#trigunning

“You’re doing so well,” Vash murmurs against Nicholas’s temple. “Just a little bit longer for me, hm?”

“Didn’t have you pegged for a sadist,” Nicholas pants, his hips jerking up into the loose circle of Vash’s fist. Vash’s other arm is wrapped heavily around Nicholas’s chest, the metal strangely warm as he holds Nicholas in the cradle of his body. Somehow Nicholas is fully naked and Vash is still clothed; this doesn’t seem fair, but Nicholas is not about to point this out if it means Vash is going to stop touching him.

“I just don’t want this to be over too soon,” Vash says, nosing into Nicholas’s hair. His breath is warm against Nicholas’s scalp. “You’re so beautiful like this, Nicholas.”

Nicholas. He’s Wolfwood out on the streets, in the endless desert; Mister Wolfwood if Vash is feeling particularly cheeky. Nicholas is something he’s kept for himself, but he’d offered it to Vash freely, and Vash has given it back to him in the quiet dark of this room lit only by moonlight. His name sounds different on Vash’s tongue. It sounds important.

Nicholas whines and arches, straining after the friction of Vash’s hand, and in response Vash drags his fingers slowly down to the base of his cock and squeezes gently.

“Not yet,” he murmurs. “Not yet.”

Nicholas categorically refuses to call the noise that escapes him a whimper. He braces his hands on Vash’s thighs, digging in his fingers, and Vash hums. A metal hand comes up to Nicholas’s jaw, turning his head.

“You’re so good,” Vash says into his mouth. He sounds so pleased, like Nicholas has done anything special, like he has a unique talent for getting jerked off. “So good for me, Nicholas.” He kisses Nicholas fiercely, his hand moving again on Nicholas’s cock, and Nicholas feels something in him turn, and settle. He kisses back and lets Vash play his body like an instrument, like something beautiful, until he comes undone.

Plant manifest/generate using crystallization.

Knives didn’t just melt, part of the decay process included crystallization. (Hence the mummification of the plant sisters).

1595 words, pre-canon nai pov, uhh some vivisection related body horror but the show did it first, new fandom ma i'm scared

thanks to @portraitoftheoddity for being a terrible influence and also giving this a quick beta read

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Vash is…

Nai doesn’t have the right word for it, exactly. Rem says kind, Rem says sensitive, but Nai thinks maybe a better description is vulnerable. He’s so exposed, so raw, his heart on his sleeve. Right now it’s just them and Rem and a few other people they don’t see very much, but when everybody else wakes up Nai isn’t sure that’s a good thing. He’s not sure everybody should see Vash like that. There’s no guarantee that they’d treat him as gently as they should.

He’s not sure he wants anybody to see Vash like that. Sometimes Nai thinks it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the other humans never woke up and it was just him and Vash and Rem. Vash is excited about it, excited to meet all the humans sleeping in pods, but Nai’s not sure it’s actually something to be excited about.

Nicholas likes taking his time, when he can. They don’t often have the luxury of it, and anyway to pin Vash the Stampede down for even as long as a few hours when he’s not unconscious is a feat Nicholas takes pride in.

There’s a story in every scar and graft on Vash’s body, lit up by moonlight into silver and gray. Nicholas knows some of them. The divot here on Vash’s left side is a remembrance of a military rifle; Nicholas bends and brushes his lips over it. Vash sighs underneath him, arms folded underneath his head. Nicholas rubs his thumbs over the lines of Vash’s hips and presses his mouth to an ugly whorled scar close to Vash’s spine. Too close for Nicholas’s liking. He hopes whoever shot Vash in the back is dead; although knowing Vash, there are only even odds there. Nicholas shifts where he’s sitting astride Vash’s legs, running his hands up Vash’s back as Vash makes happy melty noises beneath him. He doesn’t know even half of the stories here but in a way he knows all of them: a man too stupid to take the simplest route out of trouble, and a long lifetime of nothing but trouble.

As Nicholas’ hands slide back down his fingers graze a series of thin, silvery scars below Vash’s shoulder blades. Nicholas pauses. He traces one with a finger, and Vash goes still beneath him.

