~~~~
You have bound my heart with subtle chains
So much pleasure that it feels like pain
So entwined now that we can't shake free
I am you and you are me
No escaping from the mess we're in
So much pleasure that it must be sin
I must live with this reality
I am yours eternally
[I am Yours - Depeche Mode]
~~~~
'Don't touch what will never be yours....'
Like a prayer, humming in his ears. Wolfwood clenched his fists questioningly and decided that since he could feel the soft sheets beneath him, he must be awake, and not simply dreaming.
Then that *was* Vash, gazing at him thoughtfully, not an apparition or a ghost - or was he? Blonde hair and wandering eyes that haunted the priest's every thought - tread the hallowed ground of his soul with intimacy no other had possessed...
"Are you alright?"
Wolfwood swallowed and nodded mutely, face half buried in the sanctity of his pillow, ignoring the pain slithering across his bruised cheek. "Yeah," he croaked.
Vash shifted, and Wolfwood's whole world tuned in to that delicate motion.
He was wearing the snap-and-buckle undersuit, its black leather criss-crossing his chest in a shy mockery of the scars beneath. When he moved, it creaked softly, comfortably as it shifted around his lanky frame
It was one of those moments that seems to last forever, but really only spans the pulsing moments between heartbeats, years that are barely seconds, lost in the misty darkness of a room and a lie and a love.
Oceans and smoke, their eyes. Oceans of palest blue green under suns long lost, smokey depths of souls waiting in the corners of bars, wreathing their faces lest they be seen. Smoke like wraiths. Oceans like the sky, that went on forever.
'Don't touch what will never be yours....'
Like an echo, between them. Wolfwood wasn't sure if he had actually spoken the words, or if he had dreamed them, or if Vash had reached calmly into his soul and extricated them from the mire that was there. Or was that his own madness and conscious, rubbing his face into the words that spelled out his death? Either way, the liquid eyes of the man across the room filled with secrets, and he shook his head. "What happened?"
Wolfwood suspected he knew, but turned away, eyes closing in the darkness as if to escape to sleep once again, back to those charming, tempting depths. He lingered there on the edge of the twilight of his heart, then looked back up, meeting Vash's eyes with an even expression.
The gaze held.
"I heard a voice, Vash."
The other nodded.
"And..." Wolfwood looked away, words clogging in his throat like so many stones, sinking back to the pit of his stomach and filling that organ with butterflies, the likes of which the black-haired priest had never felt before. God, there were so many things he needed to put into words, so many tiny agonies and minute betrayals that would only be slain in the brilliant light of discovery. He needed to tell Vash what he was, and throw open his soul, and let those aquamarine eyes judge him as they would... he needed Vash to see him as he betrayed, as he fell from any semblance of grace that remained by his side. He needed to be divorced from those soft lips and glimmering eyes, from blonde and red and all of the ghosts associated with them that would never die. "Pain. It just....hurt." Your brother attacked me, he wanted to say, your brother hates me because I...I lo... "All I could think about was the fire in my mind and the fact that if I got away from you....if I moved, it would...cease."
Vash's turn to look away, and he did, cupping his face in the metallic fingers of his cybernetic hand, the cold fake flesh shocking against his real skin tone. The gunman was not delicate, not by a long shot, Wolfwood knew that simply because he had seen Vash fight, seen him narrow his eyes and turn the full fury of his anger on another purpose. No, he was more graceful than delicate, each move calculated and planned - or was that his imagination playing tricks on his reasoning? Wolfwood tried to read the melting expression on his face, but seeing through that mask at this point was impossible - it was too dark. He was too tired. Vash's eyes -
Tears.
Wolfwood had never been lost in someone else's tears before. He had never watched with such a teetering madness as they slipped free from pools of innocence debauched and slid down the silky expanse of skin, catching for a moment at the swell of cheek and lips, freeing themselves and trickling down. So suddenly whipping free in a burst of motion and falling, falling, falling - plinking against a metal hand, against skin that was not skin, living, moving scar tissue, then sliding so quickly off water resistant metal... Striking the ground and disappearing, leaving nothing but a sorrowful stain where once had lain a sparkling tribute to grief and hate and wrongness.
He watched, then, as Vash cried softly. Counting the tears, and labeling each one with a promise or a devotion or a memory that he would never be able to speak out loud - and yet as he watched, he did not allow himself a single tear - because if he cried, he feared he would never be able to stop.
