Title: our bodies fit together
Fandom: Trigun
Rating: PG/Teen
Length: 740 words
Content notes: angst, guilt, mutual pining, self-harm-adjacent behaviors
Author notes: vaguely a sequel to last week's, but stands alone. ties back to the prompt metaphorically rather than literally.
Summary: Wolfwood and Vash share a bed. It's fine.




Moonlight spills in through the hotel room window, casting the whole room in a dull silver. Through Vash’s half-closed eyes, it feels a little bit like being back inside one of the SEEDS ships, drifting in zero-gravity.

Being this close to Wolfwood is an exercise in not letting himself float away—anchoring himself against the giddy, fluttery, childhood-crush buzz of feeling Wolfwood’s legs tangle up with his, the pressure of his shoulders against Vash’s back.

It’s nothing. It has to be nothing because this is unbearable otherwise, a step down a path they can’t follow. There just isn’t time to follow each other through the steps of some cliché romance, a foregone conclusion not even worth the synthetic paper it’s printed on. They stumble past the meet-cute (check) and the awkward misadventures (check) and into circumstances that bind them irrecoverably together (check) and then they fall in love (check) and then they do something about it, and then they’ll lose each other.

Even in the best case, utterly implausible scenario, where Wolfwood survives to the end of this horrible game Knives is playing with Vash and humanity, Vash will still outlive him. He’ll still look twenty-five when — if, god, Vash wants it for him more than he wants almost everything but it’s s a horribly tenuous if — he’s old and gray.

Vash’s arms twitch with the urge to turn over and pull Wolfwood against his chest, fit himself against his back and cling to him until the bitter ache in Vash’s chest dissolves and he doesn’t feel so utterly alone.

He wraps his arms around himself, instead, pressing the metal knuckles of his prosthetic — he’s stopped taking it off to sleep, the way he used to do when he was playacting Lina’s uncle Eriks, the way he hadn’t done before then since before July, before there was every chance he’d wake up in the middle of the night to the business end of a bounty hunter’s gun — against his throat. He can still breathe easily enough, but the pressure against his trachea aches, and sends a little frisson of panic down his back, enough to kill the teenage fluster in the pit of his stomach.

He’s not a man sharing a bed with his lover, or even with his friend. They’re a pair of weapons in the same sheath.

As soon as the thought crosses his mind Vash feels guilty for it. For all that Wolfwood’s been honed — sharpened like a knife blade, the vivid edge of his kindness the silver lining to his outstanding capability for violence — he’s not a weapon. Not like Vash.

“Needle-noggin,” Wolfwood says, jolting Vash so badly he grinds his knuckles against his throat, making himself gag slightly. “You’re thinking too damn loud.”

Vash clears his throat, swallowing thickly. “Sorry,” he replies, high-voiced and light-hearted, careful to press the pain out of his voice. His exhale sounds a little watery despite his best efforts. “I’m not a very good bedmate, am I?”

“You,” Wolfwood starts, then exhales gustily. He sounds like he’s been thinking as hard as Vash is, or maybe just craving a cigarette. “Are you going to lie there like a miserable slab of rock all night, or are you going to pretend you’re asleep so you can roll over and squeeze me like a stuffed doll?”

Vash’s heart leaps into his throat. No, he should say. I’m not going to do either of those things, I’m going to sleep on the floor so I’ll stop thinking about your hands and your shoulders and your thighs and your mouth — I won’t even unroll my bedroll, I’ll just curl up on the stone and hope it reminds me what kind of world this is.

Instead, he untangles his legs from Wolfwood’s and rolls over, wrapping an arm around his chest and burying his face between Wolfwood’s shoulderblades. He fits his legs back into the curve of Wolfwood’s knees, calves overlapping and thighs brushing together.

They both exhale at once — a harsh, shuddery sound from Wolfwood, something a little too close to a whine from Vash’s own throat.

“Yeah,” Wolfwood says, hoarsely. “That’s better.”

It’s better, it’s worse, it’s like cold water sluicing across overheated skin, it’s the bitter-sharp blade of grief against Vash’s throat, fitting neatly into the place he had his fingers pressed, the dull but untenable ache of before you know it, this will be gone.

Everything would be gone eventually. For now, at least, he has this.