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Vash’s thoughts ricocheted with righteous fury– too hot to grasp, too sudden to dwell upon for any longer than a split second before the next consumed his absolute attention. Wolfwood was hurt. So were these people. He couldn’t remember an indeterminate amount of time. Someone was yelling at him. His hands weren’t enough to stay the blood gushing from this poor man’s abdomen. Poor man? No, he hurt Wolfwood, hurt Vash– still, a poor man, whose desperate attempts to writhe away from Vash made his heart ache before the bile crept up the back of his throat. He did this. This was his doing. He couldn’t stop it. His fingers wouldn’t work to tear away part of his undershirt, too stiff, too shaky, too weak–
“Get away from me,” the man cried out, and yet how could Vash possibly do as he asked? The crazed fear in his eyes meant nothing. He was used to that. All that mattered was stopping the scarlet rush, keeping that vital fluid inside of the man’s body before it was too late–
“You’ll die,” Vash tried to reason, voice emerging so pitifully thin, finally managing to grip the fabric hard enough to tear off a lengthy strip. Not lengthy enough, he knew. It would soak through in an instant. And yet– and yet, what other option did he have?
Overwhelmed with the stench of bodily fluids, Vash tried to remind himself that the coppery scent was his own blood, busted nostrils clogged with so much that it dripped down into his open mouth. Though even if his nose were clear, he supposed it would be no different. So, so, so much blood. Slick on his hands, his pants, splattered on his underarmor and across his face. Enough he couldn’t tell where his blood ended and their’s began.
“Yer a damn monster,” the man hissed, flinching away to the best of his power when Vash leaned in to try and lift him, to wind the makeshift bandage under him. And something about that word tripped through the black haze of panic– a snake in his veins that shot through his shoulderblade and surfaced before he could stop himself, a mighty jolt of power manifesting in a wilted wing at his back.
Monster? What right did this man have to that word when– when–
He laughed, laughed so callously while they tormented Wolfwood, and he’d never heard Wolfwood scream like that before, and all of a sudden he remembered why he lost control, why the power swelled at his fingertips and he feared they would erupt with swollen white light again. No, he couldn’t think of that, dared not think of that, not when every second mattered–
It wasn’t just this man, after all, but his colleague, and the way his chest rose and fell so shallowly, the way he made hardly a whisper of sound a few inches away– Vash made the wrong decision, helping this man first, he should have started with the other one– damn it all–!
“Spikey.”
Jolted from his delirium with the single call of his name, Vash lifted his head. He laid eyes on Wolfwood, upright and unbound, and glimpsed his bloodied face no longer than an instant before the two gunshots struck his eardrums, loud and violent, one after the other without a beat of hesitation.
Panic. Not for himself, but for Wolfwood. Had they missed a third assailant? Where were the shots fired from? Vash studied Wolfwood for all of an instant, waiting with a lump in his throat for the priest to drop, for another scarlet bloom to blossom through his white undershirt, only for his gaze to fall slowly, slowly, slowly, to the smoking gun in Wolfwood’s hand.
The man in his arms went limp. Dead weight in his arms.
“Wha–” It made perfect, logical sense. These men endangered them. Tormented them. Wolfwood had every right and reason to fire. Yet the pieces refused to come together, even as Vash scrambled to cradle the man’s head, to brush his thumb over the round embedded firmly in the dead center of his brow. Then, belatedly, he brought that same hand to his jaw, where the warm spatter of grey matter clung to his skin. “Wolfwood, you–” the other one. Surely the other one yet lived. He dropped the man in his arms with little finesse, then crawled an inch towards the other one before eyes caught the bloody mess in the side of his head.
The ragged wing at Vash’s back drooped. His jaw wagged, useless, desperate to put the pieces together. “Why did you–?!”
“Get up, Spikey.” Wolfwood checked the chamber of the revolver, not his, and yet handled as though he’d used the gun every day since he emerged from the womb. Sagging shoulders heaved with heavy, stern breath, and Vash caught the mild tremble of his hand as he closed the cylinder and tucked it into the holster at his shoulder. “Ain’t gotta tell ya it’s of utmost urgency we split from this place as soon as possible, do I?”
“They could have lived–” Vash sputtered, wing twitching, adamant shake of his head given in response.
