[vine references at 3 a.m.]

It wasn't supposed to have happened like that.

One minute, everything had been peaceful. Or, as close to peaceful as things got at saloons when everyone in them had been drinking for hours. The next, all hell had broken loose, and Vash had lost sight of Wolfwood.

"It's okay, you're okay…"

It wasn't often that Vash ended up being celebrated the way he had tonight. Not just him, either. Wolfwood had also been the target of a lot of free drinks, tankards pressed into their hands that were so full the booze was spilling out over the edges as they were. Usually, when the two of them came into little towns like this, they kept a low profile. Got their room, did what needed done, restocked on whatever supplies they needed, and moved on quietly within a day or two.

With a bounty on his head like the one Vash had, it was safer if they did things that way. The less attention they drew, the better.

Sometimes, though, it was unavoidable. Wolfwood would grumble something about the damn red coat being impossible for people to ignore. Vash would point out that he was never, ever asking for whatever happened to happen, even if they both knew that was a lie.

Tonight, though, he hadn't been asking for any more attention than they'd already had.

"Stop sayin' that shit, you're wastin' breath."

They'd gotten to town, earlier, at the same time as many of the townsfolk had been running towards a house on the outskirts, not far from where they'd parked Angelina. It hadn't been their business, and Wolfwood had said something to that effect, even as he'd been hauling the Punisher up onto his shoulder to follow Vash into the crowd.

It had turned out that where everyone had been heading was to a house that was known to be dealing with some problems. From what Vash had gathered, afterwards, the father had recently come into some money, a bit of luck. Most of the town was happy for them. They'd been dealing with hardships for a long while, one of their sons was pretty ill, and the father himself had lost a leg in a work accident only a few years before. It had seemed like things were looking up for them, until the bandits that prowled between the little towns in this corner of the world caught wind of it.

They'd been harassing them for weeks. Trying to scare the wife and husband into giving up some of their good fortune. It wasn't even that much money, really, just enough to help them out, to make them comfortable, but it was more than most people around here had, and the bandits wanted it.

Of course, it so happened that the day they finally decided to really act on their demands was the same day Vash and Wolfwood had rolled into town, looking for a warm bed, a hot meal and, maybe, if they were lucky enough, a seamstress that might be able to help with some of their rattier clothes.

They'd been running low on clothing that didn't show exactly how often they found themselves roped into incidents like this.

It hadn't been their fight, but Vash was never one to turn away from someone who needed a hand. Grumble as he might, Wolfwood didn't argue, just followed Vash's lead, the two of them working as a well-run machine to scare to bandits off.

They won't be comin' back 'round here any time soon!

Those had been the words the town's mayor had said, before offering to put them up for the night in the biggest room at the inn. The inn that he happened to own.

It really was a small town, and maybe that had been why they had all been so eager to believe that the bandits had been properly scared off. Vash and Wolfwood, after all, were a little more imposing than their local do-gooders.

Easier to pick out in a crowded saloon, too, as it turned out.

Vash wasn't sure when the revelries had turned from light-hearted and highly-inebriated to chaos. It had taken a second for everyone to realize that the raise in volume, the new shouting, had less to do with someone having had a bit too much, and more to do with the bandits - at least, the three of them that had been too stupid to realize they were supposed to stay out of town - that had come in through the door, blocking the way out.

Wolfwood had realized before Vash, though. He'd been by the door when they'd come in. The Punisher wasn't with him, instead leaned up against the wall, safe and sound in their big, freely rented room, down the road. All he'd had was the one gun tucked under his suit jacket, and his hands.

It had been enough. Vash had been ready not to be happy about it, but people had been in danger, a barmaid had been grabbed, the words 'the strangers or her life' had been said.

Vash supposed he had to be glad that Wolfwood had exercised some kind of restraint, in that case. Non-lethal shots, and maybe that was because he knew the lecture he'd be in for from Vash otherwise, or maybe that was all he could manage with the hostage involved. All he could manage until he got closer.

If Vash understood right, that was when things had changed. That's when they'd gone wrong.

"C'mon, our room's just at the end of the hall…"

The bandits weren't a problem anymore, but by the time Vash had gotten to Wolfwood's side, the wide berth he was being given had let Vash know that there was a new one.