And besides, all the tears in the world couldn't save him now.
Wolfwood had never been in love before. It was new ground - a new, treacherous minefield, with demons and shadows at every corner.
"This is my fault," Vash whispered, fingers tightening fractionally, his soul pulling at Wolfwood's grief, begging for another weight to bear on his shoulders. Why was everything his fault? Why was he so damned helpless, why couldn't he just sit by and watch other people hurt and be glad it wasn't him?
No, Wolfwood wanted to scream.
"I've led them to you."
No, you didn't. I led you to them. I'm leading you to them. I'm the spider your brother warned you about, Vash, I'm the spider - his lips would not form the words. "Who?"
"There are....people...." Tears too thick, he closed his eyes, lashes filled with trickling tears that had yet to be shed. And his voice, broken and cracking as his shoulders shook violently, heaving with the sobs that wracked his frame...
He was Vash the Stampede. He was the humanoid typhoon. He was terrified and sobbing, untouchable by humans, unreachable by his own, living for a dream that had died so many years ago that all those who had lived it were gone.
Wolfwood reached out.
'Don't touch...'
It was there again, trembling in his breast, that aching, familiar pain that pricked between his ribs and grew in heat and intensity as he lifted his hand towards the figure of the gunman before him. It was the agony that had beset him previously, yet at the same time it was not - and he sensed, somehow, that there was a trip wire in his soul, that he had been chained away from Vash as utterly as if Midvalley *had* killed him there in the dirt and filth of a back alleyway, chained with terror and agony too great to be ignored or denied.
'Don't touch....'
Some sort of wall was in his mind, and when he brushed by it, the pain began again.
But Vash was crying. But he was shaking so hard and his breaths were choked, gasps for air, he was crying as if the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders and it was all he could do to kneel beneath the sorrow of millions.
'...never yours...'
Wolfwood reached the edge of the bed, each millimeter a small mile, each heartbeat thundering in his ears like the waves on an ocean, such as he had never - and would never - witness. It ebbed and flowed around his consciousness until it was the only thing that existed, the horrible burning fire and Vash's cold tears.
They fell. He concentrated on those that seeped through metallic fingers, seeking freedom in the dry air and bedclothes, and as they fell, he moved, thinking of nothing but those crystalline droplets as he set one foot, then the other, then shifted his weight.
'...never...'
He stood.
He fell.
No. Don't give in just because your nerves are being burnt raw and bleeding, just because you can't breath and your lungs are filled with superheated metal, and there's electricity biting along your back with fangs of paralysis and claws of hungry nothingness. Don't break.
Tears are falling.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood began crawling, even as he clenched his teeth so hard blood broke out from his cheeks, bitter against his tongue, and his fingernails, stubby as they were, marked perfect crimson crescents into the palms of his hands. Even as his vision blurred and reddened and dimmed, barely able to focus on those simple, beautiful, perfect, terrible tears.
Vash was moving. He was dimly aware of the motion in the fact that the agony within his breast suddenly multiplied tenfold until he was curled in on himself, biting hard on his knuckles and screaming around the bloody mess of his mouth - and when Vash's hand brushed against his shoulder, the world seemed to freeze and tremble and hold so still like mythical dry ice holding a rose in a timeless void, falling -
And the touch deepened. Vash kissed him, softly on the forehead, pulled him from the floor, and his rib cage began contracting, crushing inwards with a horrible, horrible twisting sound that filled his ears and made him struggle, blood pounding in his head and mouth and heart - can't breath - can't think - can't live -
And it stopped.
Just like that.
Wolfwood sank like a rag doll into Vash's arms, sobbing dryly through a throat ravaged with screams, and the blonde's tears spattered his face. "Wolfwood, Wolfwood, no, they're hurting you, you can't come near me because it hurts..."
He couldn't speak. He wanted to - he wanted to spill his secret - he wanted...
Sleep.
"Wolfwood, you didn't have to endure that for me..."
Wanted to.
"Please, Wolfwood, say something! Nick!" Almost hysterical, Wolfwood mused, with a dry sort of exhausted humor.
"Lean down," the priest wheezed.
Vash did, until they were nose to nose. "More."
Blonde hair was falling in his eyes, soft like the breezes that haunted his dreams. "More."
