A/N: In which yours truly imbibes far too much caffeine while listening to electronica. I'm taking another cue from Kelpie the Thundergod, in that this switches POVs frequently and owes its existence to an incredibly depressing (yet incredibly appropriate for V/W, I think) song – "Sweet Nothing" by Calvin Harris. I've rated it M for some racy bits, but there's nothing really explicit.
Sweet Nothing
You took my heart and you held it in your mouth
And with a word all my love came rushing out
Vash talks to fill the silence.
It's a coping tactic, as much to counter the silence in his head – one that reminds him too much of the deathly stillness of July, or the Great Fall of mankind – as to pretend he is actually having a conversation with the person walking next to him through the sandy dunes. They are still at least five iles from their destination and night is coming on, the dusty waves of heat giving way to a crisp, comfortable chill that will soon pierce their protective layers of clothing and leave them shivering. The planes of his traveling companion's face look hard and angular in the light of the setting suns, and Vash figures the priest is brooding about something – especially since he hasn't bothered to remove his sunglasses. And so, he talks: about rock music and dime-store paperbacks and cowboy serials, about donuts and pizza toast and salmon sandwiches, about everything and nothing at all.
"Wolfwood? Is something wrong? You're so quiet..."
For long moments Wolfwood says nothing at all. Then finally he opens his mouth to speak, and behind the shades his eyes are wide and anguished, as if he were about to share with him some terrible secret. Then he closes it, seeming almost to catch himself, and the guarded, inscrutable mask slips over his visage once more.
"No, Tongari. Nothing's wrong. I'm just listenin'. Let's hurry and get to the next town so I won't have to freeze my ass off out here tonight."
And every whisper, it's the worst,
Emptied out by a single word
There is a hollow in me now
The worst times are when they're short on cash. That's a bitch in and of itself, but it also means that the two of them will be forced to share a bed every time they need to rent a hotel room.
And it's awkward, always. They'll just be lying there side by side, with their backs turned towards each other, and their bodies fully clothed. (Vash wears pajamas because he's still reticent about baring his scars to anyone, and while Wolfwood isn't anywhere near as shy as the gunslinger, he's got a bunch of stretch marks – the souvenirs of accelerated aging – that he'd rather not have to explain.) The tension is as thick as sludge, and the priest finds that he often can't breathe. His only reprieve is that Vash sleeps like a goddamn rock, so most likely he's the only one struggling not to drown. Which is fine by him.
You'd think he'd know better than to let his mind and his fingers wander.
You'd think he'd know better, but Wolfwood's still eighteen years old and unable to put a lid on those kinds of feelings – especially when he's so close to Vash, close enough to touch, and when he shuts his eyes he can just imagine that dumb blond turning over to face him in the darkness, reaching out with gentle hands, exploring his body with soft, unhurried caresses, and breathing on him warmly as he brings his lips nearer and nearer to his own...
But then he remembers his mission and Knives and the kids, so he goes into the bathroom and thinks about something else.
Of all the aggravations Wolfwood has had to endure in his travels, this is probably the worst.
Especially when even this routine is interrupted, shocking him out of his forced apathy.
"Nicholas," Vash murmurs in his sleep one night, just as the priest is drifting off into a troubled sleep of his own. The outlaw's voice is deep and silky – almost seductive – and Wolfwood jerks awake as if he's been electrocuted. Moments later, with a sort of slow-acting horror threading through his veins, he realizes that the sheets on his side of the bed are soaked.
One word. That's all it took to fill him up and empty him out, like a jug of sour wine.
So I put my faith in something unknown
I'm living on such sweet nothing
But I'm tired of hope with nothing to hold
I'm living on such sweet nothing
Vash wishes that Wolfwood would talk to him. The outlaw is quick to share his deepest memories and fears with him (and now that he thinks about it, that's something he's never done before), but the priest remains surprisingly tight-lipped about his own personal matters. It doesn't stop Vash from feeling that he knows him, just the same.
Not completely – oh, no – but enough. And maybe the passage of time will eventually lead Nicholas to open up more on that front, anyway.
He only hopes that they will have enough time.
