Archive of Our Own ^beta

Summer One

The town is little more than a blip on a map. A hiccup of a stop for the train, screeching wheels barely hesitate at the rickety station. But that hesitation is long enough for Wolfwood to hop from the caboose’s vestibule, swaying onto splintered pine boards, flecked with the memory of blue paint, and toss a two fingered salute to the ticket collector who hadn’t quite managed to get ahold of him or the ticket he didn’t have. Times are tough and the air cooled rapidly as the train strained to climb from the Loreno Plains up into the Grande Piedras mountains even in the summer; Wolfwood didn’t want to hitch a ride clinging with numb fingers to the side of the train. He didn’t get caught, no harm, no foul.

Turning to observe the empty platform, Wolfwood pulls a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shoves an equally wrinkled smoke between his lips. It takes two swipes on the bottom of his boot to get a match to flame, but the sudden burst of heat thaws out any remaining trepidation Wolfwood might have when it comes to the little town. The porch creaks as he walks across it, and the screen door that leads into the belly of the station screams at him on rusty hinges as he pushes it open. A plump older woman looks up at him from behind a desk, peering over half moon spectacles with a look akin to displeasure. 

“Hey there,” Wolfwood says, meandering over to the desk, leaning on an elbow. There’s a Forest Service map behind her gray head, curled and yellowed at the edges. Speckled with fly droppings. 

“Can I help you? I wasn’t aware any passengers were getting off today.”

“Well what else is a train any good for?” Wolfwood grins around his cigarette. 

“Mail, sir.”

Ah. Coughing slightly, Wolfwood stands straight, scratching at the side of his nose. The woman frowns hard at him, lips pursing into a wrinkled, red bow. 

“Can I help you?”

Wolfwood gestures vaguely to the map, “I was wondering if you knew where the Saverem ranch is.”

The woman snorts, “You’re looking at it honey. They own damn near all of this.” she points to the map, “That little speck is us, the rest of it is wooded up until the baldy peaks, and the Saverem’s own most of it.”

Blowing out a smoke filled whistle, Wolfwood traces the property lines and markers inked onto the paper in faded pen with his eyes. “I’ll be damned. Might’ve signed myself up for hell.”

“You part of a crew?”

“Yes ma’am, thought I’d spend the summer branding calves and eating campfire Rocky Mountain oysters.”

The woman’s mouth purses like she smelled something vile. “You just might. Half the men hired on to teams ain’t worth half their pay.” She arranges a stack of papers, “I should know, my late husband lost fifty head of cattle to a lightning storm a few years back. His hired hands didn’t lift a finger to save them.”

“Aw now ma’am, there isn’t much a mortal can do against God’s wrath now is there?”

“Ain’t gonna get any church out there either.” She sniffs, eyeing Wolfwood again.

Wolfwood places a hand over where his rosary is pressed to his sternum. “God’s first church was the mountains.” The woman’s face twists up with so much disdain, Wolfwood can’t help but laugh, grinning at her as he waves his own bullshit away. “I came to the mountains to get away from the chapel, if you know what I mean.” He winks.

“Sir! Do you need something from me?”

“Actually I–”

The screen door opens then, and a man bustles in, a saddle over his shoulder and a shock of blond hair nearly blinding in the spilling sun. 

“Morning, Georgia!” The man cheers, dropping the saddle onto the floor with little ceremony and crossing the room in a few short strides of his ridiculously long legs. 

“Morning, dear.” The woman– Georgia – turns away from Wolfwood, leaning back to grab a stack of envelopes sliding them across the desk. “All bills.”

“You say that every time,”the man mumbles, sorting through the envelopes pausing on a red one before separating it from the rest and sticking it into a separate pocket in his oversized, red, duster. “Did I happen to get a bigger package?”

“That’s all the mail, dear.”

“Ah, yes. I meant a person. I’m expecting the last piece of my crew today.”

Georgia’s eyes narrow and flick over to Wolfwood, he’d shaken a cigarette out of his dwindling pack as he watched the interaction go down. He steps forward, tapping the man on the shoulder, shoving his hand forward when the man turns to him.

"I'm Wolfwood, nice to meet you." Wolfwood sticks the cold cigarette between his lips, grinning around it when the man takes his hand. The leather glove he's wearing squeaks against Wolfwood's palm when he squeezes.

"Vash. What's your specialty?"

"Break horses. Put any pony under me and I'll break it."

A blond brow quirks. "Any pony?"

Wolfwood smirks around the filter of his smoke, lazily dragging his eyes down from straw gold hair to the long plain of Vash's throat.

" Any pony."

Vash’s eyes flash and he laughs, letting go of Wolfwood’s hand. “Well then I’m afraid you’re going to have a hard time this summer my friend.” he turns back to Georgia. “Thanks for the mail, see you in a few months.”

Wolfwood hurries after Vash as he collects the saddle again and shoulders his way through the door. 

“The hell you mean by that?”

The streets of this town are half paved, half dirt, and vehicles seem to be parked with little order on the edges of roads. Vash is tossing the saddle into the back of a dark blue Power Wagon crammed into the joke of an alley between the ranger station and a ramshackle feed store. He turns and leans against the side. 

“You’ll get the full story at the ranch house, but we’re working wild horses, Wolfwood.”

“That’s what I do, doll.”

Vash smiles, a sharp canine digging into his bottom lip. He leans forward. “You reek of rodeo cowboy, all spur and electric prod. These horses are wild , not corral crazed and shot full of steroids. They’ll kill you if you try to get up on their back, doll .”

Wolfwood’s mouth parts around the filter of his smoke, he plucks it out of his mouth and tucks it into his breast pocket. “I’m not a rodeo cowboy, not officially. When I have the entrance fee, it’s good fun and I get something outta it.”

Holding up his hands, Vash shrugs. “I can’t judge a man on his occupation, Wolfwood. Just thought I’d warn you before you got any crazy ideas.” He pats the side of the truck, “Do you have any luggage?”

Wolfwood shakes his head, “Just me.”

Vash nods and  jerks his head towards the cab, “Let's get back, you're already a day and a half late.”

“Ain’t my fault the train runs like shit out here,” Wolfwood grumbles as he gets into the cab. Vash grins into the windshield and backs out of the alley into a pothole that bounces Wolfwood on worn seats. His head misses the ceiling by mere inches.

“Whoops, and yeah. The train sometimes forgets we’re out here.”

Wolfwood grabs the door and braces himself for the jostling Vash seems incapable of missing. 

They drive in silence, Wolfwood rolling down his window, leaning an elbow out, letting his head hang like a dog in the wind. The town fades out fast. Craggy roads and hesitations of civilization bleed into rocky lanes and the crisp smell of forest. Vash steers the truck off the main road onto a well maintained route that leads through a crop of tall swaying aspen trees, bright green and watchful. Wolfwood swears he can feel their dark eyes on him even when they’ve moved past the grove to be swallowed by the dark green and auburn on towering pine. They pass by a sign a few miles up the wooded road when  fence finally starts to weave across the patches of grassy hill that break between the trees. It looks as natural as the forest, hewn from pine and carved into the reared head of a crazed looking horse. It reads: Saverem Ranch No Trespassing .

“Are you guys horse ranchers? Is that what all the talk about wild horses is about?” Wolfwood calls over the wind, after Vash has bumped them over an old cattle guard. 

“Not…really,” Vash replies, turning to give his attention to Wolfwood, and not the road that is pitching up steeply. “Like I said you’ll get all the information you need when we get there.”

“Great, now, fucking, look at the road!”

Vash laughs, turning his attention back onto the windshield, swerving away from the edge of the incline in a move that makes Wolfwood’s stomach turn over itself. The scenery is worth the traitorous road, Wolfwood thinks a little hysterically, clinging to the door for dear life, while watching a little river tumble at the bottom of a lush hill. It almost feels surreal. So much green, so much life. There are even butterflies dancing down in patches of bright yellow flowers. Something out of a fairytale. 

“Have you never seen a mountain meadow before?” Vash asks. And Wolfwood simply shakes his head, strangely embarrassed. He thinks he has, would caution to say he knows he has, but never like this. They come around a bend, the mountain looms above them. Dark green broken by patches of vibrant verdant. The trees march up and up for miles, covering the mountains like the hair on an animal. 

The fences have started to march uniformly along the road, barbed wire pulled taut and clean. And ahead of them, tucked up on a grassy hill, is the biggest cabin Wolfwood has ever seen. He must be gaping, because Vash lets out a breathy little chuckle, bringing the Power Wagon to a stop. 

“Well, welcome to the Saverem Ranch, Wolfwood.”

“Are we going to be staying there?” Wolfwood asks, getting out of the truck, tucking his hands into his belt loops, leaning back on his heels to admire the high windows, fat logs, and towering pine columns on the porch.

Vash yanks the saddle out of the bed of the truck, coming to stand next to Wolfwood. He’s inches taller than him, and there is a beauty mark kissed under his left eye. It’s distracting, the little mark, the only noticeable flaw on his face. Wolfwood finds his mind tripping on it, and really not just the mark but his height, the way he holds the saddle with ease over his shoulder. The way his hair actually seems to glow in the sun. Even the blue of his eyes, like nothing Wolfwood has seen before. 

“No.”

Wolfwood blinks, ripping his eyes off of Vash’s face, scrambling to resettle himself and find the frayed ends of whatever they were talking about. 

“What?”

Vash smiles at him. Fuck. Even his teeth are distracting, white, clean and straight, his canines hook over his bottom teeth. “No. That’s not where we’ll be staying. We will have dinner in the dining room tonight, though. I promised Milly.”

“Who?”

The saddle hitches up Vash’s shoulder. “You can head up to the house. You’ll meet her there. I gotta take this to the tack shed.” Vash holds out his hand again, “It’s good to meet you, Wolfwood.”

“You too.” 

Again the glove creaks. 

Wolfwood knocks on the cabin door–unsure of what to expect, half wishing he had insisted on going with Vash to the tack shed– and nearly chokes on his own spit when the man who opens the door looks like Vash if he’d been left out to bleach in the sun.

Cool blue eyes run up and down Wolfwood from head to the worn toes of his boots. “About time.” The door is left open even as the other man turns and moves up the long entrance hall. Wolfwood takes it as permission to enter;  he hurries after the man, trying not to stare for too long at the sheer amount of plant matter in the cabin, and the strange lack of mounts anywhere. There’s a whole fucking pine tree in the middle of the cabin. A thick log that’s blackened on one side, black fissures tracing through red bark. 

“Here.”  A paper is shoved into Wolfwood’s chest along with a pen. “Sign on that bottom line.”

“What’s this?” Wolfwood asks, mostly himself, as he scans down the paper. 

“Your contract, it starts today and ends whenever you drag yourself off the mountain,” the man drawls. “Your pay is also negotiated there. You’ll be paid for three months, no matter when you get down the mountain. Once the contract is terminated you will no longer be receiving pay. Sounds good?”

The number listed for Wolfwood’s salary makes him feel a little faint. That’s more money than he thinks he’s ever had, in one paycheck. He knows, just by looking at the house, that the ranch will be good on the money, but he still hesitates to scribble his signature on the line. 

“Is there a problem?”

“I don’t even know your name. Or who the hell you are.”

The man’s jaw flexes, he stands a little straighter. “I’m Nai Saverem, you’re boss and the owner of this ranch.”

“Well.” Wolfwood grins and sticks out his hand, “I thought I was going crazy when you opened the door. You look just like your brother. Nicholas D. Wolfwood, nice to meet you.”

Nai doesn’t even make a move to shake his hand. “Would have known that if and when you signed the contract. I’m not in the business to waste time, Mr. Wolfwood. And you’ve already pushed the schedule behind. Plenty of people want to do this job, on this ranch, getting paid by me, I can get you replaced in the next hour.”

Wolfwood puts pen to paper. 

He’s shown into a large living area and told to sit put and keep his hands to himself. Wolfwood stands by the hearth, unnerved by how quiet the cabin is. How obviously underclass he is compared to the couch across from him. Alone the damn thing could probably foot the price of the orphanage down in Red Ridge. Wolfwood shakes his head, aches for a cigarette, and distracts himself by admiring intricate woodwork and the strange lack of any pictures on the wall. 

“I think it would be wise to leave a letter, don’t you think so, Meryl?”

“Milly, if you could write one letter, I would absolutely say yes. But can you do that?”

Wolfwood stands straight as two voices and two sets of footsteps come down the staircase. The owners of the voices stop short in the large arching doorway into the living area when they see Wolfwood. 

“It’s about damn time,” says one of the women. Short, nearly comically so next to her amazon of a companion. She scowls hard at Wolfwood, crossing the room to get up in his face. “Are you aware how precarious the seasons up this high are? It’s important that everything is timed correctly or–”

“I’m Milly.” The other woman steps forward, putting a hand on her chest, smiling wide at Wolfwood. “And this is Meryl, are you here for the summer work?”

“Wolfwood,” Wolfwood says, “And yeah. You guys are my team?”

“That we are,” Meryl says. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Wolfwood holds up his hands in surrender, “Not at all, little lady. I was just expecting more I guess.”

“Me too!” Milly says, once again cutting Meryl off when she opens her mouth. “I was expecting an entire army of cowboys, but so far it's only been us, Mr. Saverem and Vash.”

As if summoned, the front door opens and slams. Vash rushes through the entrance hall, catches sight of them out of the corner of his eye and makes a flailing grab for the banister. His feet slip out from under him, loose on the rug, and he goes down hard. 

They stare at Vash as he fights his red duster in a losing battle, long limbs catching the fabric anytime he manages to get the slightest of upper hands. It’s Milly, crossing the room, kneeling on the floor and sorting out the mess, that finally gets him back to his feet. He grins, sheepish, hunching his shoulders up to his ears. 

“Thanks, this coat of mine is more trouble than it’s worth sometimes.” Vash looks around at them all. “Introductions went well?”

“Your brother is a dick,” Wolfwood drawls.

Vash blinks at him, “Nai? No.” His grin gets toothier somehow. “He’s just a strict boss. I’ve been working with him since I was small. You’ll get used to it!”

“Vash, are we heading out tonight?” Meryl asks. 

“Nope. Too late.” Vash has started to meander away from them, towards the rich smells coming from deeper in the cabin. 

“But–”

Vash turns and smiles at Meryl. A wide binding thing that unnerves Wolfwood into looking away. “It’ll be fine. Come on, dinner is on.”

Meryl frowns hard at him, “I really think we need to take into account that we’re starting almost a week late. If we have enough lights I’m sure we’ll be fine setting out tonight. Hand me a map and I swear I’ll find where we need to go.”

“No,” Vash says firmly. He doesn’t even really pause in his gait. Wolfwood shrugs at Meryl, content with the idea that he’ll get to eat something and sleep before he’s tossed out into unfamiliar country and forced to eat camp food for a few months. 

Dinner, like everything else Wolfwood has been exposed to since getting into Vash’s Power Wagon, feels rich. The table is piled with the closest thing to a feast Wolfwood has ever seen. A roast sits in a garnish of onions, potatoes and carrots. There’s a mountain of hot rolls piled–a shrine of gold on a large platter–steaming towards the high ceiling and wagon wheel chandeliers. There’s a green salad, a three bean salad, some other salad that Wolfwood can’t name, mashed potatoes and brown gravy. Wolfwood’s stomach makes itself known to the room and Nai, sitting at the head of the table, pointedly picks up a plate, fills it, and hands it to him. 

The food, so fucking good Wolfwood feels like he’s in a dream, is almost enough to distract him from how terribly awkward the meal actually is. Meryl attempts to start a conversation, but Nai largely ignores her, and Vash hums along, eyes on his plate as he cuts his meat into smaller and smaller pieces, never once taking a bite. Nai watches over them like a lord at the head of his table, hands folded on the place mat in front of his plate that he didn’t even bother to fill. It’s odd, Wolfwood registers somewhere in the back of his mind just how odd it is, but he can’t really find it in himself to care too much. More food for him anyways. 

Eventually as the meal wanes,  Meryl gives up and Nai clears his throat demanding their attention whether or not they’re finished eating.  He pulls a paper map from somewhere and pushes his plate towards the middle of the table. Vash follows the motion, leaning over the map when it’s been unfurled. 

“This.” Nai points to a point on the map. “Is The Top of the World.”

Meryl casts a glance at Wolfwood and leans up to look at the map. He leans closer too, squinting at the dotted lines and scribbled notes. 

“Is that the top of the mountain?” Meryl asks, looking up at Nai. He nods once. 

“This is the highest point on the property before you hit year round snow.” Nai drags his finger down a little lower, a few miles from the first point. “Here is base camp one. It’s along the northeast boundary line and borders onto the forest.”

“During the winter we lay down fence,” Vash says. He points to the tiny symbols that represent the fence line that tick across the greater expanse of the map. “It saves damages from heavy snow so when the summer comes we aren’t rebuilding a shit ton of fence. The downside,”he glances up at them, grinning a little apologetically, “when the snow melt is over, it’s our job to put the fence back up.”

Meryl nods seriously, her eyes trace up and down the miles and miles of fence. “Not a problem. I’ve worked fence about this length before.”

“Good,” Nai says, “but we have other crew’s working along the lower parts of the fence. If one crew tried to do it nothing would get done.”

“Great,” Wolfwood says leaning back in his chair, he feels full and tired after putting away two plates of dinner. “So we take care of the fence up at The Top of the World and call it a summer.”

“Not quite!” Vash chirps, “I mentioned wild horses to you. We have a herd that runs through the forest in the summertime. They’re kind of pests and unfortunately hunters and ranchers who have contracts with our ranch in the summer, will shoot and kill them.”

Nai scoffs. Vash ignores him and continues.

“The Forest Service runs a program that allows people to adopt a wild horse.”

Milly perks up, “Oh really? That’s so nice!”

“It’s not a traditional adoption,” Nai drawls. “These horses are damn near feral. Not even the best cowboy can break them, and we lack the facilities to properly corral them.”

“By ‘adoption’ the horses are more or less protected by the government,” Wolfwood says. He heard about a program like this when he was out in Danton working for some rich Wagyu rancher.  

“Right,” Vash says. “The government honestly doesn’t care about the horses, and hunters are often ignored if they shoot them.”

“What are we doing with the wild horses then?” Milly asks. 

Vash drags his glove covered hand down the map, tapping his forefinger to an x sketched a few miles below the first base camp. “We need to move them down out of the forest. That’s our compromise. We make sure the horses aren’t in the forests during the winter, and the Forest Service allows us to register them as adopted on our land.”

Meryl nods in approval. “The fence has to be up again before we move them down, right?”

“Right.”

A series of nods are shared around the table. Nai pulls the map back into his lap, folding it cleanly before handing it to Meryl. 

“I want Meryl and Milly to stay at the first base camp. It’s more important that the lower fence is maintained properly.”

Wolfwood snorts, “You calling me a shit fence builder?”

“You showed up to my ranch a week late,” Nai says, cutting a cool gaze at Wolfwood. “I’m calling you lazy.”

“Nai,” Vash says.

Vash’s twin shifts his gaze over, a tendon flexes in his neck. “You’re a good rider, or so I’m told, I need someone who’s confident in the saddle to push the horses down. They’ll be more resistant to moving from the trees. You’ll camp at The Top of the World.”

“With me,” Vash says. His fingers are tapping a rhythm into the table, when his brother turns to look at him sharply, Vash meets his gaze head on.

“We talked about this,” Nai snaps. “You aren’t going.”

Vash’s mouth goes tight, “I’m not spending another summer down here.”

“I don’t want you up there.”

“I know the land better than anyone, I know the horses better than anyone. I’m going.”

Wolfwood itches for a cigarette, or sleep, or both. He kicks a ragged, water swollen, boot onto the lip of Nai’s chair. The other man stiffens, turning to look down at Wolfwood’s shoe. Disgust twists his face. 

“Listen, I know it’s a bit of a foreign concept for you rich folks to do the dirty work, but a second hand up there with those horses would make the work go a whole lot quicker. I can’t fence and herd feral horses at the same time.”

“Exactly,” Vash says. He grins at Wolfwood, looking between him and his brother. “You want something to happen out there? We can’t have another cowboy go missing, Nai.”

Meryl turns so quickly towards the conversation Wolfwood marvels that her neck didn’t crack. “What do you mean ‘another’?”

Vash shrugs, eyes still on his brother. “Rough country up there.”

“You aren’t going.”

“God, Nai, stop being so stubborn. Someone needs to be out there to help make this run smoother. This is the smallest crew we’ve ever had try and do this. Something’s going to go wrong if we send them out there with nothing but a shitty map!”

Wolfwood is prone to agree. He’s not bad at fixing fence, but no one has actually mentioned how big this herd of horses is. A single wild stallion can be dangerous by itself, a herd is likely to have at least two, and depending on the season…nightmare scenarios are unfolding themselves in Wolfwood’s head. He’s not sure he’s willing to get killed up on some rich prick’s ranch, no matter the paycheck. And sure if there were an event where disaster struck, there isn’t much Vash could do, but at least Wolfwood wouldn’t be alone.

It’s Milly who breaks the silent conversation the brother’s seem to be having with their eyes. She raises her hand like she’s in school and when attention is turned to her she lowers her hands into her lap and smiles at them. 

“I get wanting to keep your brother safe, Mr. Saverem, but I think he has a point. We’ve never been in this country before, and while the map is very helpful, if something were to happen higher up, me and Meryl would be unable to help Mr. Wolfwood. I would feel more comfortable if he wasn’t up there alone.”

Meryl nods, “It doesn’t have to be Vash–”

“Uh, yeah it does,” Vash says. “If anyone’s going, it's going to be me.”

“Fine,” Meryl says tightly, “I think Vash should come with Wolfwood if he’s willing.”

Nai leans back slowly in his chair, “I could fire all of you right now.”

“Can’t,” Wolfwood says. “Signed the contract already, might as well get some work done for what you’d have to pay us.”

“Get your foot off my chair,” Nai sneers. Wolfwood drops his foot to the floor. “I think it’s time for you all to go to bed.”

They stand from the table, all but Vash who remains seated. Wolfwood sticks his hat back on his head and shakes a cigarette out into his palm. He sticks it cold between his teeth. 

“Which room is mine?”

Nai smiles at him, it’s more uncanny than Vash’s grins. “There’a a bunk house out by the barn. I expect you up the trail by five.” 

Vash is even taller on a horse. Sitting astride a brown mustang, hat cocked on his blond hair, a gun strapped to his hip. There are three other horses behind him, packed with bedrolls and other provisions. Milly and Meryl talk quietly to their horses, rubbing at long noses. Wolfwood saunters over looking up at Vash. 

