#trigun writing

[heich0e]

bright - vash/f!reader/wolfwood (trigun stampede) 2k, part 3 of poly!au, wild west!au, bounty hunters, wolfwood calls reader 'kid' as a petname, this is just sweet n fluffy and nothing is bad (for now...), alexa play home on the range BOUND - poly!au masterlist

it’s been two days since nicholas and vash returned.

well, two nights and one day, technically, but it all seems to bleed together—the seconds since the two crept through the door at midnight passing slow and sticky-sweet like honey. half the day following their homecoming was spent asleep, just a pile of tangled limbs and warm skin together in your shared bed, and the remaining hours had been spent in that same place as well—though your activities had been far from restful. your body is left tender and heavy and tired as you make up for the day’s work you’d neglected, but those aches are sweet too in their own way; a reminder as sure and tangible as any that your boys are home. 

the day is hot, like most days are on the little homestead where you dwell, and the sun beats down on you oppressively from overhead. at the clothesline, you find some reprieve hiding in the shadows cast by the sheets you’re hanging out to dry, catching in the warm breeze and fluttering as it passes. you’ve got a few more pieces of bedlinen to hang waiting in the basket at your feet, freshly washed and then wrung out until they were a manageable degree of sopping, and you wipe the sweat from your brow before you stoop down to reach for the next one in the pile.

on the front porch, nicholas watches your every move from his favourite rocking chair. you feel his eyes on you even when your back is turned to him.

“hey,” you call back to him dryly, turning and squinting against the brightness as you peer across the yard in his direction. he perks up when you acknowledge him, a brow drawn up in question. “you gonna help me with this? or at the very least pay for the show?”

nicholas stands, laughing a little at your lip, and hops off the edge of the raised porch to saunter over to you at the clothesline.

“pay for the show?” he asks, dipping down so he’s near to you under the brim of your sunhat. his nose is almost brushing yours, so close you think he might even kiss you, but suddenly he snags the next blanket from the wash basket and slinks back again. he shoots you a pointed look as he unfurls the sheet, something akin to a scowl though not quite as severe. “with what money?”

you pucker your lips slightly. he’s not wrong—the purse you keep tucked safely away in the back of your chest of drawers has gotten dangerously light these days—but he doesn’t need to say it like that.

“i can’t believe he blew another fucking job for us,” nicholas mutters with a derisive tch as the two of you work to fasten the wide cotton bed sheet to the line; stretching it out between your bodies until the full width separates you. you struggle to keep it secure as the damp edges flap in the wind. 

you clip your side of the linen down with a clothespin, and then hand him another from the edge of your apron so that he can do the same. he takes the pin without comment, his rough fingers brushing yours as they close around it and pluck it from your grasp.

“you know how he is, nico,” you say quietly, as you have many times in the past. “vash sees the best in people. he just wants to help them.”

“you can’t help wanted criminals,” nicholas bites sharply, pinning his side of the sheet down with an undue amount of force—the rest of the line bouncing lightly from how he’d jostled the length of cord.

you pause.

“we did.”

he huffs, shooting you a resentful look—half-guilty and half-frustrated, all because he knows you’re right.

“that’s different,” he murmurs.

“it’s not,” you counter, the wind lifting the edge of your skirt as it blows past, your eyes remaining unwaveringly fixed to his.

nicholas lets out a weary sigh to be caught and swept away by the breeze, rubbing at the back of his tanned neck as his body slackens in defeat. he stoops down and reaches for the next sheet in the basket.

the two of you work side by side in silence for a while, emptying the basket and filling up the clothesline. there’s nothing around you but the sound of the midday wind whistling through the valley, just the silence you’ve grown used to now after so long. vash went into town that morning to run some errands, so as it stands you and nicholas are the only people around for miles. 

“i’ll look for some more jobs in town to help make ends meet,” you say as you reach up with another clothespin in hand and secure the hem of one of your nightdresses down against the twine of the line. you reach over and do the same to the other side, angling into nicholas’ space as he holds the garment safely in place. “not like there’s any shortage of bullet wounds to patch up around here.”

nicholas catches the brim of your hat between his fingers, tilting it back so he can stare you clearly in the face.

“you’re not going around stitching up strange men,” he says firmly, something possessive and protective in his staunch, unswayable tone. “that’s the rule.”

you huff, your nose scrunching in a weak glare. it’s a rule you'd set for yourself years ago, long before nicholas stumbled into your life: you only tend to the medical needs of the town’s women, no exceptions. this guiding principle is as much for your own sake as it is for theirs, but the local women aren’t the ones running around getting shot in the first place, so while the rule is one that you’ve operated under for as long as you’ve been taking on odd doctoring jobs, lately it’s been holding you back—money’s never been this tight, so there’s never been a reason to change it, but things are different now.

“the girls don’t need me much these days,” you mumble softly, and it’s true: since you started helping more and more of the women in town (beyond just big annie’s working girls,) their overall wellness has improved significantly, which consequently means they don't need to see you nearly as much. “i’ve been taking good care of them.”

nicholas smiles then, a crooked, fond expression—as proud as it is warm. “yeah, you have.”

he lets his grip on your hat fall and leans away, and you do the same—stepping back around to the other side of the basket where you’d started. nicholas snags a cigarette from the holder he keeps on him at all times and pinches it between his lips, then starts fumbling around his pockets for a match.

you look out at the property around you; your little house on one side of the yard, the stable on the other, with the old well pump poised halfway in-between. you’re insulated from the worst of the heat and the elements in this little valley just outside of town, craggy rock formations stretching in a ring around your little homestead, protected on every side. you’ve even got a few meagre patches of green down here, beyond all the brush and bramble. 

it’s not much but it’s something; it’s yours and it’s home.

you turn to your husband, still digging around in his pockets for a match, and you pluck his sad little cigarette from his lips unceremoniously. nicholas looks down at you in surprise, finding you suddenly toe-to-toe with him again. this time you’re softer. this time you’re gentler as you intrude upon his space.

“we’ll make it work, nico,” you say to him with fluttering lashes and a tender gaze, tilting your face up towards his. you fiddle with the cigarette idly, watching the way the gold band on your finger glints in the sunlight. his eyes never stray from your face. “just like we always do.”

“hey!”

both you and the dark-haired man before you’s eyes snap to the other side of the valley at the loud, excited greeting that echoes through the yard. at the top of the beaten dirt path that leads in the direction of town, vash is approaching on horseback. he’s waving his arms overhead, moving at a quick canter like he’s eager to get to you. 

nicholas laughs under his breath at the sight. he steals his cigarette back from your still outstretched hand, tucking it quickly behind his ear, and his hand finds the small of your back. the two of you make your way towards the edge of the property to meet vash upon his arrival, watching as his mare paws at the ground when her rider pulls the reins to a stop.

“what’s all this?” you ask, your eyes tracing curiously over the array of goods that vash has hanging from his saddle. there’s food—you see some local vegetables and jars of pickles and jam—and a bolt of cloth that you can make out right away. he’s hours later returning home than you expected him to be when he departed that morning, and clearly he’d been busy.

vash hops down from his saddle, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek and then another to nicholas’s. 

“what the hell have you been up to?” nicholas asks warily, his lips pulled into a thin line as he scrubs at the spot on his cheek vash had kissed—as though you aren't all perfectly aware of the pleased flush staining the tips of his ears. nicholas has every reason to be wary: vash hadn’t taken much money into town with him, just enough for the few errands he had to run, certainly not enough to explain the splendours he’d returned with.

“you know all the old ladies who sit outside the general store playing bridge?” the blonde asks, his eyes bright behind the lenses of his glasses as he ruffles his untidy hair. “well, one of them stopped me when i was leaving town and asked if i could help put one of her shutters back on since it blew off in that storm last week! once that was done, another one asked if i could look at her well pump because it’s been squeaking so much lately and too hard to turn. i helped out a couple other people while i was in town too! i told them they didn’t have to, but they kept giving me stuff when i was done.”

you feel a smile tug at your lips, peeking over at nicholas beside you to gauge his own reaction. his expression is flat, but you can tell he’s just as amused as you are.

“oh!” vash perks up, his eyes wide. he reaches into the saddle bag and pulls out the bolt of blue fabric you’d been appreciating a moment prior. “this isn’t from them though, it’s from that young couple who live above the post office.”

you know the couple he’s referring to well. they’d just had a baby a few months before, and you’d helped the young wife through her pregnancy and caught the baby when labour finally came. it was a little boy, no bigger than a loaf of bread the first time you’d held him, that they’d named samuel. 

“sammy’s getting big”—vash grins, squishing his own cheeks a little bit with his hands—“super cute and chubby too. they wanted you to have this to say thank you.”

he passes the fabric to you, and you cradle the tightly-wound bundle into the crook of your arm like it’s precious—because it is.

the things vash brought home aren’t enough to live off of indefinitely, but it’s something to help you get by for another little while—at least until another bounty comes through for the boys, or until another mother needs your hand to hold through the quickening of labour. 

it’s something. 

it’s enough for now.

you shoot nicholas a little smirk and he rolls his eyes at your blatant self-satisfaction, at your smugness that you’d been right about finding a way to get by. he looks over at vash who’s watching you both with expectant eyes, waiting eagerly (though perhaps unconsciously) for praise.

after a moment, nicholas plops a hand down into vash’s hair, ruffling it affectionately.

