Chapter Text
It was a hot, humid, summer afternoon. Too damn hot. It was the kind of heat you could only enjoy if you were a kid too blinded by the freedom of summer to recognize how truly suffocating the weather was.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood sat in his office chair, leaning back so far it risked toppling at any second, hoping desperately to catch a breeze from the pathetic little window behind him. How cruel life could be, the same window who's shabbiness sent icy drafts to plague him all winter refused to give him the tiniest breezy respite from the blaring summer heat. The AC had long since stopped working and he blamed his busyness, not his laziness, for its continued lack of function. He had nothing but a shitty little fan to save him, and dear god it was not doing his job. He sighed a big sigh, the only thing weighing on him more than the sticky summer heat was boredom. That was until he heard the heavenly sound of the buzzer.
"Um, Mr. Wolfwood? A man is here to see you" Whined a nasally voice from the lobby. Wolfwood didn't have a secretary, but he liked to think of the doorman as one, even if he attended to all six offices in the building. The doorman seemed noticeably flustered, though it wasn't too uncommon for a guest of Wolfwood's to be eye catching in one way or another. He was a private investigator, after all.
Most of his clients were people tracking down long lost family and friends; sisters separated as toddlers, no-good sons who ran off on their elderly mothers, high school sweethearts who split for college and only looked back in their forties. However, he did get his fair share of odd balls. Vengeful exes, wronged businessmen, and just all around crazy people. Usually if sinister intent was clear then Wolfwood would turn them away, unless of course it was interesting enough.
"Send 'em up" Wolfwood shouted into the buzzer. The thing was so decrepit that he needed to shout for anything to go through at all. Wolfwood rolled his shoulders and sat up in his chair. He by no means kept a professional posture, but he at least had the decency to take his feet off of the desk when a client came in. He took out a cigarette and lighter, ready to get down to business.
When the client did eventually arrive after climbing all the stairs it took to get to the third floor, Wolfwood instantly understood what had gotten the doorman so flustered.
The man was gorgeous, plain and simple. A huge wall of man, standing somewhere around 6 feet, and broad enough to take up the whole doorway. He wore a business suit, perfectly bespoke and in such an odd shade of blue that it had to have been custom made. Under that business suit, however, was the rippling frame of a bodybuilder. He had pecs so large that the buttons on his shirt looked ready to pop, and yet he also had a slender, grabbable waist. He had an hourglass figure made entirely of muscle, something that anyone with a head on their shoulders could tell was a herculean feat. He wore an expensive watch and had the signature look of bored frustration that every businessman seemed to bear. It wasn't just his clothes or his body that was gorgeous, though. His face took the breath out of Wolfwood's lungs. It was a beautiful, beautiful face. His face was slender, though his jaw was sizable just from the amount that he had worked out. For such a big strong man, his features were all incredibly delicate. He had a beauty mark just under his right eye, just like the femme fatales of old. His hair was platinum white and swept back, short in the sides and a little breezier at the top. It was so meticulously trimmed that Wolfwood would have guessed he was fresh from the hair salon. His eyelashes matched his hair colour, stark white in the most elegant way. Between the white hair and his deathly pale complexion Wolfwood would have guessed he was albino, if not for the two bright blue eyes that glared at him from under those delicate platinum lashes.
Wolfwood gulped, the unlit cigarette he had taken was dangling from the corner of his mouth, ready to fall at any second. He blinked rapidly, he couldn't help but take in everything this man had to offer. Sometimes, for a guy that got as little action as Nicholas D. Wolfwood, it could be easy to forget his own sexuality, but guys like this, reminded him that he was captial-g-gay. His ogling seemed to make the already cranky man all the more annoyed, his glare turning into a full-fledged scowl.
"Nicholas D. Wolfwood, I presume?" The man asked in a voice far deeper than Wolfwood was expecting. Wolfwood shuffled frantically into a more sensible posture, the man's scornful tone snapping him out of his lustful trance.
"Tha' one n only" Wolfwood replied, his cool demeanour instantly flooding back to him. He nodded towards the chair on the opposite side of his desk, signalling for his guest to sit down. The man obliged, but made no effort to conceal how disgusted he was with the office, and the PI, for that matter. "So what brings a guy like you to a place like this?" Wolfwood asked, the still unlit cigarette bobbing as he moved his lips. The man's scowl continued to grow until he was staring at Wolfwood with all the hate in his heart. It seemed as if the question offended him, though he took a moment to ready his answer nonetheless.
