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He doesn’t feel the bottle slip from his fingers. He doesn’t feel his fingers anymore. Or anything. Not the heat of the noonday suns or the confetti falling onto his face. He tastes nothing on his lips but regret and a lingering whiskey as his only comfort.
He never meant for this to be the end. Not like this.
He had more to say yet here, approaching the River Styx, he still didn’t have the courage to say. How three little words haunted him even with the Reaper at his doorstep.
If only he had more time. If only he didn’t chicken out at the last possible minute…
Find someone better than me, Spi- Vash.
He tried to make his lips move. Something so easy it's the first thing humans do when they enter the world - open their mouth and cry. But he felt the wires connecting his body finally snap. First his fingers that grazed soft skin more than he would ever admit, then his hands that once held a gun to an angel’s head, before his heart ruptured with more than the serum.
In an instant, his vision darkens and Nicholas D. Wolfwood releases his final breath.
He doesn’t hear the scream let out by the man next to him as time unravels.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood opens his eyes.
This is the first of many surprises in the next 24 hours that shakes his foundational understanding of the universe.
Wolfwood instantly recognizes the room as his temporary bunk on Ship Three, his Punisher and his travel bag set neatly by the door. He scrambles out of the bed, nearly kissing the metal floor not once, but twice in a Stampede-esque flailing of limbs as his anxieties multiply.
Where am I? How long was I out? Are the kids safe? The Ark…
Did I actually…
His mind, in a once-in-a-lifetime moment, shuts down that train of worry to prevent brain matter from seeping out his ears. But he knows that was no dream.
That he shouldn’t be here.
Wolfwood manages to get dressed before staggering out of his room. The hallway is dark in the pre-dawn but Wolfood follows the guiding lights on the floor. Not that he needs it with the low ruckus emanating from the Ship’s public spaces. Outside of the crew quarters, Ship Three is quite the beehive of activity.
He nearly slams into Luida, who seems only annoyed to see him.
Geez, she couldn’t be more grateful or caring that he survived death?
Before anyone can say anything, Wolfwood grabs Luida by the shoulders. “The Ark? Vash, where is he? Is he okay?”
Luida blinks softly, her face scrunching in thought. “Of course Vash is safe, thanks to you. Are you feeling alright?” The older woman gently puts the back of her hand to his forehead. “No fever at least.”
“I’m not sick,” Wolfwood grumbles, swatting her hand away. “What happened while I was out?”
“Nothing new,” Luida replies. “But it’s only been 16 hours since you returned Vash to us. Not nearly enough time for Knives and his Ark to make much of a move.”
16 hours?
“That can’t be right.”
Luida frowns this time. “Are you certain you are alright? You both barely escaped the Ark and should be resting still, though our medics seem to underestimate your natural regeneration. What are you even doing awake?”
“What time is it?” he insists.
A wrench slams down on the hand still tightly gripping Luida’s shoulder. As Wolfwood pulls his hand back, Brad immediately gets in his face.
“You’re going to need to calm down there, kid,” the old man grumbles. “You grab any harder and our Luida’s going to need a new shoulder. What’s got you all worked up?”
“What’s today's date?”
“By Earth standards or No Man’s Lands?” Luida asks.
“Any!” Wolfwood growls, nearly ready to pull out every lock of hair on his head.
Brad mutters something under his breath before moving to a screen nearby. He tapped it a few times before pointing at where the terminal listed the current date and time. Wolfwood read it several times before allowing himself to breathe again.
6am the day he left for Hopeland.
“That means -”
“Mister Wolfwood, you seem quite pale. Let me fetch a doctor,” Luida insists. “Brad, will you check on Vash and let him know Wolfwood is sick? I’m certain he’ll want to know.”
“I don’t need a damn doctor and absolutely do not wake the needle-noggin. He needs the rest,” Wolfwood snaps.
“And you don’t?” Brad snickers.
“What do you need then?” Luida asks, ever patient.