“good job,” he murmurs wryly, removing his hand and pressing a fleeting kiss to the crown he’d just been mussing. vash’s cheeks go pink and pretty at the gesture, teeming with pride. nicholas looks over at you next. “you too, kid.”

you smile, not as brilliant or beaming as vash’s, but with a happiness that’s every bit as sincere.

[strawurberries]

General Head cannons for Vash the Stampede p.1

Summary: General relationship head cannons for one lovely Vash the Stampede.

Authors Note: Hello!! I hope you all like this :D I don't have very many ideas for writing, so this is a little bare. If you guys want, go ahead and send some requests in! I'd love some inspiration :) Also, this is only part one because I made this post too long and Tumblr wouldn't post it so.... 😅

Warnings: Mostly fluff, some angst and mild nsfw. Mentions of guns, wounds, etc.

If it was up to him alone, he’d never confess his love. There's really no way around it, he’s scared of what would happen—his heart racing and mind reeling at every single possibility that rested under the stars; every disaster, pain, and sorrow that could accompany his lover, and drape them in the suffering he's known all his life. He doesn't want that. He wants them to be happy, content, safe. So, for a long, long time, he doesn't tell you how he feels nor how he desires you in your entirety (he'd take even the smallest portion if you offered. A single dashing touch as you passed him by? He'd treat that memory like a holy text, reciting it over and over until his very soul memorized it. You smile at him? God, he's your most devoted follower now and he'd do anything you asked. Give him anything and he will cherish it with such delight and love).

Once he gets over his tendency to hide his love though (and, here, it isn’t him who confessed but you), his emotions would gush out without rhyme or reason—a storm so powerful it would sweep the planet in rains of adoration. It’s a difficult and strange love though. This comfort is so foreign to him, he will indulge in it with fever one day and recoil at the very same touch the next. Learning to love safely is a slow, terrifying process; but, oh, how he desires to give you everything you need (and how he secretly wants you to give him all your love as well, but he would never say that as that is a very selfish thought! Shame on him for thinking such things, right?).

His favorite form of intimacy is quiet mornings when he can wrap his arms around you and pretend the world doesn’t exist—that the only thing that matters in the entirety of the universe, reality even, is loving you unconditionally. Though, peaceful mornings like that are hard to come by. Mostly sleeping out in the desert, running at the slightest hint of danger, and a constant alertness on the back of his neck that tells him that one blink, and you will be gone. So, he settles for other forms of affection (though, cuddling will always be his favorite thing. Having you pressed up against his body, lungs falling in sync, and hearts intertwined just as your legs and arms are. . . oh, just thinking about it makes his entire body shiver with love and deep embarrassment). Hugs, while not cuddling, are another of his favorite things. He loves any kind of hug.

The quick hug before he runs off into danger? Thrilling and so full of adoration. If he doesn’t make it back, at least he’ll die with the lingering warmth of your touch—ah and there you are kicking him in the legs for thinking such a thought. “Of course I’ll come back,” he grins, “I have you waiting for me”. But a hug from you before you run off into danger? Bad, bad, bad. He’ll chase after you and tackle you before you can even get out the door. 

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be running off into danger!”

“Who said that?!”

“Me!”

“Then don’t say stuff like that!”

(Wolfwood had to drag you both out of danger and gave a lecture that rivaled his priestly preaching)

A hug from behind? He loves melting into you, like he’s meant to be a part of you. He loves feeling connected in any and every way. He’s so distracted by love that he realizes too late that he’s putting all his weight onto your back and you're slowly sinking to the ground and he panics, falling back and oh god, there he goes: apologizing and rambling. Tell him he’s okay. He’s scared of doing the wrong thing and driving you away. You’re the most wonderful, precious thing he’s ever had the pleasure of having—he never wants to lose you over some silly mistake on his part. You hugging him from behind? He’s dead. He freezes and looks over his shoulder to see you buried into his back (he’s a tall bastard, he knows this but it hits him differently when he sees you being so small)—oh god is this what love feels like? Will quite literally beg for you to do it again and hums happily if you comply. If you don’t, that’s okay too; he’ll just pout and hug you instead.

A long, comforting hug? He doesn’t like talking about those moments, when the pain swells up into his throat and the world claws at his heels. But, he still appreciates the all-encompassing embrace you’ll give him. An angel burying him within their bosom and bones, telling him that the world will settle, and he will rise again, just like the morning sun—and he loves that rising light, because it means another day spent with you. When you need comfort like that, when the world is too tall and you're buried under the weight of fate and existence, he’ll wrap around you like the tree roots of a great oak. Strong and unwavering, he’ll anchor himself in place for you until you're ready to move on, or ready to simply sleep. He finds that sleeping with you resolves many of his problems.

In private, he is like a puppy. This description is quite simple, yet nothing fits the man better. A constant people pleaser who found himself devoted entirely to one person. You’ll have to explain that yes, you love showering with him but sometimes you want to shower alone and no, that doesn’t mean you don’t love him. And there have been many times where you’ve had to force him into resting because he won’t stop.

“Oh, here! I can do that.”

“Vash, it’s just the laundry, it's okay.”

“No, no! I can do it!”

“You cleaned the whole room already, love. I can do this.”

“No, I promise it’s—”

“If you don’t let me do this load of laundry, I will literally combust right here.”

“. . .”

[askvashthetyphoon]

Restraint

VashxFemale reader, biting, scratching, sexicles, -18 do not interact, alien anatomy lol

During one of the humanoid typhoons many adventures, somehow, you were swept up into his group.

 A survivor of one of the many unsuccessful attempted human settlements.

 Now, it was Milly, Meryl, Wolfwood, and of course Vash, trying their best to stay alive on the hellhole planet that was No-Man’s Land. You weren’t as good of a shot as Vash(was anyone), as strong as Milly, or packed as much of a punch as Wolfwood. However, you were very dexterous, sly, and thoughtful, something the group sorely lacked. More than once, you’re quick thinking had gotten them out of the tightest of pickles, often saving plants or extra humans in the process.

Your relationship with Vash had started as nothing more than a crush. You thought he was weird, but cute. With that fluff of blonde hair and those dazzling blue eyes, bright as the sky on the most blazing summer day. He smelled good too- different than most people. When everyone else was drenched in sweat and swearing lowly under their breath from the blazing heat…  he only ever smelled of dandelions, gun oil, and faint powdery sweetness.

He was also stupid. But the more you spent time together, the more you realized the stupid part was an act(mostly). You admired his morals. How was it he could keep such hope for the human race, when all he ever got was shot in the back? How was it that he managed to guide humanity towards being a better version of themselves, all while minimizing bloodshed?

You didn’t understand. But you did understand that for whatever reason he wasn’t interested in you.

That was what you thought, anyway. Until one night, while drunk, when he smooched you square across your lips and you recognized it.

That desperate kind of loneliness behind that kiss. Seeping out like blood from a bullet wound, no matter how tight the bandage was. From then on, it became your mission. You wanted him to let go, even if only for one night.

But he was the hardest case you’d ever encountered. He was excellent at ditching the group, and you, especially at times when you’d thought you’d been making progress. He gave such mixed messages- leaning in one moment, darting away the next. It was clear that he wanted to be with you, but was also resisting for some reason you couldn’t understand, and he wouldn’t talk about.

It hurt.

He hated hurting you, yet seemed unable to explain his own actions.

When you found out that he was a plant, things made more sense. The aging thing would probably tear him apart from the inside out. Better to just be friends than anything else right?

Better to bury a friend than a lover. Better to remember only hugs and kisses than anything else.

Yet.

You both found yourself slipping. Soft sweet kisses turning into hot makeout sessions away from the group. Gentle shoulder squeezes turning into roaming up and down each other’s bodies, up underneath clothes. Under that huge jacket, Vash was a bit of a brick house. You’d never know he had such wide shoulders under there. And the squeaks of embarrassment he gave were irresistible… especially when you managed to slip a finger into the groove of his scars. Or press a kiss directly on a mottled, ugly bruise.

You both slipped deeper. Beginning to share rooms more and more often, getting drunk together, going out for breakfast in the morning and dinners in the evenings when you could. And yet. It was strange. When you finally did have sex, there was something incredibly … restrained about it. Vash seemed too self-aware, too tense. You could feel it in the way he moved, almost… jerkily.

And the moment he did start to lose himself-

the moment those lights just under his skin started to snake a blue pattern out across his chest…

He’d stop. Tense up. Calm that side of himself. Then keep going.

It was so utterly disappointing. The sex itself was… fine. But knowing he wasn’t giving you all of himself was unbearable. Hell, you were pretty sure he was actually faking an orgasm… But that was besides the point.

You wanted to see the beast part too. Everyone had one- even you! The part that demanded that part of him. That wanted to be thrown around and bitten and scratched and claimed by whatever was under his skin. The part that made it so difficult to sit, composed, while you were busy burning from the inside out. Your insides so slick when you thought of the bestial side of him,  that they stained your underwear and sometimes, even managed a stain on the seam of your jeans.

And that beastly side of him could tell.