"My brother." The man answered curtly. Wolfwood raised an eyebrow, waiting for elaboration that didn't come.
"Sorry, dollface. Can't exactly build a case offa two words. You're gonna have to give me a little more than that." Wolfwood said as he lit his cigarette, instinctively doing little tricks with the lighter. He breathed out a huge cloud of smoke, waiting for the man's hesitant response.
"He's missing," the man responded bluntly.
"Missing? Isn't that something more suited for the police?"
"No. God, no. Those unhelpful pigs refuse to look into anything at all, just because he took some important belongings with him. They won't even give me the time of day!" The man all but yelled. Wolfwood was surprised by this sudden tirade, but he liked it. His favourite thing in the world was watching high-strung rich guys lose their temper. Maybe that was why he was allowing himself to be even more annoying than usual.
"Typical. Serve and protect my ass. So, lay it out for me." Wolfwood said as he took another drag from his cigarette. He fiddled in a drawer of his desk for a notepad, finding one and opening it up to the first page. He readied a pen, tapping it expectantly. This was somewhat perplexing to the man as he had a computer right in front of him. Wolfwood was an old soul, he’d whine all day long about how digital notes just don’t feel the same as pen and paper, but he decided to spare the handsome man his ramblings and leave his inquisitive stare unanswered.
"What exactly?" The man asked, seeming genuinely lost rather than snarky.
"Let's start with your name."
"My name? Why is that relevant?" He asked, as if offended by the proposition. Wolfwood raised an eyebrow. It was awfully suspicious to be squirming that much just from a simple introduction. The man was clearly hiding something.
"I've gotta know who to bill, after all~" Wolfwood said with a wink, though the joke clearly went over the man's head. "besides, sweetheart. I've gotta have somethin' to call ya, and by the looks of it, if I keep calling ya sweetheart you're gonna beat me into next week. So. Name."
"My name is Millions Knives" The man said with a huff. Wolfwood laughed, hard, until he realised the man wasn't laughing with him.
"Oh shit. You're serious!?" Wolfwood yelped, genuinely floored. The man's furrowed brow told him the answer was yes, and he meekly wrote it down in his notebook with a gulp. "so, uh, would your brother be hundreds spoons, then?" Wolfwood said, his uncharacteristically meek tone making the joke fall even flatter than it should have. Knives glared harder.
"No. His name is Vash Saverem, however he refuses to use his full name in most cases, so most of the time you will be looking for just Vash." Knives snapped, fuming with anger. Wolfwood diligently wrote down what he said, shrinking into his chair.
"That's an odd name. Guess it runs in the family. Hopefully it'll make my job a whole lot easier. So, when was the last time you saw him?"
"Eight months ago."
"Alright. Any reason he mighta left? Maybe a bad breakup with the girlfriend? Fired from his job? Some other major life tragedy? Did you two have a falling out, maybe?" Wolfwood asked, tapping his pen as he waited for a response. Knives paused a long, eerie pause. It was something Wolfwood wanted to note as suspicious, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was just thinking real hard.
"No. None. Everything was perfectly normal until he was just…gone"
"And how close were you two, exactly? We talkin' daily contact? Weekly? Monthly? Did he confide in you?"
"He didn't confide in anyone, really. He kept everything to himself. I was about as close as anyone could be to a guy like that. We lived a few blocks from each other, I moved there specifically to keep an eye on him. We’d talk every day. Not just chat, either. We would spend some amount of time together more days than not.” Knives responded solemnly, clearly grieving all the time he was missing. Wolfwood raised an eyebrow.
“Keep an eye on him? What exactly does that mean?”
“Oh, you know...” Knives said flippantly. It was the first time that the man had looked nervous the whole conversation.
“No. I don’t.” Wolfwood said bluntly, his suspicion growing obvious through his tone. “What is it? Is he a troublemaker? Womaniser? Drugs, alcohol? What is it that makes a fully grown man need his brother to babysit him?” He asked with passion in his voice, leaning forward. Knives shook his head so hard it looked like it hurt.
“It's nothing like that! He’s good! He’s very good!” Knives snapped, fully yelling. He slammed his fist on the table hard enough to make the pens on it roll. After a moment he had realised what he had done, and seeing Wolfwood’s observant expression eying him down made him behave himself. He cleared his throat and regained his composure. “He isn’t that kind of person. He doesn't do any of that. It’s just…he just…” He started before letting out a big, hearty sigh. “He’s…self destructive. Really, REALLY self destructive.” Knives said solemnly. Wolfwood wrote that down, which seemed to annoy Knives to some extent. A morose silence creeped in, as even for a man as crass and heartless as Wolfwood, there were some things he still didn’t have the nerve to say. He cleared his throat.
