked their teeth, how their eyes reacted to light, their grip strengths. Then the adults had left without explaining themselves.

A while later, just after Nicholas' tenth birthday, Melanie had pulled him aside and told him he'd been summoned to the Eye of Michael's cathedral. She'd told him he wasn't allowed to refuse, but she'd said it with the faintest of glances towards the iron-tipped walls. Run away, her eyes had said. You're one of the only ones who might make it. Run away.

But he'd gone to the cathedral. He'd had his interview with Chapel. And then he'd bitten Chapel, and been given the name Nicholas, which had defanged him instantly. With blood still in his mouth he'd been declared the Eye's newest trainee.

The drugs began soon after. They came with exhilaration, the feeling that he was finally on the right track, that he was going to grow up to be strong and proud and correct.

That feeling hadn't lasted. As he'd worked and bled and screamed his way through training, Chapel had picked another boy after him: a boy Nicholas had known at the orphanage for only a month before he'd disappeared onto the streets again. As a teen, Livio was sterner and quieter than he’d been as a child, but he still sometimes wept in his bunk at night, and when Nicholas had offered him bread, Livio had taken it with the ghost of a smile of thanks. That was all Nicholas had ever needed to know that he was going to protect Livio with his life.

He'd tried. God, he'd tried. But the world and the institutions in it were harder and more twisted than Nicholas could ever have anticipated when he was high on the hormones of puberty and seething with righteousness. He'd grown up. The body he'd been so proud to get was just a body, breakable and disgusting and often inconvenient, nothing special. He'd started to kill on orders, and then he'd stopped caring.

His world had narrowed to two points: Milly and Livio. Nothing else felt real. Nothing else mattered, including himself. Especially himself.

The orphanage lay at the bottom of a shallow slope. Nicholas walked down the road, sword up against his shoulder, crossbow loose in his other hand. There was blood smeared across his face, but it wasn't his.

The iron gates had once been some sort of pretty design, but decades of weather and neglect had choked them with rust and dry lichen. Before Nicholas could get close enough to see if there was a chain he’d need to break, the gates let out a booming groan and began to swing inward.

Between the gates stood Sir Chapel, once known as the Evergreen, leader of the cult of the Eye of Michael. His arms were thrown wide to haul open the gates. His armor was his practical set, not the ceremonial one, and it looked the same as ever: blackened chain to his shins, a tabard in good repair with the Eye on front and back, thick black plate greaves and bracers. His bastard sword was at his hip, not over his back. His beard seemed more salt than pepper now.

His craggy face was stern and commanding. “Did you kill the guards?” Chapel called, his great deep voice bellowing across the dead earth.

“No,” Wolfwood replied, walking forward, his pace unchanged.

Chapel spat at the ground, his arms falling. He took a step back, as if to invite Nicholas in. “Then your arc towards failure is complete,” Chapel said. “You can’t imagine the hope I once held for you, Nich-chk-“

Nicholas’ crossbow was up already, bolt loosed. Chapel jerked his head to the side just in time to spare his jugular, but a red line bloomed along the bottom of Chapel’s jawline anyway, staining his gray beard.

By the time the dropped crossbow hit the dirt, Nicholas was already in Chapel’s space, Punisher singing through the air. Chapel caught the blade with his bastard’s hilt mid-draw, swept his crossguard up beneath Punisher’s length and twisted, trying to break Nicholas’ grip. Nicholas followed the twist and spun like a dancer being led, bringing the sword back in a natural arc towards Chapel’s thigh. Chapel caught steel against steel, finally, and pressed Nicholas onto his back foot, forcing him to block and re-center himself. The momentary advantage was gone.

“Slow,” Chapel barked.

Nicholas pressed the offensive, swords clanging. He had no interest in talking. Chapel knew damn well that Nicholas Wolfwood was never meant to come out of the Forgotten Woods alive, and that if he did, it would be as a revenant with a single unholy goal. The death of the man who made him.

Chapel had a few inches of height on Nicholas, and longer arms; Nicholas had the reach advantage with his blade, but was less maneuverable. His vision focused down to Chapel’s grip and wrists, the angle of his shoulders, his hips, the placement of his feet. Nothing more. The air Nicholas hauled into his lungs was hot and metallic. His blood was high. He’d never beaten his master in one-on-one combat before but that was when he’d cared about anything else; he didn’t care now. He’d left caring behind at the city walls; he’d left caring behind in a lonely bed and on a wooden kitchen floor.

He gained, arms pumping, sweat loosening the travel-grime on his face. Chapel had gone from trying to bark any sort of insult to simply repelling him, teeth bared, eyes blazing. His arrogance had twisted his face into something almost like surprise - indignity at being treated this way. Nicholas’ guts surged with vicious warmth. Good.

He looked at the blood running down Chapel’s neck - less than a heartbeat of internal gloating, but it was enough. Chapel slid past his guard and rammed his sword towards Nicholas’ side.

The impact ripped the outer layers of his gambeson, but the new resin-linen reinforcement layer held fast. Still, inside his armor Nicholas could feel that the blow had bitten into his ribs with sheer blunt force. His chest felt like it was collapsing. He heaved a breath, snorting like a bull, and let himself fall back to regroup.

“There,” Chapel said, and spat at the ground again. “Boy! You’ve gotten worse. I didn’t send you out with a crossbow, that’s a coward’s weapon.”

“I met a man on the road,” Nicholas growled. “He didn’t need it anymore.”

“Yes, patrol reported about that,” said Chapel. “Sloppy work, even before you had months to backslide.”

Nicholas had taken enough deep breaths to gauge the damage in his side. Ribs broken, but none had stabbed into his lungs. He could tolerate the pain.

“This is foolish, Punisher,” Chapel said. His sword dropped by an inch, guard lowering. “Our ascension is already at hand. The cattle crowd the pen. God commences his great work at the coming of the Beast whom he will consume and in the act of consumption create a new world -“

“Old man,” Nicholas interrupted, “you’re looking at the only world that monster’s ever gonna let you see. Whatever he’s making, it isn’t for us.”

Chapel’s nostrils flared. His lips thinned. He said, “No. Not for you.”

He shifted his sword into one hand and raised it straight up into the air. A signal.

Nicholas barely got his hand up in time to catch the near-silent blade aimed towards his neck.

Livio’s one-hander bit into Nicholas’ bracer, jarring through the bones of his wrist. Livio’s pale green eyes stared impassively. The left was deeply shadowed by his half-mask. He must have been just inside the orphanage’s entry when Nicholas arrived.

“Livio,” Nicholas hissed, their faces much too close, all his strength focused on resisting the sword that wanted to burrow into his neck. “Don’t do this.”

For the barest breath, Nicholas thought he saw sorrow in Livio’s gaze. The boy who wept for a life denied to him. For peace and a little rest.

“You’ll make Master cry again,” Livio murmured.

Nicholas growled and heaved Livio’s sword away, diving and coming back up to Livio’s right, Punisher back in both hands and up in an ox guard. For a moment, parted from each other, they stood in a silence that almost felt like calm.

“Punisher,” Chapel called out, “your name has already been committed to the roll of the dead. This unlife you cling to is sacrilege. Lay it down.”

“In a hurry, weren’t you,” Nicholas snarled. “I had ’til harvest.”

“God spoke through his Voice late in spring,” said Chapel. “After the hour when the sky turned dark and every Plant sang. He declared that you were killed in the forest by an unholy creature, but that the Beast Lord had been routed from its hole and would arrive in due time. An honorable death, Nicholas! Claim it!”

For a moment, Nicholas’ head swam - how could Chapel know about the boar, about his brush with death, how -? But then Zazie’s taunts came back to him. What makes you think we do not leave the woods? We’re watching your God right now. The little shit probably told the Emperor all sorts of things that happened in the woods.

And the Emperor was still calling Vash the Beast Lord?

“You have no idea what’s even going on, you useless sack of shit,” Nicholas yelled at Chapel. “Everything you’ve ever served is a load of -“

Livio came for him before he could begin to express everything that was wrong with the Eye, with the Emperor, with the backwards and twisted servitude that Chapel had swallowed so wholeheartedly that he would likely never see his own disposability staring him in the face. The fire of despair flashed through Nicholas and burned out; despair that he would never make Chapel understand. Chapel was not capable of understanding. How wrong he’d always been, what a pawn he was, the harm he’d done.

Nicholas kicked away the part inside himself that still wanted justice, that disgusting, weepy child, and settled his heart back onto vengeance instead. Retribution was so much simpler.

Livio had drawn both of his short swords now and was giving Nicholas hell with them. He’d always favored a dual wield, light and fast, although he was huge enough and strong enough to bear more weight in a weapon. His twin falchions were maybe half the length of the Punisher, but bit like viper’s fangs. Livio’s tells were more difficult to follow than Chapel’s but Nicholas knew to watch his chest, the midpoint between his swords’ swings, the pivot point of what was essentially a single elongated weapon that stitched down Livio’s arms and through his lungs and belly.

“Livio,” Nicholas managed between blows, “stop - you don’t have to - protect him -“

Livio snagged his crossed falchions against the lugs of Nicholas’ claymore and shoved it back hard enough to almost make Nicholas bash in his own nose. “You shouldn’t be here,” Livio said, not even breathing hard. He resumed a guard stance. “You betray the Eye with every breath you take.”

