15. Not a Question of Morals

The sun beat down without mercy as the truck rumbled across the barren landscape, leaving a trail of dust in it's wake. By the position of the sun, Wolfwood guessed that it was about noon; his watch had been suffocated in a sand storm about a week ago. And by the sweat running down his forehead and into his eyes, he guessed that it was well over a hundred. The wind created by the truck was a little comfort that made the heat almost bearable, the kind of bearable where the knife scrapes across your skin but doesn't quite cut the surface; still painful, but not life threatening.

Wolfwood stared out at the desolate landscape. There was nothing but sand and cracked clay as far as the eye could see, and there wasn't a cloud in the seemingly endless cerulean dome above them. Every once in a while there would be a rock or a small boulder that they could gauge their travel by, but otherwise, the scenery seemed to crawl along, like they were barely moving. Or maybe the land around them was slowly revolving and they weren't really moving at all. Figures.

It had been almost an hour since Wolfwood and Vash had hitched with an old farmer a little outside of Ripmela. He didn't know for sure, since his watch didn't work, but it felt like a damn long time. Maybe that was because Vash hadn't said a word the entire ride.

Wolfwood heaved a frustrated grunt and turned to look at Vash. His friends' eyes were fixed on the floor of the truck's bed, his arms wrapped loosely around his knees. But Wolfwood knew that Vash wasn't interested in rust eroding the floor beneath them. Vash was lost deep in thought, his normally bright aqua eyes dark with inner turmoil. It was brooding if he ever saw it. Wolfwood felt for Vash, but if there was one thing the preacher man had learned in life, it was that you couldn't solve anything by running away. Another was that stewing solved nothing either. Enough was enough.

"All right, Tongari, out with it." Wolfwood demanded.

"Huh?" Vash blinked and glanced at Wolfwood. Wolfwood couldn't tell if he was irritated for being interrupted in his melodrama, or if he was indifferent.

"I said out with it," he repeated.

"Out with what?"

"Quit playing dumb, needle noggin. You haven't said a word since we left Ripmela."

"And?"

"And?" Wolfwood mocked indignantly. "You're obviously stewing."

"Stewing?"

"I said quit playing dumb, damnit!" Wolfwood dug in his jacket for a cigarette, but came up empty handed. "You know, where you go over something again and again in your mind, thinking about it, wishing it had never happened, blah, blah, blah. You know, stewing."

"No, I didn't know." Vash's face remained as blank as stone. "And so what if I was?"

"It's bad for you," Wolfwood answered simply. He patted down his pants, still searching for a smoke. He finally found one in his pant pocket. After picking off a piece of lint, he stuck it in the familiar crook in his mouth and lit up, breathing a sigh of smoky relief.

Vash snorted in disbelief. "This coming from a gun-toting preacher who cusses, drinks and chain-smokes."

"Hey, quit changing the subject. This is about you, not me."

Vash rolled his eyes and turned to stare at the floor again.

"Fine, I can see you don't want to talk," Wolfwood said. "How 'bout a story then?" he asked suddenly. "I've been told I tell really good ones."

Vash made a noncommittal noise in response.

Wolfwood continued anyway. "All right, hmmm…let's see… ah! I got it." He cleared his throat. Then he began.

"A few years ago, I wandered into this little backwater town. I'd been walking for a while, so I decided to stop in at the local saloon for a drink and a rest. I plopped myself down at the counter, rapped my knuckles on the counter and ordered a tall one. I was just starting to enjoy my drink when the most beautiful woman I've ever seen walked in." Wolfwood paused for dramatic effect. Vash blinked.

"Aren't you going to ask me how beautiful she was?" Wolfwood prompted.

Vash sighed. "How beautiful?" he asked begrudgingly.

"On a scaled of 1-10, I think about a 12." Vash's eyebrows rose slightly. "Seriously, she was gorgeous. Long, red hair, big blue eyes, beautiful body… The. Complete. Package." Wolfwood enunciated his words with jabs of his cigarette. "Anyway, I was sitting there, staring at this beautiful woman, trying not to drool on myself, when she sashays on over and sits on the stool next to me! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. And ended up in a bar.

"Anyway, so we got to talking, and all the while I'm trying to put the moves on her. She seemed pretty receptive, but then she said it." Wolfwood paused again.

This time Vash caught his cue. "What'd she say?"

"She said that she wouldn't be with anyone that was a smoker."

Vash gave a small laugh. "Ouch, Romeo."

"Yeah, no kidding. I mean, what are the chances? The one chance I have to be with a truly beautiful woman, and she's picky. You only see a couple of truly gorgeous ladies in your entire lifetime! So, I did the only thing I could."

"And what was that?"

"I lied."

"Are you serious?" This time Vash really laughed. "You told her that you didn't smoke?"

"Yes, sad, but true. I told her that I wasn't a smoker. She was that beautiful, Vash," Wolfwood looked lovingly at his cigarette. "Even more lovely than Miss Nicotine."

"Then what happened?"

"Well, after we got past the not smoking thing, my wonderful charm and dashing good looks won her over." Vash snickered, but Wolfwood ignored him. "I had it in the bag. We went up to her hotel room and proceeded to suck face in the French tradition. And then, one thing led to another, and… well, you get the picture." Wolfwood grinned stupidly. "But then something weird happened. Really weird."

"She ended up being a man?"

"No, stupid!" Wolfwood shouted, giving Vash a good whack in the shoulder. "Who's telling the story here, eh?"

Vash laughed so hard he clutched his side. "No, go on, please."

Wolfwood straightened his collar and jacket. "No, to answer your question, she was definitely a woman," he said indignantly. "But by this time I hadn't had a cigarette in close to three hours, which is a long time for someone like me. So we were up in her hotel room, and I started to get a really bad craving. I mean, really bad. There I was, making love to the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and all I could think about was where I could get a cigarette afterwards. I didn't even enjoy it! It totally ruined the whole experience."

"Huh."

"And do you know what the moral is?"

"Wait… this story has a moral? You lied to a woman so you could get her into bed."

"No! Well, yes," Wolfwood admitted, grinding his cigarette butt out and flicking it aside. "But that's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what?"

"The moral is, you should never try to be something your not, because it can never work out in the end." Wolfwood suddenly turned serious. "You have to be yourself and face your own life without lies or regret."

Vash looked at the floor again. After a moment, he said, "That's a good moral."

"I try."

Just then, the truck slowed to a stop. "This is as far as I go, boys!" The old timer shouted from the cab of the truck.

Vash and Wolfwood collected their things and hopped off the truck. "Thanks, mister!" Wolfwood shouted. The farmer gave a quick wave, his truck kicking up a cloud of dust as it sputtered away in the opposite direction.

As they watched the truck barrel off across the desert, the two stood in silence. Wolfwood pulled out his cheap plastic shades, and Vash unfolded his infamous orange lenses.

"Hey, Wolfwood?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Wolfwood smiled. "Hey, no problem. Think nothing of it." Vash grinned in return. Then the two began to walk, passing a large sign off the side of the road:

CARCASSES: 3 ILES

A/N: Carcasses is one of the towns where Knives makes all the citizens disappear, so this story takes place a little after Vash agrees to leave Lina and Grandma Sheryl. Who names a town "Carcasses" anyway? That's like asking to be decimated by a genocidal plant trying to flush his twin out of hiding. Well, don't say Knives doesn't have a sense of humor... heh.