“Are you sure he’s not…ya’know…” He started, averting his eyes. Knives grew so mad he grew red in the face, leaping up from his chair like some great beast and slamming his hands down on the table. He got up in Wolfwood’s face, seething with passionate rage.
“I’M SURE. HE IS ALIVE. I KNOW HE IS ALIVE!” He shouted at the top of his very lungs. Wolfwood winced, turning his face away as Knives’ was mere inches from his. He eventually sat back down with a huff, crossing his arms like a cranky child. Wolfwood rolled his eyes, shaking his head at the tantrum the man in front of him had just thrown.
“Uh. Sure thing…” Wolfwood said as he noted Knives’ anger issues in his little notebook. “So, he’s alive. Where do you think he ran off to, then?”
“I have no idea. That’s why I came to you.”
“Alright, alright. So what exactly do you WANT? do you want, like, general information? His location? What are you asking’ me for”
“I want you to find him and bring him back to me.”
“Bring him back? Aw man, makin’ me whip out the smooth talkin. Just so you know though, it’ll cost ya extra if I’ve gotta travel outta province. And I’m chargin ya up the wazoo if I have to leave the country.”
“I don’t care. No cost is too high. I want my brother back.” Knives said with a dire seriousness in his tone. Wolfwood shrugged.
“Alright. So, physical description. You gotta picture of him? I can go off of nothin’ but your words but it’ll make my life a whole lot harder.” Wolfwood asked. Knives dug his wallet out of his pocket and took out a picture. It was clearly just printed recently, as despite being stored in a wallet it was almost as good as new.
“Apologies, this is all I have. He avoids cameras like the plague. He’s very self conscious.” Knives said as he slid the picture across the desk. Wolfwood picked it up and examined it closer. It was candid, waist up, taken from his right side as the subject was chatting merrily with someone not in frame. The man, Vash, was quite a looker. Clearly it ran in the family. He had a far healthier complexion than his brother, and his hair was a deeper shade of blonde. He had the same broad shoulders as his brother, but any other features of his body were obscured by a giant red windbreaker that swallowed him up. It was an odd coat, scarlet red with a bright teal lining and a patch on the sleeve that Wolfwood couldn’t make out from the poor quality image. It was clearly made out of raincoat material, and yet the absurd colour combination and flabbergasting size of it made Wolfwood assume it was handmade.
“Well, it’s something. Gimme the low-down on him anyways, this picture only tells me about one quarter of the story.” Wolfwood said, readying his pen.
“We’re identical twins, so that should help.”
“You two are identical!?” Wolfwood all but shouted. He squinted closer at the man in the photo, cross referencing it with the man in front of him. It was hard to imagine the lively, jolly, scrawny man in the picture could be made from the same cloth as the body-biulding businessman staring him down, but apparently that was the case.
“Yes. We are. He has a mole on his left cheek, opposite mine. He is 5’11”, his hair is blonde though it has a bit of brown in it. Not dyed, his hair is just like that. HIs eyebrows are very dark and his eyes are blue. His hair is usually in an undercut, styled and spiked. Theoretically he could have grown it out, but he’s been wearing it the same way since he was fifteen so I highly doubt it.”
“And how old is he now?”
“Thirty one.”
“THIRTY ONE!? YOU’RE THIRTY ONE!?” Wolfwood couldn’t help but yelp. Knives scowled even deeper, the kind of soul-crushing glare that brought to mind imagery of vengeful kings waging war. Wolfwood would have guessed the man to be no older than 25, and guessing was his entire job.
“Yes. I am thirty-one.” Knives responded through gritted teeth. “He wears the same god forsaken red coat everywhere he goes” Knives said as if it offended him. “His left ear is pierced and he normally wears a hoop earring. He often wears sunglasses as well. He has some sensory issues, bright lights especially, so he will wear them even if he’s indoors. Oh, I almost forgot. He is missing an arm.”
“How the hell do you forget something like that?” Wolfwood said, eyeing him suspiciously.
“I don’t know, he’s been missing it for so long.” Knives said flippantly. Wolfwood made a mental note, something about this interaction was rubbing him the wrong way. “It’s his left arm. It's missing above the elbow. He has a prosthetic.”