“You coming?”

Vash grins, sharp canine hooking over his bottom lip.“Yup. You and me at The Top of the World.”

“Lets see if you can keep up,” Wolfwood says, walking over to the last horse. She’s white and seems to glare at him when Wolfwood holds out a hand knuckles up. The horse's velvety nose nips at his knuckles before she snorts, shakes her mane, and seems to accept that he’ll be riding her. She’s taller than many of the older horses Wolfwood rides on other jobs but he settles into her saddle, breathing in the cold alpine breeze that blows off the mountain. 

“I’m not useless,” Vash says. He’s turned his horse around to come side by side with Wolfwood. He looks out into the dawn darkness. The sun is nothing but a green glow in the east, making ponderosa nothing but tall shadows. “I was born in these mountains.”

Wolfwood hums, leaning forward over his horse's mane, gathering falling reins in one hand. “How long is it gonna take us to get out there?”

“Few hours.” Vash turns in his saddle looking back at Milly and Meryl. “You girls ready?”

Vash leads them out onto a well maintained trail that starts to slope upwards almost immediately. The horses trail steam into the air, but ahead of them green is bleeding out into gold that filters through vibrant aspen leaves. Wolfwood tips his head back and watches the forest come alive. The trees stretch sleepy limbs, shaking off cool dew. It drizzles down onto Wolfwood’s hat, and he takes it off, holding it with his reins so he can feel it in his hair. He’s never seen so many trees, and like the day before, he’s never felt a place so alive. In some ways it makes him feel so very small; the ponderosa rise, green crowned kings, and aspen watch like skeletal guards, their trunks tall rachis amidst the auburn wash of pine bark. 

“If you get lost,” Vash calls suddenly, snatching Wolfwood from the floaty surreal trance he was letting himself slip into. “Mountain meadows are a good bet that you’re getting back to the homestead.”

It's in one of these meadows where they stop for lunch. The sun grew hot fast, and Wolfwood can feel himself sweating through his hatband. They pull the heavy saddles off the horses and drop them in knee high grass, letting their mounts wander at their leisure while they collapse in the shade on pine carpeting, and dig through their mess kits. 

“What’s with the rifle, Milly?” Wolfwood asks. He’s sitting against a tree, wetting a bandana to slap it on the back of his neck. Milly is setting her lunch up on her lap and she looks over as her discarded saddle and the long lever action rifle tucked into a saddle holster.

“Oh, that’s Betty. I carry her with me wherever I go.”

Wolfwood’s eyebrows fly into his hairline and he laughs, “That’s a big gun to carry everywhere.”

“I think she suits me fine,” Milly says, and then she turns her attention to her meal. 

Vash and Meryl come back over to their imitation of a camp, bickering quietly over the best route to leave the meadow. Vash throws himself onto the ground next to Wolfwood. He’s shed his coat, but the sleeves of his shirts are still buttoned tight at his wrists. Wolfwood hands him the wax paper wrapped sandwich that had been shoved into the very bottom of their shared lunch pail. Vash takes it with a grin, sets it on his thigh, and doesn’t touch it again. Wolfwood frowns at the sandwich, it slides towards Vash’s own weapon every time he happens to shift.

“Are there bears up here?”

“Probably,” Vash says. “But I don’t think we need to worry too much about them.”

“You’re armed like you’re expecting something,” Wolfwood accuses. The rifle, Vash’s large piece, are making unease settle in Wolfwood’s gut. 

Meryl looks over at them, “I was thinking the same thing. I heard a rumor that you’re a sharpshooter.”

“Really?” Wolfwood asks, “The ranch princess is a sharp shooter?”

Vash shrugs, “Small towns breed rumors. One year there was a rumor running around that there was a headless chicken haunting coops all across the county.”

It's a very deliberate change in subject. Wolfwood narrows his eyes at Vash. The other man is all floaty smiles and high laughs, until someone says or does something that should be normal, and then he gets weird. The gun on his hip is silver and the gripes on the butt look well worn. Obviously it's been used, but why Vash would shy away from a title that would earn him respect from the roughest of types is beyond Wolfwood. 

“I’m not a bad shot myself,” Wolfwood says. His gun, an old pistol he stole from his bastard of an uncle, has three notches on the grip. “Hand it over,” he holds out his hand for the silver revolver.

Vash looks at him evenly before he stands up and motions Wolfwood to follow him. They walk out into the sunlight. Purple wildflowers–flags as one of the matrons at the home used to call them–and grass brush up to their knees. Vash’s hair catches every beam of sunlight and when he comes to a stand still, leaning on a propped hip a few yards from an aspen grove, he casts a strange image. Long spindly shadow cast off behind him, features washed out by the light, his skin almost hurts to look at. Wolfwood pauses a few steps from Vash’s back, tucking his hands into his pockets. 

The gun glimmers as Vash draws it from its holster with his gloved hand. Vash stands straight, mouth a firm line, eyes forward, feet spaced evenly apart. He holds out the gun towards an aspen tree with a large dark eye staring out at them, puts his finger on the trigger. Wolfwood’s breath catches in his throat, he tips forward a little bit on his toes. Vash pulls the trigger and the gun clicks. Once, twice, again, and again until the chamber has revolved completely around and nothing has exploded out of the long, thick, barrel. 

Vash turns to look at Wolfwood. 

“Oops.”

The gun hangs lax in his hand and he reaches up to tip his hat forward over his eyes, the brim pulling a shadow over Vash’s mouth. Wolfwood feels irritation rush through him, chased by the tail ends of humiliation at being so enthralled with what he was expecting to be a spectacle. 

“What kind of idiot walks around with an empty gun?” Wolfwood snaps. 

Vash laughs, he twirls his revolver around his finger and drops it cleanly back into its holster. “An idiot who doesn’t want to get shot in the foot.”

“Damn moron.” Wolfwood turns on his heels and stomps back towards the shade of the trees. Meryl gives him an unimpressed look as he drops back to the ground. Vash is cackling where he stands in the sun.

“At least he didn’t give it to you,” Meryl says, she looks like she licked a lemon, face scrunched up as she watches Vash slowly get ahold of himself.
Wolfwood shakes his head and tips his canteen up to his mouth. 

They reach the first camp three hours after they’d stopped for lunch. There’s a canvas tent tucked up on a little bald hill and a little stream trickles its way between the forest and the wash of grass that breaks the marching trees. Wolfwood can see the downed fence being grown over by grass and wildflowers. Pine fence posts are strong through, straight and strong. The barbed wire will hopefully only need to be stretched and stapled back in place. 

Meryl slides off her horse and surveys what will be her home for the next few months. “Do you have any restrictions when it comes to firewood?”

“None,” Vash says, getting off his horse too. “There should be some fallen trees, aspen mostly, in the forest that should be good to cut.”

Milly nods a little too happily at the prospect of the hard work. She heaves an ax onto her shoulder and turns her sights to the trees. 

“Wait up, Milly,” Meryl says. “I’ll go with you.”

Vash pulls two sets of old walkie talkies out of his saddle bags and hands them to Meryl. “As long as you can see the top of this mountain, you’ll be in range.”

“How long have you had those?” Wolfwood asks.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Vash says absently without turning to look at him. “It’s a few more hours up for me and Wolfwood, so if anything happens it’s gonna take us a while to get down to you.”

“Don’t worry,” Milly chirps. “We can take care of each other!”

“Don’t doubt it!” Vash says. 

The sun is threatening to leave them now, as they set up the camp. There isn’t much Meryl will allow Wolfwood and Vash to do in their tent, but they hang a clothes line and Vash helps Meryl scope out the best place to start working on the fence. Eventually though he comes back to Wolfwood’s side, checks his horse over and points to the waning sun. 

“We gotta ride fast.”

And they do. They push their horses into trots, climbing up out of the base camp meadow and into timberline. No conversation is passed between them, but occasionally Vash will stand in his stirrups and look out at something Wolfwood can’t see. He asked twice when Vash did it, and twice Vash ignored him. So Wolfwood looks on when he sees Vash shift in his saddle. Maybe he’s looking for landmarks, Wolfwood hopes he’s looking for landmarks and not creatures that lurk behind the trees that are casting long dark shadows. 

Wolfwood can tell they’re getting higher as the horses strain up inclines, but eventually the trees break and Wolfwood’s breath catches in his throat at the mountain meadow that opens up in green expanse before them. The wildflowers are more numerous in shade and shape, tucked into rolling grass and ferns. Vash pulls his horse to a stop, he grins out at the land, inhaling deeply. 

“Top of the World,” he says, turning that grin onto Wolfwood.

Vash hops from his horse, taking the animal’s reins he walks towards the bottom of a hill. Wolfwood follows his example, following behind Vash, leading his horse. He stops to touch as many wildflowers as he can. Large yellow ones, tiny ones that are a vibrant pink, delicate bell shaped blooms the color of blue dawns. 

“Do you like flowers, Wolfwood?”Vash is watching him. He’s stripped his horse of the heavy saddle and thrown it over his own shoulder.

Wolfwood straightens and shrugs. He tucks his hand into his pocket. “Don’t see many flowers where I’m from.”

Vash smiles, hitching up his load. “Fair enough, friend. Come we have a hike before we get to camp.”

The canvas tent, identical to the one the girls have at base camp, is at the top of the hill, and Wolfwood thinks that Vash was a little premature in calling the meadow below them The Top of the World, because this, standing on the hill, bent over and panting, the air almost thin, does feel like standing on the top of the world. Wolfwood can see for miles. The little specks of the horses down in the meadow, a dull sparkle as the last of the sunlight hits a lake tucked into an opening in the forest. Further down the mountain still, Wolfwood can make out the little glint of Meryl and Milly’s fire. He feels taller than the trees, tall enough to reach up and yank down the northern star that has fought her way into the darkening sky. 

Wolfwood lets out a breathless laugh. He swipes his hat off his head, mops his hair off his sweaty forehead and turns in a slow circle, hungry to take in everything he can see. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Vash asks. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, observing the dark forests and rolling meadows like some king. And Wolfwood supposes he is exactly that, a king over all this bountiful land. 

“Fucking gorgeous,” Wolfwood murmurs. “I’d kill someone to own this.”

Vash chuckles, holding up his hands. “I won’t go down easily.”

Wolfwood shakes his head and puts his hat back on, he turns to the mess of their supplies tossed onto the ground at the base of a gnarled tree that looks as if it was struck by lightning many years ago. “Let's get camp set up before the sun goes down.”

They’re at a disadvantage the girls aren’t at when it comes to fire wood, they climbed up and out of the forest instead of just out. Vash leaves Wolfwood to lay out bedrolls in the musty tent and dig a fire pit while he takes a hatchet and hikes down to a grove of squat cedar trees. It’s then that the long melancholy cries of coyotes start to fill the still air. Wolfwood pauses in his task to look towards where he thinks it might be coming from. Down in the plains he thinks the coyotes sounded a little sadder, a little hungrier, a little more crazed. The coyotes– that would stalk a man through the heat of the day just because they were hungry enough to risk it–were thin lines of slinking deception. Eyes keen and frantic. The type of creature to chew off its own leg if caught in a trap. When they cried at night, Wolfwood would lie awake clutching his weapon and think about all the things he’d lost.

Sticks clatter to the ground behind Wolfwood. He turns back to placing rocks around the shallow pit he’d dug asVash settles on one of the smoothed logs set in front of the soon to be fire. Wolfwood glances up at him. Vash looks out over the valley below them, mouth a gentle line. The blue of his eyes should be washed out as night eats the sky, but Wolfwood finds himself once again caught in the way they pool, gleaming with a light that isn’t there.

“What’re you looking at?” Wolfwood asks before his brain can register he’s talking. Vash’s mouth ticks up into a smile. He points out into the dense trees below them. 

“There’s a coyote there. She’s been watching us.”

Wolfwood squints into the dim. There is no way Vash should be able to see any further than a few feet down the hill. It’s too dark to even make out the individual shapes of trees. “Bullshit.”

Vash laughs, “Nope. She’s there alright.” The other man gets off the log, kneeling by Wolfwood to start building a fire. “She probably won’t hurt us, but I don’t want her messing with the horses tonight, so I’ll keep watch for a little while.”

The fire comes alive once Vash lights the pine needles he’s stuffed into his pyramid of kindling with one of Wolfwood’s matches. They lean back in unison to watch the fire catch and flare. The wood burns fragrant and hot; in their little circle of light there is little cold. Wolfwood pulls out a cigarette, leans forward to light it on the fire before easing back again. He tips his head back to look up at the stars that are slowly but surely making their appearance. Wolfwood can see the very edge of Ursa Major’s handle, the sky still a little too light for her partner or the rest of her body to be visible. 

Vash shifts next to him and Wolfwood drops his eyes from the heavens. He plucks the cigarette from his mouth and shoves it towards Vash.

“Want a drag?”

Vash considers for a moment before he reaches forward and takes the cigarette. He holds it almost daintily in his gloved hand bringing it up to his mouth to purse his lips primly around the filter. The action clashes oddly with his grimy duster and the afternoon sun stained on his cheeks. The lines of his throat are fluid when he leans back and blows out a long, clean, stream of smoke. When he passes the cigarette back to Wolfwood he nearly fumbles it, then takes a shaking drag to recenter his wandering mind. 

“So,” Vash says suddenly. The mountain eats his voice, makes it sound tiny and insignificant. “What’s your story?”

Wolfwood smirks around the filter, biting down until it threatens to split. “Bit pushy don’t you think?”

Vash shrugs. He gathers a long stick from the ground and pokes at a log that’s fallen out of the center of the flames. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but there isn’t much else to do up here, and I’m saving the booze for when we get desperate.”

“You brought alcohol?” Wolfwood asks, trying to search out Vash’s saddle in the dark. 

“Damn right I did,” Vash says. “You don’t seriously think I’d be out here for four and a half months without any whiskey do you?”

Wolfwood laughs out a mouthful of smoke and hands the cigarette back to Vash. “Should have mentioned that sooner, I tend to get a little loose tongued when I’m drunk, doll.”

Vash smiles lazily at him, “Sounds like you’re bribing me when it should be the other way around.”

“I’ll talk if we drink, Vash.”

The whiskey tastes expensive. They share the flask back and forth like the cigarette and Vash asks once again what his story is. Wolfwood feels sated, the liquor making him warm and sleepy, the smell of tobacco familiar, and the cool fresh air allowing him to maintain a well appreciated  grasp on what’s going on around him. 

“It’s a pretty boring story,” Wolfwood says after the cigarette has burned down to nothing and he’s finished a mouthful of whiskey to satiate the desire to pull out another.

“I don’t think that’s true.” Vash’s voice is slightly slurred, and he’s slowly but surely oozed down from the log until he’s more or less laying on the ground. “No one’s story is boring.”

“You say sentimental crap like that all the time?”

“You act like you got a stick up your ass all the time?”

Wolfwood snorts and snatches the flask from Vash as he lifts it towards his mouth. “Never knew my parents, which is pretty much anyone who grew up in Loreno. Had an uncle on my dad’s side who had a pig farm out by the Mud Puddle, s’what we called the culvert that runs through there, and I went to live with him after I outgrew the bassinet the pastor and his wife kept for me in their living room.”

“Nice of them to take you in,” Vash mumbles, looking up at Wolfwood with big eyes.

Wolfwood shrugs, his shoulders feel loose.  “Think it was probably to help ‘em look better to the town. People don’t much care for religion out in Loreno.”

“You wear a rosary,” Vash says. His gloved hand is suddenly in Wolfwood’s space, hovering right above the subtle bump under Wolfwood’s shirt.

“Yeah,” Wolfwood mutters a little taken aback by the fact that Vash knows he wears it. He reaches up a clumsy hand to bat away Vash’s fingers. “I’m gettin there.”

Vash pouts, but returns to his spot on the log. He folds his hands behind his head making a flicking motion for Wolfwood to continue. 

“Pig farms suck, and bastard uncles suck more.” Here Wolfwood hesitates. His gun, an old pistol he stole from his uncle, has three notches in the grip. He put the first one there when he was eleven the morning after he shot his uncle dead and fled into the desert. Wolfwood has confessed to the murder once, down on his knees in a confessional, begging a priest, notch number two, for god's forgiveness.

Vash is all red and gold in the fire light. He’s looking at Wolfwood expectantly, eyebrows furrowed. Wolfwood looks away into the fire. He puts another log on, just for something to do. 

“I left my uncle not long after he took me in. Was there about five years.”

“You were a child?”

Wolfwood hums.

“Who cared for you then?”

The flask of whiskey is getting low, it’s light when Wolfwood picks it up. “No one for a while, but eventually I found Brother Michael's Home for Children. Or they found me, I don’t really remember. They took me in, that’s where I learned how to be a church man.”

“You don’t look like a church man.” Vash drags his eyes lazily over Wolfwood from head to toe.

“Nah. Didn’t fit me too well, but sometimes I like to keep a little bit of His love around when I get desperate.” Wolfwood isn’t sure what compels him to do so, but he reaches into his shirt and pulls out his rosary. He brings it to his mouth and presses his lips to it, eyes caught on Vash’s. Vash swallows, the motion threatens to drag Wolfwood’s attention away to the long liquid gold lines of Vash’s throat. 

“Do you get desperate often?” Vash whispers.

“You’ve got no idea, doll.”

The draw of their eyes feels like it closes the space between them. Wolfwood feels like physically leaning forward to put himself into Vash’s atmosphere, maybe just to see what would happen. His mouth tastes of old silver, and Vash’s licks his own lips before looking away. It breaks whatever had layered hot and fast between them.

“I suppose that could be true for most of us,” Vash says. He’s looking at the fire now, sitting straighter, almost turned into himself. 

The rosary falls back into Wolfwood’s shirt, warm against his sternum. “Yeah, guess it could.”

It’s quiet before Vash glances at him, “So how did church man transition to rodeo cowboy?”

“Can’t live on tithing,” Wolfwood says. “Easiest way to come into money is get your ass handed to you by a bull a couple times, and get good enough at staying on a bronc that anyone will hire you to break in their two-year olds.”

“Did that get boring? How’d you end up here?”

Wolfwood flicks a twig into the fire. “Got arrested a year ago. Ran with a group of guys I probably shouldn’t have. When I got out I figured it was probably time to get back on the ol’ straight and narrow.”

“But not so straight and narrow, church man.”

“Shut up.”

Vash laughs loudly, sitting up to shimmy out of his coat. The fire catches on the silver casing of his gun and Wolfwood reaches out before he can stop himself to run the tips of his fingers along the metal that’s exposed above worn leather. 

“You’re relentless,” Vash says quietly. Gloved fingers join Wolfwood’s, popping up the little strap that’s clasped to the side of the holster keeping the gun secure.

“I’ve never seen a gun like that before.”

Vash pulls it out, turning it in the fire light. There’s an engraving along the barrel indicating the gun's make and model. It’s a .45v Long Colt, but even then it looks nothing like sister guns that Wolfwood has seen. Too big, it fits perfectly in Vash’s grip, he holds it like it weighs nothing, but it has to have heft to it.

“Can you really shoot it, or do you carry it around like it’s a belt buckle?”

Vash smirks at Wolfwood, “I don’t need a fancy piece to prove I’ve got a big dick.”

Wolfwood chokes on spit, his eyes flying–without his consent– to the front of Vash’s jeans, before he tears them away just as quickly. The other man is standing, digging around in his pocket. He extracts a single bullet. Wolfwood watches from the ground, his stomach doing odd things, as Vash lazily flicks open the chamber, slots the bullet into the first cylinder and slides everything back into place. 

“A gun like this can normally shoot accurately about a hundred yards.” Vash points out into the dark towards the little grove of cedar trees. “There’s a tree at the edge of that grove that’s oh, maybe a hundred and fifty yards off.”

When he pulls the trigger, this time the gun explodes into the night. The coyote's whines are silenced and Wolfwood’s hands fly to his ears. It rings around the mountain, coming back to them before fading out. Vash turns back to Wolfwood playfully blowing on the muzzle. 

“The fuck did you do that for?” Wolfwood snaps, taking his hands away from his face, working his jaw to ease the headache starting to eat at his temples. Vash holsters his gun and crosses his arms over his chest. He frowns down at Wolfwood. 

“In the morning there will be a hole in that tree.”

“Bullshit. It’s pitch black out here, no moon. The bullet went nowhere.”

Vash raises a brow at him, “Wanna go see?”

“No.” Wolfwood staggers to his feet. “I’m going to sleep.”

Shrugging, Vash sits back on the log, “Suit yourself. Sleep tight.”

Wolfwood grumbles at him, turns on his heel and marches towards the tent. He crawls under his blanket with his boots on. A chill is already starting to permeate the top of the mountain. Wolfwood knows he’ll be freezing before morning, still he presses his eyes closed, wishing that Vash hadn’t shut the world up with the gun.

It’s the cold that wakes Wolfwood shivering from a restless sleep. It's still dark out, and deathly quiet. The twin bedroll is still empty. Wolfwood fights out of his blankets to stick his head out of the canvas flap at the front of the tent. He looks blurrily up at the sky. The stars have moved, it’s been a few hours at least since Wolfwood crawled into the tent. It’s darker than it should be, he realizes belatedly. The fire is out but the outline of Vash is still perched on the log. Wolfwood squints at him, cursing quietly as he all but falls out of the tent. Vash doesn’t move, doesn’t even acknowledge the sounds Wolfwood made. He wonders if the other man fell asleep sitting up.

“Gonna freeze to death,” Wolfwood mutters. “Vash. Vash what the hell are you–”

Vash finally turns to look at him. Wolfwood is under his blankets again before he can register stumbling back into the tent. The flap falls shut behind him, but he swears he can still see the uncanny glow through beige. He lays down stiffly, staring at Vash’s side of the tent. It’s late. It’s cold. Wolfwood is tired. That’s all. He’s tired. 

There’s a goddamned hole screwed straight through the middle of a short, squat, cedar, the next morning. Wolfwood traces a finger over it, turning back to look up the hill where Vash had stood the night before. He shields his eyes from the rising sun. The top of the tent is barely visible, and the glint of the coffee pot that sits over the fire is nothing more than a wash of silver light. 

“Told you,” Vash calls. He meanders over to Wolfwood, their horses at his back. 

“I don’t fucking believe it,” Wolfwood mutters. He smooths his hair back and pops his hat onto his head. He holds his hand out for his horse’s reins. Vash passes them over and swings gracefully into his saddle.