“A drink.”
Brad manages to keep the whiskey out of his reach, leaving Wolfwood to stare into his cup of coffee as if it would tell him how he managed to travel back in time. Nothing made any fucking sense. He left Ship Three this morning, about 30 minutes from now. Or then now. Or was it now now? Now then?
Wolfwood groans and slumps forward, smashing his face into the table. Thankfully, the crew seemed used to Vash’s antics and promptly left him alone after Luida shooed everyone away. They had work to do after all preparing to take on Knives and his Ark
This wasn’t possible. A second chance from God himself?
No. From one angel.
Fuck.
Chapel and Razlo would arrive at Hopeland soon and here he was, moping into his coffee.
Get a grip, Punisher. You got shit to do.
But his mind spun with possibilities. Despite everything, Wolfwood was blessed with a literal do-over. He knew where the Eye would show up, what they had up their sleeve, and what wouldn’t work against them.
Maybe this time, he could save Hopeland, save Livio, and save himself too.
Bursting with newfound confidence, he chugs the rest of his coffee and definitely does not scamper out of the mess back towards his room.
This time, just as before, Wolfwood slings his bag and the Punisher over his shoulder as he quietly steps out of his room. Except this time, he paused outside of Vash’s door. For just a moment, he stopped to listen to the man’s snores. A palette cleanser to scrub the man’s not-so-silent tears from his brain. Something soft like the life he should’ve been given.
The life both of them should’ve had.
But that was just his luck, wasn’t it?
At least this time, Vash’s laughter and soft voice kept him company as he drove back out into the desert to finish a job he left open for too long.
At least this time, Wolfwood staves off the worst of the injuries until just before Vash arrives. He thinks he’s done it, that just like Vash, he can save everyone too. Just this once. Just this once, it’s not impossible. Before Razlo blows a hole in chest and three vials is barely enough to get him back up until his heart gives out.
At least this time, Vash learns his future fate from watching Wolfwood down the vials and not from having to catch him in the fight.
But this time, the other man’s silent tears dig crevices in Wolfwood’s brain as the black takes him again.
He doesn’t feel the bottle leave his lifeless hands.
Wolfwood snaps awake.
This time, he is prepared for the immediate disorientation. Instead of leaping up, he pulls the covers over his head and presses the pillow down on his head just to give himself a moment to think.
Did it happen again? There’s no way he’s lucky enough to get a second chance again. Who would be stupid enough to think he could actually learn from his mistakes?
Well, he could think of one person. One obnoxious, wondrous person.
One sleeping in the next room over after Wolfwood left him to suffer on the Ark for six months. Alone.
No, Wolfwood absolutely didn’t deserve to see that man’s smile. Not when he brought the lamb to slaughter twice.
With a groan, Wolfwood decides this time to leave sooner. Maybe he can get there in time to evacuate Hopeland before Chapel and Razlo arrive. It would be a struggle but maybe if he stole one of the bigger vehicles from Ship Three…
The larger vehicle slows him down. He arrives just as Chapel does, with Razlo immediately blowing him sky high with his Tri-Punishers lasers. Wolfwood doesn’t even have time to swear before -
Wolfwood snaps awake.
He starts to scream before he covers his mouth with the pillow. In frustration, he digs his teeth in and rips it open so the stuffing explodes everywhere. It’s not as satisfying as he thought it would be.
Likely dampened from the lingering sensation of feeling his limbs separate from his body before hurtling towards an unforgiving emptiness.
A knock startles him out of his second existential crisis.
The face at his open door makes his heart do things that remind him of the serum overclocking his ticker. It thumps soundly in his chest, reminding him that he is very much alive.
Vash sleepily rubs his eye as he yawns. “Wolfwood, are you okay?”
Despite sitting on his bed covered in pillow stuffing and feathers, Wolfwood lies. “Yeah, just a nightmare.”
“Oh,” Vash says. “You.. wanna talk about it?”