And then -
And then -
He leaned up, a slow movement, an agonized movement, and softly, ever so gently, ever so reverently kissed the tears from Vash's eyelashes -
And smiled.
~~~~
There's no turning back
We're in this trap
No denying the facts
No, no, no
No excuses to give
I'm the one you're with
We've no alternative
No, no, no
Dark obsession in the name of love
This addiction that we're both part of
Leads us deeper into mystery
Keeps us craving endlessly
~~~~
It was there, after that incident, a soft feeling in the back of his mind that grew whenever Vash was near. Sometimes it sounded like singing, sometimes like a dull, suppressed scream, though whenever Wolfwood turned his head and concentrated on the soft background noise, it would disappear, along with the shadows at the corners of his eyes. It didn't scare him like it would have at one time, nor was he overly curious as to what it was - but he did ask, and would never forget Vash's answer.
"So, what is it?"
The sunglasses that were the most vexing barrier in his life slipped down over the fine bridge of the gunman's nose. Knives' power seemed to have been curbed when Vash had touched Wolfwood and relieved him of his physical pain - at any rate, Vash's nearness no longer brought discomfort - which was relieving. "Hm?"
"It. The sound. The...shadow. What is it?"
"You can hear something?" Vash asked softly, eyes widening a bit. It was the expression of someone who had miscalculated and been caught. "What does it sound like?"
"Laughter," Wolfwood paused to contemplate the subconscious tone, and it faded, as it always did. "And sometimes crying. It sounds like lots of things when I'm around you, it changes all the time."
Vash stared at him for a moment, hard, as if he had seen a ghost, his face paling several shades and his eyebrows lifting into curved arches. Wolfwood took a step back and looked away, wondering if he had made some sort of mistake in admitting this to his companion.
It had been days since Wolfwood's run-in with one Midvalley the Hornfreak, and he was no worse for the wear in the long run. Sore ribs, minor abrasions and lingering bruises were the only signs of injury or battle - other than the gouging mental scars.
Of course, he was getting resilient where those where concerned.
The most disconcerting thing he had borne that night was the almost-shadow that danced in the corners of his mind whenever Vash was present....
"It's my aura," the blonde said at last, when Wolfwood thought he would go insane at the sheer silence in the room. "You're hearing it because I lent you my power that night," there was no need to point out which night he meant, all others might as well have never occurred when compared to that night of agony, "when you nearly let go."
"Your....aura?"
"It's....the basic nature of a person. It's not inherent - it changes all the time, fluctuating with attitudes and concerns, but for the most part it's good or bad. You're only hearing the echoes - I can see them. So can my attackers."
Was that dual sound, laughter and tears and singing and a woman's voice...part of Vash's personality? "I'm hearing your thoughts?"
"Not so much thoughts..." Vash smiled weakly at him, drumming his fingers on the table with a soft tic-tic-tic as he struggled to explain something that was obviously difficult. His gaze scanned Wolfwood's disbelieving face as the priest shook his head in shock and steadied himself against the nightstand in their small room. "More like...my mood, and memories, sometimes."
Okay. Wolfwood could deal with the fact that he wasn't human, was immortal - but... if Vash could see through the emotions of every person on the face of the planet - that was scary. Too scary. "So... You hear this all the time? Everyone's?"
"Only when I want to...and I *see* it more than hear it. I used to not be able to control it, but now it's like a skill that I only use when I need it... Sort of a trump card, you see?" Vash's expression was innocent and blank, totally fixed on displaying nothing but the calmest of satisfaction.
Wolfwood wanted to hit him.
"Does it bother you? You just recieved the power, so it's strong now, but it shouldn't last too long. I've shared energy with people before, and it was never permanent for them."
The priest sat down heavily on the bed, and dropped his head into his palms - his mouth had quite suddenly gone dry at the implications of this. Was this why Vash trusted people so much - *could* he see the innocence buried in every individual, or did he simply choose to ignore the angry emotions? Was that why he could fight with such precision - he knew when people would fire their weapons? That's was impossible. But.... Could he....could he know.... "What sort of things can you see?" he asked, faintly.
Oh, God, please don't let him know. Please say he can't see my false face, through the fabric of my existance....
"Lots of things. Happiness. Exhaustion," a pause, "and lies."