“Betray what?” Nicholas bellowed, throwing himself back into it. The shriek of metal on metal shivered through his skull. He stared Livio down from inches away. “You’re helping him steal kids,” Nicholas spat. “You keeping kids in a cage now, Liv? For him?”

Disquiet finally flashed across Livio’s face, followed by anger. At least he’d cracked.

“Go tell them they can’t have what the Eye gave us,” Livio growled. “Gave you.”

Nicholas hissed.

“Tell them they can have nothing,” Livio said. “Tell them they can eat flies and drink piss when there’s no more water, Nico, go in there and tell them -“

“All they ever gave us was poison,” Nicholas shouted, twisting his hips and shoulders, launching a blow fueled by all the rage that he could never quite manage to temper.

He realized, even as the blow landed with a loud, meaty thud, that he hadn’t expected it to connect. He’d expected Livio to parry. Horror liquified his stomach. Livio wasn’t fast enough on his guard, and stared at Nicholas over the length of the claymore now resting deep within his clavicle, sheared straight down from the top of his trapezius muscle.

Livio wasn’t fast enough on his defense, however, because he had been too busy with offense. One of his falchions sat thick and cold in Nicholas’ abdomen, the feeling more of an intense wrongness than pain. Until Livio yanked the sword back, ripping it free from Nicholas’ destroyed organs, spilling blood that was thick and nearly black. Nicholas staggered, wrenching his own sword free.

He needed a vial. Quick - his fingers knew the way, found the blood-slicked pouch, his teeth dug into the seal - the acid taste burned his tongue -

Alchemists’ fire hit his stomach and his face twisted as he resisted the urge to double up in pain. He ignored his gut wound as best he could, not allowing any of his senses to focus on what was happening deep inside himself. He could hear the sizzle of flesh.

He tossed the empty vial and looked up at Livio again, expecting him to fall. Livio did stagger - but only for a moment. His left foot went back in the dirt, toes turned out, bracing himself upright.

And his neck and shoulder began to knit. Unassisted.

From across the orphanage yard, Chapel began to laugh. He’d circled them at a distance until he was standing by the steps up to the orphanage’s front door - positioning himself as the arbiter of a training spar all over again. “You misjudge, Nicholas!” he called out. “Your brother is a perfect creature. A being wrought from the miserable clay of humanity into something a little more worthy of God’s new paradise! Work only tested in you came to true fruition in him. Be proud, boy! We all want better for our descendants than for ourselves, do we not?”

Nicholas choked, “Livio -“

Livio bent his neck with a little wince, cracking the newly-formed tendons. Gore spilled down the front of his badly split surcoat, making it heavy where it flapped loose. Livio yanked at it, ripping it the rest of the way off, revealing the leather armor beneath. It was minimal, just a sleeveless black leather jerkin with an open vee of a neck. If he regenerated without the vials… it didn’t really matter what armor he wore, did it?

Livio flexed his arms, shook himself out, and brought both of his swords up in an odd motion, hilt-to-hilt. He did something with them then, clasping some sort of mechanism together that Nicholas could hear clicking into place, and suddenly he wasn’t holding a sword in either hand but rather one long double-bladed polearm with the joined hilts in the center.

Nicholas’ stomach fell. He had never been privy to all that was done to Livio, or how he’d been trained. He’d sparred against Livio’s twin falchions before. This? He was already mentally trying to readjust his approach - but Chapel interrupted again.

“To the death,” their master commanded, and he lifted up a sword that had been leaning against the front porch of the orphanage and tossed it towards Livio, who gripped his polearm in one hand and raised the other to catch the new weapon.

It was a greatsword, not unlike Nicholas’ claymore. It was burnt black along the length, with a heavy red enameled pommel-weight. Nicholas stared. The arrangement of weaponry in front of him was completely insane. He could one-hand his own sword, yes - theoretically he could use two, although he’d need years of work to build up the right muscle and account for the balancing - but he truly couldn’t fathom what sort of work would need to go into him from the alchemists’ side, what enhancing drugs or internal grafts they would try.

Livio’s body regenerated without the vials - what scars should he have? How had they cut Nicholas’ brother open over the years, in ways he’d never even known? What else had they done and then erased the evidence?

“Livio -“ Nicholas started, guilt thick in his throat.

“Shut up,” said the man in front of him. He raised his hand with the greatsword up to his face and ripped off his half-mask, cracking it in the process. He threw it away and shook his head like an animal loosed from a muzzle. Beneath it, jagged black lines were tattooed around his eye. He said, “Don’t call me that.”

Nicholas stared, guilt dissolving into pure adrenaline-terror. He knew this man. They had history. In a lifetime of knowing each other, Nicholas had caught so many fragmentary glimpses of the deep, black pit of violence inside his brother that Livio shied away from - except, there was someone else in there who didn’t. Someone who stood back in the shadows, simmering with rage. He’d never introduced himself. He’d been there since before the Eye, always looking over Livio’s shoulder, waiting for when he was needed.

“It’s hurtin’ his feelings to have to put you down,” said the stranger. “But it’s gotta be done. Nothin’ personal.”

“Give him back,” Nicholas croaked.

“Didn’t put him anywhere,” the man spat. “I’m not his keeper. He left ‘cause he didn’t want to see this.” He hefted his two - three? - weapons and took a guard stance that Nicholas couldn’t begin to parse how to break - double-ended polearm in a high ox, greatsword low at the hip. Where to come in from? Where to try to block?

“At least tell me who you are,” Nicholas said, buying time for his racing brain to work out angles.

“Name’s Razlo,” said Livio’s independent shadow, tensing his muscles.

And then - Nicholas tried. By all that he’d ever thought was holy, he did try. He fought as dirty as he ever had, throwing formal training out the window in favor of choking up Punisher with one gloved fist around its blade to catch and deflect as many strikes as he could. Razlo’s reach was longer and Nicholas tried to get inside it, slam his knuckles or break his arms or his nose with pommel-strikes, but even when his strikes connected they didn’t make Razlo falter. When Nicholas tried to fall back to a safer distance, whirling blades tripped him from behind and gave no quarter.

The damage was ruthless and accumulated faster than the single already-fading alchemy vial could keep up with. Pierced through the kidney, thigh slashed deep, broken nose, skull fracture. Razlo caught Nicholas’ off-arm between his greatsword and the joined falchion-hilts and twisted with a downward slash, sending fragmented radius and ulna spiraling jagged blood-black bone shards out of Nicholas’ split skin. The greatsword pommel wrenched backwards in the same motion to hit Nicholas in the breastbone, cracking something so deep Nicholas couldn’t even name it, sending a spew of frothy blood past his lips.

Air wasn’t coming. All he could taste and smell and feel was hot, slick iron. He heaved again, losing vital blood and pieces of his insides that he didn’t want to think about. He found himself on his knees, and with another ringing blow to the skull, on his back. He caught a whirling glimpse of his own left hand; he’d held Punisher’s blade so tightly that he’d slashed open the leather of his gloves and cut into his own fingers. He could see bone.

Some of the wounds were trying to mend - the scorch of the healing alchemy gnawed at the edges of his open places - but it wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t enough. He needed to stand. He didn’t have any air. Lung gone? He tried to roll to his side, on to his belly, gasping, choking on his own blood and bile. He’d drown, he’d drown in it if he couldn’t get his head above water -

Razlo’s boot came down on his shoulder and he felt it come loose. Again, on his spine, and he heard a snap like a branch.

Distantly, so distantly, through ringing as loud as the cathedral’s bells, he heard his brother’s voice say, “Master, the final blow is yours.”

He found the solid earth with one knee. He swayed up onto it. Bubbling lava crackled in his shoulder; he felt it snap back into its socket. The alchemy was nearly gone. He needed -

“Don’t give him time,” Chapel said, ancient and echoing. “He may have doses left.”

He needed - his left arm was a twisted sculpture of bone shards in meat; his right hand held his sword; he shouldn’t let go of his sword, but he needed - he needed - 

Footsteps approached. Their shadows darkened the red dirt.

“All the work I poured into you, Nicholas,” said Chapel’s voice. Sad? Angry? “I wish you could see the world we’re going to make.”

His pouch of vials was at his belt. He fumbled with nerveless fingers, palm occupied by a gore-slick hilt. The strap of the pouch came loose and the leather hit the dirt.

“This is divine retribution!”

The sword point came down through his chest. He watched it with almost detached fascination. He had thought it wasn’t possible for the pain to get worse, but he’d been wrong. He screamed, losing more air he couldn’t get back, his heart running down the fuller of Chapel’s bastard sword. Where it dripped, the dying ground sucked the moisture away.

Chapel’s sword retreated through Nicholas’ brutalized body. He didn’t know how many heartbeats he had left. Twenty? Ten? Less?

He couldn’t see what happened then; his face was turned to the ground, a forced supplication in front of the man he’d come here to kill. Beneath him, a handspan away from his blood-clotted mouth, lay the pouch with three vials. He felt so heavy. The world was darkening, the red sky coming over black. Smoke, or storm clouds? Was he underground now? Buried, or drowning?