One that had made itself very, very obvious by the spreading red stain on Wolfwood's white shirt.

They'd been out for a drink. They'd been enjoying a night off.

Now…

Vash looked at Wolfwood, brows pinching together as he took in the set of his mouth, and the way his hand pressed to his side. Sticky red blood tacked the fabric of his shirt to his palm, and Vash swallowed.

Wolfwood would be fine.

They just needed to get to their room.

"You didn't lock it?" Wolfwood growled, as Vash twisted the knob and pulled Wolfwood along inside with him. "What's wrong with you, all our stuff's in here!"

"Stop yelling at me and sit down!" Vash ordered, guiding Wolfwood over to the closest of the two beds. When they had checked in and brought their things up, Vash had snorted at the sight of them. It was unspoken, between them, that one of those beds would go unused for most of the night. It was usually less than an hour, every night that they treated themselves to a room like this, before one of them would be climbing into the other's bed and curling up around him. They didn't talk about it, didn't waste breath telling front desk clerks they only needed the one bed.

Vash suspected that there would be no point in even pretending to use this bed tonight, though, once they were finished.

Hopefully the mayor didn't mind the blood stains on the sheets.

"Sit," Vash ordered, before pushing his hands under Wolfwood's jacket, forcing it off his shoulders. It had come open while he'd been dealing with the bandits; probably the same knife that had cut through his skin had been what had taken the button off the the front, that motion yanking it the rest of the way. They were definitely going to need that seamstress, now.

"You get real bossy when you're freaking out, needle-noggin."

"You're really bossy all the time," Vash shot back, tossing Wolfwood's ruined jacket to the floor and meeting his eyes with a scolding glare before he reached down, prosthetic hand curling around Wolfwood's wrist.

Gently, he coaxed, "let me see."

Vash knew about the vials that Wolfwood kept. He'd seen what they could do and, if this was bad enough, really bad enough, Vash knew that Wolfwood wouldn't shy away from taking one of them. They didn't talk about it, no words passed between them, ever, about what the trade-off was every time Wolfwood clawed his way back from the edge by using one.

They were there if needed, though, Vash reassured himself, watching Wolfwood's hand pull away from the gash in his side before he knelt down, looking at the wound.

It wasn't pretty. The edges were clean, at least, one quick slash, stretching from just under Wolfwood's ribs to the curve of his waist. It was deeper than Vash would've liked, blood still seeping lazy from it, soaking into the already soaked, formerly white fabric of Wolfwood's shirt.

Not bad, though. Not life threatening.

Not a reason to use any of those vials.

"Why did you bleed so much? This isn't even that bad!"

"Don't give me shit for bleedin', Vash, just get the kit!"

"Oh! Right!"

Shooting back to his feet, Vash moved away, going to his bag to dig out their first aid kit. At least, he was fairly sure it was in his bag, because he'd been the last of the two of them that had needed to use it. In fact, it was usually him that needed to use it.

This was a rarity, and, looking over at Wolfwood, Vash thanked whatever power or entity might be bored enough to listen that it was. The chance to stitch Wolfwood up, rather than the alternative, was something he needed to be grateful for.

While he'd been digging out the kit, Wolfwood had been undoing the buttons on his shirt. The movements of his fingers had left faint red imprints of his fingerprints on the edges around the button holes. As he shrugged it off, Vash sighed.

"I guess that one's a write-off, huh?"

Dumping the little bag that served as an aid kit onto the bed, he reached up himself, beginning the long process of undoing the buttons and snaps on his own coat, opening it over his chest while Wolfwood opened the bag and fished out the bottle of cheap liquor they kept in there.

It was the only one that was off limits to drink. It was meant for this and only this.

This being the act of being uncapped while a steadying breath was taken before splashing a generous amount over whatever wound happened to be needing attention. Vash pulled the sides of his coat apart as Wolfwood hissed, teeth bared and head tipped to the side as alcohol washed blood over his tan skin and down. The thin pink slosh of it slipped down into his waistband, spreading a dark, wet spot there while Vash reached out to take the bottle.

They'd done this too many times.