You could tell when Vash’s ears went red, his hand tightening up on whatever he happened to be holding at the moment. His Adam’s apple bobbing a bit as he fought back… whatever it was, with every fiber inside him.

Sometimes, you could see it peeking through. Vash’s canines would become strangely long, his fingernails seeming to morph into fine points. The pupils of his eyes elongating like a cat’s behind his glasses, the blue beginning to blot out the white’s of his eyes. Tiny little neon galaxies blooming.

Oh, yes. There was something under there that wanted you, as badly as you wanted it.

But he’d blink them away.

It was So bad that at times, it’d take Wolfwood two or three times to snap Vash out of it as he struggled for control.

It was so irritating. His walls were almost perfect no matter how much you pushed and prodded.

Until.

You awake one morning to a growling and spitting you’d never heard before. Wolfwood and Millie were busy in the room next door; you could hear scraping and swearing and gun shots. At first you thought they were fighting some kind of animal.

Until.

“Vash! Fucker, snap out of it!” From Wolfwood.

And a softer, more desperate, “Vash! It’s okay, we’re here!” You couldn’t help yourself from peeking in- instantly, being blocked by Wolfwoods thick arm.

“Uh-uh. You stay put. Knives is doing something to the plants. It’s got Vash spooked. You-” But he didn’t get to finish as the cried from the creature quieted suddenly. It’s wings folding and some of its tentacle-roots retacting until underneath, you saw something that was Vash. But also, very not.

Roots, thick, purple-black, and pulsing, poured from his back like spilled ink. Dotting these were fine purple flowers, blooming and creating a smell that made you dizzy when you inhaled. His fingers and toes tipped with blackened, sharp claws that glittered in a dangerous way. A long black tail slapped the ground angrily- feathered or furred you couldn’t discern. Only the tip was forked like an arrowhead.

And most beautiful of all- the wings. Were their four, or six? It was hard to tell. Two larger main ones, and then smaller ones lined either side of his spine. An enchantingly messy mix. They were so dark black they seemed to absorb light itself, tiny purple lights winking deep inside those feathers, ethereal and inhuman.

His skin was covered with those markings now, a distressed neon purple shining bright against suntanned skin. Yet, as he looked at you, they began to change color. The one’s near his chest blooming a soft blue once more as he muttered, “I…?”

His voice coming out in a growl that you’d never heard before. Without thinking, you went to him. Crouching down in front of him even though both Milly and Wolfwood warned against it, keeping their guns trained on Vash.

You kissed him.

The blue color spread down his chest, up his arms and legs.

“Leave him with me. I think I can help him.” You murmured to their shocked faces as you took Vash’s head in your hands. Smooching right between two horns that you’d just noticed jutting out from behind his temples. Striped with geometric purple markings, and warm to the touch, with pointed ends. Sort of antelope-like in the way they curled.

It took some time to get Wolfwood and Milly out of the room. But once you did, the fun began. Before you were even really aware of it you were on your back. Those long claws shredding everything that stood between him and your naked body.

At first, you were afraid. That was, until he started kissing a line up your belly. Between your breasts. Your body held gently yet firmly in a loop of an inhuman arm. Too long and strong to be anything human.

“…Vash…”

His eyes flicked to you for a moment. His pupils nothing but black leaves in a sea of sky blue. Flicking for a moment, back to round. You could see panic starting to set in. His hand shaking and beginning to pull away. You cupped his chin and whispered, “Vash, this is you, too. This is a part of you. And I love every part of you. So please…”

You grabbed his clawed hand and kissed it, then him again. So softly and sweetly, like two butterfly wings brushing briefly in a golden field.

“Let me be with every version of you.”

For a moment, he was back completely. And there were tears streaming down his face, white hot.

“I’ll hurt you.” He whispered, his tears dripping gently down the outsides of his face and mixing into that perfect blonde hair. Blackened at the bottom from using too much of his power.

“I trust you.”

“I’m scared.”

You kissed him again, knotting your hand in the back of his hair. Feelings the way his vines were sort of tangling around your arms and legs. The way his wings were curled and cupped around you protectively.

“I am too. But there’s no version of you that would hurt me in any way that matters.”

You felt his hot tears dot your chest as he hiccupped, choking back crying.

Then, he nodded. And he let go.

After that, everything happened very quickly. You were soon parted from any and all scraps of clothing. Given a good lick-down between the legs until you were practically crying with desire. So cruel.

And then all the sudden, too full. You didn’t even get the chance to see what exactly what was between his legs before he was inside you, nudging up carefully, since he was a bit bigger than most humans.

Biting and growling all along your collarbone as he did so. Sucking hard, leaving hickeys. A clawed hand cupping your collarbone. You were like a doll in his arms, the expanse of his shoulders hiding you completely from the world.

It felt… quite different than any other man you’d had before. There were sweet, hard sections to it that spread gently. Sort of like a pinecone but made of hot, wet flesh. The edges spreading and rubbing everywhere against you the farther up he went. The 'core' of it so hot and thick it made you to whimper and wriggle with desire.

He growled a soft, chuckling sound as you bucked. Pinning you to prevent you from taking him too fast, no matter how much you wanted him all at once.

 You were full to bursting by the time he was fully seated inside you; so stretched that you were a little worried you’d pop somewhere. The first of many orgasms rippled up your body all at once. And you barely had a chance to take a breath before he set a punishing pace.

During the middle, things got fuzzy. He moved you a few times to get better angles, but he was always the one in control. Sometimes having to drag his claws along the floorboards to avoid goring you in his frenzy.

Unlike the other Vash, this one was loud. Growling, hissing, purring, clicking. The wings flapping occasionally. The roots twining around the bed, the lamp, the table.

They were sounds you’d only ever heard from Vash when you’d startled him in the dark. He’s place his ear against your mouth too, huffing softly, wanting to hear you in return. Giving rough nuzzles against your neck and on the side of your face when he figured out what made you make the right noises. What pleased you.

Your hands scrambled along his body as he took you. Settling sometimes on the wickedly small tightness of his lower back. Still dimpled, even in this form, and slick with sweet smelling sweat. Other times hooking on his shoulders, dug in around the base of his wings. Feeling the spreading of the flowers that dotted his body blooming around your fingers.

If you were lucky, you’d get your chin up on his shoulder so you could breathe. But for the most part you were tucked against his chest, breathing hard against the metal that laced under his skin. Against the thousand cuts and scrapes and scars that you and every other human had inflicted on him.

The pollen in the air making you dizzy. Making you so incredibly wet that he accidentally slipped out more than once, thrusting back up with an annoyed huffy growl and pinning your hips to keep you in place.

You kissed and nibbled mindlessly along every one of those scars, trying to keep up.

All of the sudden, you heard a small crack. And he leaned down, you baring your neck for what you assumed would be another bite or nip.

Only this time, it was deep. Piercing.

Canines sinking in on both sides of your neck, both veins. Tapping into your lifeblood. A red streak running down either side, becoming laced with blue as venom poured from him into you.

At the same time, his hips bucking deep, his body shivering slightly as he came. It was quite hot; you felt it blooming deep inside you like a shot of alcohol on a freezing night.

His arms were all around you now. No part of you touching the scratched and soiled floor as he cradled you so lovingly, so tenderly despite every part of him being a weapon. His roots twining around you, soothingly petting up and down your back. His wings a black tent around you, blocking out the thin sliver of sun that was snaking through the window.

So hot. You could feel it loop through your heart and back outwards. Upwards into your brain, to the tips of your fingers, your toes. Your body shuddered slightly, and you heard faintly a soft wet sound as something burst from between your shoulders. It didn’t hurt.

By now, you were so far away. Barely there when his fangs were finally removed, feeling a wetness as he licked the wounds closed. Or did they close by themselves? And if so, how?

So many questions. So sleepy. The last thing you remember was looking at him, the beast. But Vash also; the soft, tender man you loved oh so much. His eyes the most perfect summer blue and filled with so much concern.

So much love.

You'd have cried if you had any strength left in your body.

 He was looking at you and saying very softly under his breath, thinking you couldn’t hear, “She’s like me. Oh, god, she’s like me …” His warm hand cupping your cheek.

And you drifted away.

[millionsvash]

First Encounter

A self indulgent work of my OC's first meeting with Millions Knives. No romance or anything here. 💕[Repost from another blog]

Characters: Millions Knives & OC Pairing: N/A Word Count: ~1k CW: Mentions of dehydration, death and starvation. Summary: On Gunsmoke, most people won't find a second chance at survival. Human's do not belong in this dirty desert. Yet another chance is given to a woman looking for a better life. Is survival worth making deals with the devil? Taglist (ask to be added/removed): @chubbyghostt, @luvbuggieee, @l4nk4d43, @duerme07, @fruitsoxs, @vashfantasy, @sortatiredartist, @beanibon Reblogs > Likes 💕

A lone drop of water dripped onto her tongue. It was enough to temporarily relieve the ache her dry mouth left her with. That was the last of it. No amount of harsh shaking of the canteen brought more.

With a huff, she tossed it to the side, frustrated with the lack of water. She had originally packed more than enough to last her for the trip, but she hadn't counted on being separated from the caravan.