“Proof is right there,Cowboy.” Vash smirks, turning his horse to the North, sitting up straighter and taking a long breath of fresh mountain air. 

Wolfwood’s mare resists a little as he eases her towards Vash, choosing not to grace him with a response. His horse dances where she stands, tossing her head up, pacing back and forward. Wolfwood pulls on the reins, cursing the mare under his breath. 

Vash reaches out, casual, eyes facing forward, and pets his hand along the horse's coarse white mane. “We call her Tillie.”

“And?” 

The horse shakes her mane again, dislodging Vash’s hand. She nips at his quickly retreating fingers. “Might make her a little nicer if you refer to her by her name.”

“Ya’ll gave me a shitty horse,” Wolfwood snaps. Vash shrugs at him, clicking his mouth and digging his heels lightly into his geldings' flanks. “Where are we going?”

“Down there a little ways, we need to check the boundary split and then we’ll work south on the fence.”

Wolfwood’s mood gets subtly better as the sun climbs higher into the sky, and they set out into the green wash of mountain grass. He thaws in his saddle, and Tillie’s sour mood seems to lighten along with his. He whistles, leaning back in his saddle to look up at the sky, or the blue jays that flit from tree to tree, pausing to look down at Vash. His companion  doesn’t say much, even when they look over the intersection of the fence and start the tedious task of setting the wire to rights. He does sing though, kneeling on the ground, staples in his mouth, eyes elsewhere as he uses a pair of ancient bulldogs to tack the top wire in place. Wolfwood shuts up so he can listen to the odd song, biting back curses as the barbs catches his sleeves and sneaks between his glove and cuff to nick at the delicate skin of his wrist.

The sun is at ten in the sky when Vash suddenly freezes.  They’re working shoulder to shoulder, fighting with the third wire. Wolfwood looks over at him when it goes slack in his hands. 

“What?”

Vash is staring out into the forest before he smiles slowly and lifts an even slower finger up to point into oak undergrowth. 

“I can’t see sh-”

Leather covers his mouth and Wolfwood bites down hard before he can think better of it. Vash yowls like an angry cat, shoving at Wolfwood’s shoulder with his free hand as he pulls away. The horse, a young thing, goes kicking out of the undergrowth. It’s little mane goes flying dusky brown in the sun, and tiny hooves kick up dirt and rock as it sprints away. Wolfwood stares dumbfounded  after it. 

“The fuck did you bite me for?!”

Wolfwood turns slowly to scowl at Vash, cowering away, hand held protectively to his chest, a goddamned pout quivering his mouth. “You’re the one who covered my mouth outta nowhere. Don’t do that shit. I bite.”

Vash shakes his head, mopping sweat off his forehead, pushing his hat up until it does nothing against the sun. “ Wolf wood. Makes sense I suppose. Got a strong bite, bet I have indents.”

But he doesn’t remove the glove to check.

“Your eyesight is damn near uncanny.” Wolfwood gets to his feet, gathering the wire in his hand, pulling it taut again. “I couldn’t see anything in those weeds.”

Silently Vash joins him, stapling the wire to the post. Wolfwood watches him out of the corner of his eye. “Guess I’m just used to the land up here.”

Wolfwood grunts. “Just whisper or some shit next time. I’m guessing that was one of the horses?”

Humming, Vash twirls his bulldogs in his hand and slides them into a loop on his belt. “Young one too. My guess is they’re behind the camp. Not too far up, which is good.”

“There’s further up?”

“In a sense. Up as in down and straight, not up.” He says it as if anything that fell out of his mouth made any sense. Vash knocks the toe of his boot against the next stay they come up to. It wobbles. Vash frowns, reaches down, and yanks it out of the ground. The smell of wet soil, wood rot and a collection of bugs spring from the hole left in the post’s place. He tosses the rotting wood into the forest and goes for the ax strapped to the back of his saddle. “We need a new post, come on.”

Wolfwood follows him into the woods wondering a little hysterically if he’s going to be murdered, body left in a shallow grave dug by an ax, for the wildlife to eat at until he’s nothing but scattered bones. Vash starts to sing his song again crouching to inspect downed logs. Thick white aspen and ancient ponderosa. Wolfwood looks for a branch that is about the same width as the post Vash had torn from the ground. 

“Height is a little more important,” Vash calls over. “We’ll put in a stay to make up for lack of girth.”

Wolfwood wrinkles his nose but pulls his bulldogs to hack at a collection of smaller branches. 

At noon they break for lunch and then they ride back towards camp, but instead of climbing up, they go around. Weaving between the trees, a green spread of a meadow ahead of them, Wolfwood can’t help but lose most of the care he had about how hot it is, or how Vash seems to forget that Wolfwood hasn’t worked fences like this before. It’s hard to care about things like that when Wolfwood has never felt so free. It’s almost terrifying when they break from the trees and Vash puts his horse into a light trot. Wolfwood urges Tillie to match his pace. The wind yanks at his hat and clothes, grass reaches up to brush at Wolfwood’s stirrups, and the sky opens up around them. It feels like he’s been taken from the familiar and tossed into the air, a bird told to fly, not to survive, simply because he can. 

Vash lets out a high laugh, “Look alive! I see our baby!”

The little horse is ripping through the grass, nose pointed firmly in one direction, hooves flying over the ground. Leading them straight to the herd. Vash slows his horse, pulling him to a stop. He stands in his stirrups, lifting a pair of binoculars to his eyes. His mouth spreads into a wide grin and he hands them over to Wolfwood. The herd is large, larger than Wolfwood had anticipated. They graze in a wet meadow by a faint trickling waterfall. It doesn’t fall down a cliff, just down an incline in the grassy land, feeding into the stream. 

“There they are.” Wolfwood whistles low. “Do you have any idea how many stallions there are?”

Vash cocks his head to the side. He reaches into his duster with his gloved hand and digs out a water creased notebook. “Last year there were at least two, but that number will have changed. Considering the grazing has been good this year and there were a lot of babies out there, I’d say it’s gone up.”

“Great. So is there a method to this or do we just charge 'em and hope for the best?”

Vash shakes his head. Tucking away his notebook he reclaims his reins and turns his horse. “Not if you wanna make it outta this alive, Cowboy. They’re in a really good spot right now. We need to look for stragglers in the trees, push them out to the rest of the herd and then pray that they don’t move until the girls are ready for us.”

Wolfwood follows Vash’s lead into the woods. It’s denser here, the horses struggle a bit, but they push on. The first wild horses they stumble upon are a mare and a yearling that must be hers. Vash whistles high, smacking his reins against his horse's mane. 

“Move with me!” Vash calls over his shoulder before he’s kicking his horse's flanks, pushing into a gallop. Wolfwood goes to follow him before he falls back and goes around to flank the horses as Vash pushes them back towards the entrance of the forest. The yearling kicks up its feet, Vash’s whistle pitches lower, Wolfwood pulls his horse into a gentle gait and follows right by the yearling, refusing to let it cut out into the woods. The mother comes accordingly. 

Vash is all smiles when the pair are on their way to the rest of the herd, he twists around in his saddle to look at Wolfwood. His hat knocked back, energy bruning pink in his cheeks, his blue eyes ablaze. Wolfwood meets him for the hand he’s holding out. 

“Nice riding,” Vash says, clasping Wolfwood’s hand. “That was the easiest I’ve ever done that.”

“Yeah?” Wolfwood grins.

Vash matches it, canine’s shining, “Yeah. We’re gonna make a good team.”

They search the forest for hours, they laugh silently back and forth over shitty bar jokes Wolfwood had picked up and stuck in the back of his head for a cheap party trick. Vash laughs at all of them, even ones that Wolfwood finds dull.  Vash sings softly and the longer Wolfwood listens the less he understands what the lyrics are. But he listens anyway and occasionally Vash will look over his shoulder just to smile at Wolfwood. Vash points out landmarks, old roads that are all but grown back into the land, and tells him strange stories about old prospectors and peace finders wandering into these woods never to be seen again. 

“Were you serious about the cowboy going missing?” Wolfwood asks. They’ve stopped to rest the horses. Vash is guzzling from a canteen, head thrown back, excess water slipping from the seams of his mouth and trailing down the long plains of his neck. 

“Yeah,” Vash says, after dropping the canteen back to his hip and running his wrist over his mouth. “Few summers ago we had a guy go missing up here.” Vash looks wary. “We never found him, or his remains.”

“What do you recon happened to him?”

Vash shrugs, “I have theories. Forests are old, land is old. They take what they want, remove what they think needs to be removed. And animals need to eat.”

The trees around them shiver. Everything seems to close in on them. The horses nicker, ears pressing back. Vash looks sharply up, mouth pulled into a line as he glares up the craggy bark of a ponderosa. 

“These trees smell like butterscotch.”

Wolfwood blinks at him, thrown by the change in subject. He leans close to the tree and inhales. A sweet scent fills his nostrils. Something earthy but absolutely like something you’d smell walking into a chocolate shop. It reminds him starkly of stepping into the candy shop in town when he was a little kid at Christmas time. He’d get an apple, the ones that didn’t make the batch for caramel apples, and the scent was the closest thing to Christmas candy he’d get. 

“It’s good isn’t it?” Vash asks. Wolfwood blinks, pulling away from the tree, blinking away the glossiness in his eyes.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “What makes them do that?”

“Not sure. I’m not too good with the science stuff about what goes on out here.”

Vash moves back towards his horse. Wolfwood presses his nose back to the tree before following him. The sun is rapidly setting by the time Vash calls the day. They’d pushed eight single horses and three pairs back into the meadow.  They lost one young stallion who threw his head in indignation to them, blue eyes wild, mouth starting to foam. Vash had a stare down with the animal before he waved Wolfwood off and let it go. They have to retrace their steps perfectly to come out in an area where the horses won’t immediately spook. Vash takes a sharp turn to the left at a fallen tree Wolfwood remembers not turning left at earlier. 

“Where are you going?”

Vash waves his hand in front of him, “This is a long cut, there’s a meadow up here I think you’d like. Don’t worry, I can’t get us lost.”

Wolfwood still hesitates. The woods had become more friendly to him as the hours wore on, and the unease from Vash’s stories had eased away, but there is still that niggling little fear chanting in the back of Wolfwood’s head. 

“You scared?” Vash has stopped, he’s turned around in his saddle watching Wolfwood from under the brim of his hat. Wolfwood watches him evenly refusing to say anything. Vash tips his head down, “Don’t worry. Nothing is going to touch you.”

Wolfwood nudges his horse back into motion. “You sound confident for having a history of missing people on this ranch.”

Vash’s smile slips for a split second before he’s laughing, “Well there’s a reason I wanted to come out here you know. I am confident.”

As they move out of damp shade into larger swathes of falling sunlight, Wolfwood isn’t sure if he feels any more comforted. 

The meadow isn’t large, it’s tiny in comparison to where the horses are and the meadow below their camp. But it glows like something unnatural, which makes little sense to Wolfwood simply because there is nothing man made about anything on the entire ranch. But it looks like heaven. Lush in green hues, and speckled with a variety of bright flowers. Vash slides soundlessly off his horse, and for once Wolfwood is able to see what has caught his attention. Tucked into a soft pat of silky grass, is a tiny fawn, milky brown speckled with cream.  

Wolfwood leaves his saddle delicately, tucking himself down next to Vash where the other man has folded himself into a ball, knees tucked to his chest. They watch the little creature smell the world around it with a quivering nose. Vash moves suddenly, shuffling towards the baby. Wolfwood is tempted to grab the back of his coat and yank him back, or hiss at him to leave the thing alone before he ruins the serenity of the moment. But sudden movement would definitely scare the creature away, so Wolfwood screams cuss words at Vash in his head as the man holds out his hand palm up. 

The baby struggles onto little feet and Wolfwood mourns the loss of the little creature, but then from the dark green of the encroaching woods, a doe steps out. She pauses to run her nose along her baby’s back, and then to Wolfwood’s amazement, she settles it into Vash’s palm. Vash scratches under her chin, leans forward and whispers what a good job she’s doing with her baby. 

Wolfwood sits back heavily on his ass, swiping his hat off his head, pushing his hand through his sweaty hair. He wishes that he had something to capture the moment. One of those cameras the rich people in cities have, or a talent for drawing. Anything to save the impossibility of it all, for the fucking beauty of Vash kneeling in the grass talking to the fucking wildlife. He’s a slant of sunlight among sunlight. Hair molten gold, eyes a strange, nearly clear blue that seem to look straight through Wolfwood when he turns to him grinning. Wolfwood isn’t a poetic man, but he thinks maybe this is what Eden must have been like. Gold and green and Vash. What he wouldn’t give to see the man stripped down to nothing but the grass to hide his modesty. He feels half crazy with the thought. An unchecked laugh falls out of his mouth. The doe looks up, the fawn looks up, Vash looks up. They all turn accusing eyes onto Wolfwood and the doe steps away from Vash to nudge her baby back into the shelter of the trees. 

Vash watches him cooly before he sighs, swings to his feet, and looks up at the sky. “Lessgo.”

“She a pet of yours?” Wolfwood asks after they’ve hiked back up to their camp and thrown a meal of biscuits and beans onto the fire. Vash is laying on the ground, hands tucked behind his head staring up at the blanket of stars turning the night a muted silver around them. 

“The doe?”

“Mm,” Wolfwood hums around a spoonful of dinner. Beans and biscuits are pretty much prison food, but they taste like they never have, lightly seasoned by mountain air.  

“Nah. Don’t need her to be my pet, just my friend.”

Wolfwood chews slowly, “Right.” He fills the second bowl, left untouched in their mess pack since they set up camp, and shoves it at Vash. The other man takes it slowly. “Eat it. I haven’t seen you eat anything all day.”

Vash smiles tightly but tucks in. Wolfwood watches him for a few bites before he turns back to his food. “You’re an animal whisperer or something?”

“No. I told you, I grew up here.”

Wolfwood stretches out, crossing his ankles. “Well I grew up in the Loreno plains and I sure as hell can’t get a coyote to lay its nose in my hand. Probably shoot it if it did anyways.”

“Oh?” Vash has a judgmental eyebrow raised. 

“Rabies. Only way a coyote would ever approach ya.”

“Oh,” Vash laughs. He sets his bowl aside, mostly full still, but Wolfwood doesn’t say anything about it. “It’ll rain in a few days.”

“You gotta stop that shit.” Wolfwood glares at him. He digs around in his pocket for his cigarettes, still glaring as he puts it between his lips and strikes the match on the sole of his boot. 

“What shit?”

“Changing the subject.”

Vash laughs again, rolling onto his elbow and holding out a hand for the cigarette. “What else did you want me to say about rabid coyotes? And I figured you’d want to know if it's gonna rain soon.”

The sky is perfectly clear. So clear it’s a little intimidating in its vastness, like a gaping void unchecked and unchallenged by any other force. Wolfwood sucks in a long drag of smoke. Maybe he is poetic. Maybe this mountain is making him poetic. 

“Should I even ask how you know that?”

Vash smiles at him, a part of Wolfwood kind of wishes he would stop. “It’s monsoon, that’s all. We’re due for another storm.”

“Are they bad up here?”

The cherry at the end of the cigarette flares brightly when Vash sucks in a heavy lungful of smoke. He blows it out slowly, eyes drifting to something over Wolfwood’s shoulder. 

“Depends, I guess.”

His voice is quiet, far off, small in a way Wolfwood didn’t think it could be. He drops the subject and accepts that there will be rain soon. When the cigarette burns down Wolfwood takes the place where Vash had sat the previous night. He flicks his hand towards the tent when Vash stands, brushes himself off and hovers. 

“You got watch last night. Go on.”

“Right. Night, Wolfwood.” 

Wolfwood lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when the flap on the tent closes behind Vash. The night grows darker now that he’s alone, the dying fire doing little to warm him, or cast light beyond a few feet. The coyotes start to cry in the distance. Wolfwood pulls his coat tighter around his shoulders and hunkers down. 

The days bleed into routine quickly. They fence for miles, monitor the horses who seem to move slightly over the next week, closer to camp then edging away. Vash doesn’t seem very alarmed by their shifting, so Wolfwood isn’t either. It’s hot, hard work but nights around the fire are lazy and warm. They laugh over stupid shit they’ve done on horseback. Vash tells a wild tale about beating the best poker players in town without knowing how to play poker in the slightest. Wolfwood tells him about the slightly more legal things he used to do when he ran with the outlaws. And then on a Sunday, and a rare day off for all of them, it starts to rain. 

The thunderheads had been moving in all morning. Ozone gathering in the air, zapping the pine scent of the forest up to a hundred. Vash stands at the edge of their camp, binoculars in hand, watching lighting strike over the trees. His mouth moves silently as he counts the miles between thunder. Wolfwood is packing up everything he can, shoving their fire pit under a tarp, manhandling saddles and other tack into the sparse corners of the tent. It’s gonna be a tight fit. 

Thunder shatters the air around them, popping Wolfwood’s ears, shaking the ground. And the sky opens up. The initial downpour is heavy, ripping the ground into silky puddles, flattening the tarp and hammering a loud rhythm on the canvas roof of the tent. 

“Vash!” Wolfwood calls over the sound, “Come on!”

Vash hurries across the campsite, sliding in the mud, threatening to fall a few times. But he makes it to the tent and allows Wolfwood to shove him forcibly into the damp interior. Wolfwood crawls in after him, tying the flap closed. He grimaces at the mud they both managed to drag onto old wood boards. Vash kicks his boots off, sticking them as close to the edge of the tent as he can get without pushing them out into the rain. He scoots back onto his bedroll. Wolfwood follows suit, shaking his wet hair out. 

“You look like a wet bird,” Wolfwood mutters, looking over as Vash. Hair plastered down across his face, dripping steadily onto his shirt. 

“No use trying to fix it now,” Vash dismisses. He pulls a beat up deck of cards from his saddle bag and holds them up. “Wanna play?”

Wolfwood snorts, “What? Go fish?”

“Sure.” Vash pulls the cards from the box and shuffles them cleanly. “But I was thinking heads up poker.”

“Thought you didn’t know how to play,” Wolfwood says, even as he sits up. He crosses his legs under him, watching the mesmerizing way Vash handles the cards. 

“I learned.”

Vash wins every single fucking round. They play three times. Then five. Then ten. On the tenth Wolfwood tosses his cards to the floor. 

“You have to be cheating, there is no way you’ve won every fucking round with near perfect hands.”

Shrugging, Vash collects the cigarettes they’ve been betting with. “How am I cheating? You’re sitting close enough to me, you can see everything I’m doing.”

Wolfwood points to the worn cards. “The cards. They’re rigged to be in the dealer's favor.”

“I’m not a magician, Wolfwood,” Vash laughs. He offers his stack of cards, “You deal.” 

Wolfwood deals. Wolfwood loses. They play go fish next. And Wolfwood loses.

The rain eases on and off all morning. They, Wolfwood , eat elk jerky and salt tack for lunch. Vash lays on the floor, shuffling the cards on his stomach. Wolfwood watches him. 

“Tell me more stories about the ranch.”

Vash looks at him out of the corner of his eye, “Wanna know what I think happened to that cowboy?”

Wolfwood nods silently. Vash’s hair has dried fluffy, puffing up in soft tendrils along his forehead, cow licked in the back and smudged with the oil he treats his saddle with. He drops the cards onto his chest. 

“Do you believe in the supernatural?”

“I was a man of the cloth,” Wolfwood says. He settles back against his own saddle, bunching his bedroll around his legs as a chill starts to creep into the seams of the tent. “It comes with the job description.”

Vash laughs, “Fair enough. Then I think something not of this world got him. Left no trace.”

“You’re telling me they’re monsters in these mountains?”

“I never said monster.”

Wolfwood looks at him incredulously, “If an entire human goes missing without a trace, monster is the first thing that comes to mind.”

Vash hums, grinning at the ceiling. He looks a little mad in the dim light, and Wolfwood wants to lean over and bite that fucking teasing canine. He has to be doing it on purpose, flashing it at Wolfwood like he knows how it drives a spike of heat up Wolfwood’s spine. 

“Folklore revolves around the unknown, the religious.” Vash rolls his neck around to look at Wolfwood fully, “The terrible. Sick people become monsters, shadows become contorted animals fueled by evil, and the mountains become their backdrop. A missionary came looking for angels up here, I remember Nai guiding him, he rode a mull.”

“Did he find anything?”

“An appreciation for indoor plumbing.” Vash cackles, “he got dysentery three days in. Drank from a puddle.”

Wolfwood scoffs, “only idiots don’t know you don’t drink out of stagnant water.”

“Nai did warn him, last time my brother worked as a guide for anyone.”

“Social fellow,” Wolfwood mutters. “He doesn’t seem to do much for his own ranch.”

Vash’s eyes go wide, “No he does. Everything at the homestead, everything with numbers, he does it.”

“You get the fun shit.”

Thunder shakes the ground again and Vash stretches like a happy cat caught in a sunbeam and not a damp tent. “Yeah, I get the fun stuff.”

It’s hard to tell what time it is with the sun hidden. Vash falls asleep at some point when it starts to really get cold, and Wolfwood, slumped against his saddle smoking, stares at him like he’s never seen him before. And maybe he hasn’t. They’ve been out here for almost two weeks and never once has Wolfwood seen the other man sleep. They take turns in the tent and even when Wolfwood calls it a night and tries to crawl into his bedroll without disturbing Vash, the other is always awake. Sleep looks good on him. Even with loud snores and contorted limbs. There is peace in the lines of his body, the way he’s curled towards Wolfwood just slightly. Vash’s hair has dried completely and Wolfwood wants to reach over and brush the strands sticking to the corner of his mouth away. 

Wolfwood sucks in a harsh throatful of smoke, pinching himself hard on the thigh. He can’t lose control of himself like this. He’s high off mountain air and sore in the best way possible from the hard work, and damn it, Vash is pretty. So fucking pretty that he makes Wolfwood hungry . Groaning Wolfwood drops the butt of the cigarette onto the floor, rubbing it into rubbery wood to ensure it’s dead. He falls onto his side, back to Vash, pulls his blanket up to his chin and tries to fall asleep. 

Lighting turns the inside of the tent white, and thunder unlike anything Wolfwood has ever heard tears the night in half. He gasps awake and flailing around in the dark, blinking the white light out of his eyes.

“Hey.”