He could barely think. His numb fingers touched the pouch and he slid down, facedown into the dirt, knowing he could never lift them to his lips. He was too heavy, sodden with all the life the land never had, soaking it uselessly into ground that would never have a chance to grow anything again, no matter how much blood he gave it. No matter what he gave, he’d never add anything to the world that was worth having. Was this all there was? His life had been spent ending others and his death would fertilize soil without seeds. All he’d ever had to give to the world was a quick exit from it.

He realized he was crying. He was amazed that he had the moisture left.

The heaviness in his body carried his face to the ground and he felt leather against his lips. The world had gone utterly dark. He could swear he heard humming, and a sound like enormous wingbeats pulsing in the air.

“Stop.”

That voice wasn’t possible.

No. No, no, no, no -

Wolfwood’s heartbeat sped up. He couldn’t afford that. He couldn’t afford the blood loss, the cacophonous sledgehammer thud as each beat rattled through him. He opened his mouth and shoved his teeth around leather and glass and dirt. He felt so heavy. So heavy. He bit down.

The smell of lightning-struck air came at the same moment that the acid started to soak through the leather and onto his sticky iron-coated lips. He bit harder, shredding the leather of the pouch, gouging his gums with glass, catching all the alchemists’ fire he could. Two vials had broken. He needed all he could get.

The humming grew louder.

“Demon!” Chapel’s voice was screeching. “What are you!"

Nicholas sucked on his grimy mouthful and swallowed more potion than he ever had before. He opened his mouth to gasp with the pain and the ruined pouch flopped to the ground. He could feel his insides liquefying, a physical form that should have been structured by bones and tendons becoming reshaped into pure fire. His mauled arm twitched and spiraled closed, skin sizzling. He coughed out another glob of blood and pushed himself to his knees, shaking hand still white-knuckling his sword hilt.

Wolfwood rose onto his knees. He radiated heat; he could smell his flesh cooking where it healed. His agonies became a different kind - instead of debilitating, the pain felt like it was driving him. Like a whip to an animal's flank, the pain made him need to move, to fight, to scream and claw.

Standing between himself and Chapel was Vash.

He was holding Chapel's sword with his left hand, the wood of his arm no longer brown branches but those black, twining vines. The vines did not obey the structure of the human form: they emerged however they wanted to, and had wrapped Chapel's sword arm up to his elbow in a tight grasp. From the angle, it looked like Chapel had been lining up to decapitate Wolfwood while he was down.

Nicholas dug the Punisher’s point into the ground and used it to push himself to his feet. The fire inside him burned faster, his heart beating like a panicking bird in a cage. The fire coursed out from his core, filling his arms and legs, rising up his neck. Every wound on his body twisted and melted closed like he was made of wax.

His chest felt like bursting with all the things he needed to scream at Vash - why are you here? get out, get out! - but he couldn’t speak around the alchemic shivering in his nerves. Every breath felt like a dragon was climbing out of his shedding skin.

Razlo interrupted Chapel’s scream of frustration with low, building laughter. He tossed his head back and flipped his greatsword in his hand, flexing. “Dunno who you are,” he said to Vash, “but I like a challenge. You gonna be a challenge?”

Vash said nothing. Some sort of aura clung to him, a thickness in the air, a dark, electric smell. His arm twitched and writhed.

A single beat of stillness. Evaluation. Tensing.

Razlo chopped through Vash’s vines, freeing Chapel’s sword and sword arm. Vash countered the followup blow from Razlo’s other weapon, deflecting with his body and his shillelagh, dodging around shrieking blades at superhuman speed.

Chapel rounded on Nicholas, flinging himself into an enraged onslaught that was sloppier than his previous attacks. Even if it had been the height of his skill, though, it wouldn’t have mattered to Nicholas, for whom time itself seemed to be slowing down. His perception and reflexes were so fast he found himself fighting back almost dreamily, feeling like he was inside some sort of alchemic cocoon that was splitting gradually open.

As soon as he’d stood up, Nicholas knew that he was dying. Three vials within a few minutes of each other was beyond comprehension. He was amazed it hadn’t killed him on the spot.

Chapel didn’t stand a chance.

With a full-bodied scream, Nicholas dealt back to Sir Chapel, once the Evergreen, everything that the man had ever done to a child. Not just to Nicholas, but to any child. Every child. All the promises with their barbed strings attached, all the small betrayals that trained his students to beg for and delight in the scraps they were given. All the unexplained surgeries, the alchemic experiments that only worked one time in twenty, in fifty, in a hundred - for every Nicholas the Punisher there were a dozen lobotomized mutant servitors, and for every one of those there were a hundred dead kids, probably more -

Chapel hit the ground, and hit the ground, and hit the ground.

Nicholas dragged his claymore out of Chapel’s chest and began to draw back for another pointless chop into the gurgling mess of flesh, but he was interrupted by a wail of despair.

Livio - no - Razlo - screamed, “Master! Master!” He heaved Vash aside, sending him tumbling back into the dirt, and lunged towards Nicholas and Chapel. He seemed unable to fully form words, just screaming inarticulate rage and loss.

Razlo stumbled near Chapel, taking in the damage; he whipped around and Nicholas caught him easily this time, where before he hadn’t been able to so much as raise his sword. The alchemic mutation had saturated Nicholas’ flesh now. He wasn’t sure any part of him was still flesh, really. If cut, he wasn’t even sure he would bleed.

He welcomed the fight, struggling to retain clarity as he became something he was never meant to become. His body flowed like liquid. He fought Razlo like a demon, wishing the man could see the world the way Nicholas could now see it, wishing for his brother to come back, wishing - wishing - wishing.

Nicholas disabled Razlo’s greatsword arm. Vash sniped him with a stone across the face, cracking his cheekbone and wrecking his nose. Razlo was forced onto his back foot, gathering his wits for a moment while his flesh sizzled and healed.

“Wolfwood -“ Vash said, in the brief moment they had to look at each other.

Nicholas looked back at him, wide and wild-eyed, breathing too hard, squirming in his skin. Vash’s hair was almost floating, like he lived in some other atmosphere all his own. His eyes were thunderous and so, so afraid.

“Why’re you here, Spikey?” Nicholas rasped.

Vash couldn’t answer. His mouth moved.

“Where’s the girls? What about your brother?” Nicholas panted.

“I -“

Nicholas shook his head. Vash’s strained, agonized expression was going to break his heart, and he couldn’t afford that.

Razlo roared, healed, and lunged back into the fray.

Nicholas found himself passing Vash, Vash’s hand pressing against the small of his back for such a brief moment, and then they were back-to-back, a team. Together, a clean and simple moment of alignment, puzzle pieces clicking softly. Wolfwood fought as half of a body. His other half was weeping a lightning-scented darkness that wasn’t exactly feathers and wasn’t exactly smoke. He tingled where Vash touched him.

And then his instinct, as heightened as it had ever been and too heightened to be allowed for long, sensed the thrown dagger without even seeing it. He wasn’t sure how he knew, really. A sound? A faint shift in the motion of the air?

Wolfwood slammed his whole body into Razlo, spinning and shoving him aside by just enough inches for the thrown dagger to sink into Wolfwood’s side instead. It managed to wedge between ribs and lodge deep.

His hot-wax flesh bubbled around it. It was hard to breathe.

Somewhere above Wolfwood, Razlo was screaming for his master again - because Chapel had thrown the dagger; it was obvious that Chapel had thrown it with the last of his life, not caring who it hit - and Razlo was discovering how little he mattered to the only man in the world he’d ever wanted to please, and it was killing him - and Chapel was finally dying, dying, dead - but Wolfwood couldn’t really pay attention, because something was terribly wrong with him.

The alchemy was running its course. His drug-addled cocoon was finishing its slow split, releasing whatever it had tried to incubate. But he wasn’t coming out as a wolf, or a dragon, or a perfect superhuman. He was coming out the other side another failed experiment. Another dead kid for the Eye of Michael’s mass grave.

He felt himself starting to slip. His knees went out. Arms caught him, one human or close enough, one blooming an anxious mass of violet petals. Wolfwood couldn’t quite raise his head; in looking down, he realized that Vash’s boots had shredded at some point, and that he was walking on something like masses of snakes. The flowers crushed by his footsteps left dark smudges in the dirt. Smoke-like dew oozed from the flowers’ throats.

“No,” Vash said, “no, don’t -“

“Spikey,” Wolfwood said, his tongue thick in his mouth. “Let go’f me.”

“I won’t!”

Wolfwood was still strong enough and coordinated enough to pry Vash’s hands off of him. He let himself finish sinking to the ground on his knees, propped with the Punisher. He let out a deep breath.

From the side, Razlo had turned to come at him again. Vash raised his vine-arm but he didn’t need to; out of seemingly nowhere, Razlo’s own fist socked himself in the chin and he staggered, panting.

There was an long, agonizing moment of stillness. Of silence, such as it was.

Wolfwood’s brother spat out a piece of tooth.

“Livio,” Wolfwood said. He was losing his voice. “Y’back?”

Razlo - Livio - sucked in a few harsh breaths and finally said, “Not like this. I don’t want this.”

Wolfwood drew in a breath that burned hideously. He asked, “Where’s the kids, Liv?”

Livio’s face twisted up; tears, maybe involuntary, gathered in the corners of his eyes. “Cellar,” he croaked. “Melanie’s there too.”

“Get ‘em,” Wolfwood said. “Take care of ‘em. Gotta get out of the city.”