Life was survival of the fittest. This planet wasn’t meant for us, and every human knew that. There was no room to be afraid of the unknown, as the unknown might be your only key to survival. When the opportunity to double her income arose, she took it. Sure, she made enough money to survive, but she wanted to do more than survive.

She wanted to live.

Despite all the hesitation, she joined the caravan heading to Augusta. It had been hard to say goodbye to her family, yet the exhilaration of a second chance allowed her to move forward. It had all been going well. Despite the long track, they were well on their way. Yet no one had anticipated being attacked by a rogue group of bandits.

Fearing the repercussions of staying, she quickly fled the scene as the bandits tore apart the caravan with ease. Not once had she glanced back to see if anyone had made it out alive. Not that she would be of help. She was in no condition to fight. Small and scrawny, most people could easily pick her up and toss her like a toy. Running was always the best solution.

Now she was tired. All she had done was run for hours, draining her canteen of its supply. Her back slumped against a rock, her body sliding down to rest on the sandy floor of this planet’s endless desert. The sight had become nothing short of an eyesore. A bubble of anxiety boiled in her stomach. She hadn’t a clue where the nearest town was, nor had she seen another person during her escape.

Perhaps if she collected herself for a moment, she could continue on. It would be better to die trying than to not try at all.

"You look…parched." 

The sudden voice had her pulling her blade from its holster, aiming it towards the source of the voice. A sullen man towered over her. All she could see was one blue eye and a few locks of light blonde hair. The rest was covered by a rather simple-looking, brown, and tattered cloak. Arm extended towards her, a canteen within the clutch of his hands. Despite the kind gesture, that eye had a piercing gaze, one that could easily strike fear in one’s heart. But in this world of survival of the fittest, who was she to turn away from someone who was offering her help? Desperate hands snatched the canteen, teeth popping off the lid in a rapid motion. She downed the contents so quickly that a small portion spilled down the front of her.

A satisfied sigh leaves her as she finally lowers the drink, feeling much of her energy restored. She glanced up to thank the stranger, but he raised his hand to her, motioning for her to silence herself.

"It was not out of kindness that I chose to aid you." His words were sharp like a razor blade, leaving the woman stunned. "Your time hasn’t come yet. It would be a shame for you to perish before you could reach your full potential."

It took her a moment to gather her thoughts. Her fingers anxiously drummed on her thigh as questions began to pop up in her mind. "I'm…sorry, who are you?"

"You know him, don't you?" He spoke, glossing over her question entirely.

"Him? Who are you talking–"

"The Humanoid Typhoon. Vash. You have done work for him, yes? Do not lie to me, human. I will know if you're being dishonest." The words left the man's mouth like venom. What did he want with Vash?

She momentarily stumbled over her words, before her brain caught up with her mouth. "I only know him on a professional level. I've repaired his weapon a few times and–" 

Two strong hands ripped her from her sitting position, slamming her against the rock with force. Those eyes never changed; they were so cold and calculated.

"How? How could a human repair such an intricate piece of technology? You aren't worthy to hold it, let alone fix it." He hissed, eyes narrowing.

"I- It's not much different from a normal gun! I only made minimal repairs to its basic parts! That's all." She wasn't entirely sure why she was defending her actions. What was so wrong with repairing a pistol?

His eyes scanned her for signs of lying. He looked dismayed that he couldn't find a reason to rip her apart right there. A loud grunt left her when she felt a pistol being slammed against her stomach. Its condition was horrible. It suffered severe cosmetic damage, and it was clear it was on its last leg.

"Fix it."

"What…? I'm not going to fix a gun for free–"

"Fix it, or I'll leave you here to suffer a painful death from starvation."

Their eyes met. They shared a moment of silence. When his eyes remained unchanging, she knew he was serious. This was yet another chance to keep going, and refusing was an idiot's choice.

"...Fine, but I do not have my tools with me."

He released his grip on the woman, allowing her to stand on her own two feet. He quickly spun on his heels, turning away and walking as he spoke. "No matter. Come with me. I shall supply you with all necessary equipment."

The way he spoke so casually made her skin crawl, but her feet moved ahead, trailing behind him.

"Are you at least going to tell me your name?" She huffs in distaste.

A prickly chuckle escapes him as he glances over his shoulder to address her.

"You'll learn in due time, Seven."

"How do you know my name…?"

[seabassycat]

Trigun brain rot and starting to write?

Grew up with Trigun. But ever since stampede was even announced and the trailer was shown... I have been non stop thinking about it. After watching even after the EMOTIONAL DAMAGE I still think about it all the time. Ahhhh

I have so many headcanons and ideas but I am so nervous to write them down!

[so-you-read-the-usernames]

Female characters who are the sole voice of reason <<<<<<< Female characters who think of themselves as the sole voice of reason but who are actually just as insane as those around them

[soranker]

my girlfriend

[sleepyminty]

Something incredible just happened on twt right now

[ectochrome]

pinklicour showed me the light on twt and i had to do my patriotic duty as a citizen of the vashwood nation

[glo-shroom]

yes & no by Natalie Wee | Trigun Ultimate Overhaul

[khytal]

and still we were tentative, hesitant to seek comfort and offer it, for it was unfathomable that we could do such things; even though we had already pledged ourselves to each other a long time ago

[heich0e]

begin - nicholas wolfwood/f!reader (trigun) prequel to the poly!au, bounty hunters!au, wild west-ish, tw BLOOD/INJURIES, reader is patching up a bullet wound so warning for all the expected nastiness that entails, tw mentions of attemped assault (not reader and not in detail), mentions of sex work, gratuitous mentions of nico's stubble

BOUND - poly!au masterlist

You live in a nothing town, in the dead middle of nowhere, called The Bend.

It’s called that because a long time ago—long before your days, or your daddy’s days, or even your granddaddy’s days—there used to be a wide, rushing freshwater river snaking through the valley, and right where the town centre now sits is where it used to turn east to the far-away sea. 

But the river’s dried up now, and it took the green grass with it.

The sea is farther than you could ever hope to travel. 

And the B on the sign that marks the border into your dusty little nothing-nowhere town has rusted off and decayed away with the years, which means the only warning that any misguided traveller has to tell them where they’re heading is an ominous old sign, half-rotted, that reads:

Welcome to The  end.

It’s fitting, you think. An omen to give anyone who wanders within spitting distance of the border a final caution that they have one last chance to turn around. A choice to get out while they still can.

It’s a choice you never had.

You were born and raised in The Bend. Your blood runs thick with the dust that coats the decrepit old town. It’s all you’ve ever known, and all you ever will know; your beginning, your middle, and your miserable, inexorable end.

Because that’s the thing about The Bend: few people ever show up here and those who do aren’t stupid enough to stay. And the unfortunate few that are born from the dusty earth and dried up riverbeds, like you? Well, those ones never leave.

There’s some comfort to be taken from that, you suppose; a kind of stability that comes from monotony. From certain inevitability. Every day the same, unchanging. A familiarity to the nothingness of your little town, your little house, your little life.

But then, on a night just like any other, something changes.

One night, you meet him.

Nicholas isn’t quite sure how he ended up here, but he isn’t all that surprised either. 

There’s something kind of undeniably fitting about bleeding out in the middle of fucking nowhere, supported on either side by two of the finest prostitutes The Bend has to offer—and flanked by a handful more as the group guides him through the dark, dusty night.

The Bend isn’t the first hellhole town Nicholas has ever stumbled into. His line of work has brought him to more than his fair share of seedy dumps just like this one. Towns like this are the perfect place for someone to hide from the law after all, because not many people would bother to come looking for you in places that might as well not exist. Most bounty hunters don’t even know about this particular town, and they don’t care to learn, especially since half the maps on the market don’t even bother marking its sorry half-existence down.

But Nicholas isn’t like most bounty hunters.

That’s what brought him to The Bend.

There’s a vicious flash of lightning that suddenly forks through the sky overhead, lighting up the dim, depressing town and the dusty valley beyond it as brightly as the midday sun for just a blink. It’s followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder that makes the packed earth under his unsteady feet tremble, and Nicholas knows that means the lightning’s closer than he cares for it to be.

“’s it gonna rain?” he slurs, tearing his eyes away from the sky and looking over to the woman supporting him on his right (or is that his left?)

He wracks his hazy, addled brain as he tries to remember her name. Starts with a V, he’s pretty sure. Victoria? Viola?

She snorts, her ruby rouged lips lifting at one painted corner. “Honey, it’s been almost five months since we’ve seen a drop of rain around here, and even then it was nothin’ to write home about. You just focus on puttin’ one boot in front of the other, and don’t go gettin’ your hopes up.” 

All at once, Nicholas is reminded of the burning pain in his arm; the searing, radiating agony of a bullet nestled deep into flesh. 

Oh. Right.

He got shot.

It’s not the first time he’s suffered a similar wound, nor will it likely be the last if he makes it through the night—God, or whatever all-knowing bastard’s out there, willing. That doesn’t make it any less of a miserable bitch to deal with, though.

How the hell did he get shot, again?

He ponders this question for a moment, reflecting on it through alcohol sodden introspection, and the answer comes back to him in bits and pieces as he keeps aimlessly shuffling along through the night.

The sound of heels clicking overhead at the town saloon—that’s the first thing he remembers. The clacking metronome of Big Annie’s working girls crossing the wooden floorboards of the brothel that operates above the only place in this awful little town to get a half-decent drink.