“I gave you these,” Nicholas says, into the quiet and the dark.

Vash shifts, enough so that Nicholas can see the gleam of one eye. “No, you didn’t.”

Nicholas is not in the habit of taking on guilt, whether or not it’s his to bear. But something in his chest pulls tight at the casual denial.

“You forgive too easily.” Nicholas presses down on the scar, and Vash makes a small noise. “You always have.”

Vash turns his face back into the pillow. He doesn’t answer for a long moment.

“It’s not like forgiveness,” he says finally. “What’s between us. You wouldn’t be here if it was.”

Nicholas huffs. He digs his thumbs into just below Vash’s shoulder blades; Vash makes a pleased humming sound, the muscles in his back loosening again.

Vash may be right, although Nicholas will walk barefoot into a sandstorm before he admits it. He leans down and presses his lips to a graft high on Vash’s shoulder. He doesn’t need Vash to say it. If there is penance here, if there is absolution, it’s not in the way Vash melts underneath his hands, or in the way Vash breathes his name. Those are just for Nicholas, and he’s too selfish to share them with any God.

At first Nicholas thinks it’s the gun. It is impressive, and Vash the Stampede should know guns, but Vash doesn’t seem particularly bowled over when Nicholas sheds the wrappings and does what he does best. Then again, they are both busy at the time.

There is something when Nicholas is putting the wrappings back in place, carefully tightening the fastenings and smoothing down the cloth. Something about Vash’s gaze as he watches Nicholas work. Something that makes Nicholas think, oh. There’s something there, or there could be.

Maybe it’s not the gun, not exactly. Nicholas has it leaning up against the table in this cheap hotel, halfway disassembled, and is carefully cleaning and oiling the component parts. Vash walks by the half-open door, audibly pauses, and reappears in the doorway, asking if Nicholas wants company. Nicholas hadn’t been particularly looking, but he’s not about to turn this offer down, and that look is back in Vash’s eyes as Nicholas rubs a cleaning cloth over a delicate piece. Interesting.

Nicholas tests the theory one night out in the open, around a campfire that burns a little too brightly against the desert night. Ostensibly he’s showing Meryl how a shell game works, and winning cigarettes from Roberto in the process. As he moves the cups around on the board, telling Meryl to watch where the coin is, Nicholas is watching Vash watch him. It could be the firelight, what’s in Vash’s eyes. Nicholas thinks it isn’t. When Meryl loses the game and her patience, Nicholas pulls the coin from behind his ear and rolls it over his knuckles, flipping it up in the air and catching it again. Vash looks away, a dusting of pink across his cheeks.

There are a lot of things Nicholas will do on purpose, but this one isn’t: he’s merely bored at the bar, picking at the label on his bottle. It comes off surprisingly easily — cheap glue, go figure — and his fingers work by themselves, folding the paper into a little bird shape.

There’s a strangled noise next to him, and when Nicholas looks up Vash is staring determinedly at his own bottle, hands clenched tight around it. The shell of his ear reddens as Nicholas watches.

“So that’s all it takes to get you going, huh, Stampede?” Nicholas drops the delicately folded little bird in front of Vash. “Birds?”

Vash picks it up carefully, holding it in the palm of his hand like something precious. He glances at Nicholas.

“Yeah,” he says, eyes like firelight in the desert. “Birds.”

Nicholas lifts one hand, brushing the back of his knuckles over Vash’s cheek. Vash shudders, grabbing at his wrist, but his lips when they brush over Nicholas’s palm are gentle and warm. Nicholas’s fingers flex involuntarily and Vash releases him immediately, face going remorseful, but before he can apologize or say something similarly stupid Nicholas puts a thumb on his lips. Vash stills immediately.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Nicholas says, grinning. “In fact, let’s not stop at all.”

The next morning the little bird is attached with a loop of thread to Vash’s pack, and Vash himself is smiling, smiling. Nicholas is smiling too. Roberto takes one look at them and huffs. Nicholas grins unrepentantly, and flicks the little bird on Vash’s pack. Thread is fragile; the bird will likely get blown away or disintegrate before too long.