Never. Wolfwood will take this to his literal grave over and over and over if he must to preserve Vash from as much of his sins as he can. He can handle Chapel and Razlo. He can save Hopeland. He has to keep trying.
Vash just went through hell on the Ark because of him. He doesn’t need Wolfwood’s stained hands dragging him down.
“Nah,” Wolfwood says. “I yelled at the pillow and feel better now.”
Vash laughed. An honest to God laugh and smile, soft and delicate and sleepy. If Wolfwood wakes up again in a few seconds, at least he died happy.
“If you say so,” Vash says. “If you need anything, you know where I am.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Wolfwood replies. “Go back to sleep, Needle-Noggin.”
Wolfwood waits another twenty minutes before he’s out the door. Ahead of schedule and on his motorcycle, he manages to arrive before Chapel does. Miss Melanie cries when she recognizes him and fuck, he was a real chicken shit before trying to hide from her. His mother would know him anywhere.
When she pulls him into a hug, Wolfwood buries his face in her hair for just a moment.
But a moment was all Razlo needed to smash through the orphanage wall and smother them both in the rubble.
By the seventh attempt, Wolfwood has his morning down to an exact science.
He grabs coffee from Luida and Brad on his way out to not appear suspicious. Books it on his motorcycle to Hopeland just in time to head off Chapel and Razlo. They fight until a winner is determined from who is left.
This time, it looks like things are working out. Vash hasn’t arrived yet but Wolfwood’s managed to avoid almost any injuries. He knows it's making him cocky, but he can’t help it after running this same hell over and over and over again.
This time, he looks Razlo in the eyes and calls him ‘brother’.
This time, he hears Vash swoop in to protect the kids. They share a look of understanding, of concern.
This time, Razlo stabs him through the neck and whispers “I don’t need you to ‘save’ me, bro.”
On the twelfth attempt, he tries to smash his precious bike into the Eye’s van. He lives long enough to watch Razlo pull a still breathing Chapel from the wreckage to safety.
The nineteenth attempt, he lingers around Ship Three a bit longer. He sits in quiet contemplation with his coffee, staring at the murky drink hoping it would provide him answers. This is the fourth time he’s started this way and each time, his caffeine intake of choice doesn’t reveal any secrets of the universe to him.
He manages to survive longer this time before he needs to take all his vials.
This time, when he takes a fatal wound to the gut, it's Vash who hands him the final vial. Wolfwood decides that when this is over, he’ll never tell Vash about this one. It would kill him to know he handed Wolfwood over to the Reaper.
The twenty-fifth time ends with the Ark blasting Hopeland to pieces.
The thirty-second time, Wolfwood watches Razlo and Chapel open fire on the children as his blood stains the sand.
This time is hell. Like all the others.
Wolfwood should have known better that the universe never hands out second chances. He’s trapped in eternal torment, replaying his final day again and again. Nothing he does makes a difference. It always ends with his death - sometimes taking others with him.
This was supposed to be an opportunity to fix whatever he got wrong the first time. The thing that could keep him alive. But Wolfwood’s run out of
This time, when he snaps awake, he stumbles to the mess pantry. He punches Brad out of the way and chugs half the bottle of whiskey in one swig before sauntering like the rotting dead man he truly is back to his room.
He finds Vash waiting for him. Wolfwood can’t bring himself to respond, so he shoulders past the man and tries to close his door.
A boot catches it open.
“Wolfwood, what’s happening?” Vash asks.
“Don’t worry your spikey head about it,” Wolfwood grumbles.
This time, Vash uses his real strength to rip the door open and let himself in. If Wolfwood wasn’t half drunk on whiskey and the other half drunk on his own meaningless efforts to live, he would be proud.
“Finally,” he slurs. “You stopped hiding, Spikey.”
Vash grabs the whiskey bottle out of his hand.
“Hey! I was drinking that!” Wolfwood tries to take the bottle back, but Vash avoids all of his attempts. Damn his Plant reflexes!