“Well, I killed ‘em. Yer beatin’ a dead horse, Spikey. Literally.” Spoken so callously that it stirred Vash to his feet, finally, the skin of his cheek splitting as small feathers fanned beneath his eye. They’d been over this. For so long it seemed like Wolfwood listened, that Wolfwood didn’t necessarily agree with his ethics, but at least tried to abide them–
But this? His fingers curled into the loosest of fists, and an outburst bubbled in the back of his throat. What feeble lid he kept on his emotions, however, kept them in check just long enough to watch Wolfwood turn on his heel to leave, only for his knees to tremble and give out beneath him as he half-collapsed into one of the crumbling pillars of this desolate mine.
At once the feathers retreated, vanishing in a fine wisp of wind, and whatever broiling anger prickled beneath the surface of his skin went cold. He swallowed down the bitter draught of thick blood that leaked down into the back of his throat from his nostrils, nearly choking on it, and pushed himself upright to start for Wolfwood's prone form.
Yet no sooner did he reach for Wolfwood's shoulder did the priest find some semblance of strength himself. He shouldered into the pillar, shrugged off Vash's hand and slid upward against it back onto his feet. "Either yer pissy, or yer not. Pick one and don't be wishy-washy about it." He paused as he reached up against the soaked-through fabric of his undershirt and pressed firm with his palm. "Ain't in the mood for it."
His head spun with whiplash. Physical— he'd been thrown around all night after all— but also mental whiplash. Vash dared to steal a glimpse at the shadowed forms of their assailants, the eternal stillness of their bodies, and when he caught that blank, lifeless eye staring up at him, feathers threatened to tear out from beneath his skin once more.
Then from the corner of his eye, Wolfwood nearly rolled on his ankle, and like a light switched off, his temper fizzled flat. "You look like you're about to fall over," Vash murmured, voice thin, to which Wolfwood paid him no mind.
"I'll walk it off. Jus' do me one favor and keep yer yap shut about my murderous tendencies 'til we…" Wolfwood trailed off, yet didn't stop, even if his next step faltered. "…ain't in the mood fer yer… yer…"
He'd seen many people faint over the years— yet while the sight had clutched at his heart every single time, never had it been accompanied by the cold panic that tore up his limbs in a violent shiver, even the phantom that always seemed to hover disjointedly beside his prosthetic. The paralysis took flight, and with a violent jolt Vash scrambled for Wolfwood, ignorant to all his agonies as he shook Wolfwood's shoulder and barked: "Wolfwood! You— you dumbass—!"
Whether he was a dumbass for pulling the trigger, or for trying stubbornly to walk when he had to have known this would happen, Vash decided he didn't care. More importantly there came no response to his insult, and were it not for the harsh rasp of his breath—
He didn't want to think about that alternative, actually. Instead he rolled Wolfwood over onto his back and wished the sight of his shirt, more crimson than white, didn't have the power to beckon forth the feathers at his cheeks in a way he could barely restrain. His strength always returned to him when he feared it lost. And now was no exception. The heaviness in his bones and the burn of his battered flesh came second to the zealous need to get them both somewhere safe. With grit teeth and a flash of uncertainty whether he'd be able to manage it, he hauled Wolfwood up in his arms, knowing full well it would have been easier to fling him over the shoulder.
But somehow that didn't feel right. Cradled to his chest, Vash told himself it was only rational— that this way, he could watch the minute changes to Wolfwood's pointed visage, and if worse came to worst, he'd know to drop him then and there and do whatever emergency procedure was in his power to perform.
His brows pinched together briefly as he stumbled past the bodies at his heels, wrinkled his nose at the wet plish of stepping in the pooling blood. They were dead men either way. Bullet to the brain or not. But thinking about that too hard was a problem for later.
For now— for now—
For now he would hie them to the closest reasonable place to stop. Wolfwood would have yelled at him to keep his eyes on the road ahead, but how could he stop himself from sparing the body sprawled in Angelina's sidecar several worried glances, how could he tear his gaze away for any longer than the few urgent seconds it took to make sure they weren't going to imminently crash? He hated driving this death trap, but what he hated more was the thought of Wolfwood's shallow breath going stagnant and still.
This pit stop saw few visitors. Vash knew based on the fact that both guards lifted their heads from their seats on the porch to watch Angelina's rattling approach, and only when Vash pulled in to stop did they move to reach for their hefty guns propped up against the wall. A third man sat beneath the sputtering porch light, gloomy and ominous yellow, whatever battery keeping it alive clearly on its way out.