Vash’s voice breaks through the pounding rain. Wolfwood looks down at the other man. He’d migrated from his side of the tent, curling halfway onto Wolfwood’s bedroll. His forehead is close to Wolfwood’s thigh. He’s pale, even in the dark, mouth slightly trembling on the words. Wolfwood reaches for him, touching the side of his face. Vash flinches away from his fingers before easing back against his touch. He looks like he wants to say more, like he’s trying to soothe Wolfwood. But Wolfwood isn’t the one ashen or shaking. 

“It’s just a thunderstorm,” Wolfwood murmurs. Vash’s hair is soft, his skin cool, almost unnaturally so. Wolfwood curses softly under his breath. “Hey, you’re cold. Come here.”

Vash blinks at him, and Wolfwood sighs, pulling Vash’s shoulders onto his lap. He must be half asleep still, exhaustion fueling his actions, he lays back, pulls Vash onto his chest and tugs his blanket over both him and Vash. He paws around for Vash’s woolen blanket and pulls that over them as well. Vash is still against him, not even breathing. Wolfwood pokes his shoulder hard. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Vash says quietly. “It’s right on top of us. The storm.”

Wolfwood hums, eyelids heavy. He squeezes Vash’s shoulder, turns his head to press his cheek into his saddle and watches the sky outside flash. Eventually Vash breathes. Shallow things that seem so spaced out that Wolfwood finds himself lulled into a semiconscious state as he counts the time between each . The cold and damp that layers over them is cut away. Vash is a hot spot on Wolfwood's chest, oozing heat to the very tips of Wolfwood’s toes. He thinks they should have done this a long time ago. He’s never been so damn comfortable. 

The thunder moves off in a few hours, and the rain turns to a drizzle, dripping a soft rhythm on canvas. 

“Are you awake?” Vash whispers, shifting slightly on top of Wolfwood, his hair tickles the side of Wolfwood’s neck as he props himself up. 

“Kinda,” Wolfwood rasps. He looks up at Vash, he’s a mere outline against the dark ceiling of the tent. Wolfwood reaches up to touch his shoulder, then his neck, then his face, thumb on his cheek. Vash leans into it, leans slightly down, tempting Wolfwood. Fruit on a low hanging branch, honeysuckle scent. They’d be even warmer, if they were pressed skin to skin, bare bodies scorching brands of heat into hips and stomachs. 

“What is it?” Vash asks quietly, so quietly that Wolfwood nearly misses it over the rain. 

The mountains no matter how lovely, how alive, strip one of touch. The hard work, early mornings, separate saddles, two strangers, nothing but strangers; feeds into a maw of emptiness that has been open in Wolfwood’s chest for so long. Campfires are a sorry imitation of a hug, of body heat, another person close enough to feel their breathing against your own. Wolfwood is hungry for the way he’s touching Vash right now, the way Vash is letting him touch him right now. But he also recognizes the reason why. The soul snatching blue sky, leaving him wind burnt and breathless. So he drops his hand, and swallows pooling saliva. 

“Nothin. You good?”

Vash seems to have gotten the hint, whatever it was that Wolfwood was silently saying, and moves off of him. He settles back on his side of the tent and rustles around in his supplies for a flashlight. It flares to life illuminating the tent almost too brightly. Wolfwood is able to finally get a good look at Vash, instead of guessing what laid under the cover of darkness. His eyes flash clear blue, mouth ticked up in a little grin even if his brows are furrowed. Wolfwood hadn’t noticed them until they'd been wiped away by rest, but the skin beneath Vash’s eyes is  no longer rimmed with exhaustion. 

“All good. Sorry about that.” Vash laughs softly, dropping his eyes onto the flashlight he fiddles with. Wolfwood watches him quietly. 

“I don’t like snakes.”

Vash looks up sharply at him, eyes wide. “Snakes?”

“Fucking hate snakes.” Wolfwood crosses his ankles shrugging like it’s no big deal, and he guesses that after so many years it shouldn’t be. “A snake damned humanity. Little Nicholas thought all snakes were Satan in disguise, and then I got bit by a rattler when I was eleven. Can’t stand the fuckers.”

“You got bit by a rattlesnake?”

Wolfwood points to his left ankle, “Right there. Standing barefoot in a pig pen. But pigs are dangerous fuckers, hate snakes almost as much as I do, trampled the damn thing then ate it.”

Vash is staring at his ankle like he can see the barely visible scars through the gray layer of woolen sock. “They had an antidote?”

“Obviously, I’m here aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” Vash smiles at him. “Snakes aren’t great.”

Wolfwood levels him with a look, “Neither are thunderstorms.”

“No, I guess they aren’t.”

It rains for most of the next morning, but it’s a drizzle, light enough for Vash and Wolfwood to pull on ponchos and trek down the slick mountains to find where their horses have taken shelter in the timberline. The work isn’t as miserable as Wolfwood had thought it’d be, if anything the break from the sun is appreciated and the rain turns the valley into something brand new. As the rain goes on and the fence goes up, Wolfwood keeps half an eye on Vash. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to happen, maybe another strange panic that left Vash willing to curl on Wolfwood’s chest and hide away from the lightning. Whatever it is, nothing happens. Water spills in a clean stream off the brim of Vash’s hat as he leans forward to wiggle a wire. He hums his song and blinks raindrops out of his eyes. 

The sun greets them towards the end of the day. The evening warms slightly, and the sun cuts a golden trial through the wet green grass. Droplets of clinging water turn to opal, bejeweling the land around them. Vash gets down from his horse, breathing in the sun, face turned up with a grin. Wolfwood watches him, perplexed as he starts to ease his saddle off his horse, tossing it onto the ground. The halter goes next.

“The hell you doing?” Wolfwood asks, leaning over his horse’s neck.

Vash swings himself back onto his horse, fists a hand into the gelding’s long black mane, takes his hat off and drops it to the wet ground, before answering.  “Race me.”

“Race you? Bareback?”

“Bareback.”

The idea sends a whirl of excitement through Wolfwood. He bares his teeth in a grin and hurries to strip his horse of her tack. It’s harder to control the horse without her reins, but there is a freedom in feeling the horse's strength directly under his thighs, to have his hands wound deeply into her mane. This is the horse's turn to run like her blood tells her to, as much as it's Wolfwood's time to ride her. 

“There’s a lone aspen in the middle of the meadow all the way down there,” Vash says, pointing in the direction they had worked up from. Wolfwood remembers the tree. He nods, shifting in his seat, putting the heels of his boots lightly against Tillie’s flanks. “First there wins. Ready, set, go.”

They fly down the meadow. The wind whips through Wolfwood’s hair, stinging his eyes, wet grass and mud fly from Tillie’s hooves. He hollers into the air, laughing against the speed, tossing an arm up to feel the wind resistance. Rain and pine, the sun warming the earth quickly, assault every sense, hooves thunder along the ground like the sky the night before. Wolfwood looks back one time, just to see the way Vash rides. The way his body moves with the horse, how blond whips around his smiling eyes, and his hands tangle in dark mane. He’s not far behind Wolfwood, if he slows down at all Vash will overtake him. So he laughs loudly and turns his attention back onto the feeling of the wind. 

Wolfwood sees the tree, a few feet ahead. The sun sits right in the middle of it, blinding, welcoming. He closes his eyes against it, and lets go of Tillie’s mane. He lifts his arms up, feels the wind’s fingers snatch at his sleeves, and he can taste the victory but doesn’t really care as he rushes past staring bark. Vash whistles high and loud behind him, calling his name, laughing. He doesn’t want to stop yet, so he doesn’t, he takes Tillie a little further down, chasing the sun. 

Vash is sitting in the grass when Wolfwood finally comes back. He smiles at Wolfwood, looking at him through his eyelashes. Wolfwood sinks onto the ground, into the tall gold hued grass after patting Tillie’s flank. He thinks maybe they might work a little better now. He feels more one with her, he trusted her enough to lead them safely in the race, further on and then back to Vash when the time came. 

“Can’t play cards, but sure can race,” Vash says. Wolfwood snorts, pulling up a blade of grass.

“I’m surprised your gelding didn’t wipe the floor with me.”

Vash shrugs, “Stampede really runs when he wants to.” He leans forward, eyes sparkling, “I think Tillie intimidates him.”

They lapse into silence. Wolfwood still feels like he’s trying to catch his breath, that refuses to catch, as the sun descends on Vash. He sits there oblivious to Wolfwood, weaving together a circlet of flowers. White daisies that grow in abundance up here, blanketing the ground in white, like summer snow. Dandelions and purple irises that are still sprinkled with rain. He handles the stems and heads with gentle care, when the circlet is done Vash holds it in his palms, staring down at it before he turns to Wolfwood. He leans forward and places it on Wolfwood’s hair, brushing his bangs across his forehead and behind his ears. Vash smiles at him, touching at his temples, the curve of his jaw, and he’s close. So close Wolfwood can see the light refracting in his eyes, the beauty mark on his cheek. Gentle curve of his cupid’s bow. Vash’s eyes fall down Wolfwood’s face, lingering for a moment before he’s moving away entirely. He leans back on one elbow and smiles at Wolfwood. 

“It looks good on you.”

Wolfwood can feel heat in his face,  in his stomach. Vash laughs at him, smiles at him. So casual, slouched to the side, hat knocked off behind him.

“Pretty. Your hair makes the colors pop.”

Wolfwood suppresses a shiver as an all encompassing realization falls over him. He wants Vash. Like he wanted him in the tent, pressed close, caught on how lovely he is. How solid his body was pressed warm to him. But he wants him in a completely different way too. A more terrifying way that can’t be chalked up to a few weeks up in the mountains without the space to jack off. He wants Vash now in the flowers, wants Vash for the rest of the summer,  and wants him afterwards where they don’t have forests and fence to bring them together. It’s irrational, absurd, fucking stupid. So fucking stupid but he wants to pin Vash down and kiss him until neither of them can breathe. He needs to. He’d slot his thumbs right under Vash’s jaw and push his face up, lick into his mouth, taste the mountain on him. God he’d let Vash do anything to him, wouldn’t mind getting pinned himself, straddled, nipped at. Kisses with Vash’s hands in his hair, stroking it back while Vash looks down at him through his lashes and says, “Nicholas.” 

“I didn’t break you did I?”

Wolfwood swallows harshly, “No. No. S’just, that’s rich coming from you.”

Vash tilts his head, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “What is?”

“Callin’ me pretty. When you.” Wolfwood has to drop his eyes and swallow again. “You look like goddamn Heaven.”

That smirk curls higher, Vash leans towards Wolfwood, tucking his head low and reaching for the rosary that’s slipped from its confines. When his fingers touch silver, Vash glances up at Wolfwood; blue through the brass of his lashes.  “Thank you, father .”

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Wolfwood chokes on air. “Not a church man.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” Vash says softly, “For your salvation.”

Laughing dryly, Wolfwood catches Vash’s wrist in his hand, smoothing his thumb over sharp knuckles, “I think I’m okay with damnation.”

Vash searches his face, licks at his bottom lip, and then leans back. His fingers go limp around the rosary and Wolfwood lets his wrist go feeling a little woozy from the multiple directions Vash has thrown him in just a few minutes. 

“It’s a shame,” Vash says quietly, wiping something off of his knee. He holds up his bare index finger. There’s a single yellow petal balanced on the very tip. “That flower crowns don’t last very long.”

He blows the petal off his finger and they both watch as it drifts down to get lost in a sea of grass. Wolfwood reaches up to barely touch the flowers on his hair. The petals are already starting to feel a little dry, but knows they’re no less vibrant. 

“Guess you’ll just have to keep making me more.”

Vash’s eyes glitter and he turns away, but not so fast that Wolfwood misses the pink that spreads across his cheeks. 

“We have fenced twenty eight miles of fence,” Vash announces one evening as they drag themselves back to camp. Wolfwood tosses his saddle and pack to the ground, groaning at the ache in his back and the sweat that clings like a second skin to him. “That leaves about thirty miles south and then we start going the other direction!”

Wolfwood collapses by the fire, poking at white coals with a stick. “How the hell are the girls working quicker than us?”

“They aren’t working uphill and they don’t have to hike back to camp before the sun goes down. They can afford to work longer hours.”

Wolfwood starts to build a fire for dinner; as he reaches for a can of corn, he catches a whiff of his clothes. “Holy shit . I need a fucking bath.”

Vash sniffs his collar, grimacing around a smile. “Yeah, I don’t even think we could last a week. Laundry tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Wolfwood says. “Laundry tomorrow.”

They haven’t really stopped at the lake, haven’t had much need. The water is clean, but neither of them are willing to drink out of something their horses do. Wolfwood always admired the water, the trees that surround it, whenever they’d ride past, but it’s even more lovely now, kneeling on the banks washing sweat stains out of his shirt. The landscape, not so much the fact that he’s in nothing but his boots and hat. Vash is a little ways off whistling as he rubs a small handful of lye soap into his own clothes. Nothing but a tall stand of cattails and marsh grass act as a curtain between them. Wolfwood is keeping his eyes on his hands, refusing to look over at the curve of Vash’s spine, or the way his hair falls into the water when he leans in close. 

That is until there’s a heavier splash from Vash’s side of the vegetation. Wolfwood looks up, breath catching in his throat. Vash has waded into the lake, up to his belly button in water, he runs wet hands up through his hair. Wolfwood stares, this is the first time he’s seen Vash’s naked torso, hell it’s the first time he’s seen Vash’s hand and arm without the leather glove it’s always wrapped in. He’s lean, shoulders wide, strong muscles corded up his stomach. He’s gorgeous, which Wolfwood knew he would be if he ever got the privilege to look at him naked. What he isn’t expecting are the silvery scars that run along every inch of Vash’s torso. They splinter out from a starburst shape in the middle of his chest, climbing like vines, feathered like ferns, up to his shoulders, sparing his neck before massing along the arm he usually has covered. Vash shimmers in the sunlight like the pale belly of a silver fish, every time he moves the scars turn strangely iridescent. 

Wolfwood stares, not just at the scars but at the way Vash cups water over the back of his neck into his hair. The shirt in Wolfwood’s hand has been clean for minutes at this point, sitting stupidly in his hand, most likely soaking up the more bitter smells of the lake. Vash turns suddenly to look him straight in the eyes. 

“The water is nice, you should come in.”

Go into the water. Where Vash is currently naked and shining. Yeah. No fucking thanks. Wolfwood shakes his head, dropping his eyes back to the shirt in his hands. He pulls it from the lake and turns to wring it out into a patch of drooping buttercups. 

“Aw come on, Wolfwood. You said yourself that you stink. It’s not cold.”

Wolfwood glares at him, silently cursing the heat at the tips of his ears. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get in eventually.”

“Not sure you’ll have ‘eventually’,” Vash says, pointing at the sky, the smattering dark clouds gathering over the tops of the peaks. “Gonna rain.”

Can he last another week of heat and sweat without a bath? Not comfortably. Wolfwood sighs and flicks his fingers at Vash. “Don’t watch you perv.”

Vash wiggles his eyebrows,  grins, before turning away to wade further out into the middle of the lake until he has to swim. Wolfwood stands up, turning to fold his clothing onto a large flat rock a few feet from the banks. He chances a look at Vash over his shoulder before leaning down to peel off his boots and socks. 

The water isn’t freezing, but it is cool enough that the initial rise against Wolfwood’s hips takes his breath out of his chest. His skin prickles with goosebumps and he lets out a hiss of displeasure. 

“You’re a filthy liar, Vash!” He calls. 

“It’s hot, the cold is nice.” Vash swims closer to him.

Wolfwood shivers, sneers and reaches down to scoop up a handful of water. His hair really is nasty. Oily and gritty with dirt and vegetation. He starts to feel more human as he scrubs sweat and the persistent smell of horse off his body.

“Should have done this a lot sooner,” Vash says. He’s come closer, petting at the water like it's an animal. He watches Wolfwood out of the corner of his eyes. “You have a nice pair of tits.”

Wolfwood scowls at him, turning away. “Shut up.”

“My bad, my bad. Just an observation. Want soap?”

“You’re good at changing the subject when you don’t want to talk about shit,” Wolfwood mutters. “But yes, I want soap.”

Vash passes him the slippery shavings, their wet skin brushing. Wolfwood soaps up, a little enamored by the scent of the soap, natural but still fragrant. Something sagey, like the bushes that grew everywhere down in the plains. Vash swims from one side of the lake and back again, he dives occasionally and comes up with a handful of lake stones. 

The clouds have started to tease the sun  when Vash splashes him. A large sweep of his arm creates a wave that tumbles over Wolfwood with enough strength that it nearly knocks him clean back into the water. He charges Vash, forgetting the state of their undress, tackling him around the waist. Vash’s high pitched laughter is cut off as they both plunge under the water. 

When they come back up Wolfwood still has his arms wrapped around Vash’s body, they’re pressed too close, the lines of their bodies bleeding into one. Hot under the dull chill of the water. Vash’s hair is plastered over his face, covering his eyes, brushing the edge of his mouth. Wolfwood reaches up to push it back, smoothing his hand over Vash’s forehead, holding it at the back of his head. Vash’s eyes are wide, eyelashes caught with water. He smells like the lake, like soap and the trees. Wolfwood wants to lean forward, close that little bit of space between them. He thinks that right here, right now, Vash would let him. Would lean in just the same. 

Vash’s hands are suddenly on Wolfwood’s face, and he’s laughing. Strong, slender fingers thread through Wolfwood’s wet hair, petting it into an unnatural part.

“What’s funny?” Wolfwood murmurs, he can’t help but smile too. 

Shaking his head, Vash trails down his fingers to press against Wolfwood’s cheekbones. “Nothin’. You just look a little like a wet cat.”

“Little shit,” Wolfwood says. He tugs on the hair he has in his hand, bullying his way somehow closer to Vash. 

Vash eases back in the water, eyes glinting, eyelids falling halfway over them. Wolfwood knows he’s being flirted with. Vash dances this tango with an ease that is annoying. He feels strung along, yanked about by Vash who flees when they get so close to something. Wolfwood’s grip on Vash’s waist becomes ironclad, refusing to let him run from how close they’re pressed. If Vash wants to touch, and flirt and tempt, then by hell Wolfwood will bite the apple. 

“Careful there,” Vash says softly. 

“Careful?” Wolfwood says low, maybe a little dark. “Careful with what? Your hips in my hands?” He digs his thumbs into stark hip bones, drinking in the way Vash’s mouth parts into a soft o. “Won’t break you unless you want me to, doll.”

Vash’s eyes close fully, lashes fluttering against his cheeks, he drops his forehead to Wolfwood’s. “Jesus Christ, Wolfwood.”

His voice has sunken into a dark drag of a groan. It stirs something hot and severe through Wolfwood’s stomach. If this continues and the tension grows any thicker between them Vash won’t be able to ignore the way Wolfwood is affected by him. It’ll be pressed up against Vash’s inner thigh. 

Vash presses his mouth to the side of Wolfwood’s nose. Not really a kiss, his lips are still parted, but it’s close enough. Still so damn far that Wolfwood feels like he could combust. He drags his hands down Vash’s back, digging his nails into his shoulders, holding him to steady himself. Vash’s mouth moves against his skin like he’s saying something, murmuring a prayer. Wolfwood knows he’s saying his own. 

Thunder shatters the sky. It shakes the ground in its power. Rain starts to fall, a heavy downfall that drenches them in cold. Vash gasps a laugh against Wolfwood’s nose. He backs up, but not far, he takes Wolfwood’s wrist and drags him out of the water, bubbling with rain drops. Out of the water they are displayed completely to each other, Wolfwood catches a single glance of Vash’s half chubbed dick before the other man is making a mad dash for his clothes. Wolfwood gathers his own, pulling up his pants over his own arousal. He curses the rain as they sit under the cover of a tall pine, drying in the damp. There’s a wet cigarette clamped between Wolfwood’s teeth. His matches wouldn’t light, so he chews on the filter and refuses to look at Vash. 

When the storm clears enough for them to brave it, Vash stands first, leans down and presses a real kiss to the bridge of Wolfwood’s nose, fingers pressed delicately against the bottom of his chin. Vash brushes his thumb along the edge of Wolfwood’s jaw as he pulls away. 

The girls finish their fence a day later. Wolfwood and Vash work late into the day, battling the rain and the cold that lingers through the night bitingly into the day. Vash seems restless. The wild horses push easily, all the way down to the lower meadows where they’re allowed to go about their lives until next summer when they’ll be rounded up again. They put down fence they had put up in some of the steeper meadows to avoid damage during the winter. It’s bitter work, in a way Wolfwood is grateful for it, more so when it’s over. But Vash is restless. Maybe it’s the fact that the hardest of the work has been done, or maybe the tension between them has finally driven Vash to the brink of regret. Whatever it is, Wolfwood isn’t sure how to navigate it, so he doesn’t. He lays awake at night, shivering against the cold waiting to see if Vash will come back, afraid to step out of the tent in the midnight hours. He hopes, maybe a little selfishly, that it’ll pass. 

One morning Vash isn’t in camp. Wolfwood fights his way out of the tent and into the cold sunlight, shivering and cussing the whole way. The log by the fire is empty. Vash’s saddle is gone. Wolfwood stares at the empty space a little empathetically. A part of him wants to immediately panic and go searching for the other man. But the cold part of him demands coffee and a fire. Vash knows the country better than he knows his own hands, he can handle wherever it is he's out doing. Wolfwood puts the coffee on, resists sticking his hands straight into flame, and waits. 

By noon Vash is back. He smiles down at Wolfwood, hands tucked into the deep pockets of his duster. His hat sits jauntily on his head, cocked back, strangely casual. 

“Where’d ya go?” Wolfwood drawls reaching for Vash’s mug. 

Vash withdraws his hand from his pocket, there's a pile of leaves on his palm when he unfurls his hand. Yellow and apricot. 

“Summers over, Wolfwood. The fall is here.”

Wolfwood stares at the leaves. “What?”

“Fall is here,  the trees up the ridge have all turned, snow will follow soon.”

“But. It was fine a week ago.”

Vash smiles a little sadly, and it is sad. Wolfwood feels like he’s mourning and desperate. “The mountains don’t really follow the rules. We’re at her mercy.”

No shit, Wolfwood wants to shout. He wants to stand up and. And, he isn’t sure. Vash is right. The mountain chooses their season for them, when she chooses to unleash her wrath they either flee or get caught up in it. The summer is over. The fall has come and Wolfwood is going to have to return to the strange ghost-like way he was living life before he picked up a newspaper ad and decided to respond.

“Wolfwood?”

Wolfwood shakes his head, pours Vash his coffee and turns back to his own. He drains his mug and pours himself another one. His stomach is churning, but his insides are still frozen. The cold makes sense now he supposes. 

