The coat was the first thing to go. It had been pulled apart with bullet holes and tears. The PJ's that were still underneath were in worse shape. There were makeshift bandages over most of his good arm and his legs with one wrapped around him at his waist. I tried to pull what was left of his night shirt up over his head, when I saw him looking at me. He tried to help me as much as he could, and we got it off together.

"I didn't think… I'd… make it back…" he gasped.

"I'm glad you did. Is there a first aid kit around here?"

"I keep it under the sink."

It was there, a well-worn tin with bandages that looked no less than a few months old. I took some of the antiseptic he kept with it and went back to clean him up. Some of the smaller wounds had healed and had already started to scab over. I cleaned and wrapped up what was still open carefully.

He didn't take his eyes off me. Even as I worked with some particularly nasty wounds, those half-open lazy aqua-marine eyes fixed on me with the intensity of a sniper.

"Is anything broken?"

"Don't think so." He said, softly.

"How…" I started, then stopped realizing it was a stupid question, then said to hell with it and asked it anyway, "How do you feel?"

"Like I got hit by a sand steamer," he tried to grin.

I leaned forward, and pressed a comforting hand into one of his pecs. Or at least where one of his pecs would be, if it was still there. There was a grate covering what was left of his flesh and giving it some definition so it wouldn't look odd when he wore a tight shirt.

He knew what he was talking about. He had gotten hit by a sand steamer before.

Blinking, I let my hand run wonderingly over the grate, trying to picture what he must have looked like when he was still in one piece.

"Do you remember... how I got the rest?"

I looked up, startled, "I didn't… I didn't mean to say…"

"You didn't say anything."

Then how did he…?

"How did... I get the rest of them, Nick?"

I looked back down at the unwrapped parts of his torso. It came back to me like a bible verse I had learned by rote. I wouldn't have been able to tell him, if it had been him asking me on a crowded street. But here, alone together, with his body spread out beneath me like a weathered piece of holy parchment it came back to me with the ease of a nursery rhyme.

"This one… this one you got when you were standing up for a woman who was about to be evicted by her creditors… you got this one when you tried to break up a bar fight… someone tried to do some sort of autopsy on you while you were still alive… this is just a dueling wound, but you couldn't get help for days and it got badly infected…" my fingers traced each scar, traveling along a path, until I came to the arm. "You got into a fight with your brother… why would he keep your…"

"You were never... told that."

"Oh…." Then, "Oh."

"Mmm…" he said, smiling contently, "Think I'll take a nap…"

"What?" I asked, but he was already asleep.

He slept a lot in the first few days. It seemed to help him. He'd wake up and a huge scrape was suddenly healed, an open wound growing a scab. I kept an eye on him as best I could, but after a while I got bored enough to start exploring the house. What I guessed to be the office was a room with one desk, scroll-top with multiple pigeon-holes within, and one chair. There were boxes all over the floor, built for filing, but most of the papers were personal, not financial. Little kids drawings were stuck into one wall with thumb-tacks.

The kitchen was big, and the cupboards modestly organized, but everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. There were only canned and dried goods, and most had long since passed their expiration date. A few cans were bloating.

I left Vash in the big room, not knowing where else to put him. There was a couch, coffee table and a dining table facing that big picture window and all those beautiful, heavenly plants. I looked out that window every day, but I feared going back into it without Vash's permission.

I didn't go upstairs. There was a half bath downstairs, and the armchair and its matching ottoman was comfortable enough at night. Upstairs seemed… private.

The first few times Vash woke, briefly, he asked for the basics. Some soup, some water. Dress this wound or that, asked how I was doing. After trying to make conversation for a few minutes longer, he finally gave up and went back to sleep. He seemed to know what he was doing. I didn't even want to think about how badly he was actually hurt. How it was, in the end, all my fault.

After a while, I got so tired of this mental self-torture that I actually started to clean up the place to pass the time.

The place started to feel like home.

I was watching the sunset from the front porch, the colors brilliant over the earthen wall, when Vash came to me. He was on his feet, but his steps were slow and careful.

"Feeling better?" I asked.

"Better than before." He said. "I'm not going to be doing that again for a while."

"Praise the lord." I clasped his waist, carefully.

Vash leaned into the embrace. He began to kiss me up and down my neck. I remembered I hadn't gotten around to taking a shower in a while, and wondered if I tasted all right.

"Y'taste fine." He murmured against my skin.

"Now, I know I didn't say that out loud." I told him.

"Maybe. You look tired Nick."

"Mmm…" I muttered as his lips happily attached themselves to my neck for one long, timeless moment.

"How long have you been up?" He whispered when he pulled away.

"A while," I admitted. "But I've been sleeping just fine. Just that nothing interesting is been happening around here."

He pulled my wife beater up above my bellybutton and pushed the real hand between skin and thin white fabric. His fingers played against my abs. I let myself smile as he nudged his hips against mine. As he pushed them against me. Christ, he was already as hard as a rock.

"I think I'm going to pull through." He said, smiling serenely.

"Good, I was worried. How are you feeling?"

"Awake. Filthy. Need to get cleaned up."

I considered. "Where's your room?"