As if on cue, a massive BOOM echoed through the sky. From the direction Wolfwood knew the Emperor’s palace to be, a plume of smoke and debris shot into the air, mushrooming out and blocking what little sunlight was still visible. He, Livio, and Vash all looked up towards it, with varying degrees of shock; as the edge of the cloud began to reach them, detritus began to patter down.

Wolfwood saw delicate gossamer wings, crushed thoraxes, segmented legs.

Whatever Zazie had so confidently set off to do, they’d clearly tried it - and at least from the looks of things, it hadn’t gone well.

“Spikey,” he said. “Y’gotta go. No more time.”

Livio left them and ran for the door of the orphanage, letting it slam shut behind him.

Vash turned towards Wolfwood. He knelt in front of him, mirroring his position. He said, “The girls can’t be far away - let me get them, they can get you out of here, go with the kids and -“

“Spikey,” Wolfwood stopped him. He took another difficult breath. The alchemy never did last all that long. Ten seconds, thirty, God willing maybe even a minute or two - enough time to turn the tide of a losing fight, enough time to knit up roughshod flesh and keep it moving. Three vials within five minutes of each other was like swallowing a sun.

Vash was glowing, Wolfwood realized. The faint lines in his skin were blue and moving, pulsing to some pattern Wolfwood didn’t understand. His heartbeat? Agitation? Anger?

Grief?

“You drink?” Wolfwood asked abruptly.

Vash blinked, and Wolfwood realized his eyes were already wet. Vash swallowed and said, “I used to. It got too - yes.”

“Wish I could’ve had a drink with you,” Wolfwood said. “In a better time.” He raised his hand - it was difficult; his arm was heavy - and rested it on Vash’s shoulder, by his neck. His thumb touched Vash’s skin. He said, “Miss your smile. Looked good on you.”

Vash barely managed, “Don’t… don’t say stupid things.”

Wolfwood’s vision was going dark around the edges. He focused on Vash as hard as he could. “Go,” he said.

“I can turn it back,” Vash whispered, tears spilling down his face. “Let me turn it back.”

Wolfwood quirked his mouth in a smile and said, chest thick, “Don’t waste it on me. Don’t waste it.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Vash said, face twisting. “It wasn’t.”

Over Vash’s shoulder, Wolfwood was momentarily distracted by the sight of that dissipating mushroom cloud from whatever Zazie had done slowly growing darker from the inside, crackling with rising power. Over the distance, the faint sound of humming began to carry to them. A song, coordinated among many voices, all of them in pain.

Wolfwood struggled his focus back onto Vash. He dragged his hand up Vash’s neck to the back of his head, pulled him close to touch foreheads to each other. His skin tingled and went a little numb wherever Vash’s active markings touched him, but he didn’t mind. He felt like he was slowly petrifying. Leave him here, he thought, a stone statue in a garden that hadn’t been alive since before he was born. He could memorialize mistakes made in the service of others. Patron saint of wrong choices. Of turning back from a bad path, but only when it was already too late.

When Wolfwood’s hand slipped down from the back of Vash’s head, he noticed a few longer hairs clinging to his palm. Longer, like the gold, but black, like the short part. He clenched his fist around them and a few strands broke; they were brittle. For a flash, Wolfwood understood that Vash was using up something he could never get back. The same thing he’d used to save Wolfwood the first time.

Wolfwood pushed Vash back by the shoulder. “Go. Save the world,” Wolfwood said, even though it wasn’t a fair thing to ask.

Vash didn’t say anything. He didn’t make a sound as he stood up, still crying. Wolfwood was grateful.

The song of hundreds of dying Plants was still rising in the air, and somewhere behind him Wolfwood heard the crash of the orphanage door opening and a large number of young, frightened voices as the kids were herded out. He didn’t turn to look at them. He couldn’t move much anymore.

Vash took a few steps back, his gait made strange by his inhuman feet. They looked more like massive talons now, the vines sharpening to something more predatory. Vash looked down at Wolfwood, pressed his fist to his mouth in some kind of silent goodbye, and then - dark violet energy laced with black void and starlight crackled around him, and somehow he… unfolded. What erupted from him wasn’t exactly a wing, but even from where he knelt Wolfwood could feel the way it warped the space around it, and dust and small stones began to rise gently from the ground around Vash’s feet.

The dark shroud rose, vast and dripping, and it beat down with a sound like mourning. It did it again, and Vash’s talons began to rise from the dirt.

Wolfwood shifted his position with the last of his strength. He knelt on only one knee, the other raised, and he firmly re-planted Punisher’s point in the dirt. He held its hilt in both hands and bowed his head.

He could not unname himself. He was Nicholas and he was Wolfwood, not one piece or another as he felt like. He had always been all of himself, whether he wanted to be or not, whether or not any given piece was a curse. He had always been whole. He just hadn’t known it.

He couldn’t unname himself but he had killed his maker and freed his name from its indenture, and he could now give away his loyalty as he wished, for all the futility of the gesture.

Sir Nicholas D. Wolfwood silently pledged his fealty to the angel of death with whom he had fallen in love. He watched Vash lift from the ground, the eldritch light growing behind him lending him a dark halo.

The sun was gone. He could no longer hear the voices of children. He would never know if he’d done enough.

Wolfwood closed his eyes, listened to the rising song and the great beating of wings, and slipped away.

-

Chapter Text

there is no time here. there is no here.

nothing is not black. when black comes, it's new. different. black takes the nothing in small strands that meet and twine. knots of slithering dark. roots push into something solid, breaking it down.

the dark feels of pressure and of need. thirst and empty. the dark feels of forever. there are no promises in it, and no possibility of change.

a light pricks at the edges. another. small, even up close; star in the sky, small as ever even when it touches... when it touches... skin? self? you?

the light drips across you because you touch it, morning dew disturbed. it's a star on your skin, washing you. it feels like being awake and taking a deep breath. it feels like longing for something better that you never got to have, but that you got to see, for a moment, through a window.

there is more light. it seeps and trickles. the black is no longer black but the color of looking out from deep inside a bruise. the dark indigo is so soft. there is a sound like running water.

you don't know who you are. you know you are a self. you know you do not hurt, but that you know what hurting feels like. you know that you should feel very badly hurt and you don't know why it's gone. you miss pain because it was real. you don't know what is real, except for yourself.

not too sure about that, either.

the sound of running water makes you want to weep. why are you here? you shouldn't be here. you shouldn't be. you accepted not-being. you pledged your life and then you let it go. what are you? why are you?

a whisper says it's over.

you want to say you know.

the whisper says are you there? are you still there?

you try to remember anything. you try to remember who you are.

I have a little more time. I can go a little deeper. Are you there?

you say you don't know where you are

There you are, says the whisper, which is more like a hum. It's familiar, a song you heard a long time ago, maybe as a child, while looking at the stars. There you are.

I'm afraid, you admit to the whisper.

I'm with you now. I'm with you.

Stay, you plead.

Come with me, the song replies.

I don't think I...

You can. I have help. You can make it back.

I'm not supposed to.

I don't care.

... I know you.

Without a name I would know you.

I shouldn't have made you save the lamb.

You didn't make me. I chose to.

There will always be other lambs.

Yes.

Death is natural.

Yes.

Death is welcome.

Not always. It doesn't have to be.

A world where nothing dies isn't real. It isn't good. It would suffocate under the weight of the living and all that they need. It would cry out for relief.

Do you feel it? Relief?

...

Peace? Rest?

Regret.

Regret?

I didn't regret before you. You taught me to regret.

I'm sorry.

No... regret is the loss of something worth having. It was worth it.

You are worth it.

No -

You are worth this.

No, I -

You are worth saving.

One lamb -

Let me. Let me. Let me.

I hate being magicked. I hate losing control.

Give me control. Don't lose it. You know where it is.

You can't do this. What are you giving me? What will you lose?

Time.

Your time

I have too much of it. I always have. A life without death will suffocate under the weight of living. Let me breathe.

Vash

Let me breathe for you

Vash

let me

don't

there will be tomorrows because of you

not me, I didn't -

let me have tomorrows with you. any of them, just one, even a moment

you saved me - you've saved enough -

never enough

vash

I miss you

i miss...

come home

i love you

come home

come home

come home

-

Nicholas D. Wolfwood woke up, which was not something he thought he would ever do again.

Water dripped onto his closed eyelids. He cracked them open and saw that the world hadn’t ended. He was lying on his back, and it was raining. Soft and steady. The sky was very still.

He turned his head, so stiff, to the side, even though he already knew, because his hand was being held. The clasped hands lay between them, a scarred one tight around a darker one. Vash was lying on his side, holding Wolfwood with the only limb he had left. Graying vines had crumbled away from him like old charcoal. Red fabric, torn and stained, spread around him like the petals of a flower beaten into the dirt by the weight of the rain.

Wolfwood couldn't make any sound. He breathed out, and back in, and the next exhale came with tears he could not even make a token effort to resist. Vash opened his eyes and finally looked at him, clear blue-green rippling with saltwater, and his smile was also a grimace, joy and agony inseparable from each other.

The last of his golden halo faded, turned brittle, and washed away over his forehead. He was shivering.

With great effort, Wolfwood managed to roll onto his side, still clinging to Vash's hand, and he pulled Vash close with his free arm. He held Vash tight against him, both of them solid and shaking, and he scrubbed his callused hand against the back of Vash's head, the soft, fine hair now all short and dark, a field once fertile now plowed under. Spring gone to winter. Time all run down.