“When do we break camp?”

Vash sits in his regular spot on the log. His eyes linger on the lightning struck tree. “Let's do it tomorrow. We’ll meet up with the girls in the morning, you’ll all be paid when we get back to the homestead.” Vash’s gaze slides over to Wolfwood, then down into the mug clasped in his hand, “and then you guys can go your separate ways.”

Wolfwood swallows heavily, tongue flexing against the top of his mouth. He nods silently. It occurs to him only then how selfish he was the entire time they were together. He wanted and wanted, and forgot that winter comes and in no world is summer permanent. Forgot that he and Vash are not connected besides the mountain. They will go separate ways, and Vash was probably thinking about that the entire time. He puts the coffee aside, leaning his elbows against his knees and staring off down the meadow, drinking in as much of it as he can. 

“It was a good summer,” Vash muses. 

“Don’t,” Wolfwood says quietly.

“Don’t what?”

Wolfwood can see where the colors change up the mountain as the sun fully crests the tops of tall pine. Gold amidst the turning green. The wind sounds like a sigh, a long breath of relief, the summer blowing out, trees getting ready to sleep through the winter. Splashes of the season change are all around, Wolfwood can feel it in his bones, has been feeling it, and turned a blind eye to it.

“Don’t make this sound like goodbye yet,” Wolfwood says, still selfish and so desperate. His voice is rasping, infuriatingly weak. But when he looks at Vash, the man is looking at him with soft eyes and gentle mouth. Not a smile, not a frown, just gentle. 

“Alright.”

Milly and Meryl are packed up by the time they get down to their camp. They’re staring out at the land much like Wolfwood had that morning, waking early enough to watch the sun rise and catch the steam that flowed from Wolfwood’s mouth as he breathed in the last mouthfuls of mountain air. Vash raises his gloved hand in greeting, a smile stretched far across his face. Wolfwood thinks he dislikes that smile, finds it strangely disingenuous. A happiness that doesn’t align with Vash in the slightest. 

“How’d it go?”

Milly smiles from her perch on her horse, “It’s beautiful out here Mr. Vash. I loved every second of it.”

“It was good hard work,” Meryl says almost dismissively. Her hands are clenched in her reins though, and Wolfwood can read the same sadness in the lines of her body that is eating him up inside. 

They ride down the mountain exchanging stories. Milly tells them about a badger that tormented them for a few days. Meryl tried to fight it off with a wooden spoon. The badger now has the spoon, and one of Meryl’s boots, and a shirt. Vash laughs until he threatens to slip off his horse. In turn Vash tells their stories from up at the top of the world, and they aren’t the same. They aren’t gold and green or wildflowers tucked into Wolfwood’s hair. Aren’t strange lyrics and skinny dipping in mountain lakes showered on by cold rain. They aren’t thunderstorms that felt like they were in Wolfwood’s stomach. His summer was falling in lust, and maybe love, with Vash Saverem. It’s tinted in every way by the pressure that expanded in Wolfwood’s ribs; a carnal ache and a wounded want.

Wolfwood can’t look at him. 

It’s evening when they see the lights of the cabin. Vash sighs softly. So quietly that Wolfwood only catches it because he’s heard it before. Vash sits straight in his saddle, but his reins are loose in his hands. Wolfwood leans close enough to kick his stirrups against Vash’s.

“Glad to be home?”

Vash shrugs, “Feel like I’ve left it actually.” he’s standing in his stirrups before Wolfwood can think of something to say to that. He pulls his hat off his head and waves it in the air. From the back gate on the fence that surrounds the cabin, Nai waves back. 

Wolfwood doesn’t really get to say goodbye to Vash. Nai hands out checks and tells them to get into the bed of a truck driven by a large stern-faced man with hair so black it’s blue in the evening light. Wolfwood tries to step around Nai to go after Vash who’s taking the horses to the barn. 

“You’re done here, Wolfwood,” Nai says, a hand pressed solidly into the middle of Wolfwood’s chest. Vash disappears into the barn and that’s that.

Meryl looks sideways at Wolfwood when he gets into the back of the truck. He sits on one of the tire wells, folding his arms over his chest. He can’t help but watch the ranch house, and the mountain fade out of view no matter the curl of bitterness that stains the back of his mouth. 

Being back in town feels suffocating. It wasn’t so bad when they’d first been dropped off with little ceremony at the grocery store, tasked with finding their way elsewhere by themselves. Milly and Meryl had waved, and turned away. Meryl had paused like she wanted to say something before moving on. Wolfwood had pondered walking down to an interstate and hitch hiking  somewhere. But it was already late and he’s in a bad mood, so he bit back his pride and stayed the night in the single motel in town. Now though as he drags himself towards the bank, the town stifles him. 

The teller at the bank is an old man who stares at Wolfwood over his coke bottle glasses, judging him as he cashes out the check. If Wolfwood had a bank account he’d put the damn thing in it. It’s dangerous to walk around with that much cash, but he doesn’t even have a permanent address. The teller slides him the thick envelope and Wolfwood takes it, waving at the man with it as he walks out the door. He buys a fresh pack of cigarettes first and sticks the rest of the cash around his person. 

Wolfwood tucks a cigarette between his lips, leans against the rickety side of a bar and watches the last of the afternoon sun catch on the aspen groves up on the mountain right above the Maupin road that leads to the Saverem ranch house. He feels stupidly bitter towards the trees, the changing seasons. He just wanted a little more time, just enough time for the kiss Vash pressed to his nose to fall down to his mouth. Enough time to say goodbye. Maybe even land a solid ‘accidental’ kick to Nai Saverem’s scrotum. 

“Mr. Wolfwood!”

Wolfwood looks up, grinning a little ruthlessly  around his cigarette as Milly waves at him from across the street. Meryl is stepping out of the post office behind her and makes a face at Wolfwood before raising a hand in greeting. 

“I thought you girls had split,” Wolfwood says when they bustle over to him. He snubs his smoke on the wall behind him. 

Meryl sighs, holding out an expectant hand. Wolfwood shakes a cigarette out of his pack for her and strikes a match on the side of his boot. “Thanks,” she says when it’s lit. “And we were trying to, but no dice.”

“Our train isn’t going to be here until the day after tomorrow,” Milly explains, “I think I read the schedule wrong. Oops.”

“It wasn’t that,” Meryl says. “The season turned a week and a half sooner than anticipated. I thought we’d been on that mountain longer.”

Wolfwood grunts in agreement. “At least we got the horses down.”

Meryl eyes him but nods, taking a long inhale of her cigarette before blowing out a long stream of smoke from her nose. “I called home, my mentor thinks he could take some time off and come get us.”

“I really don’t want to inconvenience him,” Milly says, eyes growing big. “I don’t mind waiting around a little longer.”

“Well I do.” Meryl puts out the cigarette. “That tasted like shit, Wolfwood.”

Wolfwood scoffs, “Pay for your own damn tobacco then.”

“It’s not so bad here, Meryl,” Milly soothes. “I’m actually pretty fond of it.”

“I am too, Milly. But school starts soon and I can’t miss the start of the semester.”

A man eyes them as he limps past them into the bar. The door opens to release a few wobbly strains of some town country that warbles out from the ancient jukebox shoved into a corner. Wolfwood tips his hat to him but adverts his eyes. 

“You ladies want a drink?” Wolfwood asks, catching the door before it can close entirely. He has a wad of cash he’d like to just blow and see if he somehow lost his touch at cards or if Vash is just stupidly good.

Milly perks up, “Absolutely!”

The bar is low, dark, floor sticky, and decorated like it never made it past the gold rush of 1801. There is a single, flickering,  neon sign advertising Falstaff beer hung up behind the long pine hewn bar that acts as the brightest light source for the taps. Wolfwood sits at the bar, the high cushioned stool groaning under his weight. Milly and Merly both sit to his left and Milly immediately orders the hardest thing they have on tap. 

Drink in hand, Wolfwood lets his attention roam lazily around the room. There's a pool table in a corner, a card table where three men and a kid that can’t be more than sixteen sit in steely silence. He can make out a single man’s cards, it’s a shitty hand if ever he’s seen one. Wolfwood looks away taking a long drink of the dull beer in his glass.

“You’re quiet, Mr. Wolfwood,” Milly says, leaning onto the bar and around Meryl to look at him. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Just fine, darlin’.” Wolfwood raises his glass at her. She smiles that soft understanding smile of hers and reaches forward to clink the rim of her glass to his bottle.

“It sucks being back down here.” Meryl muses. “I always forget how nice it is to get away from everything for a while.”

“Food doesn’t taste the same,” Wolfwood mutters, which makes no sense to him. He ate out of a can or box up in the mountain, but everything tasted good . The biscuits and gravy he had for breakfast tasted dull in comparison.  

“The air isn’t as fresh.” Milly sighs, leaning on the bar.

Wolfwood drains his glass, “Miss the company too.”

The girls nod their agreement. Milly pouts at the bar top, her hair is splayed across it, long enough that it nearly threatens to fall into the cups stacked behind it. “I really did like Vash.”

“I liked that we didn’t have to share a camp with him,” Meryl says. “At a proximity he was tolerable. How was camp with him?”

Wolfwood smiles down at his bottle, cant’t fucking help it. Camp with Vash. He never wanted to leave. If he could pause time around pinon fire and hooked canines, he’d do it in a heartbeat. Wolfwood was embarrassed by just how disappointed he was when Vash brought down the proof of changing seasons. Everything that had been growing between them like a garden, or a fucking bruise, every touch or word Wolfwood wanted to share, sucked back into Wolfwood’s throat to sit and stew in a painful lump.

“Wolfwood?”

“He’s insane.” Wolfwood laughs, rubbing his finger around the lip of his glass. “I’ve never met anyone like him before.”

Meryl snorts, “He didn’t even look tame. He reminded me of the horses.”

Not the horses. The mountains, the wind, the coyotes that cried at night. The stars, rain, grass, trees. The fire that licked into the sky. Actually, God, maybe even the horses. He wonders if he should mention glowing eyes, lack of food, the uncanny vision and ability to communicate with every living thing they came across. But a part of Wolfwood wants to keep that to himself. For the novelty and the impossibility. 

A pair of men sit down a chair’s space from Wolfwood before the conversation can go any further. They smell like log woods and day sweat. One smiles at Wolfwood, there’s sawdust in his beard and down his shirt. Wolfwood nods to him once, before tipping his beer up to his mouth, turning pointedly towards the girls. The conversation dips and flows, looping around the summer and plans for the winter seasons. 

“You know,” Meryl says. She has water in front of her now, unwilling to get sloshed. “They might hire again next summer.”

Wolfwood leans sluggishly towards her, “Ya think?”

She pushes him away, “Don’t see why not.”

“Ohhh,” Milly croons, leaning dangerously far on her bar stool. “I’d love to work there again.”

Meryl’s mouth goes a little tight, “I was mainly telling Wolfwood. We might not even be around here anymore.”

“Ah.” Milly mumbles, “I forgot. Oh well, I hope you can work here again, Mr. Wolfwood.”

“What makes you think I even want to come back to this shit hole.” He slurs his words a little, flicks his fingers dismissively at Milly. 

Meryl snorts meanly, yanking the beer out of Wolfwood’s hand and replacing it with her water. “Course you don’t want to come back to this shit hole, but you sure as hell want to get back on that mountain.”

Nodding seriously, Milly leans on the bar, speaking quietly, “I think you’re fond of Vash too.”

“I…am. I really fucking am.”

Meryl makes a face for a split second before her face smooths out and she smirks at Wolfwood. “I was wondering why your stories seemed so clean .”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Wolfwood scoffs, “We didn’t do shit.”

“You poor soul,” Meryl says dryly. 

Wolfwood waves her away, “Didn't go up there for that.”

“That’s almost sadder,” Milly says, voice shaking like she’s actually emotional about it. She tosses herself onto the bar, blinking wet eyes at Wolfwood.

“It’s not sad,” Wolfwood scoffs. 

Meryl pats Milly’s back, flicking a hand at the bartender in a request for more water. “Come on Milly,” Meryl says, pushing the water on her. 

“Why bother getting sober?” Wolfwood asks. Meryl sends him a dirty look. 

“Because we need to leave soon.”

Wolfwood glances up at the dust crusted clock tucked into a dim corner. The hands are turning down to six. “Is your mentor here?”

“Said he’d been here around six thirty. Milly come on, drink the water.”

Frowning, Wolfwood pulls out a cigarette. “This is it then?”

“Aw come on, don’t be melodramatic,” Meryl says. 

“I’m sure we’ll see each other again!” Milly cries, alarmingly loud. Meryl hushes her gently. 

“It’s a nice thought,” Wolfwood says, “But I think we are going in two very different directions.”

Meryl levels him with a look, “I don’t know. The world is smaller than you realize, and we met each other here. That has to count for something, so I’m prone to agree with Milly, I think we’ll see each other again someday.”

Wolfwood thinks that maybe he wouldn’t mind seeing them again. Sure he didn’t spend much time with them once they got to the mountain, but there is an undeniable union that comes from being out there. So he smiles and nods and lifts his bottle to the chance of meeting again. 

When the girls leave Wolfwood slumps onto the bar, doozy with the lull of alcohol. There had been no time to ponder over what train Wolfwood is going to get on in the morning, and what town he’s going to hop off of it in. And currently his drunken mind isn’t doing a good job at thinking past the golden figure of Vash’s naked body it’s piecing together. 

A hand lands on his shoulder. Wolfwood jolts around to see who grabbed him. One of the loggers is leaning close, large, oil stained hand clasped around the top of Wolfwood's shoulder. His buddy is still in his seat, but he’s turned towards Wolfwood, eyeing him.

“You work for the Saverem’s this summer?” The logger, with his hand on Wolfwood's shoulder, asks. 

Wolfwood squints at him, “Sure did.”

The logger takes his hand off Wolfwood like he suddenly caught fire. He turns to leer at his buddy before spitting a stinking glob of chewing tobacco onto the floor. Wolfwood makes a face and turns back to his drink. 

“Satan worshipers,” The logger says. His friend grunts in agreement. “Did you know that?”

Wolfwood shrugs, “Ain’t my business what you believe in. Who you worship.”

“They sacrifice people up there in those trees. Bring bad shit to town.”

Turning to look at the man Wolfwood pulls out a cigarette. “I don’t give a flying shit . The pay is a fat dollar. S’all that matters.”

The logger grits his teeth at Wolfwood and leans close to him again. “They fuck each other. Them brothers, sodomites. I’ve seen the way they treat each other. A pet and a master. Little blond one ain’t nothing but his brother’s cock war-”

Wolfwood hits him across the face. The man goes down hard, shaky as he already was. He sprawls across the bar floor, face skidding in the tobacco he’d spit. Wolfwood stands casually, biting hard on his cigarette looking down at the man. He forgets in those few precious moments about the second man. The air is knocked from Wolfwood’s lungs, cigarette flying from his mouth, as he’s barreled into. He’s thrown into the nearest table. Crashing to the floor as rickety legs give out. Wolfwood has a few seconds to gasp for breath before the front of his shirt is grabbed in meaty fists and he’s hauled off the floor.

“Fucker!” The first logger has gotten up. There’s a satisfying purple spreading across his cheekbone. But sadly that seems to be the only damage he took. He approaches Wolfwood, who’s held against burly chest, struggling. The man’s fist lands square in the middle of Wolfwood’s face, his nose crumples under the assault. Blood flows in twin streams from his nostrils over his top lip to bubble in the seam of his mouth. The second hit is aimed at his stomach, the third back at his face. Wolfwood’s head snaps back, bites through his tongue, his mouth tastes like copper, his vision going a little fuzzy. Another hit to the face and Wolfwood might pass out. He spits a glob of blood and saliva into  his attacker's face when he’s close enough, and drives an elbow back into the sternum of the man who’s holding him.

Wolfwood staggers towards the bar when he’s free. He leans heavily against it, pawing around for his abandoned beer bottle. The bartender grabs his wrist, twisting his arm, pinning his hand down to the bar top.

“If you’re going to fight, get the hell out of my bar.”

Wolfwood hisses in pain, “Tryna arm myself, dammit.”

The bartender speaks over him, “I’ll call the sheriff if you boys don’t get outta here. Take this shit elsewhere.”

“Course,” says the bruised logger. He grabs the back of Wolfwood’s neck “Didn’t mean no trouble, we’ll sort this out.”

The door to the bar opens then and like some saving angel, Vash’s tall figure slips through the entrance. He stops to stare at the spectacle, eyes widening a fraction when he sees the mess that Wolfwood’s face is. The bar has gone quiet enough that Wolfwood can hear the quiet plops of blood that drips off his face onto the bar top. Vash reaches a slow hand up and touches his hip, right where his gun is hidden beneath the long drape of his duster. 

All at once the hand holding Wolfwood’s face down is gone. The loggers step back, hands up, grins splitting their faces. 

“Do you guys work up there at the Dale log camp?” Vash asks, smiling at them, hand still lingering at his hip. The loggers don’t answer him, hands nervous, feet shuffling where they stand. “How has the yield been?”

“Do you know this man, Vash?’ The bartender asks when no one answers. Vash looks at Wolfwood again. 

“I do.”

Vash saying that seems to pull the loggers from whatever trance they were in. They shuffle past Wolfwood, landing one last solid kick to his ankle. Vash steps out of the door, tipping his head to them, tapping his fingers in a rhythm against his coat. When the door slams behind them, Vash hurries across the room. 

“Ah let him go, Hank.” Vash puts a hesitant hand on Wolfwood’s back, leaning down to survey the damage done to his face. “Jesus Christ.”

“He started it,” the bartender says, but he lets go of Wolfwood’s hand. He stands up slowly, wiping blood off his chin, grimacing at the headache that’s starting to bloom up from his damaged nose. 

Vash searches his eyes, “You started it?”

Swallowing back blood, then bile, Wolfwood sways away from the bar. Vash hurries to wrap an arm around his waist. “I ain’t having this conversation here, doll.”

Annoyance flashes over Vash’s face before he’s sighing. “Fine, where are you staying?”

By some miracle, they make it back to Wolfwood’s crappy motel room without incident. Vash sits him on the tacky bedspread and pulls away. Wolfwood reaches up and snatches his wrist, a feral part of him refusing to believe that Vash is actually there. His hair is pushed back, Vash strokes his face with his gloved thumb. 

“Need to clean you up, cowboy. Let go.”

Wolfwood shakes his head, lulling it back to look at Vash more clearly through bruised eyes. “Don’t want you to leave.”

“I’m going to the sink, I’ll be back.” Vash slides out of Wolfwood’s grip, patting his hand after he’s placed it in his lap and wanders off. Wolfwood wipes his wrist under his nose and leans back against the headboard. He touches around the ache that has taken the place of his nose. It’s not the first time he’s broken his nose, not even the most painful time either, but it’s less a break to his bones and more a break to his pride. They got him fucking good.

Vash is back, settling onto the bed, reaching around Wolfwood to turn his face. He starts to gently clean the mess of blood and other fluids off Wolfwood’s face. It stings a little, but Wolfwood feels floaty. Vash is back washed by the blue and pink vacancy sign that blinks almost directly outside of the window. It turns his hair different colors, catches in his eyes to pool fuchsia and electric turquoise. 

“So,” Vash starts, “You started it.”

“Damn right I did”

Vash sighs. He drops the washcloth to his lap and looks Wolfwood in the eye. “I leave you alone for a few hours and you get your ass handed to you by a couple of the Dale boys. What the hell compelled you to pick a fight with them?”

Wolfwood grits his teeth. One of his back teeth feels a little loose. He bites down hard on it. “Saying shit about you.”

Snorting, Vash shakes his head. He’s petting back Wolfwood’s hair from his forehead  again. “That’s all?”

“Nasty shit.”

“I’m sure,” Vash muses.

Wolfwood grabs his wrist, pulling his hand from his hair. “Does it not bother you?”

“When you’ve been the odd one out here for long enough, nothing they say holds any merit.” Vash’s voice drops, “Me and Nai, we’ve been the odd ones forever. We’ve heard it all. I don’t need you getting into bar fights for my honor.”

“Felt kind of nice,” Wolfwood murmurs. He’s still clutching Vash’s wrist. His fingers climb up until he’s stroking Vash’s palm, uncurling each of his fingers one by one. “Why are you here, doll?”

Vash closes his hand around Wolfwood’s, “I didn’t get to say goodbye. Thought you might still be around.”

Wolfwood sits up. His senses are filled with the sharp iron of blood, he’s still unsteady with adrenaline. He puts a hand on Vash’s waist and pulls him closer to him. The gun is right under his palm, Wolfwood thumbs at the butt. 

“So this is goodbye?”

Vash stares at him, lets himself get pulled until he’s almost in Wolfwood’s lap. He reaches out and takes the rosary from under Wolfwood’s shirt. Vash traces it before looking up at Wolfwood’s eyes. 

“Not really.” He grips the crucifix like he's trying to sink it into the skin of his palm, and yanks Wolfwood forward.

The kiss is rough. Hard, teeth clashing, blood lingering. Vash’s mouth is burning, his tongue a scorching heat, but the tips of his teeth strike lines of ice up Wolfwood’s tongue when he runs it over them. He doesn’t fucking care though. Those canines are finally in his mouth. Vash makes a sound when Wolfwood presses him back onto the bed, partially climbing over him as Wolfwood wraps his lips around Vash’s right canine and sucks. Vash tastes like life, his body moves like sin, and his voice, groans pulled from deep in his throat, are fucking hymns. There are fingers in the hair at the back of Wolfwood’s neck, yanking harshly, yet somehow pushing Wolfwood deeper into the wet of Vash’s mouth. 

“Holy fuck, Jesus christ, fuck ,” Wolfwood gasps slurred parodies of words into Vash’s mouth when he pulls inches away. Vash pants up at him, a smile ticking his pink lips. There’s blood strung around his mouth like a ring around the moon. 

“Are you praying?”

Maybe Wolfwood is. He leans down, pulling at the high collar of Vash's coat, and licks at his throat. Those long, tempting lines. He bites a little meanly at a protruding tendon, intent on laying a mark on Vash.

“Ah,” Vash sings, arching a little into Wolfwood’s stomach. He turns his head to the side, offering Wolfwood the full expanse of his neck. Wolfwood tastes every part of Vash that is exposed to him, and wishes the damn coat was out of the way. Vash whines when Wolfwood has spent too long away from his mouth, he digs his fingers meanly into Wolfwood’s bangs and drags him back up to his mouth. 