“Alright, alright. Anything else you can give me?” Wolfwood said as he flipped through his notes. Knives thought for a moment and shook his head. “Alrighty, then. Give me your contact and my downpayment and I’ll get to work” He said as he tossed the notepad on the desk. Knives stood, handing him a business card. It read “Millions Knives~Concert Pianist”, as well as including his phone number and email. This guy was just full of surprises. Wolfwood shook the surprise out of his head, but before he could fully absorb the absurdity of this man who was built like a superhero being a concert pianist of all things, the man tossed a wad of cash onto the table. Wolfwood scrambled to grab it like a starving dog scrounging for scraps. He flipped through it, looking up confusedly.
“This is way more than I ask for…?” He said, equal parts confused and shocked.
“Find my brother.” Knives said curtly as he walked out the door.
And just like that, he was gone. In one fifteen minute conversation Wolfwood had suddenly booked off weeks worth of work. More than that, though, he had met someone that was weird even by his standards. He lit another cigarette, taking a big, long, drag as he mulled over the conversation he had just wrapped up. He couldn’t help but feel like there was something sinister about Knives. Maybe it was nominative determinism, but that was clearly a bed he’d made himself. He sighed another cloud of smoke into the air, combing over every detail of their interaction, trying to figure out what it was that made him tick. Wolfwood couldn’t shake the feeling that Vash running had something to do with Knives’ intensity. Cops work on the premise of “Innocent until proven guilty”, or at least they're supposed to, but Wolfwood was no pig. It was his job to catch every last red flag and tally them all up.
Regardless of his poisonous aura, Millions Knives was still the man paying him, and as a man with morals as flimsy as a paper plane, Wolfwood could ignore it just fine. He turned on his computer and immediately started searching online for information. With a name as odd as "Vash Saverem", the few results he got were the right guy. Most of them were scholarly articles, apparently this guy was a real genius. He had made some breakthroughs in bioengineering at a local university, but that was about all Wolfwood could glean through the mess of technical jargon. He looked up the university, though he knew it well, to see if he was still listed under employees despite his impromptu vanishing. Surprisingly, he was. Wolfwood shot an email to the department head of biology at the school, hoping to get a date as to when he was last seen and asking why he was still listed there despite being gone for so long.
Thankfully the school provided a much better photograph of him then his brother had, as all of the staff had to have front-facing images for the website. Wolfwood studied his face closely, as if he worried he might be quizzed on it later. God, this mystery man was quite a looker.
He messed around on the university's website for a while, worming his way through anything related to Vash. The school had a few articles about him, he was apparently quite a big deal in his niche. His picture was used for a lot of images promoting the schools diversity as well, and it didn't take long for Wolfwood to find a little article about how he was their first trans-gay-neurodivergent-amputee-scientist. Wolfwood hadn’t expected to get so much information just from his workplace, but boy did the campus love to blather about their bioengineering poster boy. Then, as he started browsing the alumni, he hit gold.
"Rem Saverem - In memoriam. Loving mother of two sons, philosopher, heart of our school." Amongst other memorials of staff and famous students who had passed, there she was. There was no question that there was a connection there, the name was strange enough that it couldn't be anything else, and it was all but hard proof when it referenced her having two sons. Though, strangely enough, she almost certainly had no biological relation to the twins, as her hair and eyes were inky black. Her complexion was a fair bit darker than both of them, and she didn't share a single facial feature with either twin. Her death date was just shy of twenty years ago, meaning she must have died when the twins were still kids.
He checked for any social media accounts, but it seemed like Vash wasn't that kind of guy. All he had was a LinkedIn, and it was barren. It showed that he had graduated from the same university that he worked at, which told Wolfwood that he had apparently been working there since he was only twenty. Wolfwood double checked his math, and sure enough, this guy had graduated highschool two years early. Wolfwood was chasing down a real genius.
His computer made a silly little beep, the sound of an email coming in. Thankfully the university had already responded to him. It was 1pm on a Tuesday, after all. School was in session.
"Hi Mr. Wolfwood,
Dr. Saverem has not attended work on-campus for approximately eight months. He is still on the staff register as he has not been formally terminated. His unwarned absence has been tolerated due to many of the staff, including myself, understanding that he is a vital part of our school. I hope this clears things up.