"Oh," Wolfwood breathed as aquamarine eyes settled on him, filled with something between pity and curiosity, something spookily human that made Wolfwood's skin crawl, knowing what he did about the plant before him. "Is that what...you see in me?"
"I see lots of things in you, Wolfwood." His heart was pounding, thundering furiously as Vash pushed away from the bed and took a step closer, expression concerned. "And I know that a lot of what you've told me isn't true."
No. No - please -
"But I love you."
The priest looked up through his dark bangs, staring hard at Vash as the red-coated gunman flopped down on the bed next to him. His expression was friendly and open, though his eyes were flashing with something much deeper than that...
"And if what I fell in love with was the lie you created for me, that's alright. Because I can't fall out of love, and you can't end your lies. Doesn't that make us even?"
His eyes were the eyes of a victim, his body that of a hero, and Wolfwood felt something give within his chest, something that almost seemed meaningless - something melted in his heart as those words were spoken.
It was hard to breathe - because Vash knew, to an extent - what Wolfwood was.
He *knew*. Maybe he'd known all along.
And....
He didn't care.
Wolfwood leaned back, staring hard at the blonde through eyes that couldn't dare to believe what they saw was real. "How can you live like this? Look at how blind you are...you have no idea how dangerous I am, and you have no idea where I'm coming from. I could be a murderer, I could be a rapist, I could be so many things and you would never suspect me...."
"Not so," Vash whispered, with another all-knowing smile. "You're a good person at heart. And... your eyes tell me that you don't want to hurt me. You would never hurt me."
He gaped. "Not on purpose-"
"The it would be an accident, and no fault of yours, so that's alright." An innocent smile.
"It's not alright! Don't write it off like that. You'd still be hurt..."
"I'll always be suffuring," Vash whispered, and it sounded like a masochistic promise as it fell from his lips. "It doesn't matter anymore."
Wolfwood didn't know what to say to that.
~~~~
Strange compulsions that I can't control
Pure possession of my heart and soul
I must live with this reality
I am you and you are me
I am you and you are me
I am you and you are me
I am you and you are me
There's no turning back
We're in this trap
No denying the facts
No, no, no
No excuses to give
I'm the one you're with
We've no alternative
No, no, no
~~~~
You have bound my heart with subtle chains
So much pleasure that it feels like pain
So entwined now that we can't shake free
I am you and you are me
No escaping from the mess we're in
So much pleasure that it must be sin
I must live with this reality
I am yours eternally
[I am Yours - Depeche Mode]
~~~~
'Don't touch what will never be yours....'
Like a prayer, humming in his ears. Wolfwood clenched his fists questioningly and decided that since he could feel the soft sheets beneath him, he must be awake, and not simply dreaming.
Then that *was* Vash, gazing at him thoughtfully, not an apparition or a ghost - or was he? Blonde hair and wandering eyes that haunted the priest's every thought - tread the hallowed ground of his soul with intimacy no other had possessed...
"Are you alright?"
Wolfwood swallowed and nodded mutely, face half buried in the sanctity of his pillow, ignoring the pain slithering across his bruised cheek. "Yeah," he croaked.
Vash shifted, and Wolfwood's whole world tuned in to that delicate motion.
He was wearing the snap-and-buckle undersuit, its black leather criss-crossing his chest in a shy mockery of the scars beneath. When he moved, it creaked softly, comfortably as it shifted around his lanky frame
It was one of those moments that seems to last forever, but really only spans the pulsing moments between heartbeats, years that are barely seconds, lost in the misty darkness of a room and a lie and a love.
Oceans and smoke, their eyes. Oceans of palest blue green under suns long lost, smokey depths of souls waiting in the corners of bars, wreathing their faces lest they be seen. Smoke like wraiths. Oceans like the sky, that went on forever.
'Don't touch what will never be yours....'
Like an echo, between them. Wolfwood wasn't sure if he had actually spoken the words, or if he had dreamed them, or if Vash had reached calmly into his soul and extricated them from the mire that was there. Or was that his own madness and conscious, rubbing his face into the words that spelled out his death? Either way, the liquid eyes of the man across the room filled with secrets, and he shook his head. "What happened?"
Wolfwood suspected he knew, but turned away, eyes closing in the darkness as if to escape to sleep once again, back to those charming, tempting depths. He lingered there on the edge of the twilight of his heart, then looked back up, meeting Vash's eyes with an even expression.
