"What the hell are you doing here?"
"You don't sound happy to see me."
He watched him, like an animal stalking its prey. Not quite yet willing to attack; not yet, anyway, but soon. Maybe. Tensed up and ready to pounce at the slightest sign of danger. A hand twitched toward his gun, secure in its holster around his hip. The other man clucked his tongue lightly.
"Such a rude greeting for an old friend."
Old friend, he thought, repeating it over in his mind. Bull. Partner, maybe. Lover, if he had to embellish it further. But not a friend. They never were friends.
Carcasses was empty, and their voices seemed to echo, or so Wolfwood felt that way. Maybe it was the eerie calm that had settled over the town. No one was there -- no one but him, the moron and the girls, and the reminders of the people who had once been and were now gone. And the only explanation for their disappearance, for the fresh laundry hung out to dry, the half finished cups of coffees, was the name scrawled in blood on the monument in the center of town.
The girls were asleep, the moron with them, and in the still, dark night, Wolfwood could almost imagine he and Midvalley were the only two people alive in the world.
Same white suit. He liked the white. "Makes me look like a saint, doesn't it," he said once, chuckling. Nah. Hardly. He was no saint. None of them were.
And the saxophone. An ordinary eye saw it for the instrument it was. A trained eye, a gunman who was worth two shits, saw something else. Saw the muzzle and the trigger. Maybe he wasn't the amazing gunman he claimed to be, but even if he had never noticed, never realized the nature of that instrument, he had seen it in action. He had seen men fall dead from a single note.
"You've changed, Nick."
Midvalley was the only one to ever call him that. Sister Helen at the orphanage called him by his full name, Nicholas. The kids called him Nicky. Strangers and acquaintances called him Wolfwood. His honey called him Mister Priest. But the only one to ever say Nick in that casual, light way was Midvalley. And the only one he tolerated it from was Midvalley.
"That guy... he's changed you."
He did not need to say a name. They both knew. The only human ever named a natural disaster. The Humanoid Typhoon. Vash the Stampede.
Needle noggin.
He chuckled softly, his hand going from his gun for his cigarettes. "No man has ever changed me."
The light touch on his arm stopped him.
"It's bad for you."
He scowled, but dropped the freshly lit cigarette to the ground, smothering it beneath his shoe. Same as the needle noggin. "It's not good for you," they said. Neither one seemed to realize he knew, and maybe they did, too, it would not be cancer that sent him to his grave.
"Why'd you come here?"
There was something on the tip of his tongue. That much Wolfwood could see. But still, not a word came.
"Run back to master, then."
The words were harsh. Harsher than maybe he intended them to be. The faintest of flinches passed through Midvalley's body and then he stilled, yielding no expression.
"You don't have anything to say to me." He muttered it quietly, but it was an accusation, the betrayed, hurt tone evidence enough of that. "We were partners."
"And nothing more," Wolfwood answered sharply. "You made sure of that."
The other man's eyes narrowed in on him. "He changed you."
"You--"
"What happened to the two of us killing them both?"
His response was a soft mutter. "Plans changed."
"... heh."
The soft, self-mocking laughter echoed through the empty streets.
"I was stupid for coming," he said quietly.
Wolfwood turned away from him. His Angelina stood between them. He hadn't been able to sleep. While the needle noggin and the girls slept peacefully, he slipped outside, to where the old motorcycle lay on its side, and began doing what he could to put it into working shape. That was when Midvalley quietly approached from the Lord only knew where.
Maybe if he kept his back turned, Midvalley would go back to that place he came from.
But he didn't. Instead that hand came to touch his arm again, and before he could push him away, Midvalley had tightened his grip and pulled him in close to him.
He remembered their first encounter. It was in a slummy bar in May City. The sound of the saxophone was what drew him in, and the alcohol that kept him there.
He slept with him that same night, and the next morning Midvalley took him to Legato, and he was given the name Chapel. And the instructions to find Vash the Stampede, protect him and guide him, and kill anyone who stood in his path.
