Ohayou, fanfiction lovers! This is my first Vash+Wolfwood pairing I've ever attempted, so please R&R! It's a one-shot fic, so this is all you're gonna get. I wrote this story all in one sitting, so I'm confident I've stayed in character as much as possible. First-person Wolfwood. ENJOY!

My crappy computer will not let me make little comments at the end of my chapters, so don't forget to review, 'cause I won't be there to remind you! ^_^

Warning: Implied shounen-ai

Disclaimer: I don't own no Trigun, no way, no how.

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The Woes of Nicholas 3/16/04

It's almost impossible to say just what you feel. It's difficult watching the person across from you stare with dilated, unbelieving eyes as you pour out your soul to them. It's unbearable, trying to move your tongue and keep your jaw working when you know you're being the biggest prick in the world.

The ashtray reminds me how much I love to sacrifice myself for this man. It's pouring over the brim with ashes from long, restless hours of bickering with my pretend-self. I need someone to argue with, someone to portray my gun-wielding angel in disguise. What would he say if...?

Your eyes water uncontrollably, but you have to keep on plowing forward, or all those weeks of mustering up just enough courage will be futile. It's now or never. But it's not like unleashing your most wicked, sinful, and bottled-up emotions is going to help at all when the love of your life starts up with that same bullshit he always uses to get out of a sticky situation...

"I cannot stop moving forward. Until I have come to terms with my past..." He looks away, aqua gems darting to the floor, afraid of the look in my eye. He knows there's either something murderous or suicidal boiling beneath the surface of my charcoal-gray pupils. "I'm sorry."

'I'm sorry.' That's a real good one, you uncaring, foolish son-of-a... I just offered you my entirety as nothing more than a simple human being – not a priest, not a man, but just a simple person - just put aside all of my pride and self-respect, all for -you-... and that's all you can say. You probably weren't even listening, were you, Vash the Stampede?

So, as I sit in my bare room hours later and watch the smoke in front of me disappear lazily into a hollow nothingness, I'll remember you. I'll remember how many packs of cigarettes and how many stressful, tear-stained nights I spent on trying to tell you perhaps the only truth my life ever knew.

"I'm in love with you, Vash."

Months of watching you screw up your life and knowing you were my target. Countless nights of worrying and suffering in silence, because you didn't see it coming. Seven cigarettes to boost my confidence while I waited outside your door. Six words to end it all.

And in the nightmarish moment it took for your lips to move, your vocal box to resonate, my ears to open up and for once, truly listen to you... I knew I was dead.

It was Hell, wasn't it? God hated me and wanted me to rot for my sins and my unfaithful trade, and he was punishing me in the worst, most vulnerable way he could. He took you away from me. What's a life worth living, when there's no one to share it with?

So, my hair grows longer, my eyes paler, my soul, more hollow by the day. Life goes on, but not in the way it used to. I cannot find the humorous sparkle in it that used to light up even the darkest situations... I have ceased to find the purity and truth in everything.

So, for the limited amount of time we still have left together, I say we enjoy it to the best of our abilities. It's really all we have left, isn't it? Years from now, when we're both on opposite ends of the same world, you'll remember, won't you? You'll remember the man who tried to kill you, but ended up confessing his love for you.

No, what am I thinking? You've lived for hundreds of years, and you've met countless people who I'm sure have left much deeper impressions on your calloused heart. You'll have to forget me, because you are Vash the Stampede, and it just has to be this way.

But, even decades from now, I'll still remember. I'll still be hanging on to memories of a humorous sparkle, a beacon of hope in this sandy wasteland, a lighthouse life... slowly dimming into the recesses of my mind, and eventually fading away.