The gaze held.
"I heard a voice, Vash."
The other nodded.
"And..." Wolfwood looked away, words clogging in his throat like so many stones, sinking back to the pit of his stomach and filling that organ with butterflies, the likes of which the black-haired priest had never felt before. God, there were so many things he needed to put into words, so many tiny agonies and minute betrayals that would only be slain in the brilliant light of discovery. He needed to tell Vash what he was, and throw open his soul, and let those aquamarine eyes judge him as they would... he needed Vash to see him as he betrayed, as he fell from any semblance of grace that remained by his side. He needed to be divorced from those soft lips and glimmering eyes, from blonde and red and all of the ghosts associated with them that would never die. "Pain. It just....hurt." Your brother attacked me, he wanted to say, your brother hates me because I...I lo... "All I could think about was the fire in my mind and the fact that if I got away from you....if I moved, it would...cease."
Vash's turn to look away, and he did, cupping his face in the metallic fingers of his cybernetic hand, the cold fake flesh shocking against his real skin tone. The gunman was not delicate, not by a long shot, Wolfwood knew that simply because he had seen Vash fight, seen him narrow his eyes and turn the full fury of his anger on another purpose. No, he was more graceful than delicate, each move calculated and planned - or was that his imagination playing tricks on his reasoning? Wolfwood tried to read the melting expression on his face, but seeing through that mask at this point was impossible - it was too dark. He was too tired. Vash's eyes -
Tears.
Wolfwood had never been lost in someone else's tears before. He had never watched with such a teetering madness as they slipped free from pools of innocence debauched and slid down the silky expanse of skin, catching for a moment at the swell of cheek and lips, freeing themselves and trickling down. So suddenly whipping free in a burst of motion and falling, falling, falling - plinking against a metal hand, against skin that was not skin, living, moving scar tissue, then sliding so quickly off water resistant metal... Striking the ground and disappearing, leaving nothing but a sorrowful stain where once had lain a sparkling tribute to grief and hate and wrongness.
He watched, then, as Vash cried softly. Counting the tears, and labeling each one with a promise or a devotion or a memory that he would never be able to speak out loud - and yet as he watched, he did not allow himself a single tear - because if he cried, he feared he would never be able to stop.
And besides, all the tears in the world couldn't save him now.
Wolfwood had never been in love before. It was new ground - a new, treacherous minefield, with demons and shadows at every corner.
"This is my fault," Vash whispered, fingers tightening fractionally, his soul pulling at Wolfwood's grief, begging for another weight to bear on his shoulders. Why was everything his fault? Why was he so damned helpless, why couldn't he just sit by and watch other people hurt and be glad it wasn't him?
No, Wolfwood wanted to scream.
"I've led them to you."
No, you didn't. I led you to them. I'm leading you to them. I'm the spider your brother warned you about, Vash, I'm the spider - his lips would not form the words. "Who?"
"There are....people...." Tears too thick, he closed his eyes, lashes filled with trickling tears that had yet to be shed. And his voice, broken and cracking as his shoulders shook violently, heaving with the sobs that wracked his frame...
He was Vash the Stampede. He was the humanoid typhoon. He was terrified and sobbing, untouchable by humans, unreachable by his own, living for a dream that had died so many years ago that all those who had lived it were gone.
Wolfwood reached out.
'Don't touch...'
It was there again, trembling in his breast, that aching, familiar pain that pricked between his ribs and grew in heat and intensity as he lifted his hand towards the figure of the gunman before him. It was the agony that had beset him previously, yet at the same time it was not - and he sensed, somehow, that there was a trip wire in his soul, that he had been chained away from Vash as utterly as if Midvalley *had* killed him there in the dirt and filth of a back alleyway, chained with terror and agony too great to be ignored or denied.
'Don't touch....'
Some sort of wall was in his mind, and when he brushed by it, the pain began again.
But Vash was crying. But he was shaking so hard and his breaths were choked, gasps for air, he was crying as if the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders and it was all he could do to kneel beneath the sorrow of millions.
'...never yours...'
Wolfwood reached the edge of the bed, each millimeter a small mile, each heartbeat thundering in his ears like the waves on an ocean, such as he had never - and would never - witness. It ebbed and flowed around his consciousness until it was the only thing that existed, the horrible burning fire and Vash's cold tears.