The priest is reckless and irritable and... probably not a priest, but that's something Vash actively chooses not to think about. More often he thinks about the flashes he sometimes catches of a second person wrapped up in Wolfwood's self-styled veil of mystery, a person that is as hopeful and tender and vulnerable as Wolfwood attempts not to be. A person that is young, despite the fact that Wolfwood looks and behaves just like a cynical, beaten-down thirtysomething.
A person that Vash wants desperately to know.
He sees that person come out whenever he's in the vicinity of hurting children, holding them close and quieting their plaintive cries with murmured words of comfort. Whenever he shares memories of the orphanage where he grew up, the big brother to a gaggle of infants and prepubescents. Whenever he gets in one of those rare moods of his and asks Vash a question that is starkly, childishly curious ("Spikey, what do ya think the stars in the sky are supposed t'be?").
He also sees that person in his dreams: particularly, when he and Nicholas are stuck sleeping in the same bed. The priest is a restless sleeper, often tossing and turning in bed – and sometimes even smoking, the idiot. By contrast, long years of discipline have trained Vash to will himself to fall asleep when the need arises... just as they have trained him not to gratify himself at the first sign of carnal urges.
But he has no control whatsoever over what goes on in his dreams.
He wanders over rolling fields of green – not a speck of sand is to be found in his dreamscapes – and he sees Nicholas lying there, the real Nicholas. He's dressed in a shirt and slacks and smiling at him, the breeze ruffling his hair just as it ruffles the blades of grass surrounding him. Vash moves to sit next to him, but because it's a dream, he immediately gives in to his desires: he takes Wolfwood's face in his hands and kisses him deeply, staring into his dark, adoring eyes, before allowing his hands to roam underneath the priest's shirt and inside his waistband. Nicholas is still and silent as he does this, allowing Vash to heap upon him all the love that he has longed to show one of the humans for so many years now, his face relaxing into an expression of mute appreciation. Every moment is drawn in beautiful, exquisite detail.
When Vash wakes, he feels a hunger that is at once sated and screaming. He has lived on crumbs for so long now, but he is beginning to find that he can't make a feast with them any longer.
And it's hard to learn
And it's hard to love
When you're giving me such sweet nothing
Sweet nothing, sweet nothing
You're giving me such sweet nothing
He wants to tell him that he loves him, but that would only lead to a death sentence.
And, even worse: what if Vash doesn't feel that way towards him at all? It's bad enough that Wolfwood wrestles with feelings that are better suited for a squawking schoolgirl; he doesn't know how he would take it if he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Vash's looks and smiles and confessions were all just business as usual.
And Vash – for all his pageantry of openness and honesty – is in fact a tightly closed book. He can't get a read on him at all, even as he feels Vash probing his own soul with the ease of a surgeon rearranging his internal organs. In the end, Vash must know how he feels; Wolfwood isn't that good of an actor.
Right?
And if it turned out that Vash did feel something for him, well – would he ever give him a sign? It's shameful and selfish, but Nicholas doesn't know how much more ambiguity he can take. He feels that, any day now, the weight of his feelings will finally prove to be too much and crush him, stamping out the meager remains of his soul.
And it's not enough to tell me that you care
When we both know the words are empty air
You give me nothing
"Wolfwood, please! Why can't you tell me what's wrong? If you're in some kind of trouble – "
"Yeah? And just what kind of trouble was it you were thinkin' about, Tongari?"
"I – "
Here he is, being a coward again. Marching right up to that line in the sand, but never being able to cross it. Because he's lonely and afraid and what if Wolfwood just decides to leave him because of this? Because he was too stubborn to leave well enough alone?
And so he withdraws in miserable, protracted silence.
Wolfwood stares at him, expressionless. Then he pulls a cigarette from his pocket, places it in his mouth, and lights it. Unbeknownst to Vash, he smokes to fill the silence; and he doesn't even bother with words to begin with, because he knows that anything he might say would be just as without substance as the plumes of smoke that rise into the air, dissipating underneath the force of the desert's evening breath. Words that are not accompanied by true, decisive action are meaningless.
Neither of them had ever understood the meaning of sweet agony until they had met each other. Neither of them had ever understood until now that despair tempered with hope is a far crueler torture than simple, unmitigated despair.
And the silence – deafening and brutal and lonely – continues to stretch between them.