They seemed perturbed to see anyone at all, one guard tentatively inching closer to the steps to descend and investigate— but there was no time for that. Vash hauled Wolfwood out in that same bridal carry and made urgently for the door. "Need a room—" he shouted, or at least made an effort to, his words muted and muffled by the phlegm and blood in his throat until he cleared it with a hacking cough and tried again, "Need a room— I'll do anything— just let me deal with this first— please—"
"Hot damn," the guard at the base of the steps barked back as Vash shouldered past him, close enough to the ailing porch light at last to illuminate the damage. "The hell happened to you two?"
"Hey, hey, nobody said ya could go in there—" the second guard said, reaching for Vash's shoulder to grab him and stop him. Why the hell his instincts kept choosing fight over flight vexed him; in that split second he pivoted to jerk his shoulder back, taking a single step away, whipping around to face the guard as the feathers exploded from his face and he knew his pupils had pulled back into fine, uncanny slits. He bared his teeth for all of a second before he forced his quavering lips shut.
"Please," he begged, and when the guard held up his gun, aghast with fear, it was all he could do to whirl around again to put his back between gunpoint and Wolfwood. A flurry of feathers burst free of his coat, spread wide with threat, and he dared not do so much as breathe when he caught himself in the nick of time from spearing through the guard entirely with the pointed ends of his feathery appendages.
"What the hell are you," the guard gasped out, stumbling back, and Vash waited, waited for the inevitable pull of the trigger. He curled closer around Wolfwood, pressed their brows together, and reached desperately— failed utterly— for the words to tell them he meant them no harm.
But sometimes, sometimes fear played in his favor. The third man, who he could only assume owned this rickety place, lunged for the guard and grabbed at his arm. "Leave it alone! Ya shoot at that thing and it'll probably kill us dead, boy! Let it do whatever the hell it wants!"
In a less dire place, a less dire time, he would have asked the man outright again if he could take a room. Made some sort of attempt to clarify his stance. But the feeble breath that snaked past Wolfwood's parted lips served as a reminder that he had no time to dilly-dally. Without a further word Vash shouldered into the lodge and looked longingly at the stairs. Somewhere higher would be safer; a room not on the ground floor would be best. But now wasn't time for the best. Now was the time to barge into the nearest room, dump Wolfwood on the bed, abandoning him just long enough to grab a stapler left askew on the front desk before retreating back to slam and lock the door.
Did it feel wrong to straddle Wolfwood's comatose form and desperately tear at the buttons of his dress shirt until they gave, exposing the battered flesh beneath? Of course it did. Of course; but there was no time for decorum, for being polite, not when several stab wounds still oozed fresh blood. Precious, precious blood that needed to stay inside his body. With his teeth Vash yanked off his glove to more precisely manipulate the split skin, angry and red and swollen, bringing it together to start stapling the wound shut with abandon.
He wished, begged, prayed for that first injection into the flesh to trigger a sharp yowl along with the click of the stapler. An incredulous, are ya fuckin' serious, spikey?! What sort of medic are ya?!
But there came nothing. Maybe-sweat, maybe-blood, maybe-both rolled down the back of his neck as he dared lift his gaze just long enough to watch Wolfwood's face, the mildest twinge of discomfort as though he had lightly pinched the skin with his fingertips. Too out of it to give him the verbal thrashing he surely deserved. At least it came with a reaction— at least he wasn't so far gone as to be utterly unresponsive.
That was a good thing. It had to be a good thing. Because if it wasn't then beneath the surface of his skin a quiet rumble would become a banshee's shriek and those pinpricks of feathers would rupture through his flesh and crawl out of him like rapidly growing roots, explosive power that no one could possibly hope to contain, they would chase the nearest lifeforms, shoot through them, squeeze the blood and viscera and bone marrow from their bodies just like he tried to do to those men he just couldn't help himself not when he watched those tears streaking down Wolfwood's cheeks, jaws parted in a hoarse scream and they didn't care they just moved on to the next fingernail and why why why why was humanity capable of such cruelty did they deserve to die in July no how could he think that how could he ever think that that orchestra of terror was a good thing—
Vash sucked in a sharp breath. Pupils grew out of fine, sharp slits, and while he had almost finished closing up the last major wound by Wolfwood's ribs, he forced himself to put the stapler down with a jerky motion and clutched at the side of his face. The hand that met his cheek was foreign, fingers elongated and alien, capped with jagged clawtips and covered in fine, downy feathers. He rubbed at his cheek until his fingers felt normal, human, and stared vacantly at the headboard for several agonizing seconds while wings retracted into his shoulderblades.