A drink. 

Yes, it was something bitter and dark—completely nauseating to presently even think about. It burned on the way down, and now it sloshes unpleasantly in his stomach as he walks. The girls had made him down the better part of a bottle after he’d been shot—to help with the pain, they’d said, and he’d been anything but reluctant to heed their advice—and he’d already had fair a few glasses earlier in the evening as he’d occupied his table in the corner of the bar on top of that. Panic had palpably sizzled between the women while they watched the tattered cloth Nicholas held to his arm ink steadily darker with scarlet in the lamplight of the old bar following the shooting—the tension building amongst them like the perspiration beading at his temple. They were bickering about something then.

No, not something.

Someone.

“We gotta take him to see Mama!” 

It was Charity who said that, he recalls—the pretty little thing with full lips and a mane of thick, curly hair that Nicholas had complimented the first time he ever saw her traipsing through the saloon. She can’t be a whole lot older than 20, and her voice is still high and childlike; even more so that particular evening as she stomped her foot petulantly, looking over at him with worry-filled eyes as she made her plea to the other girls watching him bleed out in the musty wooden booth.

“Mama won't want anything to do with this one.”

That was Violetta who’d replied to Charity’s fractious appeal. She’s one of the older girls who works for Big Annie at the brothel. She’s got a sort of seasoned air to her, with a husky rasp in her voice—like the sand that blows through the empty streets in town has roughened it. She’s still undeniably pretty, but she comes across a little tougher than the rest of them. Doing the job she does in a town like this one, Nicholas doesn’t blame her for it.

Violetta’s the one currently supporting his right side, leading him through the night towards the woman who’s supposed to be his saving grace.

Towards Mama.

But who the hell is that?

He’s sure he’s heard the name in passing while he’s been kicking around the town saloon between his work, nursing half-noxious drinks and flirting harmlessly here and there with Big Annie’s working girls—who seem to have taken a liking to lingering around his table between visits from johns. 

Nicholas wasn’t even supposed to be staying in The Bend long, only for a day or two to follow up on a bounty lead he’d caught wind of three towns over—but the lead went cold, and a few days turned into almost a week. Nevertheless, while his stay may have been extended, he just he never thought to ask any more questions about this mysterious matriarch all the working girls seemed to know so well and speak so highly of. But now, as those very same girls are dragging his half-conscious ass to the other side of town in search of this Mama, he wishes that maybe he’d dug a little deeper.

“Mama’s gonna get you all fixed up, handsome,” little Charity appears on Violetta’s other side, her eyes wide enough as she stares at him that they reflect the next flash of lightning as it rips through the dark of night. She looks worried, in spite of her words—even in his present state of drunkenness and blood loss fuelled delirium, he can tell that much. 

They all do. Even the toughest, Violetta—though she seems reluctant to let on as she stands stoically at his side and shoulders his flagging, stumbling weight. 

Charity nods, but it’s a gesture that seems more to reassure herself than anyone else. “Mama always takes care of us; she’ll have you good as new by morning.” 

Ah, so this woman must be a doctor of sorts—or as close to it as a shithole little town like this can offer.

It’s Nicholas’ turn to nod, a bobble of his cotton-filled head the only recognition he can muster to her words, as he just keeps staggering on under their guidance. He’s lucky that The Bend even has some kind of doctor to look after him, even if it’s just some old lady who looks after the saloon girls.

The unlikely group soon arrives at the doorstep of a little house at the edge of town—as slummy and dilapidated as all the rest of them—and Queenie, the girl who’d moments before been supporting Nicholas’s injured left side, raps sharply on the door.

“She’s not gonna answer,” Violetta mutters dourly under her breath, still at Nicholas’ right side.

“She will,” Charity counters with her arms crossed over her chest, punctuating the assertion with an indignant little huff for good measure. “Mama always answers when we come knockin’.”

But Nicholas worries for a moment—a long moment as the door stays firmly shut—that Violetta might just have a point. It’s the middle of the night after all, and this ‘Mama’ could very well be sleeping like any other reasonable person would be at this hour. 

Queenie knocks on the wooden door for a second time, this time with an open palm. This series of raps is a little louder. A little more insistent.

“Mama? It’s us! Open up!” she calls, casting a worried glance over her shoulder at Nicholas—who’s got his entire weight slumped over onto poor Violetta, now.

Nicholas is bleeding out on the front porch, and part of him still almost feels bad for waking up some poor, unsuspecting old—

The door flies open.

“What the hell do you want?”

Oh.

Nicholas knows that his eyes travel up your frame in a way that can only be considered wholly impolite. But he’s not really in his right mind, after all—or at least that’s what he tells himself as he justifies his immodest stare. He starts at the uneven cuffs of your paper-thin trousers, before climbing up, up, up your body to the tight white undershirt your wear—appreciating the way it clings to the curve of your waist and sits snug around your chest, and he particularly admires the pretty little edge of lace that frills around the neckline at your breasts. Finally, his gaze makes it to your face, and you look irritated to say the absolute least on the matter.

He’s not all that sure what he was expecting to find on the other side of the chipped paint of this shabby front door, but he can say with a steady hand to his foolhardy heart that it certainly wasn’t you.

For a moment, Nicholas is convinced they’ve got the wrong house—as improbable as that might be in a town as small as this one. At the very least, he waits for someone else to come to the door—a mother, or grandmother even—because surely you can’t be the one that these women have been calling—

“Mama! You gotta help us,” Queenie exclaims. She’s luckily perceptive enough to stick out her foot once she sees you fully process just what’s waiting for you outside, keeping the door jammed open with her heeled boot as you rush to slam it shut.

“I haven’t gotta do anything,” you counter sharply from around the edge of the door, your face pinching in a blatantly vexed expression at the way the woman is keeping it ajar.

Your eyes flicker over to Nicholas through the gap between the door and its frame, surveying him with a look of disdain that might just have been enough to offend him if he were a little more himself.

“Mama, he got shot!” Charity suddenly bursts into what can only be described as a spectacular display of tears—blubbering noisily between each word as she elbows her way through the group towards your door. She reaches across the threshold and desperately clutches at the front of your shirt with both hands as she pleads to you. “P-please let us in, y-you’re the only one who can h-he-help him.”

“Bertie, what in God’s merciful name is wrong with you?” you sigh aggrievedly, roughly batting her hands away from their grip on your clothes. In the next breath, you wrench open the front door to your home, stepping back to allow your unexpected visitors the space to cross through the doorway. “And cut the waterworks or you’re gonna wake up half The Bend and get us all shot.”

As the girls help Nicholas inside and across the gnarled, warped floorboards of your little house, you slip wordlessly away into another room out of sight. When you return moments later, you’ve pulled on a creased button-down over that pretty little undershirt of yours. 

Nicholas can’t help but notice that you’re dressed practically like a man, especially in comparison to the painted faces and petticoats of the other women in the room. But it strangely suits you, for reasons he can’t quite place.

“He got shot fightin’ some bozo tryin’ to rough up Ada on her way home,” Violetta explains when you look to her with an expression that demands context. She’s the most level-headed of the five woman gathered in your tiny home, so no one can blame you for turning to her first. 

Nicholas feels dizzy, the modest lamp-lit room around him reeling like a child’s toy spinning top gaining speed. 

Did he do that?

He remembers hearing something out back in the alley that runs behind the saloon and the inn when he went out to take a piss late into to the evening, well after it had dropped dark. He was already sufficiently drunk by that point, but there was no mistaking the sound of a woman putting up a fight the moment that he heard it. He followed the racket and found the pair quickly—on instinct more than anything—grabbing the drunken man by the scruff of the neck and hauling him off the poor girl he was trying to force himself on. In the ensuing scuffle, the man pulled a gun that Nicholas wasn’t expecting. With his senses drink-dulled, he didn’t react quickly enough to miss the shot entirely and caught it in his arm—but he’s lucky the guy had such terrible aim to begin with, or the night could have turned out a whole lot worse.

But who’s this Ada? He thought the girl he’d helped’s name was Priscilla—having met her a few times in the saloon. She was always quieter than the rest of them, a little more reserved. She didn’t say much to anyone from what Nicholas had witnessed in his time spent in The Bend. But Ada’s not the first name he’s heard since showing up at your door that’s unfamiliar to him.

“You've got a lot of nerve dragging some no-good, half-cocked brute to my door like this in the middle of the damn night, Sarah Jane,” you hiss through your teeth, your eyes flickering from Violetta over to Nicholas once more.

Violetta snorts, but offers no argument.

“Please, Mama,” Priscilla (or is it Ada? Nicholas can’t keep track anymore) says quietly, though her tone is unmistakably earnest. It’s the first time she’s said anything since the girls came stumbling through your door with the injured man propped between them. First time he remembers her saying anything at all—at least other than when he heard her screaming and chased off the scum that was hassling her.

Your attention suddenly turns to where Priscilla stands just off near the corner of the little room, with Theodosia (another one of Big Annie’s working girls) at her side with a comforting arm looped around her waist. It’s not hard to see the way the woman trembles as she holds her shawl around her shoulders. She’s got a bad scrape across her cheek, and her lip is split—evidence of the ordeal she’d gone through earlier in the evening. Her skin still looks clammy and sallow from the shock. 