“It’s not even dawn,” Vash says, tone serious as the grave. Somehow, this sets Wolfwood off into a hysterical fit.
“Can’t a man relax?” Wolfwood asks.He holds his hands up in surrender and lets himself fall back on his bed. Can it even really be his? He’s only been here a few days. Or is it only 1 day? His head hurts just thinking about it again so he digs his palms into his eyes as he groans.
The room stinks of silence. Wolfwood hopes it's stifling - enough that Vash will give up trying to talk to him so he can be on his way to his imminent demise. It would be rude to keep the Devil waiting.
Instead, the bed shifts as someone sits down next to him.
A hand gently takes his wrists and pulls them away from his face. Both men’s eyes watered though neither is brave enough to admit it. Even with the evidence right in front of them. A tunnel vision of grief and despair and all the pain Wolfwood’s caused Vash since they met.
All the pain he’s caused Vash with his death.
“Wolfwood,” Vash says, like it's a long enough word to shove every feeling they’ve refused to share with each other all these years. As if it's simply another way to declare devotion. Maybe in some universe, it is enough. But not this uncaring, cruel one.
“I’m fine, Spikey, you should go back to sleep.”
“Hard to when Luida comes knocking about how you’re fighting with the crew and drinking yourself into a stupor.”
“Can’t a man unwind?” Wolfwood says, looking anywhere but at the man whose hands are still wrapped around his wrists.
Their standoff lasts longer than he thought it would. God, if he didn’t get a move on soon, it might be another hostage situation. He doesn’t think he can take watching Razlo fire on Miss Melanie again.
Perhaps Wolfwood was wrong. This, locked in a stalemate with a man he would kill for who never asks him to - who would die for him though Wolfwood would never ask him to - this is truly hell.
“Tell me what’s really wrong?” Vash asks.
Wolfwood says nothing like the coward he is. He turns his head, staring at the wall instead of the man in front of him.
A minute, maybe two, passes before Vash releases Wolfwood’s wrists and stands up to leave. Wolfwood feels the temptation to jump up and stop him rise up but he squashes the impulse down. Who is he to think he deserves even Vash’s help, let alone any of the things Wolfwood really wants from him.
Vash pauses at the door. Wolfwood can’t look up because he knows he will cave if the blonde meets his gaze.
“I don’t blame you, you know that right?” Vash says. “I would have found my way to the Ark with or without you.”
Just go, Spikey. Please.
As usual, Vash pushes back against all of Wolfwood’s defenses and stabs him right in the heart.
“I’m glad it was with you.” Vash’s voice softens. Anyone but Wolfwood wouldn’t be able to hear the way he mutters under his breath. “I was happier with you.”
The door closes and Wolfwood refuses to cry. Instead, he waits until he’s sure Vash is back in his room before he gets off the bed.
His plan doesn’t change. It can’t. This is his punishment, after all. To relive his greatest failure time and time again in a futile effort against time itself until all of the hope Vash inspires him in is squashed down. Nothing will change because nothing can change. Certainly not because of a four letter word that threatens to burst from Wolfwood’s lips.
Vash arrives sooner this time. Likely Wolfwood wasn’t as quiet as he should’ve been sneaking out. For a moment, he feels the tide turning before an attempt to shield the blonde leaves him overexposed just enough for Razlo to turn his lungs into swiss cheese.
When all is said and done, once again, Wolfwood finds himself sitting on the same damn couch for… he’s lost track of what attempt he is on. As his body breaks down in a now familiar way, he shoots back a shot of Bride to give him a reason to not say something stupid.
They playfully jab at each other, like always. For a moment, Wolfwood cherishes his idiot’s laugh at a bad joke. Despite being stuck to an eternity in Hell, he smiles. There’s almost a nostalgia growing in his chest. Every time they’ve done this, Vash’s kindness ensures Wolfwood’s final memories are pleasant - almost peaceful. Just two men enjoying each other’s company at the end of the world. Wolfwood wishes that maybe, just once, they can have this ease between them again without his approaching demise. But a sinner like him doesn’t deserve that selfishness.
