Work Text:
Meryl steps out of the elevator holding her mentor’s blood-stained gun and the first thing she sees is Wolfwood, who is staring at the derringer in her hand and Roberto’s body behind her and the blood slowly beginning to dry on the floor. She can barely process that he’s there — there’s been a dull ringing in her ears since she pressed the button to return to the floor they left Vash and Wolfwood on — but she can see that Vash isn’t with him. He looks as if he’s about to speak, still staring at what she’s walking away from, but she cuts him off before he can. “Where’s Vash?”
His voice is as careless as ever, but he won’t meet her eyes. “He had business to attend to,” he says.
“Wolfwood, it’s a trap, they want to use Vash, we can’t let him go —“ Tears spring to her eyes again, still red-rimmed from earlier. She doesn’t understand — why is Wolfwood here? Where could Vash have gone that he would have left him?
“I know!” he snaps, and then, quieter. “I know.”
“So we have to go get him,” Meryl cries. “He can’t be here, he needs our help!”
Wolfwood chuckles, humorless and pained. “I said I know. Why do you think I stuck around for so long anyway?”
It clicks — the memory of Roberto identifying Nicholas as one of Conrad’s creations. Meryl stares at Wolfwood, and Wolfwood stares at the floor. She sees the piece of paper in his hand, crumpled but not enough to hide the word “contract”, and something gives. She launches herself at Wolfwood, weakly trying to punch him in the stomach, tears flowing freely. “You just left him?” she says angrily, Wolfwood’s hand coming to hover around her shoulder, clearly not feeling any actual pain from her attempts to hurt him and more worried about her emotional state. “You asshole, he trusted you! He’s going to get hurt and you’re just letting it happen!”
“Half of the time he wants me to let him get hurt,” Wolfwood mutters, and Meryl punches him again, as hard as she can through her blurry vision.
“I wish we’d never seen you in the desert,” she hisses. “I wish you’d passed out out there so we would never have had to meet you, you traitor.”
Wolfwood laughs again, dry and sharp. “Me too,” he says.
Meryl finally lets go, backing away to storm past him down the hallway, gripping the derringer even harder. I have to find Vash , she thinks. He needs someone on his side . Behind her, she hears the soft footfalls of Wolfwood stepping into the elevator and the ding of the bell as the doors close around him. She does her best to ignore it.
Meryl steps out of the elevator at the first second she can to put even a foot of distance between herself and the horrible weight of death left behind and collapses onto the floor, surrounded by fragments of Elendira’s nails. She doesn’t think she can cry anymore, but she feels dazed and torn into a million pieces. She tries to even her breathing and not think about the blood on her hands and the derringer, and she almost misses the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway towards her. Meryl struggles to her feet and grips the gun and points, well-aware that she’s had no experience aiming or shooting it.
Wolfwood turns the corner and freezes before moving forward slowly. Meryl doesn’t lower the gun. She remembers that Roberto knew he worked for Conrad, and now Roberto is dead in the elevator behind her, stationary on the floor and visible through the glass panes. She tries to pretend her hands aren’t shaking.
“Little missy,” he says, gaze flickering between the derringer in her hands and the scene in the elevator behind her as he finally stops about 10 feet away. “What the hell happened?”
“He got hit by one of the nails,” she says, nonsensically. It’s fairly obvious what happened; she doesn’t know why he’s asking. “He wouldn’t let me help. I had to dig in his pockets for the bullets for the gun, he wanted me to take it.”
“Hm,” Wolfwood replies, tracking the shake in her hands and voice. “Are you going to shoot me?”
Meryl doesn’t want to think about having to shoot him or anyone else. She’s already got blood on her hands from dragging Roberto into these escapades with her. She swipes a hand across her eyes again.
“Where’s Vash?” she demands instead.
Wolfwood takes it in stride. “I don’t think you want to find him, right now,” he says.
“Please,” she begs. “Just tell me where he is.”
He looks away, scuffs a foot along the floor. “You’re going to be the death of each other, you know that?” he grumbles. “I left him further in. I don’t know where he went from there.”
It’s not really any help, besides finding out that Wolfwood doesn’t know an exact location, but it’s enough to get Meryl moving again. “Okay,” she says to herself, finally lowering the gun. “Okay! I can do this. I will do this.”
She starts moving toward the hallway. Wolfwood turns just enough to watch her as she leaves, and then steps into the elevator.
Meryl steps out of the elevator and sees Wolfwood and immediately realizes Vash is not with him, meaning that he has been left behind in this trap, and she doesn’t know what’s going on but she knows she can’t leave him here. And she knows that if she tries to speak, she would only be able to scream and wail, and she has to hold it together. She has to find Vash, and get them both out of here, and bury Roberto. She doesn’t have the time to unpack why Wolfwood’s standing alone, waiting for the elevator, but the important part is that he’s alone and Vash is somewhere deeper in the hallways of this place. She brushes past him without a word, ignoring his “Hey — little missy — Meryl — what happened?” before she turns the corner. She doesn’t want to hear her name said out loud again today.
Meryl steps out of the elevator into an empty room and immediately starts down the hallway, unsure if she’s even going in the right direction but determined to keep moving. She can’t leave Vash in this place, this horrible trap — she just hopes she won’t run into the worm kid or Conrad again as she moves through the halls. She can hear piano in the distance and thinks of Vash’s brother at Jeneora Rock, thinks of Tonis and how she didn’t save him.
Follow your heart , Roberto’s voice reminds her. You can run if you want.
She can’t let Vash face whatever he’s facing alone. She won’t run away.
Meryl takes off down the hallway towards the sounds of the piano.
Wolfwood enters the elevator room minutes after Meryl’s already left, fist still tightly clenching the contract. He’s trying not to think about Vash’s gentle voice saying Thank you for everything , and his own inability to respond, when he sees Roberto’s body in the elevator. Meryl’s nowhere to be seen, but Roberto’s derringer is gone and his flask and cigarettes have been neatly laid out on the floor next to him, away from the thickening pool of blood.
“Goddammit,” Wolfwood says, and presses the button to open the elevator doors.
He reaches down, takes a cigarette from the pack, and lights it, taking a long drag as he contemplates the body next to him, the contract he’s fulfilled, and that Meryl and Vash are going to be alone in here.
“God dammit ,” he repeats, already beginning to chew on the stolen, non-crumpled cigarette, and pushes one of the buttons.
Wolfwood steps out of the elevator, and tries to figure out which direction Meryl could have gone.