"Stay," Vash choked against Wolfwood's shoulder. "Stay."

As long as you want, Wolfwood thought, and held on tight.

-

Meryl and Milly found them when scattered refugees began to return. Milly brought Angelina and hoisted Wolfwood onto his horse’s back. He was slow and dazed and still not fully able to speak, but he didn’t need to be tied to the saddle to keep from falling. He leaned over Angelina’s neck and held on, half-awake. Meryl held Angelina’s lead, and Milly carried the unconscious Vash in her arms. He was much lighter without three limbs, after all.

When Milly laid Vash out in a bed in her family home, Wolfwood crawled in next to him. No one argued.

Wolfwood didn’t wake up for two days.

Vash didn’t wake up for two months.

Things changed while Vash remained cold to the touch, his breath faint and shallow. Wolfwood barely registered the changes, but after a while he couldn’t keep blocking them out. The rain fell for over a week, and then the sky cleared. Milly came and told him that the Plants being carried out of the palace were all alive and blue-veined and healthy, although they seemed groggy somehow. Stunned. A few had begun to produce again. A little clean water, a little fruit, a little grain.

Wolfwood ate when food was pushed into his hands, but he couldn’t taste it. Meryl often came and laid on the bed next to Vash, curled up by his side. A few times, Wolfwood laid next to her. She stayed in fox form nearly all the time.

Milly came and told him that a runner had come from Octovern. At the time that everyone was presuming was the moment of the Emperor’s death, all of the Plants in Octovern had rallied and cried out, and every human there had collapsed with bleeding ears and assorted ruptures. Not everyone had survived the Plants’ chorus. Milly’s eldest brother hadn’t.

But the Emperor’s people had been stopped, and now resources were moving again. The rest of Milly’s family slowly trickled back to the farm. One day, one of Milly’s younger sisters stopped in the doorway and looked in, and Wolfwood blearily realized that he must be in her bed.

He croaked, “Sorry.”

She smiled, thin and wan, and said, “It’s all right. How is he?”

Wolfwood realized she meant Vash, who he was holding. The way the blanket draped over them made it obvious that parts of Vash’s body were not there. She probably thought Vash had been wounded in some of the recent fighting.

“Alive,” was all he could think to say, because it was the only thing he was sure of. Vash was still breathing. His heartbeat was still there, though slow.

He didn’t want to think about anything else. He didn’t want to think.

There came a time when Milly said, “Come with me,” and he didn’t want to, but she picked Vash up out of the bed and so he had to follow. He felt like a gossamer string connected them and that if he let Vash out of his sight it would break.

Milly took them outside. The sun was shining. It was hot, but there was a slight, cool breeze. The first suggestion that this summer might one day end.

Milly carried Vash to the trunk of an old tree, long dead, that had once stood in the front yard of the Thompson farmhouse. When Wolfwood had been very young, it still struggled out a few leaves every year - but that had stopped sometime in Wolfwood’s teens. A few scarves and shawls had been draped across the lowest branches to create a little shade. Milly nodded for Wolfwood to sit down, and she sat by him, holding Vash to her chest like an oversized child.

She said, “Look at the ground, Nicholas.”

He did, and he finally saw it.

Tiny sprouts. Hundreds of them; thousands. Like the fine hairs on a cheek, they fuzzed the ground in a nearly invisible blanket of pale, anemic green.

“It was like everything was slowing down,” Milly murmured. “Like it was all coming to a stop. Even the soil, everything alive in it was all going to sleep. Maybe he was making it wait until we died, and then he was going to wake it all up again. Mister Vash said something like that when we got him through to the palace. He said it was all about time - who got to keep it and who got to give it away.”

“Time doesn’t belong to anyone,” Wolfwood said, hoarse.

“That’s what he said, too,” Milly said, brushing her hand gently over Vash’s dark head. His hair hadn’t shown any signs of growth. Whatever it had been a measure of was all gone now.

But Wolfwood knew better. He knew Vash may have wanted to believe that no one should redistribute time - or life - at will, but that in the end, he’d done exactly what he’d spent over a hundred years refusing to do.

“The Emperor?” Wolfwood asked.

“No one’s sure,” Milly said. “But I saw Mister Vash going away from the palace - going to where you -“ She bit her lip, eyes bright and wet. “I saw him,” she said, “and from his face, I don’t think… I don’t think his brother made it.”

Wolfwood dragged himself closer to her. She let him lean on her, and she let him lower Vash from her arms to lay him across both of their laps. She let him wrap his arms around her shoulders and he didn’t say anything as she cried. She knew about lost brothers.

After a while, Meryl trotted from around the side of the house and saw them. Wolfwood saw her hesitate, drawing back, as if she thought she might not be allowed to join. He held out his hand. Slowly, jerkily, she padded across the fine film of new growth towards them.

When Meryl dabbed her cool, damp nose against Milly’s arm, Milly finally noticed her, let go of Wolfwood with one arm, dragged Meryl up onto Vash’s lap on top of everyone else, and Wolfwood gave a little oof and Meryl a faint yip but Milly held on to all of them, sobbing out all her messy anguish and trying to be happy about victory. Wolfwood squeezed her, and scratched Meryl’s ear, and then he looked down at the pale face lying unconscious in the sunshine.

Don’t go, he tried to say, but he was no longer in that deep, dark place where Vash could hear his thoughts.

He looked out at the fuzzy ground and let it be a prayer instead.

-

The first wildflowers had just begun to bloom when Vash opened his eyes.

Six Months Later

“How’s the legs? Should Brad take another look at them first -?”

“They’re fine,” Vash said, smiling fondly up at Wolfwood’s worry. He picked up his walking stick and let Wolfwood take his other arm to help lift him to his feet. Once he was upright he was able to balance reliably, but getting up and down had led to a number of falls.

Vash’s aptitude for complex spellwork had gone brittle. He could still work magic, but he had to go far more slowly to prevent the magic from breaking prematurely, and his workings didn’t last as long. His perfectly fluid arm and legs made of branches were a pipe dream now. He could spend over a day crafting one foot only for it to wind down and fail in the same amount of time.

But Milly knew people who knew people who knew people, and after the survivors had begun to rally and recover, she’d managed to locate a skilled tinkerer who juiced his constructs with a little animating magic. Brad had built a couple of crude limbs before, for farm workers who’d had accidents, but after the… after everything… he’d begun to realize that medical tinkering might be his calling for the rest of his life. There was certainly more than one lifetimes’ worth of work to be done.

Vash was his first project and the one he was most dedicated to, because of the complexity of the task but also because Brad understood that Vash was why the world hadn’t ended. The legs he’d built were beautifully constructed of carved wood and scrap metal, and they had just enough magic animating them that they could flex with Vash’s steps instead of being inert masses. But the magic wasn’t as strong as Vash’s had always been before, and the legs had no feeling at all, so Vash often couldn’t tell when something was wrong.

Brad hadn’t tackled Vash’s arm yet, so it remained truncated. Vash kept his sleeve tucked into his waistband to keep it from flapping. Wolfwood didn’t mind being a counterbalance and a second hand when he needed one.

Wolfwood draped Vash’s heavy wool cloak around his shoulders and moved to Vash’s front to tug it tight and fasten it. Vash leaned on his stick and said, still smiling, “I won’t freeze solid from walking across a little snow.”

Wolfwood muttered uncharitably. Vash had tripped on a hidden rock and faceplanted in a snowbank just yesterday.

Vash said, “This is enough, come on.”

Wolfwood dithered for a moment, still unsure, but he finally conceded to Vash’s readiness and took his place by Vash’s left side.

They left the Thompson farmhouse at Vash’s pace, slower than it used to be but steady enough. It might take years of refinements on Brad’s part for Vash to ever run again. Vash didn’t seem to mind. He took his time everywhere he went, looking at the world through the fresh eyes of mortality. He could no longer go without food or water for any longer than the average person. He could no longer shrug off extremes of temperature, or endless physical effort. He couldn’t lift as much weight. He slept more.

He wasn’t human - but he was a hell of a lot closer than he used to be.

This new Vash also held every hand that was offered to him and melted into every embrace, starved for touch for so long and now knowing that one day there wouldn’t be another chance to get it. He’d told Wolfwood, in Milly’s sister’s bed after he’d woken up, that he didn’t know why he was alive. He thought maybe his own sisters had given him what they could spare. He knew they’d helped him draw Wolfwood back, unspool his death, unsnip his golden thread. His sisters had held him in a chain that stretched back to the anchor of the here and now, and he’d let himself go over the edge of that thing he called an event horizon. He’d done it knowing he wouldn’t survive it... but then he had anyway.

Wolfwood didn’t like hearing about it. He still couldn’t reconcile that Vash had sacrificed immortality and demigodhood for Wolfwood’s life. But he was trying, as best as he could, to be worthy of it.

Vash kept telling him he didn’t have to try.

Wolfwood couldn’t reconcile that either.

But they had, as far as either of them were aware, the entire rest of their lives to figure that mess out.