Then Vash ruins everything.
“I would’ve come with you,” he says. His voice cracks at the end, just enough Wolfwood doesn’t need to turn his head to know tears are forming in his eyes.
Neither can look at each other. The emotion in Vash’s words is enough that having to look at him directly feels too raw. It rips him apart and he grits his teeth to try and bare through it.
“If you told me your fears, I would have left with you. Together, maybe, we could have -”
Vash pauses to take a deep breath. It comes out like a rattled choke on something larger than just words.
“It wouldn’t change anything,” Wolfwood says.
He knows - he’s tried nearly everything imaginable to change this outcome but each time, they return to this same couch for a last drink. A last chance to utter words they both long and are too afraid to say or hear. This is how it has to be. Vash deserves someone better than him. And Wolfwood deserves to know he’s the cause of the man’s pain. Because that’s all he does, punish those who never deserved it.
“You don’t know that,” Vash whispers. “With you, I feel like I can take on everything.”
Wolfwood scoffs, throwing the man off before he causes Wolfwood to combust. “Now look who’s saying stupid shit?”
A hand touches his cheek. Vash uses only the barest of pressure to turn Wolfwood’s face towards him. Wolfwood wishes his Hell was more traditional because seeing the passion and grief in the blonde’s hairs is a level of the inferno Dante never managed to reach.
“Why don’t you think you deserve happiness?” Vash asks.
“Why don’t you?” Wolfwood retorts, trying to stave off a growing desire to lean forward and take Vash’s lips for himself.
“Wolfwood,” Vash says, thumb stroking his cheek. Wolfwood feels the shiver start before he can stop it. It sounds like forgiveness he could never earn. A gift graciously given by someone who had every right to burn him to a crisp. “You have no idea what I would do for you.”
“I’d never ask you for anything,” Wolfwood says before he can stop himself.
Vash only smiles, soft and watery. “You never have to. I’d do it anyway.”
“Cause you’re a sucker.”
“No, that’s just what you do for people you care about.”
Vash says it so easily. Like it’s a known constant in the universe. That he cares about Wolfwood and that somehow doesn’t change the very fabric of reality itself. That Wolfwood was someone people could, and should, care about - that he mattered enough to be cared about.
He knew people cared about him. Miss Melanie certainly did. The kids too with their confetti welcome home and loving send off. The insurance girls showed it in their admonishments when they thought he wasn’t taking care of himself well enough or in their smiles.
But Vash? He cared about everyone. He cared about Wolfwood specifically. Intentionally and on purpose despite knowing he was the man chosen to bring Vash to his demise. Vash suffered because of Wolfwood but each time, he never once held it against him. He understood having
He didn’t deserve it. He couldn’t. Yet he received forgiveness all the same.
He received love all the same.
Even in all of his attempts to survive today, Vash remained a constant. He always arrived to help whisk the kids to safety. He always stood back to back with Wolfwood to stop the Eye.
Wolfwood feels the tears break through his defenses. As his body begins to release all tension and all life keeping him going, Vash pulls him closer. A tight embrace that has Wolfwood’s face buried in the man’s neck as he lets go. He feels Vash’s chest heave with his own sobs.
Vash is telling him something but Wolfwood can’t hear him anymore. The words don’t matter, only the emotion behind them.
The answer hits him as his last breaths rattle in his chest.
God, I am a fucking idiot.
Before he can’t anymore, Wolfwood shifts enough to whisper into Vash’s ears.
“Just once more, angel. I know what to do now.”
He doesn’t feel Vash’s grip tighten around him in confusion and grief, drawing him close to his heart.
Wolfwood snaps awake.
He doesn’t hesitate before leaping out of bed. In his sweatpants and sleep shirt, he storms out of his room and knocks on Vash’s door. Loud and incessantly.