They’re slotted so close, Wolfwood can feel every little shift of Vash’s body. They’re breathing the same air, passing it back and forth between their mouths. Wolfwood is hard and he thinks Vash is too. He burrows himself into the cradle of Vash’s hips, content to sit there as he worships Vash’s mouth, his throat, the peaks of his collar bones that edge out from the coat and shirt Wolfwood has wrangled off Vash’s shoulders. The edges of the room are dark, brushed umber by neon, the bed is washed out in shifting colors, and in the dull mixture of night and light, Vash glows. 

“You said,” Wolfwood slurs, pulling away, trembling as Vash licks into his clavicle, tongue catching around the beads of his rosary. “You said this isn’t goodbye.”

Vash nips at him, “Come back next summer. Please.” He’s whispering into the base of Wolfwood’s throat, his turn to pray. “Don’t let me want after you like something sick, come back. Share the mountain with me again.”

Wolfwood nods. Furiously cups Vash’s face in both his hands, kissing him full on the mouth. Once, twice, three times. He puts their foreheads together. 

“Next summer, doll. Wait for me.”

“Yes.” Vash pulls him back into his mouth. 

Summer Two

It’s raining when Wolfwood hops off the train in that little town for the second time. The ticket master nods at him, he had money to spend on a ticket this time.  The drizzle is warm, but the clouds hang low, covering the mountains in a sheet of muggy gray. He stares up at them, meandering his way into the train station to lean on the desk and wait for Vash’s inevitable appearance. Wolfwood grins at Georgia who looks vaguely horrified to see him again. But god he could kiss her, and the map behind her head, and the goddamn ground of this shitty little place. 

“Here for work again?”

“Yup,” Wolfwood says, “Couldn’t stay away.”

Georgia squints at him, cracked red lips turning down at the corners, before leaning pointedly away from him, rolling her chair–that’s new– over to a filing cabinet that she starts to rifle through. Wolfwood takes the dismissal with stride, popping a cigarette into his mouth, striking a match against the top of the desk. He wants to whistle even as he starts to smoke, so he hums around it and turns to stare at the door. 

He hears the rattling roar of the Powerwagon before he sees it through the window. Wolfwood grins, standing straight, brushing invincible lint off of his shirt. It’s new, his shirt, and his jeans. The dark fabric looks healthy, and he doesn’t feel like the crotch is going to rip out any time he happens to lift his legs a little too far. A part of Wolfwood wants to show Vash that the money went to more than bad habits. That he took care of himself during the long miserable winter months. 

Vash gets out of the truck, cramming his hat onto his head, covering the wild mess of his hair. Wolfwood’s stomach turns like a child who has a crush. Excitement tripping fast and heavy over trepidation. Ten months is a long time though and a heated meeting in a motel room, nothing but hungry mouths, ravaging hands, and half crazed confessions that may or may not have meant more to Wolfwood than they did to Vash, isn't enough to shut insecurities up. He isn’t really sure what he’s expecting Vash to do when he sees him again. In a perfect world, Vash would press him against this desk and kiss him breathless, would call him ‘cowboy’ in that way he does, reaching past Wolfwood's shirt to toy with the rosary, maybe pulling off some brand new buttons in his haste to touch cold metal and hot skin.

Vash bustles into the room, stomping his boots on the worn mat in the doorway. He shakes off his duster, that same red one, looking a little more ratty. He looks up at Wolfwood, bright eyes glittering in the half light that his hat throws across them. Vash grins, a canine popping over his lip. He’s crossing the room so quickly that Wolfwood realizes that maybe he actually doesn’t want Georgia to piss her Christian panties as two men wrangle their way across her desk to get to each other's mouths. Wolfwood takes half a step back, but Vash catches him by the shoulder and pulls him into a crushing hug. He smells like pine smoke and rain, and that scent that is Vash’s alone. Wolfwood falls against him, buries his hands into the back of Vash’s duster, pressing his cheek to Vash’s temple. There’s stubble that wasn’t there the last time Wolfwood saw him along Vash’s jaw. 

“Long winter,” Vash breathes. 

“Yeah,” Wolfwood mutters. “Yeah long ass winter.” 

Vash steps back then, clapping Wolfwood’s shoulders in his palms, his eyes heavy, staring straight into Wolfwood’s soul. “Summer is here though. The forest is alive and the mountain is waiting for us with baited breath.”

God, Wolfwood wants to kiss him. Lick his dumb words out of his mouth, shut him up from his devotion to the mountain. He reaches up instead to brush the side of his thumb along Vash’s bottom lip, to the tip of his canine, rubbing at the sharp edge. Vash tilts his head, amusement curling the edge of his mouth. But he’s not pulling away, he’s not treating Wolfwood like a mistake made post summer solitude. 

“I have mail for you Mr. Saverem.” Georgia smacks down a stack of white envelopes onto the desktop behind them with force. Vash leans around Wolfwood to collect the stack.

“Thank you, thank you.” Vash grins at her. “What do you think about this weather?”

“My garden is a swamp,” Georgia snaps. “Too much rain is a bane.”

Vash laughs softly, “Ah yes, but too little rain is also a bane. The weather simply doesn’t care.”

Georgia’s mouth goes flat, “Mn. Yes. What do you think about the weather?”

The letters are stuffed into an interior pocket and Vash rocks back on his heels. “Ah, rain will make the meadows grow.”

“The rangers say that the lightning up there is pretty bad, they’re out on fire watch.”

Vash gives her a jaunting salute, “They’ll keep our mountains safe.” Then he’s spinning around and walking towards the door. Wolfwood follows him clumsily. 

They’re almost out of town, riding in silence that has Wolfwood’s hands sweating, when Vash turns to look at him. 

“Tell me about your winter.”

Wolfwood watches him before shrugging and leaning against the door casually. His winter was boring, he picked up a part time job on a farm as a cow nurse maid. Just for something to do, not so much for the money. He helped birth calves all winter, slept in a drafty bunk house and ate his fill of grits and white gravy in the morning at the farmer's low table. Vash listens intently, smiling, eyes stuck on the road. Wolfwood paraphrases a bit, talks mostly about the cows, watches the land pass just so he doesn’t spill what he’s thinking. 

It had been a good winter, a long winter, a winter of tugging off at the memory of Vash against Wolfwood’s body seared into the forefront of his mind.The horrifying ordeal of pining so desperately  for someone had been exhausting, and the pretty little farmers daughter who wore her shirts unbuttoned past her sternum, and bit the side of her mouth when he'd looked over, wasn’t even a distraction that Wolfwood felt he could indulge in. He isn’t Vash’s and Vash isn’t his, but the thought of laying with someone else sapped the sexual desire right out of him. He’d considered taking the hunger, insatiable in his chest, to the priest in the little one roomed chapel in town. He’d wanted to get down on his knees, kiss his rosary and pray for strength as December bled slow into January. But he never stepped foot into the church, worked until he was exhausted and went to sleep dreaming about Vash. He counted down the days until the temperatures began to rise. He asked for the newspaper after the farmer had read it in the morning, and in March the posting had shown up. 

“So I guess you prefer horses over cows, huh?” Vash asks, smiling at the dash. 

“I do.” And he much prefers tall, blond men, with calloused hands and a lilting grin that speaks volumes to the silent thoughts that flow through his head. 

“I’m glad you came back,” Vash says quietly. 

They’re on the Maupin road, trundling over the same bumps and protruding rocks. The mountain, wisping with fog, is so vibrant that it feels like it’s touching every part of Wolfwood. It was green last summer, but it’s more so now. The rain has come early, feeding the lower meadows like the ones higher in the forests. The aspens have already put out their leaves, yellow-green unfurling buds that flip back and forth like they’re waving at them as they drive by.

“Did you wait for me?” Wolfwood asks, casting a quick glance over at Vash. Vash catches his eyes before they can go skittering away. 

“Wolfwood,” Vash says, and that’s all. 

He’s not sure what that means, but it settles the torment in Wolfwood’s chest. “I’m glad I came back too.”

Nai smacks the contract down on the table in front of Wolfwood, casting a pen onto it without care, before stomping over to the head of the table and slinking down into his seat. Vash sits at his brother’s elbow, looking pleased as a cat with cream. Wolfwood scowls as he fills out the paperwork. Dinner is just as plentiful as the summer before, but it’s a thousand times more awkward. It’s just Wolfwood and the Saverem brothers. And Vash doesn’t eat, and Nai scowls at Wolfwood the whole time, especially when he reaches across the table for more food. He had hoped, quietly, that Milly and Meryl would have responded to the ad again too, even when they had already expressed that they most likely wouldn’t be working at the ranch this summer. It’s a special kind of torture to sit in silence and burn under the smolder of Vash’s shameless gaze. 

At the end of the meal, Nai dismisses Wolfwood with much the same sentiment and grace as last summer. Vash stays seated as Wolfwood edges out of the room. He tries not to let his disappointment show on his face. The bunk house is going to be empty, and the beds aren’t small. 

Tillie glares at Wolfwood, stomping a hoof forward. Vash laughs from where he’s tightening her saddle. “I think she feels betrayed, Wolfwood.”

“Betrayed huh?” Wolfwood holds out the dried apple he’d purposely picked from his pack to bribe a sassy horse. Tillie nips at the apple, her upper lip catches it, sweeping it between her teeth. She chews loudly, goes searching for more when the snack is gone, and allows Wolfwood to scratch at her forelock. “I was going to come back, silly girl.”

Vash lets out a long sigh, “Damn, I wish you would talk to me like that.”

“You want me to talk to you like I talk to my horse?” Wolfwood scoffs, “I can talk a lot sweeter for you, doll.” 

Biting at his bottom lip, Vash pats at Tillie’s rump and walks off to where Stampede is waiting patiently by the fence. Wolfwood shakes his head and mounts his horse, sighing long into the early morning air. He wasn’t without a horse during the winter, he rode a sway back gelding that dragged his back hoof, named Rudy. A sweet fellow in his own right, but it wasn’t Tillie, alive and ready to climb a mountain. And he feels damn right sitting on her back again. 

Vash leads them out onto the trial. They ride side by side, kicking their stirrups against each other. The grass along the edge of the path is broken up in patches of black eyed susan that sway towards them as they ride past and attract fat bumbling bees. The sun rises over the mountain and over the clouds that plume just a step behind. Vash’s hair glows, his throat flexes as he hums that same strange song that would randomly appear in Wolfwood’s head, in his mouth, over the winter. It sounds so much sweeter coming from Vash. Wolfwood lets himself relax in the saddle, his gaze lazy as he stares unabashed at Vash. He trusts Tillie to know where they’re going. Vash doesn’t really ever look over at Wolfwood, but his mouth is quirked and his head is cocked up at an angle that’s purposefully alluring.

They pause for lunch at noon. Wolfwood slides from his saddle and stalks towards Vash like he’s a little prey animal. Vash freezes, back to wolfwood, hands on the cinch of Stampede’s saddle. When he happens to glance over at Wolfwood, he pounces. 

Vash makes a pleased sound when Wolfwood bullies him up against the closest aspen tree. Wolfwood hooks the fingers of one hand into the collar of both duster and blue work shirt to wrench them down as far as he can without disrobing Vash completely. The other hand goes up to cup Vash’s cheek and tilt his face up into Wolfwood’s lips. The kiss is so reminiscent of the first one they shared, the same violence and teeth tearing, that Wolfwood feels a heady wash of deja vu. He licks Vash’s tongue, presses them together for a few seconds just to feel Vash squirm and make breathy little sounds in the back of his throat that filter into Wolfwood’s mouth. Wolfwood pulls away, a thin string of spit follows him the few inches he places between them, catching green filtered sunlight before snapping. It falls against Vash’s chin, his tongue unfurls, chasing it. He grins, feral and hooked at Wolfwood, pulling him back down to kiss his mouth over and over again, until Wolfwood is damn near plastered against the long lines of Vash’s body. 

“Is that a gun at your hip, or are you just happy to see me?”

Wolfwood’s lips are numb, he rubs his fingers against Vash’s belt loops. “It’s a gun.”

Vash laughs a puffing sound against Wolfwood’s mouth, he leans back to look down. “Huh, it is a gun. Can I touch it?”

Wolfwood nods silently. The quiet question is so sexually charged it’s almost funny. Vash reaches down to trace the worn leather of the holster down to the grip. He pulls it out, holds it like it’s made of glass in both of his palms. Wolfwood watches Vash’s eyes trace the lines of the barrel, the dip of the trigger, and finally linger on the notches. Vash glances up at him for a split second before he traces the tips of his bare fingers along the lines. 

“These for prairie dogs?”

Wolfwood lets out a dry laugh, “No. I’m not shit with a gun, Vash.”

“You kill men, but not invasive rodents?” Vash glances up at him. 

“I kill both.”

Vash holsters the weapon, he reaches up to push Wolfwood back against the tree. He gets up close to Wolfwood’s ear, breath fanning over the sensitive skin.  “Who was it?”

“That is a story I don’t want to tell you when your dick is pressed up against mine,” Wolfwood says, voice ruined by the sensation. His hands have slid around Vash’s waist to rest just above the swell of his ass. Vash looks at him through his lashes. His lips are a burnt pink, the tips of his cheeks, up the the tips of his ears are red. Frowning softly at him, Vash pushes his back further against white bark. His dick is consequently removed from Wolfwood’s. 

“Tell me.”

Sighing Wolfwood steps away and tucks his arms up over his chest. “I was defending myself.”

“I never accused you of being a murderer,” Vash says. “But three notches?”

Wolfwood holds out an open palm for the weapon. Vash hands it over to him with an ease that almost surprises Wolfwood. He traces the first line, digging his thumb nail under the miniscule edge.

“My uncle.” 

Vash sucks in a breath. “The pig farmer?”

“He was a piece of shit. Lonely, touch starved bastard. Couldn’t get his hands on a woman, so he thought he’d touch his kid nephew who relied on him for a roof. Didn’t think I had any choice in the matter.” Wolfwood taps the mark. “It was his gun before it was mine.”

There’s horror written across Vash’s face when Wolfwood manages to look back at him. He smiles a little ruthlessly and touches the second mark. 

“I confessed once, to a priest, Chapel was his name. He held that confession over me, let it seep into every fucking aspect of my existence, controlled my life for a few years before I shot him dead.” 

There’s more to that story, more that made Wolfwood pull the gun on the man. He broke him of the church, of any belief in a god that might extend some great grace upon him. Once God was dead in Wolfwood’s eyes there was only a beady eyed priest holding the chain to his shackles. And the priest was a lot easier to kill. He learned in the worst way possible that he’s more afraid of man than God. 

“The third?”

Wolfwood considers the third notch. “I didn’t kill someone for the third. Well, I didn’t pull the trigger to kill him.”

“What does that mean?” Vash’s voice has fallen like he can feel the implications of the third notch without truly understanding them. 

“My little brother. Not by blood, but my little brother anyway. He killed himself, and I wasn’t there to stop him. I killed him because I wasn’t there.”

Vash shakes his head rapidly, “No. No, that's not how that works.”

“That’s really easy to say, isn’t it, doll?” Wolfwood puts the gun back into the holster. Vash clenches his jaw, casting his gaze over Wolfwood’s shoulder to where the horses nose through the tall grass. “You think I don’t already know that? Of course I do. There is no way I can’t, but that doesn’t change my heart.”

“I know.”

Wolfwood wants to tell him that no, he really, really doesn’t. And ‘I know’ is another really, really easy thing to say in the face of something so complex. But Vash’s eyes are caught further than the horses, off into the woods, looking at something that Wolfwood can’t see, just like he always does. His voice is more earnest than anyone else who has ever muttered that admittance of giving up on understanding. And maybe Vash does know. 

“You see me differently now?” Voicing the thought out loud leaves a bitter taste in the back of his throat, steadily coating his tongue. 

Vash’s eyes flit back to his face. “Yeah. I learned something new about you.”

Wolfwood drops his arms, biting down on his back teeth. The tooth knocked loose by the Dale boy’s fist had never really settled completely back into place. It wiggles and pinches any time he puts enough force against it. He lets himself mourn the end of the beginning for what could have been between him and Vash. 

“You should have told me about your brother sooner.”

Wolfwood blinks, “What? Like the fact that he’s dead by his own hand?”

Vash smiles at him. He reaches up and knocks the brim of Wolfwood’s hat down over his forehead with a single finger. “No. That you even had a brother. We both have brother’s, Wolfwood. We could have shared stories.”

Laughing, Wolfwood hooks his fingers back into Vash’s belt loops and pulls their hips back together; there is no tension between them anymore, but being pressed together breaks the horrible stagnation that had layered into the air the longer Wolfwood talked. Vash ducks under the hat he had knocked askew and kisses him on the lips. A sharp quick peck, before he retreats back into the sunlight. 

“Come on, cowboy. We’ve burnt too much daylight as is. We’ll be getting to camp at midnight.”

Back on their horses Vash looks over at Wolfwood as they climb up out of the forest into the meadow beneath the Top of the World. His face is strangely soft, serious in a way that is very unlike Vash.

“I lied last summer.”

Wolfwood raises a brow at him, “Yeah? About what?”

Blowing out a heavy breath, Vash slows Stampede so he can fall back next to Wolfwood. “When I told you about my theories on where that cowboy went.”

“Not much of a lie if it’s just a theory.”

Vash’s mouth twitches, “Sure. But I know what happened to him.”

Unease makes Wolfwood shift in the saddle. He’s watching Vash’s face carefully, waiting for him to spit out the words he can practically see swimming around in Vash’s mouth. 

“Nai killed him.”

And for some reason, Wolfwood knew this. In some way in the back of his mind the wiggling of a ‘perhaps’ had touched him. He hadn’t really let it sprout into an actual thought, but occasionally he would think about the cowboy, the hungry mountain, and the ways that humans are so much crueler than the land will ever be. The land will at least  have the decency to leave remains to be found, even if it’s in coyote shit, or smeared across a rock face at the bottom of a cliff. But a human will destroy its own species until there is nothing to be found, and nature cannot return them. 

“Why?”

Vash shrugs, helpless in the loose rotation of his shoulders. “I have no idea. I asked him why, he wouldn’t say. But I saw the blood on his boots, on his knife. He wore it, like a badge of honor, for a month.”

Wolfwood stares out at the land, “Did you ever go looking for the body?”

“Yeah. That wasn’t a lie. I went looking for it for weeks. Couldn’t find anything at all.”

“How is that even possible, you know this damn ranch better than your own face.” Something troubled crosses Vash’s eyes. It’s quick in its passing, but Wolfwood latches onto it. “Vash? What aren’t you telling me?”

Vash laughs, "To be fair, there is a shit ton I have not told you.”

“Yeah,”Wolfwood scoffs. “Kinda how shit like this goes with us. We jump the gun. I’ve had your tongue in my tonsils and I know jack about you.”

“Being mysterious is sexy, Wolfwood,” Vash croons at him. “That’s the first thing I thought about you when I saw you at that station.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Wolfwood sneers, kicking out at Vash’s stirrups. Vash prances away, Stampede dances on light hooves, tossing his mane up. Vash laughs at Wolfwood.

“I’m not lying, Wolfwood. I saw you and thought, ‘that guy is so mysterious, look at all that black’. Sexy,” Vash says. “Wanted my tongue in your tonsils from the get go.”

Wolfwood puts Tillie into a slow loping gait to catch up with Vash. “You sure had a funny way of showing it. Felt like I was going mad. Chased you the whole damn summer.”

Stampede speeds up even more, nearly galloping. Vash’s duster flaps along his legs. “It’s the chase that’s fun, Nicholas!” Vash doesn’t even look over his shoulder as he calls.

Wolfwood curses under his breath, kicking his heels into Tillie’s flanks. “You remember my name?!”

“Hell yeah I do!” Vash laughs, finally turning to look over his shoulder. 

It’s not until they’ve left the horses at the timberline and hoisted their packs onto their backs to make the climb to camp, that Wolfwood realizes that Vash managed to change the subject again. 

They–Wolfwood– eat canned black beans tossed and cooked with canned corn. Wolfwood seasons it with the few spices that are stuffed into the very bottom of their mess bag. It’s the best fucking food he’s had in ten long months. Vash lounges against the log, head tilted back to look at the stars. The fire glow pools like refracting light in the concaves of falling tendons. Vash’s shirt is a lot lower than any he wore the previous summer. The first few buttons are undone, and the shadows rise and fall with his chest, twinkle along the raised scars.

Wolfwood admires him, eating slow, dragging his eyes slower along the lines of his body. That heat from earlier is pooling hot and fast in Wolfwood’s stomach, and he knows Vash knows. Vash meets his eyes, blue and sharp, burning brighter than the fire that they stare at each other over. Wolfwood puts aside his plate and reaches up to undo the buttons above the shape of his rosary. It flashes silver in the firelight. Vash zeroes in on it like a crow to a coin. 

Wolfwood parts his legs, letting them fall open around the rising bulge in his pants. He slides a hand down his body, gripping at his own thigh, inching the side of his hand up to almost press it against his arousal. Vash watches him closely, eyes flickering between Wolfwood’s hand and his lips. Vash stands, his long shadow thrown over the entire campsite. Wolfwood’s throat goes dry as Vash starts to work the duster off his shoulders, dropping it to the log behind him. The buttons on his shirt go next until he’s stripping it off as well. Wolfwood sits up slightly when Vash walks towards him, he doesn’t really have time to do much else as Vash descends on him, kneeling at his side and over him. Wolfwood’s hand is replaced with Vash’s, teasing in its proximity. Vash leans over him to kiss the middle of Wolfwood’s chest, lips around the crucifix. He stares up at Wolfwood’s eyes the entire time, grinning as Wolfwood’s chest starts to rise and fall in unsteady pants. 

“Can I take your belt off?” Vash asks, voice rasping. He’s already walking his hands up to the buckle, brushing in featherlike strokes Wolfwood’s straining cock. It’s torture, and Wolfwood has to force his hips not to buck in demand for more. Something of substance to take the goddamn edge off. 

“Yeah, jesus, yes.”

Vash works quickly, unbuckling Wolfwood’s belt, casting it off to the edge of the fire. Vash tucks his hand into the front of Wolfwood’s jeans cupping his dick through the thin cotton of his underwear. Vash’s eyes sparkle and he whistles low and long. 

“You looked big that day at the lake, but damn.” Vash’s thumb crests over the curve of Wolfwood’s cock, down to press firmly against the leaking tip. “Reactive too.”