He couldn't lose himself. Not now. Right now Wolfwood needed him— and so with a thick swallow around the rock in his battered throat he finished pinching together the flesh of that final wound, then reached for Wolfwood's hand to gently turn his palm into the covers, split knuckles and angry pink-red nailbeds exposed.
Already he knew his next course of action. That entailed moving from his straddle. Yet Vash lingered, hesitating before he reached out to brush his fingertips down the length of Wolfwood's sternum to his belly button. The ghost of his hand traced along blackened bruises, wishing so vehemently that with this power he could lift that discoloration and pain from Wolfwood's flesh. But his wasn't that sort of power.
YOURS IS THE POWER OF GENOCIDE AND DESTRUCTION AND SLAUGHTER
Vash slid off Wolfwood, grabbed the edge of the bedsheets, and muttered a quiet apology under his breath as he started to tear fabric into strips. The wretched screech of fibers shorn with brute strength alone almost drowned out the hushed conversation outside:
"The hell is that thing doin' in there—?"
"Shaddup and leave it be. Ya don't survive out here by fuckin' with shit ya can't handle."
"Yeah? An' what if it changes its mind and stops actin' so benign?"
"Then we was fucked either way. Leave it be, son. Leave it be."
Genocide and destruction and slaughter. He laid out the strips as he made them, counted them out, one to ten, then counted again to make sure he'd gotten it right with the way his head throbbed and spun. Ten homemade bandages for ten mangled nailbeds. Pinfeathers sprung up from the back of his hand when he reached for Wolfwood's, and he lingered for a moment, breathing deep until they were naught but faint bumps on his skin, just beyond the threshold of goosebumps.
Each digit tenderly wrapped. He hoped the pressure of cloth against the exposed under-nail wouldn't sting too badly if Wolfwood came to.
When Wolfwood came to. It had to be 'when'. It had to be. Vash glanced over Wolfwood's torso again, a cursory examination to make sure no major wounds were missed. Then something possessed him— perhaps the demons lurking beneath his skin. Vash leaned in, looming over Wolfwood's chest, and braced his prosthetic beside Wolfwood's head while the other cupped his cheek.
What was he doing? What did he think he was doing? Vash's breath quickened, and his body froze with hesitation and second thoughts. Then he looked at Wolfwood's bangs stuck to the blood on his brow, and Vash could not help but draw even nearer to press their brows together. His face screwed. Ugly and on the very precipice of a sob.
This was purely a thing of numbers. Three bodies were worse than two. It had nothing to do with the fact that this body would be Wolfwood's; he never asked for this stubborn priest to haunt him like this, after all, never asked for the companionship or the relief of having someone at his back.
"You didn't kill them," Vash murmured. The very words broke as he forced them out. "So you can't die here. Okay?"
Were yer fingers the ones that pulled the trigger, spikey?
He wanted to hear it. That irritating, stubborn counterargument. But nothing came. Just the strained rasp of breath past Wolfwood's lips. Vash knocked their brows together, a gentle nudge, then set to the rest of his work. Those sloppily stapled wounds needed bandaging. Not to mention the other lacerations— a gunshot that needed fishing out of his shoulder—
Each task tended to in turn without hesitation. At least he could do something. When that list ran dry, he had nothing to do but make an effort to try and clean him up. Yet when Vash stood up to stumble to the bathroom and draw water, his head swam, and he found himself sat down on the bedside once more, clutching at his head to try and combat the lightheadedness he'd only come to notice now.
Ah. Right— he'd been stuck and shot several times, too. But that didn't matter. He would be fine. His was the power of genocide and destruction and slaughter— a bit of severe blood loss wouldn't change that. With trembling hands Vash unbuttoned his coat, hastily thrown back on to cover the brunt of his wounds. Stuck right in the gut; yet while he bled, feathers knit together across the length of the wound only allowed for streaks of scarlet to peek through while Wolfwood bled rivers.
He prodded, and promptly regretted. Vash's face twitched with pain, and as though his poke had ruptured the surface of a balloon, the air seemed to leak out of him as he laid down at the edge of the bed, careful not to touch Wolfwood. And yet in spite of his care, he promptly turned over to scoot closer, compelled by forces unknown to look back at his blank face, going so far as to gently caress his cheek and tip it towards him.