The man in question threw his door open, his hair messed up from sleep and panic on his face at being awoken so violently. Dark circles under his eyes showed the strain the last several months had on him. It was enough to make Wolfwood pause. Vash should rest, not be bothered by -
Wolfwood shakes his head.
Not this time.
“Blondie, we gotta talk,” he says instead.
Vash blinks in surprise before stepping back, letting Wolfwood in before closing the door once more.
“Wolfwood, what-”
Wolfwood stops him by putting his hand over the other man’s mouth.
“Did you mean it?” Wolfwood’s words slip from his mouth before he can try and make them make sense. “Do you really…”
Vash’s eyes go wider. A tinge of red slips into his cheeks.
Wolfwood finally looks him right in the eyes and feels himself fall over the cliffs.
“Do you really not blame me?” he manages.
Vash’s prosthetic hand gently moves Wolfwood’s hand from his mouth. “Never. I could never - Wolfwood, what is this about?”
“Do I really make you happy?”
He could’ve shot Vash in the face and received a less surprised reaction to his words. For a moment, Wolfwood worries he just blew everything up. But then, salvation arrives.
“Yes.”
It’s just one word. Three letters. Yet Wolfwood feels something shift in reality around him. As something small and forbidden in his soul finally cracks its way to the surface.
Acceptance that he can be loved.
Acceptance that he’s been worthy of it all along.
And courage to finally move out of their long stalemate.
Before he loses his mustered bravery, Wolfwood grabs Vash by the back of the head, pulling him into a kiss. Despite the surprise, Vash eagerly returns it.
Seconds or minutes or hours pass, Wolfwood isn’t sure. All he knows is this definitely is not Hell, though it might be Heaven with how light his soul feels. How soft Vash’s hair is in his fingers. How warm Vash’s chest is as it's pressed against him. How easy it is to pour every word he can’t bring himself to say yet into the kiss.
How this must be what devotion and salvation tastes like.
Vash immediately rushes forward to touch him. Hands both flesh and metal stroke down his chest, his arms, and cup his head and pass through his hair. Legs and chest and hips press flush against him, making it easy for Wolfwood to let go.
He loses himself in the momentum of the typhoon as they fall onto Vash’s bed and Wolfwood knows for certain this couldn’t be Heaven either. With how joyous and sinful it feels to watch Vash above him lean back down to kiss him senseless, there’s no way this would be allowed past those pearly gates.
Wolfwood finds the energy to pull back. Long enough to see how utterly wrecked the man in front of him is just from a kiss. Eyes hooded, cheeks stained red, and hair even more mussed up. He’s sure he’s not much better with how his chest heaves as they both catch their breath. Any other day, Wolfwood would say ‘fuck it’ and stay in, letting the other man ruin him entirely.
But Hopeland needs him.
And he needs Vash.
“Blondie, help me.”
Vash doesn’t hesitate. He kisses Wolfwood on the cheek before stepping out of their embrace, immediately racing to get dressed.
“Let’s go then.”
They arrive with reinforcements in time to evacuate everyone safely. Enough time for Vash and Wolfwood to sit on that cursed couch and share a drink as Chapel finally arrives.
Chaos erupts.
Wolfwood never has to use a vial once. He and Vash seamlessly switch targets again and again, sowing confusion between their enemies.
Before long, Livio is back and Chapel is on the wrong side of the sand.
When Vash holds out the bottle of Bride this time, Wolfwood happily agrees to one more drink. However, there’s one last thing he feels he needs to do before he can rest easy.
He pulls the Punisher's trigger and watches the couch he died on too many times to count die a fiery, laser-fueled death. Vash never questions why, only joins in Wolfwood’s wild laughter, his smile brighter than the twin suns that makes him feel just as heat on the inside.
Wolfwood enjoys the scene as he takes a swig of Bride straight from the bottle.
He doesn’t feel the bottle fall from his fingers, too focused on a prosthetic hand trailing through his hair and warm lips against his.