art maybe

For a winded breath, you attempt to regain your bearings. Then, Meryl is launching the car off a dune, and you're floating from your seat into the air—towards the roof of the car, you’re horrified to realise—before gravity jerks you harshly back to reality. 

One of your legs gets thrown over Wolfwood's stupid, warm thigh; one of Vash's stupid, big hands ends up braced concerningly close to your crotch; and one glance at the rearview mirror tells you of a very vindicated Meryl Stryfe.

"Fuckin' hell, Meryl," you grumble, inching away from Wolfwood only to meet the solid wall of Vash's chest behind. You elbow him, hard, and Vash yelps before scrambling backwards. "Slow down!" 

"Sorry!" Meryl chimes, jerking the steering wheel sideways in direct subversion of her flimsy apology. "Just trying to get us there quicker!"

Wolfwood scoffs, bracing a foot on the back of Roberto's seat. "Alive would be preferable."

Embarrassingly, it takes Wolfwood speaking for you to realise that your leg is still slung over his thigh. You yank it back hastily.

Roberto heaves a long-suffering sigh, no doubt also noticing Meryl's suspicious behaviour. "D'you want me to drive, Rookie?"

"Please let Roberto drive," Vash moans. 

A second later, the car skims across a dune and into open air again. Vash’s head bumps the car’s ceiling, and you scrabble to grab the headrest of Roberto’s seat when your ass leaves your own to avoid a similar fate. 

"Nope! I have it under control. Roberto needs rest," Meryl argues, hands clutching the wheel in a death grip.

Clearly considering his rejected offer as effort enough to quell Meryl's rampage, Roberto slumps back into his seat and pulls a rusty seatbelt—the only one in this godforsaken car—over his chest tightly without another word. Just in time for the car to come slamming back down to No Man’s Land. The impact shudders up your spine so suddenly you almost bite your tongue off. 

"I don't want to go out this way," you mumble, fear-stricken.

You focus all your core strength on maintaining stability, but you’re not entirely successful. Even the lesser movements of the car jostle the three of you in such a small space as the backseat is, and every point of contact burns like a sacrifice. It’s not going to take much to send you careening into either man beside you, and Meryl seems to know this, too. 

The car jolts right, and Vash’s head knocks into the side window with a dull thump. When he whines lowly in distress, you’re dismayed to find your traitorous hips twitching at the sound. 

"Yeah, me neither," Wolfwood huffs, digging around in his jacket pocket and procuring a pack of cigarettes.

You let out a garbled noise of hysteria. “Knock that shit out,” you tell him. “Gonna end up accidentally putting your cigarette out on me and I’m not into that.” 

On the next sharp turn, the pack drops to the car floor. 

“Alright,” Wolfwood replies, shrugging as though his acquiescence to your request was voluntary. 

Another abrupt pivot and you’re sliding into Vash’s side, Wolfwood following suit, tipping towards you with a panicked yell. Before you can right yourself, you swear you notice Meryl veer towards a sand dune instead of around it, and once more you’re in the fucking air.

Your fall from grace this time might be even worse. You take stock of your current situation: heat, limbs, humiliation. 

Scratch that.

Definitely worse.

"Sorry— ah! I'm sorry," Vash blurts hurriedly, hands oscillating away and towards your torso as though he instinctively wants to stabilise you but thinks better of it each time. 

You can't really blame him. Not when you're sat sidelong on Vash's godforsaken lap.

"Oh god," you mutter under your breath, a little unsure how to go about leaving when gravity forces Wolfwood into the spot you just vacated.

Vash looks down at you, expression utterly contrite even though none of this is even vaguely his fault. 

Another bump. Airtime. A rocky landing back on Vash's thighs.

Kill me now, you think despairingly. Kill me now and be done with it.

Vash's voice is creeping higher by the second as the car coasts over a series of smaller dunes, almost bouncing you in his lap. "Uh— ow! Do you need— ouch! Maybe try— agh! Wolfwood— ugh! A little help here— please!"

Wolfwood manages a small grunt, amusement if you were to guess, and begins to shuffle away from you both to make space. He doesn’t get far before Meryl’s playing cupid again, sending him slamming back against Vash’s side, legs tangling with yours. 

“Fuck me,” Wolfwood groans. 

You slap a frustrated hand on Wolfwood's face when it veers too close for comfort. "Why do I always have to be in the middle!"

"Brace yourselves," Meryl yells a second too late, slamming her foot on the pedal and launching the car off a dune so towering that your heart lurches up into your throat as the car tips forward far enough you fear it may flip entirely.

There’s no time to do as Meryl says, not when you’re floating up in the stuffy air of this car like it’s a zero gravity chamber and somebody just flipped the switch off. 

Vash's arms wrap around your waist a beat later—tugging you down and back against him. More hands grab at your thigh and your ankle—Wolfwood—though it feels less to protect you and more to stabilise himself. Either way, you think all these fingers touching you may be worse than whatever death Meryl has in store for you.

The landing is so jarring that it reverberates through your teeth for each juddering bounce of the car back on No Man’s Land. Wolfwood is thrust forward, his grip on you clearly not steadying him enough, and he ends up on top of you and Vash, somehow—limbs awkwardly digging into yours, one hand braced on the window behind your head, another on Vash’s shoulder. His chest is in your face and Vash’s.

You shoot Vash a panicked glance without thinking, and he returns it in kind, blue-eyes bright against his crimson flush. This close, you think you see a brief pulse of azure under his skin. But it's gone so quickly you wonder if it's simply the first sign of brain trauma.

Meryl cackles happily in the front, whipping her head in your direction to take in the tangled mess of limbs that is you, Vash, and Wolfwood—jammed in the corner of the backseat.

"You guys look cosy," she jokes, and you honestly debate biting her head clean off.

Unfortunately, it’ll have to wait until you’re freed from this torture machine. But when you are back on solid ground… well.