Sometimes, however brief, he could forget. He could pretend that Wolfwood was what he said he was, standing strong and proud in the face of imminent danger, smoking cigarettes like he'd been smoking every day for twenty years. But he never truly forgot. Other people were fooled, to be certain, but not a creature of genocide and destruction and slaughter, whose eyes had seen so, so much.
And laying here, looking at face unguarded, pinched with pain but dormant otherwise, no pretenses at play in unconsciousness, the youth truly leaked through his façade. He saw the way Wolfwood's eyes lit up beneath his sunglasses when something fun caught his interest or the scent of good food blew past him. A brief flicker of childish light before he stomped it out and played coy. The way he tried not to look at children in the streets; he never ignored them, of course, but oh, Vash saw how his face hardened ever so slightly. A yearning so intense it ached.
He didn't know Wolfwood's past. Nor was it his business. But he knew a boy when he saw one. Three bodies were worse than two, but the body of a child was infinitely worse than the lifeless corpse of an adult.
Heat pricked at Vash's eyes. He couldn't stop it— with a sniffle the tears rolled from his eyes and he curled inward to press his eyelids into the butts of his hands. He'd done everything he could. This waiting game would be the death of him. The idea of those eyes never opening again swallowed him like a wormhole, tore him asunder like gutted prey, made him—
"Quit yer snivellin'," came a hoarse mutter, and at once Vash sucked back his snot with a snort. Through his fingers Vash peered at Wolfwood, who hadn't moved a fraction of an inch. But the steel had snuck back in to his expression, brows pinched together in concentration. They laid in silence until Vash felt the weak inward flinch of Wolfwood's hand into a fist to which his chest trembled and he sucked in the quietest breath through his lips.
"Wolfwood," Vash whispered back, incredulously, "I… I was…"
"Ain't no paper doll, spikey," Wolfwood replied, lips parted and frozen momentarily before he found his voice amid the stinging pain, "If I'm gonna bite it, it ain't gonna be from some wanna-be assassins."
He said that, and yet— Vash winced. The memory returned to him like a pinprick from a needle to the temple, so potent that he recoiled slightly from Wolfwood. The instant the world seemed to shatter like glass. The first crack when one of the men cast aside their knife and pulled their pistol. Cocking it betwixt Wolfwood's stretched jaws, and laughing. Laughing at the defiance in his narrowed grey eyes, and all the while Vash's fingers curled into tighter fists behind his back, mechanical palm creaking with tension.
He couldn't lose control. He couldn't. Not again. Not so soon. But the second crack tore through him at the way Wolfwood gagged through the barrel, bleeding and maimed hand shaking against the arm of the chair he was tied to—
It would have been from some wanna-be assassin. Vash watched his finger twitch on the trigger. An instantaneous reaction, wrist yanked free to reach for Wolfwood, outstretched, before it erupted into a tangle of feathers. The gun had gone off. He remembered the bang. That was why he'd been shot in the shoulder. Gun pulled from his mouth only to fire in the instant before those feathers tore the hand clean off that man's body.
No no no no no the blood the bodies the death his fault his fault his fault—
Vash blinked himself back to the present, clutching at his brow so tight that the crescents of his nails might have left marks in the skin. A return to Wolfwood's face, tilted ever so slightly in his direction, grey eyes open, squinted but alert, and lips ever so slightly agape.
No wonder, Vash thought, breathing deep to will the feathers back into his cheekbones, his chin, his neck. Pupils dilated from the fine slits they had become, and with a thick swallow, Vash jolted to sit up. He said nothing, merely started to get up to leave— where he intended to go, he didn't know— the bathroom? Outside? Across the room to stand in the corner?
But a firm grip stopped him. Nailless fingers flinched tight around his wrist. Somehow Vash couldn't bring himself to meet Wolfwood's gaze, but he watched the priest's lips quaver, searching for words he couldn't find.
"You're gonna hurt yourself more," Vash murmured, gently setting his other hand atop Wolfwood's. Already the blood had begun to seep through the white of the bandages, a cruel and twisted parody of nails painted scarlet.
"Then lay yer ass back down," Wolfwood replied, warningly, but it was a thin facade for the vulnerability that threatened to peek through the cracks in the glass. He could almost, almost hear it in Wolfwood's voice: don't leave, spikey. Fer once, don't leave.