Thank you,
Dr. Luida
Head of Biology"
Wolfwood furrowed his brow. It made sense to him that they would keep him on the register if he had been such a poster boy, but the email seemed oddly emotional, especially coming from a scientist. He re-opened the school's website and looked for her full name, before searching her up on social media as well. She seemed like a cheerful middle-aged woman, she was tall with short black hair. Sure enough, in searching for he had struck gold yet again.
Her Facebook was fairly barren, only posting about five things a year, for birthdays and holidays and the odd life event. This meant that it took him less than twenty minutes to observe the past decade and a half of her life. She seemed like a wonderful lady, but that wasn't what caught his eye. In almost every picture was his target, Vash, posing merrily with Luida and another man who he learned held the name Brad. Vash was appearing in her pictures for well over ten years, and it was soon obvious why. He found one from eleven years ago, one of the first posts of her account. It was a picture of Vash in his graduation cap and gown, holding a freshly earned diploma, and standing in front of Luida and Brad. The post's caption confirmed Wolfwood's suspicions:
"Vash, you're the best son I ever could have asked for. I can't wait to call you my coworker! Congratulations to Doctor Vash Saverem!"
So, Vash was the adopted son of two of the scientists from the University. Wolfwood looked at Brad's profile and it was similarly sparse, though he had a few more pictures of domestic moments. Fishing trips, camping, canoeing. All were filled with Luida and Vash. None, however, contained Millions Knives. It was the same on Luida's page, no Knives to be found. Had his client lied about how close he was to his brother?
He checked Knives' social media. It was even more sparse then the scientists', mostly just promoting shows in which he was the lead pianist. There was one picture of him and Vash from just short of a year ago. July twenty first. They were celebrating their birthday, which of course was shared as they were twins. They both smiled, but neither grin was genuine. Knives looked as if he didn't know how to smile at all, but Vash looked like he was thinly veiling discomfort. Wolfwood supposed it could just be him being camera shy, as Knives had mentioned that earlier, but he still made note of it. It wasn't a very good picture, it was grainy and dark, presumably why Knives hadn't shown it to him earlier.
Wolfwood sat back in his chair, stretching dramatically despite the fact that there was no one to observe him. He had learned plenty about who this guy was, but nothing about where he might be. The guy was a ghost, he had nothing online that he had put there on his own volition.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, fiddling around in his pocket for another smoke. He eventually uncovered one, lit it, and took another drag. He was a horrible smoker, but he liked to think it made him suave rather than off-putting.
He contemplated what his next step would be. He would have to shake down Knives for some more information, some belongings, something, but that was the last thing he wanted to do. As much of a pleasant view Knives was, he was an absolute nightmare to converse with.
A stupid thought crossed his mind: with a name as odd as Vash, he might find his guy just from first-name alone. Especially since his brother mentioned he wasn’t a huge fan of his full name. So, out of curiosity, Wolfwood just googled "Vash". There were minimal results, less than forty pages on Google. He groaned, now seeing what his afternoon had come to.
After hours of wading through random nonsense and a whole lot of amateur Russian speakers, he finally found something that piqued his interest.
"June 04- Bumpy road!" Was the title. He was confused as to why that had come up in his results, as Vash was nowhere to be seen in the title, but still, he clicked on it anyways. It was the first interesting thing he had seen so far.
He skimmed over it, it was a blog post. It had been posted just a few days prior, fresh off the press. From what he gathered it was from some wannabe reporter blogging about a road trip. Just as he was about to close the page, he finally found what had brought him there. There was a line referencing a person named Vash. Nothing interesting, just quoting him for some lacklustre joke.
Wolfwood was excited, if there was any chance in hell that this was his guy, then this was the lead of a century. He skimmed through blog post after blog post, hoping for some amount of proof. Vash was mentioned in almost all of them, he had clearly been travelling with this chick for a while. Still though, he struggled to find any proof that it was the same Vash. If it was his guy, then he really was photo shy.
Finally, he found one. It was an image of the van they were travelling in parked in some gorgeous field in the middle of nowhere. It was lush and green, with a pretty pink sunset reminiscent of a salmon fillet in the background. On top of the van sat a man, clearly fussing with the solar panels. He waved at the camera. Though he was too far away for his face to be visible, especially with the large glasses that covered half of it, Wolfwood was still sure as hell that this was Vash Saverem. He wore the same, strange red coat that had been in every image from both of his parents' social media, the same coat from the picture left staring up at him from his desk, the same coat that seemed to offend Millions Knives so much. It was unmistakable- a blaring scarlet red with teal lining, huge and oversized, falling past his knees.
Wolfwood had found his target.