Milly and Meryl were gone from the farmhouse already on this chilly winter morning, along with most of the rest of the Thompson family and their growing assortment of dedicated followers. Wolfwood saw the way the wind was blowing, which was towards a de-facto Thompson leadership, whatever that position ended up looking like. The Thompsons had always been known as a safe harbor from all sorts of troubles, incredibly generous, and pragmatic on top of that. Even if it was never official, most people looked to Papa Thompson or one of the older siblings or even Milly for guidance in all things.

Since the land itself had come back to life too late in summer to start a proper growing season, various Thompsons had started overseeing what the newly healed Plants were putting out and firmly suggesting how best to preserve and distribute it. And when spring came, everyone would be looking to the Thompsons to know how to plant their fields.

Wolfwood had not heard the song of the Sisters, because he’d been gone, but everyone else in December had. Vash’s blooming and the rain of petal-smoke that he’d shed had given his people a moment’s chance to sing their pain and struggle in a way that all humans could hear. Now, everyone was careful with the Plants, who were so freshly healed that they were tender and unsure of themselves. Vash and the Thompsons and plenty of other folks made sure that the Plants were only asked to do the minimum of work that was needed for everyone to survive the winter, and no more.

Beyond that… the world seemed to have gone very still. Not in the near-death way it had been before, but in a way that suggested a heavy sleep after a long illness. The fever of the world had broken.

Vash and Wolfwood reached the Thompson dooryard and Vash conceded to letting Wolfwood hold his waist around his cloak as they walked, with Wolfwood keeping a paranoid eye out for bumps in the snow that might be rocks. Vash laughed softly at him and bumped Wolfwood’s side with the stump of his arm, and Wolfwood tried to pinch him but his cloak was too thick.

“Don’t worry,” Vash said. “Livio’s back, he’ll be there.”

Livio had just gotten back from three weeks in Octovern, helping survivors. And Livio being there today was very much part of Wolfwood’s anxiety, but he kept his mouth shut for the moment.

He hadn’t been able to talk to his brother much. Not for lack of opportunity, but because the mass of debris piled up between them was still too mountainous, and every time they tried to communicate it seemed like more boulders rolled down to crush them both.

But he cleared away the debris from his side, and Livio - and Razlo - slowly worked away at their side, and every now and then they could call across the gaps and see each other clearly, at least for a moment. It was frightening. It was hard work. Wolfwood wanted to go back to bed, pull the quilt over his head, and sleep until night fell.

Vash was always there with him under the quilt.

“So will Meryl,” Wolfwood shot back. Vash’s cheeks went a little more pink than the cold had already made them.

Meryl had been avoiding Vash off and on for weeks. Wolfwood had always known they had a strange relationship - a kinship born of both being avoidant types, and seeing that in each other and needing the affirmation that came with being known. But also, they both feared being known. And they were avoidant types.

But Wolfwood thought that the recent avoidance was not so much due to Meryl’s fear of Vash’s power, or anything like that. Wolfwood was quite certain that this was the avoidance of embarrassment - and of absolute distraction. New love made you stupid, Wolfwood knew perfectly well, and it also made you forget the world around you and the other people in it. Maybe “avoidance” was the wrong word for what Meryl was doing, because that would mean she was doing it on purpose.

Meryl had been inseparable from Milly’s side for several weeks. Wolfwood had strong suspicions about how close the women were getting, which he’d already shared with Vash, who had gone teary-eyed at the thought that Meryl might not be so lonely any more. Wolfwood thought that Vash was trying to give Meryl space, and that Meryl didn’t know how to talk to Vash about there being more people than just him in her life anymore; and Wolfwood thought they were both being very stupid, but he thought it privately and with affection.

The sky was white with diffuse cloud cover, the sun a pale, small disc high overhead. In the fields around them, snow bowed the tops of millions of wild plants - weeds, wildflowers, stray wheat and corn and sunflower grains that had been lying dormant for so long. No one had wanted to pull up a single green thing. The land had been allowed to explode with chaotic wilderness for all of late summer and into the fall. In the spring they would plow under and plant the old fields again. For now, even dead from the cold, the mere sight of any plant life rooted in the ground was enough to keep people getting out of bed in the morning.

In the depths of fall, Wolfwood had been brushing his hand across the tops of the mass of greenery, when a large dragonfly had landed on his arm. He’d nearly slapped it, but had stayed his hand. The insect had looked at him, as much as it was possible to tell where an insect was looking, and then it had buzzed its wings and for a moment he’d sworn its eyes were green. Then it had lifted off of him and flown away - east, towards the Forgotten Woods.

They should have known better than to think that Zazie would be slowed down by being blown up. Wolfwood had rubbed his arm for the rest of that day, gooseflesh prickling at the thought of the swarm returning to their safe, hidden holes in the depths of the woods to recover and regain strength.

He’d mentioned it to Vash, who had smiled and told him not to worry about it. Zazie would always be part of this world; it was their right. Vash seemed to think that by establishing better communication with the swarm, humans in the future might be able to cohabitate with them in a truce like Vash had had for so many years. Wolfwood had severe doubts about that. But that was tomorrow’s problem.

The two of them reached the city walls, still half-crumbled, and crossed into December proper. They walked the same route towards the orphanage that they’d walked a hundred times or more already.

The orphanage was still standing, intact, and it had a fully functional spellwork heating system. So many houses had burned or crumbled, and survivors needed every inch of shelter from the winter they could scrounge up. The Thompson farmhouse was packed, as was the cathedral of the Eye of Michael - all its pews were out in its front gardens, its floor now a mass of pallets and blankets. Plenty of other smaller homes had taken in all they could, too. But the last large space that was made for housing, which already contained many dozens of bunks and a kitchen designed for cooking for large groups of people, was the orphanage.

The kitchen fires never went out there. Miss Melanie - still alive and largely unchanged, Wolfwood had found out, after all her trauma of being incarcerated in the cellar with the children - never stopped moving, always looking for another mouth that needed feeding, another head that needed a pillow for the night. Wolfwood had started going to the orphanage to help at first out of the fear that she would kill herself with overwork. He’d gone because at least he could make her sit down sometimes.

At first he’d worried it would be awkward, after - after their complicated history. But she’d just gazed at his face in anguished recognition, hugged him so hard he’d felt his ribs creaking, and then ordered him, through her tears, to peel a gigantic bushel basket of Plant-generated potatoes. So he’d stayed.

She’d invited him to move in, but after a couple of agonizing nights he’d come to realize that he might never be able to sleep within the walls of the city again. Vash had held him in the small cot in the corner of the kitchen where they’d managed to carve out some space, had squeezed his hand while Wolfwood trembled through cold sweats, and very soon after that they’d gone back to the Thompson farmhouse. Wolfwood could be at the orphanage in the daytime, awake and alive and surrounded by cook-fires and smells and kids and laughter. He couldn’t be there at night. He couldn’t close his eyes there without dying again.

It was fine. The semi-daily walk was good for Vash and Wolfwood both. Vash got to practice with his new feet and Wolfwood couldn’t hide himself in their bed, beneath the quilt, under some vague impression that he could hibernate until everything felt real and normal again.

He was slowly approaching the frightening notion that “normal” was something different now. Normal would almost certainly be better than it had ever been before; he didn’t deny that things were better. But a structure to the world that he’d always understood was now completely gone, and he didn’t know where he fit in anymore. He didn’t know how to live for himself, not for someone else.

For now, he compromised by living for Vash and Milly and Meryl and Livio and Melanie and the Thompsons and the kids, and even Razlo, sometimes. But he knew that wouldn’t hold up forever. Someday he’d have to confront what living for himself looked like.

Every day, he felt a little less afraid of that eventuality.

Vash tucked his walking stick up under his armpit as they reached the orphanage’s gates, which had never been closed again after the last time Chapel had swung them open. Vash used his freed hand to grab Wolfwood’s where it lay against his waist, and he twined their gloved fingers together.

“In the spring,” Vash said, “I think I want to go back to the woods.”

Wolfwood squeezed Vash’s hand. “The cabin?”

“Maybe,” Vash said. “Just to look in on it. Maybe take some things. But I was thinking… I want to go all the way through.”

Wolfwood’s stomach clenched. “To July?”

Vash nodded. He pulled them to a pause in the orphanage yard, turning partially towards Wolfwood and leaning against him. Their breath steamed in the air, mingling. “It’s been more than fifty years,” he said. “I think… I need to see what’s growing there.”

“You think the blight never got to it?”

“I’m not sure,” Vash said honestly. “But if it didn’t - if it’s had fifty years to go to seed - maybe I can bear to see whatever it’s turned into. Maybe we can open the road again someday.”

“Don’t look too far ahead,” Wolfwood said. He raised Vash’s gloved hand to his mouth and kissed his knuckles. “There’s this winter to get through, and whatever spring will look like.”

“I know,” Vash sighed.

“But we’ll go,” Wolfwood promised. “We will.”

“We,” Vash murmured, with a small smile.

“We,” Wolfwood said firmly.

Vash kissed him. Their lips were both cold, but the warmth came back quickly enough. From inside the building, the sound of voices grew louder as the door swung open. A small black cat darted out from behind a woodpile and towards the doorframe, weaving between feet on its way towards a hearth and a meal. Milly called, “Aren’t you two coming inside? It’s freezing out!”

Wolfwood smiled and kissed Vash one more time for good measure, and then they turned to go in.

After all, they had plenty of time.