They fell. He concentrated on those that seeped through metallic fingers, seeking freedom in the dry air and bedclothes, and as they fell, he moved, thinking of nothing but those crystalline droplets as he set one foot, then the other, then shifted his weight.
'...never...'
He stood.
He fell.
No. Don't give in just because your nerves are being burnt raw and bleeding, just because you can't breath and your lungs are filled with superheated metal, and there's electricity biting along your back with fangs of paralysis and claws of hungry nothingness. Don't break.
Tears are falling.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood began crawling, even as he clenched his teeth so hard blood broke out from his cheeks, bitter against his tongue, and his fingernails, stubby as they were, marked perfect crimson crescents into the palms of his hands. Even as his vision blurred and reddened and dimmed, barely able to focus on those simple, beautiful, perfect, terrible tears.
Vash was moving. He was dimly aware of the motion in the fact that the agony within his breast suddenly multiplied tenfold until he was curled in on himself, biting hard on his knuckles and screaming around the bloody mess of his mouth - and when Vash's hand brushed against his shoulder, the world seemed to freeze and tremble and hold so still like mythical dry ice holding a rose in a timeless void, falling -
And the touch deepened. Vash kissed him, softly on the forehead, pulled him from the floor, and his rib cage began contracting, crushing inwards with a horrible, horrible twisting sound that filled his ears and made him struggle, blood pounding in his head and mouth and heart - can't breath - can't think - can't live -
And it stopped.
Just like that.
Wolfwood sank like a rag doll into Vash's arms, sobbing dryly through a throat ravaged with screams, and the blonde's tears spattered his face. "Wolfwood, Wolfwood, no, they're hurting you, you can't come near me because it hurts..."
He couldn't speak. He wanted to - he wanted to spill his secret - he wanted...
Sleep.
"Wolfwood, you didn't have to endure that for me..."
Wanted to.
"Please, Wolfwood, say something! Nick!" Almost hysterical, Wolfwood mused, with a dry sort of exhausted humor.
"Lean down," the priest wheezed.
Vash did, until they were nose to nose. "More."
Blonde hair was falling in his eyes, soft like the breezes that haunted his dreams. "More."
And then -
And then -
He leaned up, a slow movement, an agonized movement, and softly, ever so gently, ever so reverently kissed the tears from Vash's eyelashes -
And smiled.
~~~~
There's no turning back
We're in this trap
No denying the facts
No, no, no
No excuses to give
I'm the one you're with
We've no alternative
No, no, no
Dark obsession in the name of love
This addiction that we're both part of
Leads us deeper into mystery
Keeps us craving endlessly
~~~~
It was there, after that incident, a soft feeling in the back of his mind that grew whenever Vash was near. Sometimes it sounded like singing, sometimes like a dull, suppressed scream, though whenever Wolfwood turned his head and concentrated on the soft background noise, it would disappear, along with the shadows at the corners of his eyes. It didn't scare him like it would have at one time, nor was he overly curious as to what it was - but he did ask, and would never forget Vash's answer.
"So, what is it?"
The sunglasses that were the most vexing barrier in his life slipped down over the fine bridge of the gunman's nose. Knives' power seemed to have been curbed when Vash had touched Wolfwood and relieved him of his physical pain - at any rate, Vash's nearness no longer brought discomfort - which was relieving. "Hm?"
"It. The sound. The...shadow. What is it?"
"You can hear something?" Vash asked softly, eyes widening a bit. It was the expression of someone who had miscalculated and been caught. "What does it sound like?"
"Laughter," Wolfwood paused to contemplate the subconscious tone, and it faded, as it always did. "And sometimes crying. It sounds like lots of things when I'm around you, it changes all the time."
Vash stared at him for a moment, hard, as if he had seen a ghost, his face paling several shades and his eyebrows lifting into curved arches. Wolfwood took a step back and looked away, wondering if he had made some sort of mistake in admitting this to his companion.
It had been days since Wolfwood's run-in with one Midvalley the Hornfreak, and he was no worse for the wear in the long run. Sore ribs, minor abrasions and lingering bruises were the only signs of injury or battle - other than the gouging mental scars.
Of course, he was getting resilient where those where concerned.
The most disconcerting thing he had borne that night was the almost-shadow that danced in the corners of his mind whenever Vash was present....