He had done this too many times. Usually on himself, so he was practiced. Overturning the bottle into his palm, he let a bit trickle out, rubbing his hands - flesh and fake - together before he set the bottle aside on the little table between their beds. Digging into the aid kit, he found the thread, that ugly needle slid through it, and set about prepping that even as he got on his knees on the bed beside Wolfwood.

"You make a pretty hot nurse."

Glancing at Wolfwood over the eye of the needle as the thread slid through, Vash smirked.

"You did lose a lot of blood, didn't you? Come on…"

Shifting in, he gestured with one hand for Wolfwood to move so he could get a better angle at the gash. It wasn't in a spot that Wolfwood couldn't get to, but Vash hadn't been about to make him deal with this himself.

Doing this was weirdly intimate. The sharp intake of breath Wolfwood had through his nose as the needle pushed through his skin from one side of the wound to the other crawled under Vash's skin.

It shouldn't.

He shouldn't feel something from Wolfwood letting him take care of him. From having the chance to do it at all. He should've felt horrified, his hands should have been shaking, but he was too used to this for that to happen.

"Hey…"

Vash glanced up, away from his work.

Wolfwood was watching him, his dark eyes searching Vash's face.

"You don't gotta worry about me."

Vash snorted, giving his current work a pointed look. It was closing up nicely, Wolfwood's blood smeared on Vash's fingers as he worked, but not nearly in the amounts he'd thought it would be, when he'd pushed through the crowd in the saloon. The spreading red he'd seen, before he'd met Wolfwood's eyes and rushed forward to his side, had felt like a threat.

He could lose this man too easily, even with those impossible vials.

Vash needed to savour every second. He knew how fragile life was. How many friends had he lost over the long years, to things just like that red stain? Every one had stayed with him, a stone in his pocket, and not one of them had been anything close to what Wolfwood was.

"Vash."

"Nearly done," Vash said, brightly, ignoring Wolfwood clearly trying to get his attention to loop the stitch closed, tying it off. It wasn't pretty, and if Wolfwood could ever scar, Vash probably would've had to apologize for how it would heal.

Inevitably, though, the next time Wolfwood had to down one of those vials, any evidence of Vash's ugly but adequate work would disappear alongside whatever life-threatening reason there was to take it.

"I said your name, you know."

Ignoring Wolfwood, Vash shifted, angling his body towards the bedside table, wrapping his fingers around the neck of their antiseptic liquor bottle.

He didn't quite get to his next step, pouring a little more on the closed up wound.

Wolfwood stopped him, his fingers grabbing at Vash's chin, forcing him to stop and look. Vash could feel the warm, sticky sensation of Wolfwood's own blood on his fingers where they pressed against his jaw and his cheeks. They were both going to be washing Wolfwood's blood off themselves, but Vash couldn't think about that now, not with Wolfwood forcing him to look him in the eye.

"You listenin' to me?"

"Always," Vash answered, forcing a smile up onto his face, squished though it was from the way Wolfwood was holding him.

Wolfwood's eyes tracked it, before he sighed.

Vash was expecting to be let go, waved on to inflict a minute of necessary but stinging, annoying pain.

Instead, what he got was Wolfwood using the grip on his chin to pull him in, kissing him.

It wasn't at all what Vash had expected. Not by the sheer fact that it was a kiss, nor by the soft, gentle feeling of it. Like this, after the night they'd had, Vash would have expected a hard press of Wolfwood's mouth against his, something he was taking, quickly, before either of them could get too caught up.

Instead, Wolfwood lingered, Vash's heartbeat picking up by one beat, two, three, before he finally pulled away. He didn't go far, though, forehead pressing to Vash's.

"Nothin's gonna get me, spikey. All right?"

It was hard to argue with Wolfwood, when he got that tone in his voice. The one that sounded so assured, that was meant to calm them both. It did, sinking into Vash's bones, making him nod before he pressed back in, catching Wolfwood's lips in another, hungrier kiss.

Later, so much later, as he stood in front of the mound of freshly turned up dirt, and let the hot, silent tears roll down his cheeks, Vash tried not to think about those words, spoken while Wolfwood's shirt had laid between them, ruined with blood, but hardly a sign of something bad. That hadn't taken Wolfwood, hadn't been nearly enough to get him.

But something had.