Your expression softens as you contemplate her.

“C’mere, Adaline,” you beckon to her, reaching out a hand. “Step into the light and let me take a look at you.”

She approaches you without any reservation, and you carefully inspect her wounds after taking her face gently in your hands. A long, resigned sigh slips from your lips once a moment has passed, having turned her face this way and that to fully scrutinize her condition. You look around at the women gathered in your home, and the man slumping between them, then your head hangs in defeat. Your hand lifts to pinch the bridge of your nose.

“Bertie, go grab my bag from my room. Georgie, fetch some clean water from the basin in the kitchen.”

Charity and Theodosia move briskly once you’ve issued the order—like they don’t want to give you the opportunity to change your mind.

Nicholas finds it a little funny how easily these women yield to you, though most seem to be your seniors—you’re just a scrappy young thing, only a few years into your adulthood if he had to guess. As he watches you, he sees that you carry yourself with a  certain quality that’s beyond your years—every action and word steeped with a sort of weary assuredness that you haven’t even lived long enough to properly earn. 

He watches you move with the grace of a woman, and listens to you speak with the authority of a man—and It could be the blood loss talking, but Nicholas thinks you might just be the most interesting thing he’s stumbled upon in this god-forsaken little town.

“You’re a doctor?”

You freeze, your head snapping in his direction when you finally hear him speak.

Your lip curls and you bare your teeth to him, and Nicholas is suddenly reminded of those city cats that wander the back alleys in Julai, hissing with their hackles raised when you happen across their path.

“Do I look like a doctor to you?” you sneer at him derisively.

For some unplaceable reason, Nicholas almost wants to laugh—the sensation bubbling up in his stomach in the wake of your harsh words.

(Though, that might just be the liquor.)

“Her daddy was a doctor,” Queenie whispers to him quietly as she and Violetta help Nicholas up onto the wooden table at the centre of the room at your instruction, leaning him back until he’s laid flat across it with a grunt. “Only one The Bend’s seen in the last 80 years."

“Prudence, you better shut your damn mouth if you want me to do anything about this mess,” you snap without looking up, busy rifling through the ancient leather medicine bag that Charity just dragged in from the other room.

You tend to Priscilla first, fixing her up with a compress on her cheek and a salve for the cut on her lip. She’s not the most desperate case in the room, but no one tries to turn your attention to the man on the table until you’re good and ready to do so of your own accord—a unanimous, though entirely unspoken, pact of silence lest your precarious agreement to help be withdrawn. Once you’re satisfied that the woman’s been sufficiently looked after, leaving her once more in the dutiful care of Theodosia, you finally turn to Nicholas.

The lamplight is fairly dim, even though you’ve moved it closer to the table to help illuminate your work—and there’s very little oil in the grimy reservoir of the glass lamp to keep it burning.

You approach him slowly.

“You a lefty?” you ask him, plunking yourself down in the wooden chair nearest to his injured left arm.

“Luckily not,” he slurs, his head lolling over to look at you as you sit beside him at the table.

“Luckily?” You huff, and Nicholas thinks that maybe it’s as close to a laugh as someone as mirthless as you ever gets. “You must not’ve heard: luck left The Bend years ago, and it’s not coming back.”

Nicholas really does find himself laughing then in the face of your plain, bur distinctly dour expression—and he immediately winces as a sharp pain shoots through him from the strain of trying to hold it back.

Your eyes survey the sopping, blood-soaked handkerchief he’s holding to his injury, then you lean over towards the medicine bag and begin digging through it again. He watches as you pull out an inhumanely large needle and some thread.

“Clear out, ladies,” you remark flatly to the group of onlookers without glancing up from the contents of the bag before you. “None of you are gonna wanna see this.”

The girls delay momentarily even after you bark out the order, as though worried that once they leave the room your willingness to help may exit with them.

You lift your face in their direction, some gauze and a corked flask of an indistinguishable transparent liquid in hand. Your lips pull down noticeably at the corners when you see the way the women are hesitating. “Go on, then. I’m making this exception for you once, and never again. Get Ada back home safe, and then the rest of you oughta do the same.”

Still, no one seems keen to heed your words.

You and Violetta share a pointed look, and it’s clear your patience—hardly-there to begin with—has worn dangerously thin.

“Alright, whores—clear out!” the older woman says, turning on her heel and corralling Queenie, Charity, Priscilla, and Theodosia towards the door with her arms outstretched. “Unless one of y’all are keen to be the next one who needs stitchin'!”

It takes a moment to get everyone moving—Charity in particular putting up more of a fight than the rest of them—but eventually Violetta succeeds in ushering them out. She casts one final glance back from the doorway, and Nicholas catches the exchange of almost imperceptible nods of thanks between you.

It’s unbearably quiet once they’re gone.

You move swiftly but silently, and set to work without a single word exchanged between you and the man stretched across your table. Without hesitating, you drag a thin blade in two strokes up the front of Nicholas’s bloodstained shirt—one cut along the torso and then another up the sleeve—and then pull off whatever’s in your way. You don’t so much as bat an eye as the tanned skin of his chest and abdomen is suddenly bared; there’s no distinguishable emotion or thought on your face that Nicholas can make out, but he’s also fairly distracted as he bites back the groans of pain that threaten to slip out each time you jostle his injured arm too roughly. 

Next, you begin cleaning the surface of the wound—as best you can given that it’s still unstitched—in preparation to fish out and remove the bullet still stuck inside. That little flask from earlier has some sort of antiseptic in it, which Nicholas discerns by the acrid smell and unbearable burning that rips through him as you let it trickle over the open gouge in his skin. He cries out as it happens, and the sound even takes him by surprise—guttural and completely instinctive.

“Don’t be a baby,” you sniff, dabbing away at the blood and antiseptic around his wound with some clean gauze.

“Sorry,” Nicholas mumbles through his panting breaths, pressing his opposite hand over his mouth in an attempt to keep himself quiet.

Your eyes flicker up to his briefly in the wake of his apology, and your gazes meet. You’re the first to look away after the momentary hold.

Next, you tip the flask into your hands, coating your palms in the stinging, astringent antiseptic. The lamplight catches in the little droplets as you shake them from your fingertips.

“My daddy told me once that doctors have to tell lies to keep their patients calm,” you say quietly, your lips pursing forward as you wrap one cool hand underneath his bicep. “Said that it’s just part of the job.”

You suck in a little breath, meeting his gaze briefly once more.

He can’t help but think your eyes look pretty when the light reflects in them like this. 

“But I’m no doctor—and this is gonna hurt like fresh hell.”

Outside your rickety little house on the edge of this forgotten, nowhere town, another peal of thunder roars.

You don’t often patch up bullet holes.

In fact, you can count on one hand the number of times you’ve tried.

But you’re not a professional, and you’ve never claimed to be; you’re just a doctor’s daughter who used to follow her father on his rounds through town, helping out whenever and wherever it was needed. Unavoidably, you learned some things along the way—like treatments, and time-honoured remedies, and how to sew a stitch so it won’t pucker when it scars—but you’re about as far as anyone could be from trained. You’ve got no education beyond your reading, writing, and basic arithmetic—what little education the school house in town could offer you until you just stopped going altogether—and your experience is limited only to the care you offer to Big Annie’s girls: whether it’s cleaning up the messes left by their particularly nasty customers or treating them as best you can when they fall ill. 

You don’t bother telling any of this to the man bleeding all over your table, though. You doubt it would do him much good.

Daddy used to deal with gunshot wounds all the time. They’re about a dime a dozen in a town like The Bend, after all, where tempers are high and spirits are low—not to mention where the men outnumber the women by about ten-to-one. 

And if there’s one thing you know about men, it’s that they all love slinging guns but less than half of them ought to be allowed to—because it always leads to injuries like this. It’s rarely ever women who walk around town getting themselves shot.

But in spite of all that, and your lack of experience, you watched your father go through the motions frequently enough that the movements come to you now like second nature: disinfect, remove, keep pressure, suture, bandage. You know the order of things, and you find your mind clear and your hands steady as you set to work—starting by cleaning him up as best you can to prepare to extract the bullet. 

You can see the very butt of it in peeking out from inside his ugly wound; a pesky little thing, slick with blood that catches in the light when his arm twitches towards the lamp. It’s not nestled too deep in there, thankfully, and he’ll probably be fine if he lets it heal properly—but it’ll still hurt like a bitch to pull out. 

But that’s his problem, not yours.

Unfortunately, you don’t have a pair of tweezers you trust to pluck the bullet out—at least not a pair that isn’t rusty—so your god-given tools will have to be what you use for the undertaking. You disinfect your hands as best you can before you begin.

“Would you stop squirming?” you mutter under your breath as the man on your table flinches the first time your fingers graze his open wound.

“Sorry,” he mumbles back, and your eyes flicker up to his face again briefly. 

This man keeps apologizing to you. 

It’s unsettling.

His dark eyes are heavy lidded, but you can still sense them tracing along the lines of your face as you work. There’s visible sweat beading at his temple as he lies flat on his back atop the wooden table in the centre of your home, and his bare chest rises and falls with heavy, laboured breaths that shake every so often on the exhale—the lamplight at your side catches in the perspiration glistening there too, near the little smattering of hair that sits at the highest point of his sternum.