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Chapter Text

Assorted Trivia, Behind the Scenes, Etc

The inciting incident for this fic was seeing this piece of fanart (Wolfwood as a knight, Punisher as a huge sword wrapped in canvas) by varilien, about a month after seeing The Green Knight (2021, dir. David Lowery). Dev Patel is a fancasting for Wolfwood that I could get down with.

Initially the idea was a straight Green Knight AU in which Wolfwood is the young Gawain acting out in stupid ways to prove himself, Meryl is the fox he meets in the woods (no human form, just a talking fox) who both sasses and guides him, Vash is Lord Bertilak who provides Wolfwood shelter and succor, and Milly is Lady Bertilak who is sweetly interested in Wolfwood and plays into the weird psychosexual cuckold-threesome dynamic that Gawain and the Bertilaks have. Probably would have ended up as Vash/Milly/Wolfwood and not been a very long fic overall, more fairytale in tone and quicker to get to the smut.

This had been simmering in my head for a few weeks, pieces slowly shifting around, when the Vashwood Big Bang was announced. This worked with the fact that I’d been coming up with more ideas than just a one to one recreation of The Green Knight, and I thought I might write something longer. From there I went tone-first, rewatching various ominous-landscape fantasy works with a sense of dread, melancholy, and bittersweetness which have always been my absolute jam.

The Green Knight, The Last Unicorn, Princess Mononoke (and Totoro and Spirited Away to some degree), The Dark Crystal, Mad Max Fury Road, Mushi-Shi, and Annihilation (2018) all contributed in some way to me getting in the headspace I wanted to be in to write this fic.

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The first words Nicholas says are “I do” at the altar in a chapel, because he’s the bride, as we well know from Trigun meta. (To anyone who hasn’t read the manga: go do that!)

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Chapter 2 is a microcosm of the entire story that spoils the structure of the whole thing. WW enters the woods, an atmosphere slider starts at ‘whimsy’ and slowly moves all the way to ‘horror,’ Wolfwood finally realizes he was doomed all along, Wolfwood abandons those he loves to die alone, big violent fight, drinky the alchemy vials, WW dies, Vash brings him back.

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Nicholas’ name starts to change to Wolfwood after the lamb incident. This is his internal voice and he doesn’t realize he’s starting to think of himself by the name Vash calls him. For several chapters, the names Nicholas and Wolfwood seem interchangeable, but they’re almost meant to be like two people fighting for dominance - who he used to be and who he wants to become. You can go through and see that there is a particular weight to whether it’s Nicholas or Wolfwood who says or thinks certain things. It’s not a perfect split, but I was intentional with it a lot of the time!

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I made the conscious choice to never use the words kingdom, country, nation, royal/ty, imperial, empire, border, etc (I might have slipped on country a couple times?). Only Emperor or God-Emperor, his sect, cult, or temple, and then the cities themselves. This is meant to be a clue that the humans living in this region appeared spontaneously and not via overland migration. Just like No Man’s Land in canon, there are no defined geographic regions other than the cities, because there hasn’t really been enough population to spread and fill the space and define borders like that.

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Vash’s animals are ‘ancient’ breeds - guinea fowl and jungle fowl are generally agreed to be ancestors of the modern chicken, and before human intervention, all sheep lost their winter coats via rooing or scraping against bark. This was meant to be a subtle suggestion that these breeds of animal pre-dated human colonization of this world. If humans have only been here 150 years, there’s no way they’ve had time to selectively breed sheep to overproduce wool so much that they need human help to shear it. Also, the guineas survive entirely off insect and seed forage, meaning Vash doesn’t have to grow enough crops to also create animal feed. (He feeds them anyway, but that’s just him being a softy and making friends.)

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Re: Name lore, chapters 4 & 9; and Meryl lore, chapters 4 & 10 -

The human Meryl in July was essentially the Meryl from Stampede: younger, idealistic, a reporter (town crier!), nosy, vivacious, open-hearted. The fox-Meryl is more of the character from Maximum, post-trauma: she’s seen too much, lived too much, knows too much and has no one to tell it to. She followed Vash post-July to see if he would cause any more destruction, working out in her head how she might try to stop him if he did (i.e., she was insurance; she assessed the damage he caused). She knew he had caused the deaths of her mentor and of the woman she’d fallen in love with, but over time she ended up forgiving him and blaming Knives. She’s scared of commitment and scared of living between two worlds, and leans into her wildness as a way to avoid making the ultimate choice to engage with other people and maybe be hurt again. Her “wild” name was Strife, which was communicated to her by magic, by Plants, by both?? - and from the time that she understood what her name was, she knew that she was going to live a hard life during a time of upheaval. So she keeps that name close to her chest because she doesn’t want it to define her.

I had Meryl essentially believe the ‘true name’ lore that you usually see associated with stories about the fae, and sometimes demons. It’s vaguely contractual or legalistic, this idea that if you have a piece of identifying personal data about someone, you can leverage it against them. I thought it worked with Roberto’s slightly cynical world view, first of all - and that then he would pass it on to Meryl, who would cling to the idea half because she thinks similarly (insurance, journalist; fact-seeker) and half because it’s one of the few ways she has to remember and honor Roberto himself.

(Also obviously I used a lot of Ghibli influences and true-name-stealing is a big thing in Spirited Away.)

The alternate theory from Vash, which is the more true one in this story-world, is roughly drawn from the magic system in the Young Wizardry books by Diane Duane. In those, magic is about asking the universe to change for you, but you need to provide VERY specific parameters. Scientifically accurate data input. For example, if you want to go stand on the moon, you need to write a spell that posits how fast the Earth and moon are moving and in what directions relative to each other, how much cubic volume of breathable air mix you want to bring with you, what exactly is in that air mix, whether you want your air mix to move with you or not, etc etc. It’s a very STEM approach to magic.

And you also have to specify, in any given spell, who it is going to affect, and to do this you write their name in the spell. But their name is essentially a description of who they are, more specifically who they are in relation to the spell-writer. Spells will be more effective the more accurately you are able to name someone, meaning that magic will work best on or in service of the people you love and understand the most dearly.

So that’s basically how names strengthening magic works in this world, too. Name-magic is strengthened by emotional connection but also by emotional intelligence; the more you understand your relationship with someone, the better you will be able to ‘name’ them, magically speaking.

Also, this is a story with a trans protagonist! I wasn’t going to have ‘name you’re given at birth’ be the be all and end all of ‘which names have power over you.’ All names have power over you and within you, but they cannot define you, as Wolfwood comes to realize in the end. The name written on the piece of paper Wolfwood was left with at the orphanage, the one he made Milly burn, obviously contained whatever feminine name his parents gave him. The name Nicholas was given to him by his greatest abuser, and was a gift so powerful that it kept Wolfwood within Chapel’s emotional debt for years. That’s almost a sort of name magic in itself.

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Broader worldbuilding notes:

This world has inherent ambient magic. Its natural sentient inhabitant/s are the insect hive that names itself Zazie, same as canon. Human society’s original world, “Earth” maybe but I’ve left that undetermined, had a high level of scientific and technological achievement. Facing the same loss of resources as Earth in canon, rather than spaceflight, they focused on warp technology (which canon Earthers also display by the end of the manga). They opened a warp gate long enough to send through the makings of a colony into a new world that they’d determined could support human life.

The nature of Plants/the birth of Tesla/the birth of the twins/Rem’s place in the hierarchy of the colony are all essentially identical to manga canon.

There are three distinct avenues of accomplishing marvelous feats, then, which Vash distinguishes between but which Wolfwood doesn’t most of the time: things achieved via technology (including chemistry/alchemy), things achieved via Plant biology (including interdimensional gate control), and things achieved via magic. Vash and Knives are so dangerous because they have more or less mastery of all three.

The breakdown of this human colony from its original intent is pretty much just like No Man’s Land/Gunsmoke - there was just a massive loss of data at some point, people dying en masse at some point, Knives working behind the scenes to pull strings to fuck up the development of civilization, so on. Why did it get vaguely medieval?; I mean why did NML get vaguely Old West, idk, there was just a different flavor packet included in this particular ramen. Originally the colony flourished a lot more because there was no equivalent to the Great Fall and also the landscape itself was not hostile to human life. Plants weren’t actually so badly overburdened as they were in manga.

The animal-people shapeshifters are basically Awakened animals, D&D style. And what caused the Awakening was an unforeseeable effect of Plant gate abilities/biology interacting with the latent magic in this world. (That’s the Watsonian explanation; the Doyleist explanation is that in first draft of this concept, Meryl was the fox from Green Knight and then Meryl being a fox just got stuck in my head and I needed to reverse engineer a reason for it.)

Vash’s supposition about Knives’ master plan was basically correct: rather than murdering isolated pockets of humanity, Knives was using the tiny fragment of access to Vash’s gate that he had to apply a very slow, very huge time-stop charm to basically the planet itself. The microbes in the soil, the pollinators, the roots of plants were being slowed/frozen in time. Due to already having entangled themselves with the land, this was killing the Plants as well. But Knives was just planning to wait until humanity had been suffocated like bugs in a jar and then he was going to release the magic to let it unwind, assuming that the Plants would basically outlive all the humans and be able to recover afterward. (When he was taking near-death Plants he was putting them on life support somehow so they’d make it to the end of the grand plan.)