“Shut up, fuck, ” Wolfwood spits through grit teeth. Vash licks his lips, leaving behind a soft sheen of spit. 

“Wanna shut me up, cowboy?”

Wolfwood thinks he might explode if he doesn’t get his dick between Vash’s lips right fucking now. He raises his ass, pushing down on his waist band to wiggle his jeans and underwear low on his thighs. Vash cradles Wolfwood’s dick in his palm, so delicately it’s nearly embarrassing to look at. Vash leans down to press his lips softly against the very tip. A perverted imitation of a kiss. Wolfwood bites back a groan, reaching up he tangles his fingers into Vash’s hair. He tugs with little mercy, wrenching a sound out of Vash’s throat. Wolfwood bucks up into the part of Vash’s mouth, sliding past sharp canines that nick at velvet skin. It drives him mad. Wolfwood yanks on Vash’s hair to stave off the orgasm that surged in him. 

Vash fights back eventually. Growing tired of Wolfwood’s sloppy attempts to fuck his throat. He pulls off Wolfwood, letting his tongue hang out of his panting mouth to drip pre and spit down along Wolfwood’s shaft. 

“Sloppy,” Vash says, pushing his hair up over his forehead, wiping a wrist over his mouth. He wraps a hand around Wolfwood, stroking up to gather the accumulated moisture and rub it into the tip. Wolfwood digs his hands into the dirt now that Vash’s hair is no longer there to keep him sane. It feels so much dirtier to see Vash treating him with a delicacy of a lover. Lips indulging in slow, long kisses, eyelashes fluttering slowly over his eyes as he stares at Wolfwood. Everything is wet and hot, overwhelming and Wolfwood tips his head back to stare at the sky and trace the visible constellations that he recognizes with hazy eyes. 

“Hey, Wolfwood.” Vash’s hand is on Wolfwood’s face. Pushing his hair past his temple and behind his ear. Vash kisses his chin, the corner of his mouth, “You with me?”

“Yeah,” Wolfwood says. His voice is caught in his chest. “Fucking dreamed about this all winter. You, dreamed about you.”

“That’s sweet,” Vash says against Wolfwood’s top lip. “You’re sweet. Such a big man, god you’re honey.”

If Wolfwood was more lucid, wasn’t slipping far into the heat of Vash’s skin and the purr of his soft words, he’d fight back against that. He’s not the gold in the green that Vash is, isn’t the sweet smiles and coy words that make everyone bend to his wills. But Vash has him cupped in the palms of his hands, soothing him with the flick of his wrist and soft presses of his mouth under Wolfwood’s eyes; he has no fight left in him. Not now that he has everything that he wants literally in his lap. If Vash thinks he’s a big sweet man, then fine, he’s a big sweet man.

Vash is laughing against his throat, “Nicholas.” Vash holds out the s at the end of his name, and god, Wolfwood thought he was ready for Vash to sing his name like that. “Mm, you like it when I call you that. You just flinched in my hand.”

“I want you so fucking much,” Wolfwood whispers. His hands grip at Vash’s hips, digging his thumb into the bare ridge of Vash’s pelvis.

“I know.” Vash’s palm flexes, “God I know.”

They press together, Vash tastes like Wolfwood and it should be disgusting, but it only makes arousal rear its head again. Vash is breathing heavily when he pulls away, Wolfwood can feel his own need chafing against Wolfwood’s bare skin. The night has drawn her curtain over them and the fire has burned down. At some point Wolfwood must have kicked enough dirt over the flames to suffocate them. There is little risk of the fire jumping its bounds and burning down the ranch if they neglect it. 

Wolfwood grabs Vash’s chin, kisses him hard one last time and stands, hiking his jeans up as he goes. He tugs Vash towards the tent, where their nest of bedding has already been made. Vash goes with ease, lets Wolfwood push him into the tent and down onto their bedding. Wolfwood tugs off Vash’s boots and socks, kissing his ankle and tugging at the cuffs of his jeans. Vash lays back on his elbows watching over his heaving stomach as Wolfwood moves up his body, discarding clothing and leaving behind kisses that are more tongue than lips. Biting blooms of purple and blue into the acres of Vash’s skin. When he reaches Vash’s stomach, Wolfwood pauses and stares at the starburst scar, the withered edges and places where it looks to have tried desperately to meld back into Vash’s skin with little result.

“Ugly, yeah?” Vash murmurs. 

“No,” Wolfwood says. He flattens his tongue against it, tastes the salt of sweat and skin, the texture that differs so much from Vash’s other flesh. “No, it’s not. They’re not. You’ll have to tell me the story some time.”

Vash hums and moans and sighs. “Some time.”

The frenzy of lust and burning touches that Wolfwood had expected when they had laid together in the shelter of the tent isn’t there. They move together in slow fluid lines, pressed together from neck to toes. Vash opens beautifully under Wolfwood, legs falling apart, back arching up when Wolfwood puts his mouth on his most intimate place, to ease the slide and persuade furled muscle apart for Wolfwood’s entrance with loving kisses and long sucks. Vash rolls them when he’s loose, pressing Wolfwood’s shoulders back into a woolen blanket that smells like Stampede and pine. He’s hot, damn near scorching, as he sinks down on Wolfwood, hands pressed against Wolfwood’s chest, the rosary wrapped up along Vash’s wrist. Wolfwood is high watching Vash ride him, head tossed up to the ceiling of the tent, voice loud and free. But he’s also desperately hungry to press his skin against Vash’s. Wolfwood pulls him down, presses him against his chest and fucks up into him. Tucking Vash’s face into his shoulder, Wolfwood cups a hand to the back of his head. He isn’t expecting Vash to sink his teeth into the meat between Wolfwood’s shoulder and neck. It hurts, Vash’s teeth are sharp, sending a rocket of agony down Wolfwood’s spine, followed quickly enough by a burn of pleasure that the sensations blend together and leave him wanting desperately for more. 

The next thrust of his hips is harsh, almost wild. Powerful enough to punch a gasp out of Vash’s chest. It dislodges his bite and Wolfwood almost demands he do it again, but Vash is gasping and shaking against Wolfwood’s chest, burying his face against the base of Wolfwood’s throat. He’s muttering something that Wolfwood can’t really hear, and isn't sure he has the mental fortitude to understand him anyways. 

“Wolfwood,” Vash gasps, hands scrambling against wood and blankets, tearing bleeding lines up Wolfwood’s arms to his shoulders. There they dig in and Vash pulls his face up. “I’m close.”

Wolfwood rolls them again, pressing Vash down onto his back, reaching for his straining arousal, pink and hot against his stomach. The bite bleeds, bleeds, bleeds down Wolfwood’s arm, the one pinning down writhing shoulders, onto Vash’s heaving stomach, little rubies against pale skin. Wolfwood leaves them, admires them for their bright color. Vash, despite the urgency in his brow, the clenching of his stomach, grins up at Wolfwood, teeth hooked over his bitten bottom lip. Wolfwood reaches down to grab Vash’s face, palm above that sinful mouth, pressing until Vash’s lips part and his tongue glistens pink. Wolfwood leans down, speaks against Vash’s tongue. 

“You gonna come for me, doll?”

Vash catches Wolfwood’s lips in a wet kiss, moaning long and low against them. Wolfwood tugs harder at Vash’s dick, coaxing his orgasm out of him. When he comes, Vash’s breath catches in his throat, like he’d been hit by something and he curls upwards. Wolfwood catches him around the shoulders. Touches his cock until Vash is tearing out of his grip, over sensitive and shaking. But the point has come where Wolfwood’s head has been lost and he’s thinking of nothing else but Vash’s tight heat and how he’s fallen pliant and whining under Wolfwood, little more than an aid to help Wolfwood find his climax. 

“Nicholas, ” Vash whispers, hands pulling on the rosary. Licking at the silver lines, sucking on the edges of the crucifix. 

He comes, it crests like a wave in Wolfwood, nearly overwhelming and he pulls out only moments before, wrapping his palm around his own tip to catch his release. He falls, panting, onto Vash’s chest. They lay together catching their breaths, listening to the thunder that rumbles miles off, a storm falling on them once more. Vash noses against the side of Wolfwood’s neck and reaches down for his dirty hand. 

“If you put that anywhere near your mouth, I’ll kick your ass,” Wolfwood mumbles. Yanking his hand away and shoving it between them.

“I sucked your dick like an hour ago,” Vash hums, but his hand has retreated to lace through Wolfwood’s sweaty hair. 

“S’different.”

Vash chuckles quietly, “Sure.”

He doesn’t want to get up, but Wolfwood does anyway, ignoring his partner’s disgruntlement . Vash needs to be taken care of, his rim is a bright red, leaking spit a few strings of pre. His stomach is streaked in the results of his own orgasm, and now Wolfwood’s. There isn’t much in the tent that offers easy clean up, so Wolfwood digs around in his pack until he finds an old bandana and leans out the tent to catch the cold rain. When he thinks it’s wet enough he crawls back over to Vash.

“It’s gonna be cold,” he murmurs before touching it to Vash’s stomach. They watch each other as Wolfwood cleans lower and lower. Vash’s mouth is parted, lips a bright pink, still swollen from kissing and biting. Wolfwood staves off the desire to lean down and add more plumpness. It’s already a test of endurance as he kneels between Vash’s legs, pulling them apart and ducking down to get a closer look, pulling Vash open with a hooked thumb. 

“Ah,” Vash moans, verging on discomfort, he reaches down to catch Wolfwood’s wrist. “Gentle. You’re big.”

Wolfwood cleans him as thoroughly as his limited supplies will allow him. He discards the bandana out of the tent after he’s cleaned his hand. He sits back on his haunches searching around for a shirt.

“Your coat is out there,” Wolfwood says, suddenly remembering the duster tossed onto the log. Vash makes a muffled sound. He’d pulled the blankets over his head as soon as Wolfwood had pushed his legs back together. “Vash.”

“Don’ care.”

“You will when your coat is wet in the morning,” Wolfwood says. He gets no reply. 

Scowling, Wolfwood pulls on his shirt and boots. He ducks out into the rainy night, hurrying blindly towards where he thinks the fire and the log are. He trips over one of the larger rocks  and stumbles to a clumsy stop before he can hit the ground on his face. It’s a matter of feeling around for the log, but eventually his fingers find the duster. Yanking it into his grasp Wolfwood turns back towards the tent. In that moment lightning strikes the mountain, exploding the world into a frenzy of white light and ear splitting thunder. Wolfwood sprints back to the tent, tripping past the flap and back into the relative safety of the warm bedrolls. When in safety he leans on his forearms and breathes out a shaking gasp. 

Vash peers at him from under his mass of blankets. His eyes glimmer unnaturally, like an animal’s caught in the beam of a flashlight. Wolfwood stares back at him, unsure of what to say or do, but he realizes then, stupidly, that there had never been any light in the tent. They hadn’t turned on any lantern but Wolfwood had never felt like he was fumbling about in the dark as he learned Vash’s body. 

Vash blinks, Wolfwood can still see his irises once his eyelids have closed over them. “You didn’t have to.”

“You’d have bitched about a wet coat,” Wolfwood rasps. He sits up, tossing the garment into the corner of the tent. “Your eyes, they’re weird.”

Vash puffs a laugh. “That’s rude.”

Crawling under the blankets, facing Vash, Wolfwood shakes his head, “It’s true.” He touches Vash’s cheek right under his eyes. 

“It’s just the light.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Vash shrugs, shimmies closer and tucks his face into Wolfwood’s chest. “In the future, don’t go out in a storm like this at night.”

“Ain’t afraid to get wet.”

“I’m serious,” Vash says, and his voice is grave. Low and serious. “They’re dangerous.”

They lay in silence, the storm rages on, the night turns to day with each lightning strike, and Wolfwoof realizes how lucky they are that the summer has already been wet, that the storm comes with rain. Vash dozes against him, and Wolfwood counts his long drawn out breaths. 

“A thank you would be nice,” Wolfwood mumbles when he thinks Vash is on the cusp of actually falling asleep. 

Vash kisses Wolfwood’s chest, “Thank you for the lovely sex. Best I’ve ever had.”

“The coat! A thank you for the coat. ”

Vash doesn’t answer him.

The morning dawns dark gray. Vash rolls off Wolfwood groaning and rubbing a hand into the small of his back. Wolfwood shivers in the cold, pulling on his chilled jeans and spitting curses at the weather. Vash, still naked, saunters out of the tent with little care. There are no bite marks on him, his thighs are pearly and Wolfwood feels disappointment flex in his stomach. Maybe he hadn’t bitten hard enough. Unlike Vash, the bite mark on Wolfwood’s shoulder throbs dully, and it’s a clean imprint of teeth. 

“No fires this morning,” Vash says, staring down at the miniature swamp their firepit has flooded into. Wolfwood squashes his hat onto his head and wrestles on a poncho. He sits like a child throwing a tantrum on the log and resigns himself to a day without coffee. Or cigarettes he soon discovers. His pack must have fallen from his breast pocket when Vash straddled him. It sits damp and disintegrating a few inches from his boot. 

“Wasn’t this bad last summer.”

Vash shakes his head. His hair is plastered down to his face, he scans the timberline. “Too much rain is a bane. The horses are gonna be pissed.”

The horses are pissed, but so is Wolfwood. Trekking down the mountain had been a challenge. It was more mud than solid ground. So they didn’t really trek, more like slid.It’s a long wet hike into the woods when they finally reach the timberline. Vash pauses on and off to whistle high, scaring birds from the trees and setting Wolfwood’s teeth on edge. 

“He isn’t going to come to you. You aren’t Roy Rogers,” Wolfwood says. He’d stopped a few paces back from Vash to wring out his shirt. His bones are cold.

Vash flicks his wrist at Wolfwood, “I trained him. They’re down there,” he points eastward, “in an aspen grove. Silly creatures.”

Tillie glares at Wolfwood when they reach the grove. Her white coat is so wet her dark skin is bleeding through, and there’s mud up to both horses' flanks, but Stampede just looks sad. He puts his nose into Vash’s hand and shakes his mane, flinging water and bits of branches in every direction. Tillie bites the side of Wolfwood’s hand. 

The fence is fucked. Vash frowns at the tangled wire and split stays, he kicks at posts to test their durability, and frowns harder. Wolfwood walks up the slope a little ways observing with a sinking stomach the amount of work this is going to take them. There are no simple breaks this time, no slanting posts or wiggling stays. 

“What happened to it?” Wolfwood asks when he’s made his way back to Vash’s side. 

“Heavy snowfall, migrating elk, larger things.” Vash turns away from the fence. He wipes his face, streaked with rain and smiles at Wolfwood. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, and unlike last summer, I’m not sure where we’ll find our wild horses.”

“Well that’s just great,” Wolfwood snarks. “Who’s working the lower meadows?”

“Nai and Legato.”

Wolfwood stares at Vash, “Nai is up here with us?”

“Yeah, I told you he did more than boss people around.”

It’s not really fear that makes Wolfwood so uneasy to the fact that Nai is but a few miles down the fence. Maybe trepidation or a strange feeling of being watched. He gets close to Vash, leaning down to whisper into his ear.

“I fucked you last night.”

Vash bites the edge of his lip, making big eyes at Wolfwood. “You did, and I hope you do it again.”

“Vash.”

“My brother wasn’t there to watch it, and I wasn’t screaming bloody murder. And even if he knew, who the fuck cares?” Vash’s eyes flit around his face, “Why do you care?”

“I. I don’t know. Just weird to think that he’s just down there.”

Vash narrows his eyes. “Worried he’ll fire you?”

“What? No.”

Taking a step back Vash puts space between them. “Afraid he’ll kill you?”

Wolfwood clenches a fist and flicks his bangs to the side, much like a horse, to rid them of clinging water. “He’s not exactly very friendly to me.”

Vash scoffs, “I wouldn’t let him kill you. This better not ruin anything, I still want in you.”

“You’re not just a whining little bottom?” Wolfwood asks around a grin.

“In your dreams, cowboy. I’m not too shabby at breaking horses myself.”

The rain picks up then, hitting like little knives against their skin. Vash curses and pulls up the hood of his poncho. 

“Sex talk later, we gotta get some work done.”

It’s miserable. Wolfwood wishes it was hot, wishes he could feel the tips of his ears burning. The cold is unrelenting, and he feels absolutely nothing. Vash is eerily quiet beside him, working with his shoulders to his ears, back ridged. There is no humming, no banter back and forth, they just work until their hands are too frozen to move. Fall, Wolfwood thinks, will come even earlier this year. By the time they drag themselves back to camp, Wolfwood is shivering. He coughs into his elbow as he helps Vash set up a rickety shelter over the fire. It’s a fight to get a fire to light, there is nothing dry, but Vash brandishes his little notebook and sets it ablaze before Wolfwood can offer any other alternative. The can of chicken that Wolfwood throws on the fire takes a long time to heat, and even then it’s cold in the middle. 

Wolfwood looks at Vash through his wet hair, he’s huddled in the corner of the little shelter, knees tucked to his chest, staring with disdain at the sky. Wolfwood brandishes the can towards him.

“Eat something.”

“I'm okay.”

Wolfwood glares at him, shoving the offered food harder at his chest. “Eat. Something. Goddamnit Vash.”

Vash takes the can with a grimace. He holds it in his hand for a few moments before dropping it to the ground, looking at Wolfwood imploringly. “I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t fucking care. You haven’t eaten shit all day, and we spent it working. Eat it.”

Staring dead eyed at Wolfwood, Vash lifts the spoon to his mouth and eats the lumpy mass of white meat. Wolfwood sits back satisfied. 

“I can’t feel my body,” Wolfwood mutters, rubbing his hands into his hair. Vash pouts around his mouthful.

“Want me to warm you up?”

Wolfwood shakes his head, “You’re insatiable, you damn harpy.”

Vash snickers, turning back to his meal. “You know how it is, get a taste of that forbidden fruit and suddenly you can’t get enough.” Vash points the spoon at Wolfwood, “You’ll be in my mouth soon enough. We’ve got all night to stay warm, cowboy.”

Speaking of. Wolfwood’s sneaking suspicion that the tent had leaked while they were out on the fence is confirmed when he tosses back the flap. His bedroll, because of course it’s his, is wet, and a steady drip plops onto water logged boards. 

Vash stares at the ceiling of the tent before turning with a grin and wiggling eyebrows to Wolfwood. He opens his mouth and Wolfwood holds up a hand. 

“Shut up. Just. Shut up,” Wolfwood says. He’s tired, and wet, and cold. And now his blanket is a sopping mound of wool. 

They sleep pressed seamlessly together that night. Vash holds Wolfwood to his chest, nose tucked behind his ear, breathing hot puffs of air to the chilled skin there. He’s not asleep, Wolfwood knows he’s not. The lines of his body are too tense, and the rolling thunder rolls up Vash’s spine in shivers. Wolfwood doesn’t sleep either, even though his mind is stuck in a loop of exhaustion. He traces patterns on Vash’s naked wrist, an act of soothing without outwardly acknowledging the fact that Vash’s heartbeat, usually so gentle, is pounding into Wolfwood’s back. He wants the night to end so badly but cannot sleep for the dawn to catch up with them. 

“I’m sorry about your brother,” Vash says suddenly. His voice is at a timber that Wolfwood can only hear because Vash is kissing his ear. Hot liquid slides down the back of Wolfwood’s neck. “I never said that.”

“Are you–are you crying ?” Wolfwood asks quietly. It takes some wriggling, but Wolfwood manages to turn himself around in Vash’s resisting arms to look at his face. There’s wetness beneath his eyes when Wolfwood reaches up to touch his face. “Why are you crying?”

“It’s sad,” Vash sobs. “It’s sad that he’s gone and it’s stained on you.”

Wolfwood laughs quietly, wiping away the tears with his thumbs, holding Vash’s cheeks in his palms, pressing them up close to his eyes. “S’not your hurt to cry over.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Vash,” Wolfwood says softly. “Don’t cry over my tragedy. Especially not when there’s already too much damn wet in here.”

Vash just makes a sad sound. Wolfwood shakes his head, tucking Vash into his neck, he laughs quietly, traces a scar up Vash’s back. 

“Did you cry over your tragedy?” Vash asks him. 

Wolfwood had cried. A year later. Locked in a holding cell of a tiny police department, the blood of some poor fool on the cuffs of his jeans. He didn’t remember who he was fighting or why, but he remembers the cold concrete floor, the moon coming in through the barred window, and the horrifying feeling of something breaking in his chest. Like a bridge collapsing or a wall of snow. The torrent it brought from his eyes was enough for the officer on duty to come into the cell, kneel at Wolfwood’s side and shove a chipped chamber pot under his face, as if Wolfwood was going to vomit. He’d cried until he fell asleep, cried until his face was stiff with salt. In the morning when he was let out, Wolfwood stood on the corner on the only piece of sidewalk in the entire town, and turned away from the direction he knew his gang was. 

“I cried,” Wolfwood says. “I changed. I bear the burden and I’m alright with that.”

“That’s sad.”

“That’s life.”

Vash props up his chin, leveling Wolfwood with a hard gaze. “I feel like I owe you more of myself now.”

“I’ve been in the deepest part of you,” Wolfwood whispers, grinning when Vash’s cheeks flare with color. Vash doles it out heavily, but can’t for the life of him take it. 

“My guts are hardly the deepest part of my being, Nico.” Vash reaches for his shirt, a soft cotton thing that he wears only to sleep. Up he tugs it, until the dip of his belly button is on display. His fingers splay out on his own skin, delicate in a way that looks strangely alien. Alien in the fact that it’s not Wolfwood’s hand that’s tracing up the winding edge of a long scar. “Want to hear the story?”

An exchange of hurts, Wolfwood’s invisible or at least he thought were invisible, and Vash’s so blatantly on his skin. Changing the landscape of his body. Wolfwood can’t help but wonder what his mindscape looks like. 

“Sure.”

The air is heavy with ozone and electricity. The hum of the sky present like the cricket song it’s silenced in the trees. Vash licks his lips, takes his hand from his stomach, and drops his shirt. 

“I got struck by lightning.”

Wolfwood jolts. “You got struck by lightning?”

Vash nods, “A long, long time ago.”

“You got struck by lightning as a child?” Wolfwood skims his hands up to Vash’s chest, touching, touching to ensure he’s whole. He presses his palm to the broken beating of Vash’s heart. 

“No. Just. A long time ago.”

“That’s kind of insane,” Wolfwood says quietly. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“It was up here, by the tree. It hit both of us.”