This guy—this stranger who’s bleeding all over the table you eat your meals on—really pisses you off.

He’s got an awful lot of nerve to show up here in the middle of the night, looking for your help after he went and got himself shot. A small part of you knows that’s not entirely fair to think, because he got shot helping Adaline and it was the girls who’d brought him to you in the first place, but you still can’t help but be resentful. 

You feel yourself frown.

Your fingertips dip inside the wet heat of his wound for the first time, and he lets out a gasping, wretched groan from deep in the centre of his chest—so loud it almost makes you flinch.

“Don’t pass out,” you warn him flatly, pinning his injured arm more firmly to the table and prodding further in as you try to get a grip on the evasive little bullet with the very tips of your fingers. “You’re dead weight if you’re unconscious, and I’ll drag you outta this house in parts if I have to.”

“Noted,” the dark-haired man says through clenched teeth, his eyes squeezing shut as he attempts to stomach the pain.

You don’t have anything to offer him to dull the sensation—though you’re not sure you’d waste something so precious on him even if you did. After a while, and a bit more poking and prodding, he seems to acclimatize to the agony anyway. 

Or at the very least he gets better at masking it.

“I’m Nicholas, by the way,” he grits out after a while of you unsuccessfully trying to remove the bullet—frequently having to pause and wipe away the blood that’s continued to seep from the wound, slicking you down to your wrist. It stains the cuff of your shirtsleeve now, and you regret ever pulling it on to begin with, because you know it will be a nightmare to pound out in the wash.

“Didn’t ask.”

“I know,”—miraculously, he manages to laugh a bit, even as you’ve got two fingers digging around inside his arm—“just thought I’d tell ya anyway.”

You don’t bother replying, your eyes honed in solely on the task at bloody hand.

“‘M grateful for your help, y’know. Even if it’s just an exception,” the man—Nicholas—slurs next, his head tipping to the side on your kitchen table. You can tell that he’s talking, if nothing else, to distract himself. A lonely bead of sweat drips down his throat as he looks at you. “It’s awfully nice of ya to take pity on a no-good brute like me, Mama.”

You feel a crick of irritation tighten in your jaw then, as he parrots your earlier words back to you. Your fingers, still poking around to retrieve the bullet in his shoulder, twitch—and you aren’t sure the gesture is entirely involuntary. The man on the table before you yelps, flinching away from the pain, and you lean closer with your eyes still fixed on the wound piercing his skin.

“Don’t call me that,” you hiss through the dull scrape of your teeth grinding tightly together.

Nicholas lifts his right hand to his mouth, curled into a fist, and his pearly teeth bite down hard into the flesh at the base of his thumb as he pants through the pain. You finally, mercifully, manage to get a grip on that damned bullet, plucking it out and tossing it into the waiting dish atop the table with a delicate, terribly anticlimactic clink. You swiftly press a pad of clean gauze to the wound to staunch the bleeding while you reach for the stitching needle you left set off to the side.

“Hold this,” you order him, and the man lets his hand slip from the bite of his jaw to do as he’s told while you rifle through the bag at your feet. You can see the marks his teeth left in his skin as he takes the gauze from your hand into his own and begins to apply pressure.

You stand and wash your hands off as best you can in the basin of water Georgie brought in for you earlier, poised at the end of the table. The liquid tints pink as you first dip them in, and then slowly it turns an even darker, uglier colour as you properly scrub his blood from your skin. You shake as much of the water off your hands as you can, and then use the front of your shirt to sop up the rest—faintly rust-tinged handprints left in the cotton.

You take your seat once more, and Nicholas watches you through mostly-closed eyes as you set about sterilizing the needle.

“How come I can’t call you that?” 

You light a candle using the lamp at your side. Then you swish the needle around in antiseptic before running it through the flickering flame until it sparks—careful not to let it lick too close to your fingertips. Your eyes slide over to Nicholas as you pluck it from the fire.

With his face tilted towards you, another little drop of sweat has tracked down his cheek towards his prominent nose, and it glistens against his flushing skin in the warm light of your oil lamp. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, too—from what you don’t doubt is the combination of pain and whatever booze he’s been guzzling to numb it—and lips part on a shuddering exhalation as you survey his face.

“Call me what?” you mutter, averting your eyes and turning again to search through your medicine bag for a clean roll of bandage.

“Ma—” A sudden, harsh glare cuts him off before he even has the chance to say it. He smiles a little, the expression half-delirious, and you can’t help but think that if he weren’t so weakened from the pain that wracks him, he might have even managed another laugh.

You kiss your teeth quietly. “Only the girls call me that.”

The man bleeding out in the middle of your table clearly knows your tone of voice means not to push it, because he doesn’t. Instead, he turns his head until he’s staring up at your dingy ceiling once more, though you can tell from the faraway look in his eyes he’s not seeing much at all. 

“The girls,” Nicholas remarks quietly, speaking more to himself than anything. “You don’t call ‘em by their names.”

That’s right: he’d only know the girls by their working names. You’re surprised he even caught that.

“The hell I don’t,” you mutter, turning back to face him in your seat once more with your last roll of bandage clutched tightly in your hand. You set it down atop the table as you set your supplies up just how you like them. “I call them by the names their mothers gave them.”

Nicholas hums thoughtfully. “Sarah Jane, that’s Violetta?”

You grunt out an affirmative, threading the freshly cleaned needle with nimble, dextrous accuracy. 

“And Charity, her real name’s Bertie?”

“Bertha May,” you correct him, snipping away the excess thread with a little pair of mostly-dull scissors—careful not to take more than you’ll need, but still giving yourself sufficient supply to work with.

“Priscilla’s name’s Adaline,” Nicholas continues, his eyes still tracing the cracks in your ceiling. “And what about Theodosia and Queenie?” 

“Georgina and Prudence,” you supply flatly as you secure a tight knot in the end of the stitching thread.

Nicholas sighs before slurring, “’s a lot to keep track of.”

You snort. “Wait until you find out Big Annie’s real name.”

He looks over at you with wider eyes than you’ve seen on him since he came staggering through your door. He catches the expression on your face and his own softens, clearly sensing that you’d said it only in jest. 

Annie’s just short for Annabelle, after all. Madam’s rarely need to take up new personas—why would they need to be someone they’re not if they aren’t the ones doing the dirty work?

Nicholas watches as you tug on the stitching thread one last time to test its strength—eying the glinting needle warily. You set the threaded implement carefully off to the side once you’re confident it’s ready.

“So you learned all this stuff from your daddy, huh?” he asks you next.

You swallow over the unpleasant lump you suddenly feel in the back of your throat and reach up, nudging his hand away from where he’s holding the gauze to his wound. He’s become a real chatterbox now, and part of you wonders why you’re even tolerating it.

You clean the area with antiseptic again—and Nicholas is just as dramatic as he was the first time as a low moan of pain tears through him. For a moment you worry he really might be on the brink of passing out, the whites of his eyes taking over as they begin to roll back, so you know you need to keep him focused.

“He used to take me with him on his rounds,” you mumble a reply to his earlier question. 

Nicholas’s eyes open a bit wider when he hears your voice, a little more focused now than they had been.

“My daddy, I mean,” your tone is dismissive and flippant, but it seems to be an effective distraction. “I just picked things up here and there while I watched him work.”

“You’re a natural.”

You snort mirthlessly in the wake of his reply. “Don’t know about all that.”

“You just pulled a bullet outta my arm with your bare hands, that’s gotta count for something.” Nicholas hisses as you press the antiseptic-soaked gauze to his wound one last time, then he sucks in a sharp breath. “And the girls trust you a lot, so you must be good at it.”

“Somebody’s gotta take care of them.” 

Lord knows no one else around here does.

You set the scarlet saturated gauze aside in the dish with the discarded bullet, then pick up your needle.

You make neat, even sutures through his skin, and you take your time to do it right. You’ve always been good at this kind of thing, even when you were young. You were born with a keen eye for detailed work like this, and your daddy used to get you to finish up the smaller wounds he was called to treat that needed finer stitching—said your little hands were just better at it than his own big, life-roughened ones. He always used to tell you that you got your steady hands from him, but your nimble fingers from your mother.

Not that you’d know anything about that.

Nicholas has stopped flinching now, a little more relaxed than he’d previously been, and you can’t help but look up at him every so often as you work—wondering if that steady, even rise and fall of his chest means that he’s finally knocked out. Especially since he’s suddenly gone so quiet. 

But each time you check, you find his eyes are still open—though only just barely—and are peering up towards the ceiling. Sometimes you catch him glancing at you too.

Once the wound has been fully closed in a tidy little line of stitches, you wrap the roll of bandages around it with some gauze tucked underneath, just in case.

“You’re all done,” you say quietly, slumping back in your chair once you’re finally finished.

All at once, you feel exhausted—the adrenaline you didn’t even know had been rushing through you disappearing in a blink. It reminds you of how the wind dies in the valley in the wake of a bad storm, like it took the breeze with it. You’re all too conscious of the fact that it’s the middle of the night now, and that you ought to long be asleep.

“Thank you,” Nicholas says as he pushes himself up onto the elbow of his uninjured arm, though he still winces at the movement. You don’t make any attempt to help him.