Access to more of Vash’s power would absolutely speed the process up, but why exactly Knives was sending EOM members out into the woods is more ambiguous than that. I think it started out largely as a placebo to keep the last dregs of humanity placated a while longer, until it was too late for them to fight back. “See, I’m working on solving the blight problem! I’m sending my best guys out to work on it!” Bit of a panem et circenses move. It was also a way to keep his loyalists and true believers occupied in the same way, unquestioning, and to get rid of weak links or agitators in the ranks. On top of all that, it was also deliberately playing around with Zazie: Knives has the plausible deniability to either tell Zazie he was just throwing them a toy every now and then, or to tell his own people that he was attacking Zazie directly. Either way, this was why the mission description was “capture the Beast,” because Knives knew that was impossible. Mission was always a deliberate snipe hunt.

Re: Vash’s power itself: listen, one of my absolute favorite things in Stampede was this potential suggestion that Vash’s gate functions almost like a singularity. My brain heard “black hole” and went HOG WILD. The idea that this man is connected to/can manipulate the power of the literal heaviest object in the known universe, that that weight is his burden and his lifeline? The idea that Vash can “send things away,” combined with this singularity imagery??? Listen I’m a huge fucking space nerd on top of all my other garbage and the facts that neither light nor time can escape the event horizon of a singularity were RIGHT there. 

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Re: Vash’s feet -

I started writing this SO soon after Stampede had aired and the amputated-feet theory was going extremely strong in fanart. I still see it around a little bit, but it’s died down a lot. I just thought I would run with this bit of fanon and see what I could do with it.

The way Vash lost his feet was specifically a reference to the way he’s introduced in Stampede, hanging upside down, apparently put there by the Bad Lads. The boy who was going to be hanged was Kaite, and the ‘gang leader’ who liked Vash’s chutzpah enough to say he could go free if he survived inverted hanging was Neon. It’s a fun intro in Stampede, but in reality inverted hanging is extremely dangerous, and is an agonizing & slow way to die as your organs crush your airways, your joints fail, and your extremities lose circulation.

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Re: Vash’s power - part 2 -

Time is a theme running through this. Who hoards time, who has more time or not enough time, who can give time away, etc. Anytime time is mentioned in the story is meant to carry a silent weight. I debated about whether or not to put the TS Eliot epigraph at the beginning or end of the story, but I thought it would be too on the nose after the ending, so it’s at the beginning as a sort of taunt: there will be time, there will be time.

The refrain “as long as you want” also carries a slightly uneasy weight; it seems straightforwardly romantic unless you put the emphasis in slightly different places. Ultimately, Wolfwood does stay as long as Vash wants. Vash gives him back time, gives him life, and it is at Vash’s whim that Wolfwood stays alive and stays with Vash. Both times Wolfwood dies it’s because he chose to, and both times Vash brought him back, it wasn’t with Wolfwood’s 100% consent. This is not to say that Wolfwood wanted to die or to stay dead, just that he had chosen dignity, or justice, and his own death happened to be a side effect in those instances. And it’s also not to say that Vash violated Wolfwood’s consent, but that Wolfwood was either unable to give it, or had stated before that he hated his body being manipulated with magic against his will. Either way, both times Vash brought him back was with a thin vein of selfishness that Vash will always feel guilty about and which will never quite square with Wolfwood’s desires. (The second time, it’s made especially worse by the fact that Vash went into the act planning to trade his life for Wolfwood’s. Mr. “I disapprove of suicide more than anything.” So they both have to live with that now.)

Again, you know… who has time and who doesn’t. The relative value of time, how it is both too short and too long: the same chunk of time being so fleeting and beautiful in the cottage, and so painfully endless to the people starving outside. Is ‘taking time’ selfish? I’m not positing an answer to that, I’m just saying it’s a theme of the fic.

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Like ‘time’, pretty much any instance of the word ‘heavy’ or ‘weight’ is also meant to have a sneaky double meaning with the black hole stuff. When Vash’s gate activates, gravity literally channels through him in fucked up ways.

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I wanted all the weapons to be analogous to canon and I put way too much thought into it, so -

Obviously Wolfwood has a huge fuckoff sword. I equated full auto machine gun fire to the sheer chopping power of a sword too heavy to be stopped by most armors. Meryl’s derringers are claws and teeth: pretty much infinite, small but dangerous, and extremely personal. Milly’s stun gun became literally a jury-rigged ballista firing chunks of architecture. Like I said in some chapter note, Vash’s shepherd’s sling is the hand cannon of shit you can make out of household scraps - it makes an absolutely massive gunshot sound when you sling one, and it is possible to sharpshoot with them. I also adored how in Stampede he used his gun like a tonfa sometimes, so I gave him a shillelagh for melee backup to his ranged sling.

ETA: Here is a really good video about ancient slings that showcases how accurate and powerful they can be.

The story didn’t get into it, but Midvalley is able to use very small amounts of magic, and he would sometimes charm his instrument to make listeners more suggestible (give me money, tell me your secrets so I can sell them, etc). Gray’s morningstar is pure overkill like Gray always is. Chapel’s canon Punisher seems a bit smaller in the manga, so I went with a bastard sword. (Also the obvious name-calling.)

The ones I waffled on the most by far were Livio and Razlo. I wanted them to have separate weapon specialties like in the manga, and I wanted Livio to have two weapons and Razlo three - but once you’re dual-wielding short swords, where tf are you supposed to put another sword? (Shhh One Piece people, I know, I know.) I was not prepared to explain a third arm with my magic system. So I made the Double Fangs some kind of interlocking bullshit so Razlo can also dual-wield but basically with one Darth Maul lightsaber and one greatsword. Listen. Don’t worry about it, it’s Trigun.

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When Vash says he "used to drink, but it got too - ", and cuts himself off, he's not-out-loud referring to a chunk of time during his isolation when he flirted with alcoholism. He built a still, made some booze, rapidly fell down the hole of getting blackout drunk as often as possible, felt worse than he ever had, got a very small intervention from Meryl, broke his still down, and never spoke of it again. I think it was probably no more than 2-3 years out of the 50. He's capable of safe, social drinking - he did it before, in July etc - but 50 years is a long time to cycle through coping mechanisms all over the spectrum from 'relatively healthy' to 'uh-oh.'

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Timeline clarified:
About 50 years ago, July happened. Afterwards, Vash did not use his gate/black hole powers at all while building his home in the woods. He used a combination of a STEM sort of background, his Plant-inherent physical strength and resilience, and magic drawn from the natural magical miasma of this dimension, to do all of the labor involved in construction etc.

Independent of the circumstances of this fic, he had been working through how he felt about himself and his powers for a very, very long time. When Meryl limped into his clearing to tell him that Zazie was currently murdering a traveler, Vash went out to the rescue prepared to use just charms and medicines to help. But when he found Wolfwood, WW was just on the other side of saving - so close to a state in which Vash could help - that Vash reached for that awful weight that would pull time backwards by just like, five seconds.

This use of his powers resonated with Knives’ setup (with his arm) back at the palace and that is the moment when Knives knew Vash was alive, knew his agents must have found Vash, and knew he could switch from Plan A (slow suffocation) to Plan B (burn it all down). This is the day in springtime when the people in December felt the sense of horrible doom, and Knives rained razors on the city, killing many people. Almost immediately, the palace forces switched from a malign neglect, to a rampant and violent tyranny. The 2-3 months that Vash and Wolfwood spend in peace are a horrorshow on the outside.

Zazie had always been present in every location, December to the woods. They kept in communication with Knives here and there, and spied on him even when not talking to him. When pressed by Knives, they finally admitted yeah, sure, Vash is alive in the woods and has been all along. Knives is fuckin pissed but knows Zazie too well at this point to have really expected anything different from them.

Vash’s subsequent use of his powers on the lamb was stronger than what he did to Wolfwood - rolling back 5 minutes instead of 5 seconds - and that’s why it made him pass out. He drew on the power with less caution and control that time. That would have also made the setup at the palace resonate even stronger, pressing Knives’ plans forward.

When Vash and Knives have their final confrontation, the breaking of Knives’ slow, huge time-stop charm caused a whiplash as 50+ years of held time sprung back like a cable snapping under too much tension (which probably contributed to Knives getting killed). That’s why the soil and the seeds and roots in it are alive again at the end, and all the Plants are also healed (technically they reverted to their state before the blight/time stop).

Vash definitely did not have enough of his own juice left to actually bring Wolfwood back. He would've had to open the gate too far, brought too much of the singularity into contact with this world, probably would have caused July-levels of physical damage to the actual land just because of the stresses of gravity. Instead, I think he laid down expecting to die and hoping he could let himself at least find an echo of Wolfwood's... mind? soul? So they could die together. But instead once he let himself go completely past the point of no return, the other Plants poured power into him and held him back and fished him back out of his own gate, basically. It was definitely a rewind of hours, maybe more than a day.

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And that’s all I can think of at the moment! I definitely realized early into the fic that by limiting myself to a single point of view character and never letting the narration know anything more than Wolfwood knew, I was cutting out the option for a LOT of worldbuilding exposition. I also knew that by committing to writing The Couching from the POV of the couchee, I was going to have to also commit to the big swing of never actually showing the final confrontation. Wolfwood - as in every version - dies without knowing what the ultimate outcome will be. He has to just pray that he’s done enough to make any sort of difference (he has).