"You never let me say goodbye."
No. He hadn't. He stayed with Midvalley for time, and theirs was a sexually charged relationship, but there had always been the smallest hint of something more. But when something might have happened, whatever that something was, Wolfwood left him without a word of parting.
The fingers curled around his arm tightened, and he felt himself being pulled, closer and down, and then Midvalley's lips were on his, kissing him slowly. He held him like that for a moment, his lips softer than Wolfwood remembered them to be, and his kiss not the demanding, harsh one he knew so well. Midvalley gently parted his lips with his tongue, slipping inside to touch his and his teeth were closing around his lower lip, grazing lightly.
Wolfwood muttered against his lips, asking softly, "Goodbye?"
Midvalley pulled away with a light nip. "Got a feeling this is the last time." He turned away, lifting a hand over his shoulder and waving. "See you, Nick."
He didn't watch him walk away.
Eventually he turned, lowering himself down upon one knee to reach for the wrench he discarded when Midvalley approached. His Angelina was still waiting to be repaired. But he found he couldn't concentrate, and the wrench felt odd in his hand. The kiss still lingered on his lips.
More footsteps.
He lifted his head, and it was the needle noggin he saw this time. The Humanoid Typhoon seemed less a typhoon and more a lost man from where Wolfwood stood, his red coat discarded and seeming so awkward in the drawstring pants and t-shirt. He could see his scars, too, criss-crossing down his arms. He was not the infallible disaster the rumors foretold him to be.
"I couldn't sleep," Wolfwood said automatically.
"I didn't ask."
Vash paused, then asked softly, "Are you all right?"
Was he? "Perfect." No. A premonition he had, maybe. Something was wrong. It was in that strange way Midvalley had watched him, that melancholy gleam in his eyes, the words he had wanted to say but could not bring himself to speak. He knew something.
"Liar."
Wolfwood glanced up at him with a small grin. "You see right through me."
He tossed the wrench aside. Vash always could. He saw through everything, for all his idiotic actions and dim-witted nature. Sometimes Wolfwood thought Vash did see through him, saw through everything, and knew who he was and what he was doing. But still, he let Wolfwood follow him, and never spoke a word of suspicion.
Sometimes he thought he would never be able to let Vash fall into Knives's hands. And sometimes, in his desperate moments, he hoped he died before that moment came.
"... come here."
The request was spoken softly. Vash's brows raised in confusion, but he came obediently as he was beckoned. Wolfwood stood, finding Vash closer than he anticipated, but he found the close proximity did not bother him. His hand came up, his fingers curling into the material of the thin shirt Vash wore.
"You sure know how to make life complicated, needle noggin," he muttered, and then he brought their lips together.
It was different with Vash. The intensity he felt when Midvalley kissed him was gone, replaced with only the soft feel of Vash against him, and something that tasted so sweet -- donuts, he thought, and he smirked into the kiss.
But he didn't push him. The kiss lasted only a moment before he pulled away, running the tip of his tongue over his lips, and finding that the feeling Midvalley had left him with was gone, and that he was relieved by its disappearance.
"Wolfwood?" Vash asked quietly.
"Got a feeling this will be the last time..." He whispered it so faintly Vash inclined his head, confused.
"What?"
Wolfwood smiled at him. "Nothing. 'm tired. Let's head back."
But still, he didn't sleep.
Midvalley found his body.
The trail of blood lead him there, up the church steps, through the thrust open doors. His foot caught on a slick puddle of blood as he stepped inside, and he had to grip a pew to keep from falling.
Wolfwood lay dead before him.
Got a feeling this will be the last time. His own words echoed in his head. He had known. Known that Evergreen was coming. Known that Legato was using him as the bullet and his own mind the trigger. He had wanted to warn Nick. That was why he came. To take him away while there was still a chance...
But he couldn't.
And Nick was dead.
He heard footsteps. They were coming. His friends. Those two girls and Vash the Stampede. Vash, the only person he had ever seen Nick truly care for.
He stumbled from the church, and he didn't look back.