His shirt is in pieces, and he discards it since it’s of so little use to him now, shaking his right arm to free it from the only sleeve that remains in tact on the garment. You watch as he pushes himself fully upright, throwing his long legs over the side of the table to stand. When he does, he dips slightly—like the sudden movement makes him woozy, and his knees are weak—and his right hand shoots out to balance himself on the edge of the tabletop on instinct. You suppose it’s not unexpected given the amount of blood he lost.

You watch his toned, tanned back as he stretches himself out as much as his injury will allow; observing how his skin pulls taught over the defined musculature that surrounds his spine. He’s littered with scars—a map of wounds that weren’t stitched as neatly as the new one on his upper arm—and part of you can’t help but wonder how he got them all. Can’t help but wonder what stories those marks tell, written in a language you don’t know how to read.

You look away, feeling an inexplicable heat flood rapidly to your cheeks.

You stand and quickly slip off your own overshirt—just some old button-up left behind from your father, though you have no memories of him ever wearing it. You clutch it in your fist and stick it out for him to take.

He eyes it in surprise for a moment before accepting it.

“Those blood stains are yours, anyway. You might as well have it,” you say, eyeing the red mark at the cuff on the right-hand sleeve as the garment passes from your hold into his, “in any case it’s in better shape than the one you came here with.” 

It saves having to clean it, too. So it’s all the same to you.

“I’ll pay you,” he slurs, still unsteady on his feet as he begins rifling awkwardly through his pockets with his only useable hand. He almost tips right over in his haste, but you quickly slip beside him and steady his frame.

���Yeah, you will,” you agree, holding tight to his right arm to keep him standing. “Worry about it tomorrow.”

Nicholas’ bare skin radiates warmth with only your thin, lace-trimmed undershirt left separating you as you stand pressed into his side. He peers down at you curiously, blinking slowly like he’s being called to sleep. From this close, with him standing properly upright for the first time, you realize just how big this man is—tall, with a broad chest and defined muscles, and stubble dusted along his sharp jawline that you hadn’t noticed before. You take a sudden step away to put much needed distance between the two of you, these realizations making something stir in the pit of your stomach that makes you feel squeamish. 

“Do you know your way back to the inn?” you ask him, your arms crossing over your front.

Nicholas bobs his head in a completely unconvincing nod. It’s not like the town is big enough to get lost in in the first place—and he very well might know his way if it were daylight, or he weren’t half delirious—but sending him out into The Bend in his current state would be as much of a death sentence as it would have been to turn him away when he first showed up at your door. 

You sigh in resignation.

“Just sleep on the floor here for tonight. I’ll check your stitches again tomorrow morning before you leave.”

The man looks taken aback, but he nods quickly—as though he doesn’t want to give you time to rescind the unexpected offer.

You fish around in the depths of your father’s old medicine bag, eventually pulling out a bottle of murky liquid as Nicholas gets settled with an old cushion and a threadbare quilt near the unlit hearth of the fireplace. You use the edge of your nail to uncork it, take a quick whiff to make sure it’s the right one, and then tread towards the man on the other side of the room.

He peers up at you from his makeshift bed on the floor, resting with his knees apart and his long legs sprawled out in front of him. You pass the little glass bottle to him, your fingers brushing as it passes from your grip into his. “Drink this, it helps to fight off infection.”

He eyes it warily. The outside of the bottle is suspiciously grimy, and the putrid colour of the liquid inside is no less reassuring. “What is it?”

“Hog Fennel.”

He grimaces, peeking into the opening of the bottle with one eye closed. “Sounds foul.”

You snort. “It is."

Nicholas doesn’t draw it out any longer, tipping the vial back an draining it all in one shot. He winces once he swallows it down, his pink tongue peeking out a little as he pants through the taste—which you’re sure is bitter and disgusting.

“How was it?” you ask him wryly.

“I’ve had worse, honestly,” he says, shooting you a little grin you can’t believe he’s able to manage not only in the wake of such a disgusting concoction but considering what he’s been through that night.

You blink, your brow furrowing, and then eventually nod dismissively before turning and shuffling off towards the other side of the room where the door to your bedroom is found.

“Thank you.” 

Nicholas speaks again as you’re just shy of crossing the threshold into your room, you consider pausing in your shock but then think better of it.

“You already said that,” you reply, your tone annoyed, and shut the door behind you.

You open it again a second later to poke your head back out towards him.

“I’ve got a gun in here, by the way, and I won’t miss. Just in case you were thinking of trying anything funny.”

Across the room, Nicholas is already laying down on his pitiful excuse of a resting place, looking strangely content.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says with a smile, though his eyes stay closed.

Part of you is annoyed at how comfortable he seems. How easily he talks to you. How normal his presence feels in your home.

Another part of you—one that’s deeper, locked away and hidden out of sight in a place where you think you’ve lost they key—isn’t.

You slip back into your room and close the door behind you with a soft click. 

And in the silent stillness of your little bedroom with your shoulder blades pressed back into your bedroom door, you realize that the thunder outside has stopped but you can hear the softest, faintest pitter patter of raindrops through cracked glass of your window.

Rain came back to The Bend.

Maybe luck would follow.

[strawurberries]

Injury drabble <3

Summary: You're injured—not from a fight, don't you worry that little head of yours—and Vash is a little bit of a baby about it. Just some random thought collected into one, small post.

Authors Note: This isn't proofread and I'm writing this on my phone right before I go to bed because I'm a masochist apparently. Anyways, enjoy :)!

Warnings: Mentions of injuries (nothing specific).

If you got injured, in some way shape or form that wasn't related to combat, Vash would be less terrified (mind no longer screaming at him about how pathetic he is, how he cannot even keep his loved ones safe) but still definitely nervous and overbearing. He'd probably be the one panicking more than you (of course, the panic would set in after he deemed the situation as a non-emergency. Though, he wouldn't lie, anytime your injured is a bit of an emergency to him)—

"Are you okay?!?" he scrambled to your side, helping you get off the old wooden stairs you had tripped on. Hands gentle, yet steady and strong, pulling you up to your feet. His touch lingered, warmth seeping into your very soul.

"I'm fine," you smiled and dusted yourself off with a slight cringe, "jus' fell." Embarrassment overpowered the slight, dull pain that had dug its way into your lower back—that, you knew, would leave a nasty bruise.

"People die from falling you know!" He circled you like a predator, eyes observing you with the fever of a devoted man, someone who cared only for the object of their faith, their affection. After a moment he stopped before you, sighing quietly.

"Do I look dead to you??" You pushed past him with a small grin, "drama queen."

"You never know!!" he yelled after you, running at your heels.

And (this isn't because I just popped my knee outta place 💀) if you had to wear some sort of brace, he'd be hovering over you like a saint. Actually, he'd just be next to you in general. This man has separation anxiety that will even unnerve even the most callous of men. He thinks of other things besides you of course, but worry not, you're always somewhere in the back of his mind—a lingering touch, a silent kiss, a whisper of love, or a glance of divinity. You're always with him, and he's always with you. Though, that is also a literal meaning as much as it is metaphorical one.

You felt a shiver behind your neck, a tickle of something holy that hovered over warm flesh—safety, it said, you are safe. Without even turning, you knew who it was. The light whisps of his touch along your back, too scared to fully commit to contact—whether that be because he didn't wish to harm you, or was too lost in thought to realize what he's doing.

"Vash?" you tilted your head and grinned, "I'm not made of glass." Even though the brace around your wound made you itch and groan, you still were capable of doing many things—cleaning? You had done that while Vash ran to the doctor to get more pain medication. Reading? You quite after several minutes, the whistling wind and laughing children too loud to focus (but it stills counts, you think, regardless of how long you did a task). Go outside? Er—well, you tried but were swiftly stopped and hauled back to the room. You didn't complain, though now you felt like you should've.

"Hm?" his head settled on your shoulder, not paying attention to your previous words, "need anything?" Hot tangles of warm breath seeped into the air, dancing like the Faries of the night—the stars that waltzed across the sky in that cosmic sort of play that never seemed to end.

"Maybe some personal space," you mused. You didn't mean it—or maybe you did, who knows? Right now, you weren't sure what you needed—and he whined, as if he fell for your words blindly like gospel.

He huffed. "What if you need help?!"

Ah, you thought, a valid concern.

You shrugged, "this room is about ten feet wide, I'm sure you can run across to me in no time."

"But those three seconds could be life or death!"

You nuzzled into his cheek and sighed. There's was no way to win this, was there? So, instead of bickering or pinching his cheek—he always got embarrassed when you did that—you simple laughed lightly, and let your chest fall with the sunset and rise with the night. "Drama queen," you muttered.

"Hey!"

[karlydraws]

"Your order's up. We don't bring it to you so you have to come pick it up....."

"Oh, sorry! I didn't hear it over the music :)"

On his 'day shift' Nicholas meets a patched omega with a collar, and thinks he's cute.

Little does he know, that he's the twin brother of who runs this "Michael's Coffee" operation. Who has him to be a barista by day, a machinery by night.

Other July City Facilities

[ohitslen]

Intrusive thoughts

[saturncodedstarlette]

“You were a wonderful experience.”

“You were… everything.”