The lightning struck tree that they hang drying clothes on. That Wolfwood had started to carve a crude rendering of his initials into. 

“You hate thunderstorms,” Wolfwood mumbles. 

“Same reason you hate snakes.”

Wolfwood shifts, rolling flatter on his back, taking Vash’s weight more firmly onto his stomach. “So I’m guessing they had the antidote for lightning on hand.”

Vash is silent. 

“I-I was kidding,” Wolfwood says. He hits Vash on the shoulder. “You’re here aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Vash whispers. “Yeah. I’m here.”

Wolfwood wants to ask him why he would say it like that. So quietly that Wolfwood knows there's something there, something more. A piece of Vash that even now he hesitates to share. But Wolfwood also wants to hold him just to know he's alive. 

"Nai, he's protective of me. Hates that I come out here in the summer in spite of everything, when that's exactly why I do."

 Wolfwood snorts, "you come out here to spite the weather?” 

"No, but it sure as hell makes everything that much sweeter.” 

Wolfwood thinks that maybe he's in love.

The weather seems to be pissed at them from that night on. One morning, a week and a half into the summer, rain falls in icy sheets, cutting through layers of poncho and coat, sneaking into the smallest of gaps until there is nothing, fabric or skin, that isn't wet. They'd gone looking for the horses, the fence is half up, and even then it’s a pretty shoddy job. But Vash has grown worried for the herd and the rising water in the river down at base one. He said they could use the weather to their advantage, a natural fence that could help the horses go where he and Vash want them to go. They climb into the meadow from last summer first and when there is no sign of horses in the tall grass, they cut into the woods, looking for fresh sign. Wolfwood’s teeth are grit against the pounding rain, by some mercy it isn’t windy, so his hat has managed to stay a wet lump on his head. Vash is ahead of him, leading Stampede carefully over the steadily dissolving soil. Nothing catches Wolfwood’s eye but then Vash is pulling his horse up short and standing in his stirrups, he looks over at Wolfwood, water flinging off his hair. 

“Tracks, they lead out of the woods. I bet they’re up at the corner.”

“Vash that’s miles up there.”

Vash nods, gnawing on the side of his mouth. He looks at the heavy gray sky. “They’re going to keep going up.”

Wolfwood clenches his cold hands around the reins. “What is the probability of us actually finding them there?”

“High.” Vash sits back in his saddle. “We have tracks too, tracks that the rain is going to turn into puddles in a few hours.”

He’s right. This is the closest lead they’ve gotten for where the horses are. If they don’t move now who knows where the horses will be. The sun isn’t visible, but the day feels old. The shadows in the forest are deep, eating each other and spreading out over the forest floor. 

“I know it’s late,” Vash says, like he can read Wolfwood’s thoughts. “We can head back to camp.”

“No.” Wolfwood puts his heels into Tillie’s flanks. “The faster we get the horses outta here the faster we can get this goddamn work done.”

Vash nods, he clicks his tongue against the top of his mouth to get his horse moving. “Follow me.”

At the base of a sloping, wet hill they strip the horses of any unnecessary weight. Wolfwood is praying as they start to climb. If Stampede slips, he’s taking them both out. Tillie is usually so sure-footed, but Wolfwood can feel the way the ground is working against her. When they crest the hill Wolfwood breathes out a long breath of relief, for multiple reasons. The relative safety of the top of the hill and the brown splotches in the distance tucked among tall aspen and low oak shrubbery. In the horizon a pathetic strip of orange indicates the falling sun, and just how little time they actually have. 

“Plan?” Wolfwood asks Vash. The other man runs a hand through his hair, slicking it back until it lays flat against his scalp. 

“Let's get a little closer and see if we can just get them a little further down the meadow.” Vash smiles shakily at him. His lips are tinted blue, a flush sits high on his cheeks.

“You’re freezing,” Wolfwood murmurs, and has nothing else to offer. Sharing a sodden coat isn’t going to do Vash any good. 

“Let's hurry then, the sun is gonna be gone soon.”

The herd is much larger than the summer before. A splotched stallion catches sight of them from the edge of the herd. His nostrils flare, lips curling back to show dirty teeth. Vash meets the horse's gaze head on, pulling Stampede to a stop. Wolfwood watches the stand off warily. The stallion throws his head, kicks up his back feet and tears off around the edges of the herd, scattering the other horses. Vash curses, snaps his reins against Stampede’s neck and goes chasing the stallion.

Wolfwood goes the other direction, listening to Vash’s high whistles for cues on what to do. The horses move in a single mass, tripping over themselves as Vash pushes them down towards the hill. The ease in which the horses move is a relief. Until all the light is gone and the storm turns on them. Sheeting rain and lack of wind, thunders into whipping, hat thieving gusts and knife like rain. 

Vash is gone, lost to the darkness on the other side of the herd. It’s messy work and  Wolfwood realizes just how outnumbered they are when Tillie stumbles on a sharp turn in an attempt to stop a yearling from bolting past him. He’s a good rider, but night has fallen over the land completely and the rain has refused to abate. Wolfwood turns Tillie around after a stallion comes out of nowhere, snapping his teeth at Tillie’s shoulder. She squeals, jerking her head away, lasping control from Wolfwood. They head back around the herd, looking for Vash. 

It takes a single strike of lightning. Hitting the ground in splitting pink and blue. Tillie is out from under Wolfwood before he can register what’s happening. The dirt  is wet and unforgiving below his back. Wolfwood gasps for the breath that escaped his lungs on impact. There is no time to gather his senses, not when the ground shakes and the scream of terrified horses is louder than thunder. 

The mass of horses rolls like a dark wave down the hill. Mud flies from their hooves, the lightning lights fire in the rolling whites of eyes and the foam running along the corners of wailing  mouths. Wolfwood pulls himself to his knees, aching, drenched, staring stampeding death in the face. There is nowhere to go, the forest is at his back, nothing but the sobbing sky ahead of him. Those few seconds before death stretch the length of a lifetime. Wolfwood tastes mud, and smoke, and salt fat cooked in an old iron skillet. He smells hay, and the sage wind that blew through his uncle's property, tainted by the pig pens. Gunsmoke and blood, god it’s smeared over so much of his life, rusting red, chipping, staining;  he never out ran it. Got close out here, but even then it wasn’t far enough away. 

In his hands the faint sensation of Vash’s body, his hair, his mouth. Blue and gold, green and life. 

Wolfwood isn’t ready to die.

He wants to live. 

God…please

The horses are upon him and–

Light. Light unlike anything he has ever seen. Light that turns the night to day, the screaming horses into nothing but shadows. Light that makes the lightning shy away. Wolfwood’s ears ring, his eyes burn, burn, burn. He lifts an arm, shielding his face to stare up into the eyes. Countless eyes, countless wings, unfurling, flaring out and parting the horses like the Red Sea. A hand is outstretched to Wolfwood, long fingers, glowing lines, cracks in skin where eyes peer out and feathers sprout like weeds in pavement. 

Wolfwood gasps back to awareness, to the shattering of trees, the shattering of bones. Whines and screams as the horses dash themselves to pieces on centurion ponderosa. Iron stains the ozone filled air, entrails string themselves along pine carpeting and between the soaking heads of irises. The frenzy is all around him, all around the light, the god that hovers above him.  The horses pass by around him, and don't seem to be able to touch him. Their skeletons bleeding through their skin, madness in their eyes before heads are torn from their bodies and brains are spilled into roots. Wolfwood cowers in the face of the miracle, curls forward onto the ground, arms uplifted in submission and worship. 

“Mercy,” Wolfwood says, afraid. Afraid to the very core of his being that he will be driven to the same mad suicidal dash the horses are performing. 

The hand reaches further out until glowing fingerprints touch the bottom of Wolfwood’s chin, raising his face up, demanding his attention.

“M-mercy.” His voice trembles. Wolfwood feels dumbfounded at the sight of the impossible, the heavenly, the terrifying beauty.

“Nicholas.” The voice comes from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Reverberating through Wolfwood’s chest, shaking him down to his frozen knees. “ Don’t be afraid. Nothing will touch you.”

The fingers touching the underside of Wolfwood’s chin become gripping. Wolfwood pleads with his body to move as the being draws nearer, leaning down, large four fold wings flaring out before curling forward to engulf Wolfwood. He shivers, shaking his head in weak resistance, pushing stupid hands against the furled ridges of eyes embedded into shimmering torso. The cold of the rain is gone as Wolfwood’s head is tucked into the grisled form of a feathered shoulder. Hanging suspended in the sky are the raindrops, catching the wash of light until the ones close enough glow. Wolfwood stares at them, and past their shining forms to the last of the herd. The way they move across the land and through the frozen water is mesmerizing. Nothing grinds their mad dash to a halt, but in comparison Wolfwood feels suspended, slow and heavy. 

Is this death? Or perhaps some purgatory, that space between life and death where everything is caught between mortality and infinity. A passageway to heaven or hell or oblivion. Has this being come to take Wolfwood to wherever it is he is to go? But he doesn’t feel dead. Everything feels vividly real, alive. He feels alive.

“W-what are you?” Wolfwood asks, voice cracked and muffled in feathers. The being shifts, dragging its fingers up Wolfwood’s body, touching the bruises along his back. Sharp nails drag through Wolfwood’s hair, tapping along his forehead. It reminds him starkly of Vash’s hands in his hair. Wolfwood jolts, struggling with renewed strength against the being’s hold on him. He doesn’t know where Va–

“Vash!”

The rain starts to fall again, the hot stink of blood and steaming corpses drowns out wet pine. Coyotes' cries pierce the air. Close, so close. Drawn from their dens and cowardice into the rain by the carnage that’s laid itself out across the forest floor. From the trees on a skittish black horse charges Nai, shouting his brother’s name over the cacophony. His hair is white in the light, mouth set in a harsh line, spurs singing, foam streaming from his horse's mouth. Wolfwood stares at him, still pressed against the being, helpless in a grasp that won’t release. For a few agonizing moments, Wolfwood thinks Nai can’t see the being, but he’s not even looking at Wolfwood. 

Nai yanks hard on his reins, pulling the horse up short. It heaves for breath, ears pinned back, feet dancing, even at the mercy of Nai’s merciless spurs and pulling bit. His eyes are trained up at the being before dropping down to Wolfwood. Nai’s eyes harden, his mouth twisting in a snarl. He pulls a gun from the hostler at his hip. A twin in size and shape to Vash’s, and points it straight at Wolfwood. If Nai Saverem was someone else, if he wasn’t related to Vash, if he didn’t seem to glow with that same unnatural light; Wolfwood wouldn’t fear for his life. No bullet should fly straight in this weather, no gunman's vision should even be clear enough in these circumstances to see Wolfwood. Nai can sink a bullet cleanly between his eyes right now, and Wolfwood knows it. 

Wings tremble around Wolfwood, eyes flutter, shake with a rattling intensity. The crush of unearthly weight becomes unbearable as Wolfwood is hidden entirely by the being. A deep and wounded ‘ no’ bounces around in Wolfwood’s skull until his temples ache with it and bile rises in his throat. 

“You know the deal!” Nai shouts. “You promised, Vash!”

Wolfwood closes his eyes, presses his face into searing heat and the scent of fire. His head feels like it’s splitting, tearing down the middle. There are fingers in his hair again, threading through it, almost petting him. Wolfwood doesn’t fight anymore, isn’t sure he can, the tug of unconsciousness is gripping at him, and if the gun eventually goes off in Nai’s hand, Wolfwood is ready to slip away.

“...can’t let him back down this mountain!”

“He isn’t going to say anything!”

“You don’t fucking know that!”

Wolfwood opens his eyes. The canvas ceiling of the tent is a welcome sight. Wonderful in its mundanity. The familiar bulge in the corner that’s been threatening them since it filled a few days ago, drips a steady rhythm of water onto the wooden boards. There are voices outside. Harsh, loud. Vash’s voice and Nai’s. Wolfwood reaches up to touch his own face, press his thumbs into his eyes, and stroke the line of fire branded into the bottom of his chin. Part of him thinks he had dreamed everything, hopes he had. But he can still feel the burn, smell charred feathers. Blazing eyes, millions of eyes, are branded into the back of his eyelids. And his mind, no matter how many years he spent reading ancient texts in the dusty basement of Chapel’s church, could never conjure up that .

“You promised, Vash. You fucking swore.”

“I never swore to kill anyone!”

“No, but you swore never to have to lead me to that again. Didn’t you? Didn’t you!?”

Wolfwood creeps slowly towards the flap of the tent. Someone had taken his boots off and his steps are silent. The ties are loose, leaving a gap for Wolfwood to peer through. Vash is sitting on the log, stripped down to pants that are torn from hip to ankle. His hair is a disaster and tucked along his hairline are the remains of coarse white feathers. He’s staring up at his brother who stands like a storm cloud, anger radiating off of him in front of the fire.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Vash says. His voice falling into a gentle lilt that's almost wobbly. 

Nai scoffs and leans down to speak directly into his brother’s face. “You always have a choice, you just choose fucking wrong.” 

“Saving his life wasn’t wrong .”

“For you? Yeah it was.”

Vash opens his mouth like he’s going to say more but then he’s snapping his head around to stare at Wolfwood. His gaze is paralyzing. Wolfwood is left standing like an idiot in his flimsy hiding spot as Vash gets up and hurries towards him. Wolfwood stumbles back only when Vash reaches to part the flap. Vash’s face falls before he smiles sadly.  

“I won’t hurt you.”

Wolfwood is pressed nearly to the back of the tent, “What the hell are you?”

“I’ll explain everything, just. Come out. We have coffee.”

Laughing Wolfwood grabs his rosary through his shirt, almost surprised it’s still there. “How the hell am I supposed to trust you? How the hell am I supposed to trust fucking anything?”

“You aren’t,” Vash says. “I’m not expecting you to trust anything, but let me explain.”

Nai appears behind Vash, “What’s the point? I’m going to kill you anyway.”

“No, you aren’t,” Vash snarls. “I don’t want you to.”

“I don’t give two shits about what you want, Vash,” Nai snaps back. Wolfwood rubs at his nose between his eyebrows. 

“One of you either tell me what the fuck is going on or fucking kill me.”

Vash looks stricken, he wraps his arms loosely around his chest. “Let's talk by the fire. Please.”

Wolfwood stands by the fire, hands warming from the coffee Vash had offered him. Vash collapses back onto the log, burying his head in his hand, staring dead eyed at the ground. He looks worn down, exhaustion draped over him like a heavy blanket. 

The tension in the air is palpable. Nai’s hand is on his weapon, feet splayed wide. Wolfwood takes a shaky sip of his drink. 

“Where’s Tillie?”

Vash shakes his head silently. Wolfwood’s stomach knots thinking about the gore that’s up the ridge. He puts the coffee on the ground.

“Vash,” Wolfwood says. There is rage building in him now, fed by fear. “What are you?”

Vash looks up at him, blue eyes wide, “I don’t know. It just happened after I got struck by lightning. It killed me, Wolfwood. But I came back and was never the same again.”

“You looked like an angel,” Wolfwood murmurs. “Like the seraphim of the bible.” 

Eyes and eyes and wings and wings, staring through every layer of Wolfwood’s mortal being, scraping the edges of his soul. Wolfwood never wanted to be aware of his soul, and now he feels it like a heavy thing surrounding him. 

“Not an angel,” Nai says. “Just a miracle.”

“A mistake,” Vash says harshly. “I don’t know why I survived.”

Wolfwood chews on the side of his thumb, “You’re the thing people came looking for up here, aren’t you? The angel, the monster. Jesus Christ, Vash. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Vash sniffles, staring at Wolfwood with wide blow eyes, glossy with moisture. “You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“I saw your eyes glowing the first goddamn night we were out here. Thought I was going mad.” Wolfwood barks out a laugh, yanking on his bangs. “You shot a hole through a tree down a hill in the middle of the night! You talked to deer, I would’ve believed anything you told me to explain why .”

“I thought I did a good job at hiding it,” Vash mumbles. Nai lets out a long groan, dragging both of his hands up his face. 

“You’re shit at hiding it,” Wolfwood says. He finally sits, right on the ground, his coffee mug upturning. He stares at the dark puddle, the ground is too wet to absorb any of it. He still feels winded, but rejuvenated in a way that feels almost scary. There’s an energy under his skin, rippling, pushing against his skin feeling like he’s standing against a current in a river. “The cowboy, he knew didn’t he? He saw something he wasn’t supposed to and he had to die because of it.”

Nai shifts where he stands, hand back on his weapon, “He didn’t see what he wasn’t supposed to, he provoked until there was a reaction. He knew what he wanted to see.”

“I didn’t want him to die,” Vash says miserably. “I don’t want anyone to die.”

Wolfwood looks over at Nai, the hard set of his jaw, tilting eyebrows. Worry mixed with fury. Wolfwood feels much the same way. His nose is crooked permanently because a few boys had already passed judgment on something they couldn’t and didn’t bother to understand. The town's economy is tied directly to the Saverem ranch and the work it creates and brings in, but there is a quiet hostility in the corners of the town. In the way the towns folk interact with Vash, watching him when he’s long gone from their sight. They’re waiting to cast the first stone. For something like this to get out would be dangerous. 

Sighing, Wolfwood rights the mug. “You should have said something, doll.”

Vash shivers slightly, “I didn’t predict you, Wolfwood.” Vash smiles shakily at him. “You were only supposed to be a cowboy working for me, nothing else.”

“Don’t know how I should feel about that,” Wolfwood mumbles. He reaches over to stroke his thumb over Vash’s cheek. “You saved my life last night.”

Turning his cheek further into Wolfwood’s palm, Vash nods. “I wasn’t going to let you get ground up into mud by horses.” Vash’s eyes wince, “I killed all of them .”

“Not your fault.” Wolfwood drags Vash closer to him, hungry suddenly to be pressed hip to hip, chest to chest, anything. Vash lets himself get manhandled until he can press his face into Wolfwood’s neck and breathe out a long shuddering gasp. Wolfwood buries his face in Vash’s hair, kisses at his forehead, rocking them, shivering in relief. “Fucking saved me, angel.”

“I’m not an angel,” Vash says wetly. “I’m not, I’m not.”

Wolfwood hushes him, smoothing a hand down Vash’s back, soothing him, soothing himself . The current under his skin is thrumming, clenching his stomach. 

“Vash.” Wolfwood had forgotten about Nai. The other man is watching them silently. “Goddamn it.” Nai turns away from them, looks up at the sky before whirling around again to point an accusing finger at Wolfwood. “I can’t let you off this mountain.”

“Then don’t,” Wolfwood says evenly. 

Vash sits up, “No.” he looks at his brother, “ No .”

“I don’t mean kill me, I’m not ready to die.” Wolfwood tugs Vash back against him. “Hire me on, permanently. I’ll work for you year round, you’ll know where I am most of the time.”

“ No,” Vash says. “Fuck, I can’t keep you here.”

Wolfwood smiles at him, “I was going to ask you to run off with me at the end of this summer anyways. True sappy romance style.”

Vash stares at him, shaking his head, pausing. He hooks a canine over his bottom lip. “I would’ve gone.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

Wolfwood gathers Vash’s hands in his, tracing veins and scars. There is gooseflesh prickling up Vash’s body, his breath is cold against Wolfwood’s throat. The red coat is nowhere to be seen, so Wolfwood strips himself of his shirt and pulls it over Vash’s body before the other man can protest, stomach warming hot at the sight of Vash in his clothes, curled against his bare chest. “And I’d stay here to keep you safe, the ranch safe. I want to fix everything that happened last night, and this shitty ass fence.”

Vash smiles at him, cups the side of his face drawing him down to kiss the corner of Wolfwood’s mouth. “I’m falling in love with you, but I can’t make you give up your life.”

“These summers allowed me to start over, I ain’t giving up my life.”

“I’m not very human anymore,” Vash says like a warning. 

Wolfwood shrugs, “That’s fucking exhilarating.”

Nai makes a choked sound, there’s disgust and horror written across his face. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I happen to think your brother is real pretty, Mr. Saverem, human or angel. I’d like to have him and your permission to have him.”

Nai stares at him, shakes his head slowly and turns around to stalk into the forest. Vash drops his head to Wolfwood’s shoulder and sighs. 

“He didn’t shoot you, you should feel confident.”

Wolfwood laughs quietly, “That’s good I guess.”

Thunder rumbles off over the high peaks where clouds have been gathering in thick, dark folds.  Wolfwood drops his cheek into Vash’s hair, he doesn’t really want it to rain, not again. Not yet. He’s not even completely dry, isn’t sure of the last time he was dry, and he thinks maybe when it starts to rain the remains of the horses will wash down the meadow, a morbid waterfall. 

“I didn’t think they’d run like that,” Vash whispers like he can hear Wolfwood’s thoughts. 

“Well I should’ve been more careful,” Wolfwood says. “I’m so sorry.”

Vash sits up fully, turns to look Wolfwood in the eye. “There is no regret in me for saving your life, but I am no angel. If I was, I could have saved everything last night.”

A raindrop falls, fat and full. It lands in Vash’s hair, rolls off like water on duck feathers to splash on the back of Wolfwood’s hand. Around them the trees sigh, drooping against the oncoming deluge. Vash cranes his neck up to watch a pair of little brown birds shuffle on a branch, curling together. He’s a light in the falling dim. Blond hair a flare, the lines of his neck stretched out like bleached bone against the dark green backdrop of the woods. Wolfwood’s white shirt pools around Vash’s trim waist and the lines of feathers along exposed calves are alluring as they try to unfurl into existence. Vash looks so natural in the pine-down, among the trees that bow and sigh for him; he looks so natural here with Wolfwood. 

Wolfwood takes off his rosary, he brings Vash’s attention back around, pulls their foreheads together and presses the crucifix into Vash’s palm. 

“Maybe you aren’t an angel, but to me, you’re heaven sent.”

Epilogue

There’s snow on the highest peaks when Wolfwood drives the Power Wagon into town. It’s a quaint little sight this late into autumn. The aspen trees that haven’t already shaken their leaves onto the ground are dressed in apricot. Signs of hallows eve celebrations are cropping up in windows in the form of carved pumpkins and dripping candles. Wolfwood pulls the truck to a stop in the bar parking lot and walks over to the station. 

Georgia is at her desk when he saunters in. She watches him passively, waiting until Wolfwood is propped against her desk on one elbow to say anything. 

“One ticket for the Loreno Plains, Mr. Wolfwood?”

He grins at her around a cold cigarette. “Nah. I’m here for the Saverem Ranch mail.”