"It's my aura," the blonde said at last, when Wolfwood thought he would go insane at the sheer silence in the room. "You're hearing it because I lent you my power that night," there was no need to point out which night he meant, all others might as well have never occurred when compared to that night of agony, "when you nearly let go."
"Your....aura?"
"It's....the basic nature of a person. It's not inherent - it changes all the time, fluctuating with attitudes and concerns, but for the most part it's good or bad. You're only hearing the echoes - I can see them. So can my attackers."
Was that dual sound, laughter and tears and singing and a woman's voice...part of Vash's personality? "I'm hearing your thoughts?"
"Not so much thoughts..." Vash smiled weakly at him, drumming his fingers on the table with a soft tic-tic-tic as he struggled to explain something that was obviously difficult. His gaze scanned Wolfwood's disbelieving face as the priest shook his head in shock and steadied himself against the nightstand in their small room. "More like...my mood, and memories, sometimes."
Okay. Wolfwood could deal with the fact that he wasn't human, was immortal - but... if Vash could see through the emotions of every person on the face of the planet - that was scary. Too scary. "So... You hear this all the time? Everyone's?"
"Only when I want to...and I *see* it more than hear it. I used to not be able to control it, but now it's like a skill that I only use when I need it... Sort of a trump card, you see?" Vash's expression was innocent and blank, totally fixed on displaying nothing but the calmest of satisfaction.
Wolfwood wanted to hit him.
"Does it bother you? You just recieved the power, so it's strong now, but it shouldn't last too long. I've shared energy with people before, and it was never permanent for them."
The priest sat down heavily on the bed, and dropped his head into his palms - his mouth had quite suddenly gone dry at the implications of this. Was this why Vash trusted people so much - *could* he see the innocence buried in every individual, or did he simply choose to ignore the angry emotions? Was that why he could fight with such precision - he knew when people would fire their weapons? That's was impossible. But.... Could he....could he know.... "What sort of things can you see?" he asked, faintly.
Oh, God, please don't let him know. Please say he can't see my false face, through the fabric of my existance....
"Lots of things. Happiness. Exhaustion," a pause, "and lies."
"Oh," Wolfwood breathed as aquamarine eyes settled on him, filled with something between pity and curiosity, something spookily human that made Wolfwood's skin crawl, knowing what he did about the plant before him. "Is that what...you see in me?"
"I see lots of things in you, Wolfwood." His heart was pounding, thundering furiously as Vash pushed away from the bed and took a step closer, expression concerned. "And I know that a lot of what you've told me isn't true."
No. No - please -
"But I love you."
The priest looked up through his dark bangs, staring hard at Vash as the red-coated gunman flopped down on the bed next to him. His expression was friendly and open, though his eyes were flashing with something much deeper than that...
"And if what I fell in love with was the lie you created for me, that's alright. Because I can't fall out of love, and you can't end your lies. Doesn't that make us even?"
His eyes were the eyes of a victim, his body that of a hero, and Wolfwood felt something give within his chest, something that almost seemed meaningless - something melted in his heart as those words were spoken.
It was hard to breathe - because Vash knew, to an extent - what Wolfwood was.
He *knew*. Maybe he'd known all along.
And....
He didn't care.
Wolfwood leaned back, staring hard at the blonde through eyes that couldn't dare to believe what they saw was real. "How can you live like this? Look at how blind you are...you have no idea how dangerous I am, and you have no idea where I'm coming from. I could be a murderer, I could be a rapist, I could be so many things and you would never suspect me...."
"Not so," Vash whispered, with another all-knowing smile. "You're a good person at heart. And... your eyes tell me that you don't want to hurt me. You would never hurt me."
He gaped. "Not on purpose-"
"The it would be an accident, and no fault of yours, so that's alright." An innocent smile.
"It's not alright! Don't write it off like that. You'd still be hurt..."
"I'll always be suffuring," Vash whispered, and it sounded like a masochistic promise as it fell from his lips. "It doesn't matter anymore."
Wolfwood didn't know what to say to that.
~~~~
Strange compulsions that I can't control
Pure possession of my heart and soul
I must live with this reality
I am you and you are me
I am you and you are me
I am you and you are me
I am you and you are me
There's no turning back
We're in this trap
No denying the facts
No, no, no
No excuses to give
I'm the one you're with
We've no alternative
No, no, no
~~~~