Some part of him still yearned to flee. But he didn't want those fingers to bleed any more than they already had. Such was Vash's justification for obeying, turning back to face inward towards Wolfwood, who merely released him, exhaled something akin to a gasp of relief, and closed his eyes as chin tilted back up towards the ceiling.
There they laid, side by side, no contact aside from where Wolfwood had weakly released Vash's wrist— where Vash had not bothered to pull his wrist away. He stared without truly looking, thought without truly thinking. Maybe that was the blood loss finally setting in, and the adrenaline finally starting to wear off.
Still. A creature of his caliber still had enough wits about him to snap to attention when Wolfwood next spoke, a reluctant mumble: "I owe ya one, spikey."
No, he most certainly didn't. Yet a demon possessed him once more— whether the feathers beneath the flesh or some other devil, he didn't know. But Vash shifted slightly, inching closer towards Wolfwood. "That's nonsense. But we can even it out here and now if you want. Then… then no one owes anyone."
Wolfwood squinted at him with one open eye. A flicker of mistrust before he closed it again, exhaled softly through his nostrils, and replied flatly, "Well?"
He straddled Wolfwood again, ever so careful to make sure neither of their bodies touched. Braced over him on all fours, he stared down at Wolfwood's lips, pretended that his suddenly open eyes weren't scalding him with their startled intensity. Hand hovered by Wolfwood's cheek, not daring to caress it, or even to make contact. "Can I?" Vash whispered. "Just one."
"One what?" Wolfwood replied, and were it not for the earnest consternation in his voice, he would have assumed it a quippy rejection. "What's this…?"
I want to kiss you. A simple request, yet it was his turn to be speechless. He truly was possessed— in what world was this okay? In what world would Wolfwood ever say yes? Certainly not one where he laid in the damp of his own blood soaked into the mattress.
"One what?" Wolfwood repeated, this time audibly distraught.
He still couldn't make eye contact. Vash leaned in closer— and felt the mattress shift as Wolfwood promptly pushed his head further back into the bed in turn. One vocal request would clear it all up. So why couldn't he speak? Why did Wolfwood's perfectly natural reaction sting like a slap to the face? It didn't need to feel this alien— yet all Vash could manage was to lift his fingers to his own lips before he gently brushed those same fingers against Wolfwood's.
"Ya gone mute or what?" He hissed, a beat of silence between them before the tension in his body let loose and he murmured with peculiar apathy, "Do what yer gonna do, spikey."
Did it feel right to connect their lips, to brush against Wolfwood's mouth, suddenly screwed into a grimace? No. Yet something right lingered so close that he couldn't help but reach out, their kiss moreso a fleeting, dry peck than anything worthwhile. But the taste of Wolfwood's blood and that tease of stale breath, all the more potent in close proximity—
He'd take it. It was all he wanted. All he needed. And though he lingered for a few seconds more, Vash pulled back off Wolfwood and collapsed back on the side of the bed. He tried to pretend the way Wolfwood released the breath he'd been holding didn't ache. He felt Wolfwood's stare even with his eyes shut. Potent. Unnerved.
And then finally he asked, voice unsteady: "…that it?"
"That's it," Vash echoed.
"I don't understand."
"You don't have to. Just that we're even now."
"But that was nothin'."
"Not to me it wasn't."
There came silence. Eventually Wolfwood looked away. Vash didn't open his eyes to check. Genocide and destruction and slaughter; two bodies were preferable to three. Their vacant expressions would haunt him. They already were. The longer he laid there, in fact, the thinner his skin felt until feathers prickled just beneath the surface.
And then he listened to Wolfwood's unsteady, strained breathing until they retreated once more.
"I won't fall asleep on you," Vash said, eventually. "I'll keep watch."
"…don't bother. Won't be sleepin' much anyway." Spoken as though Wolfwood wasn't well practiced in the art of sleeping in pain— spoken as though he didn't drift into uneasy sleep not even an hour later. Then— and only then— did the roiling beneath his skin die out completely.
Genocide and destruction and slaughter and a stolen kiss. Weight on a heavy heart that never grew any lighter. Yet something about that troubled but soft expression made it disappear, however brief. Maybe it was because two bodies were preferable to three—
—or maybe it was because in spite of it all, the odds so very against them both, he laid in bed with someone who could fall asleep beside a monster.