Cheap Drunk
Cephied Variable
There were always dirty bars with peeling paint and rickety tables. Vash liked being drunk too much these days, and Wolfwood liked being sober too much, watching the way the blonde's face darkened and his voice slurred. There were always dirty bars and hotels with peeling paint and rickety tables, and Wolfwood figures they were better than the clarity of a moonlit night and a crisp fire in the desert.
Women always had romantic visions like this and Wolfwood didn't like to fancy that he was having one of those. It was here, sober and awake staring across the fire that he felt the most uncomfortable; the most naked and exposed with all his dreams and visions and goddamned desires linked to one man.
Women had those kinds of romantic visions. They'd skip through their lives and say: "There's this man I'm destined to meet, and once we meet my life will be complete." Wolfwood isn't afraid of it when he's drunk and brushes his fingers down the moron's cheek, throat, hand in a, blurry haze. He remembers being a pale child, before the desert heat and sun had their way with him. He remembers being a pale child, but he was never that pale, nor was he ever that smooth. He supposes some people look at Vash and see beauty, but when Wolfwood looks at him he only sees something unnatural. No one's skin should feel like that- smooth as powder, wrought deep with ruts and held together by metal. Women hold those sorts of romantic notions; They say that love is the mystery, it's the joy of discovery. Wolfwood knows the truth- that love is knowing why something isn't beautiful, but thinking it's beautiful anyways.
... he hopes that doesn't mean he's in love.
There will always be crackling fires and dark smoke and peeling paint and cheap hotel rooms until one day there won't be. One day there will just be those unnatural turquoise eyes watching him, sober and unmasked and then Wolfwood will have nowhere to hide.
Hopefully, by then, he'll be dead.