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It’s too quiet on the Home ship.
It’s just about all Vash can think of right now, actually. It’s never quiet on Gunsmoke. Not really - there’s the constant gunfire, for one, the occasional explosion a block away waking him up with a start, but beyond that - motel bedsprings always creak, sand rustles softly against houses built of scrap metal, whipped against corrugated walls by the wind. Even out on the dunes it’s loud - worms buzzing past his ear, sandstorms on the horizon.
Not on here. The ship hums distantly as it hurtles above the desert, steady, too constant. He should be used to it - he grew up here, didn’t he? - but after so long planetside it’s become a little foreign to him. He thinks of the city dwellers he’d met in December a few years ago, unable to sleep without the sound of traffic below.
In the daytime it’s easy enough to ignore - he spends most of his time aboard running from deck to deck attending to various dependents, or, more recently, repotting flora in the biosphere with Luida, elbow-deep in soil and his nails caked with grit. It was tough, mindless work. He liked it.
In the evening, though, it's impossible to put out of his mind. He's restless, more so than usual. Vash starts to ruminate: about his travels, about his brother, about you.
You'd traveled together for months, Vash unable to shake you from his side no matter how he tried to convince you, but this, this unnamable thing between you two - that was new. Fragile and clumsy with inexperience but a little wonderful, like the dewdrops that clung to biosphere flora in the morning. It was new, this idea of yours, that his body, his heart, could be an instrument for his pleasure, his enjoyment, not just a vessel for pain and regret.
Tonight, as he walks you to your bunk, you notice. He doesn't see you much when you're shipside. Usually you're being spirited away by the few researchers currently out of cryosleep, who regard someone born and raised on Gunsmoke as something of an oddity, like a tomas who's wandered aboard somehow. Today, you'd been with the linguists, answering their questions about post-Fall dialects and pidgins.
"Everything alright?" You ask, pausing your rant about said linguists and the way they'd hum cryptically and type something up every twenty words. Your eyes go soft as you look at him, and before he can answer you've already wrapped a hand - smaller than his, so much more precious - around his. "You're quiet."
Vash hums, giving you one of those automatic little smiles of his before he nods. "Yeah. M'okay."
You frown, unconvinced.
"You'd tell me if the linguists bored you, right?" He says finally, not yet meeting your gaze. "'Cause I know this isn't what you signed up for when you, y'know. Adopted me back on No Man's Land."
Then, with a tone that says I'm trying to get you to smile: "Could steal you a gun from the armory tomorrow." Because he's noticed your fingers twitching around your waist, as if looking to draw from the holster you'd had confiscated before being allowed onboard.
He's rewarded with a laugh from you, and you swing his hand with your own. "It's alright. I wasn't born with a gun in my hand, I'll live without it for a week. But," you squeeze his gloved fingers in place of something more, having learned your lesson from the last time you kissed in the hall before being, mortifyingly, ribbed by Brad over the ship's PA system, "thank you."
"Mm," he replies, the sound small and delighted like your squeeze has shocked him. "Only 'cause you asked nice," he grins, dissimulating, tender.
He's still jittery when you reach your doorway, leaning down to brush his nose against yours in a sort of almost-kiss, the way he's learned ship cameras don't count as public displays of affection. "G'night, mayfly." He retreats with a crooked grin. "Remind me again why I can't come in with you?"
"The official line is that there's a risk of contamination," you smile, cat-like, as you press your palm to the pad besides your door and it opens with a hiss. "If you're asking me, it's 'cause they think you'll give me Plant cooties if we share a bed. Might spread it to the whole crew."
"That's not fair," he whines, lingering on your doorstep. "Pretty sure Plants are immune to cooties. Probably."
"Yeah, well," you shrug. "Take it up with ventilation detail. Good night, Vash."
He's ready to leave it at that, maybe mope a little just to hear you laugh again, when he catches a little glimmer in your eyes and you speak up once more. "The room-to-room phones. I was wondering."
He immediately stumbles to a stop, boots squeaking on linoleum as he cuts off his own retreat. "Yeah?"
"They're closed circuit?"
Vash freezes at that, blue eyes blinking once, twice, before his brain finally catches up. He nods dumbly. "Yeah. Fully internal. No networking tracing, n-no comms logs."
"Gimme a call, then," you giggle. "I'll be waiting."
And then he's off, down the hall like a comet, almost eating shit on a corner as he skids.
*
His bunk looks the same as last he left it - clean white sheets on clean white furniture, smelling vaguely of hospital room. His photos are artfully arranged to hide the scorch marks on the wall from when his gun discharged by accident and he changed the ship's policy on weaponry indoors forever.
The adjoining bathroom (where he pierced his own ear with a safety pin, where he first took apart the arm to get the sand out from it) is small but functional, and admittedly having hot water on demand is luxurious, compared to what one gets planetside.
He washes his face and kicks off his boots, laying back on stiff bedsheets. His feet hang off the mattress a little from where he's outgrown his bed. He eases himself back on his elbows before picking up the receiver, punching in the number to your room. His fingers fidget with the cord.
You answer after the first ring. "Hi," you breathe - your voice comes through the speaker a little fuzzy, but he can make out a rustling of fabric from your end of line, like you're tangling your legs up in the sheets.
"Hey, mayfly. You're in bed?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Uh," he says, very articulately. "What are you wearing?" He asks, soft, a little husky, completely undercut as he snorts and you both break into a fit of giggles.
"That's a nice line, Stampede," you laugh. "Got any more for me?"
"Whuh—that wasn't sexy? Is that your way of telling me that wasn't sexy?" He jabs, grinning. "That's classic, mayfly, and you're not even appreciating it."
"I didn't say that," you shoot back. "You don't have to - oh my god - pretend to be all suave with me."
"Really feeling the love right now, mayfly."
"You know what I mean," you say, fond. "C'mon, just... talk to me."
He pauses for a moment, then: "Okay. Yeah, okay," he says finally, more open relief in his voice than he'd expected there to be. And, softer: "Your voice is so pretty."
"Baby," you answer, and he can practically hear you smile across the line. "You really think so?"
"Uh-huh. Especially when you call me that. Makes me a little stupid."
"Noted." A beat. "Baby."
A bitten-off gasp escapes his lips - god, he's so easy when it comes to you. "Wanna hold you," he sighs, fingers curling tighter around the dusty phone cord. "Miss you. Even though you're only two halls away."
"Just a few more days and they're dropping us off outside Augusta."
"Don't care. Wanna hold you," he repeats, cheeky in a way you always indulge. "Wanna touch you. And you didn't answer my question."
"What question - oh," you laugh. "Just the standard-issue pajamas they gave me. The ones that look like scrubs, so. Not very sexy. Unless you're into hospice workers, maybe? Anyway, I think I've got a size too small."
His brain immediately supplies an image of you, propped up on pillows in bed, white fabric drawn taut around the soft flesh of your thighs, your chest—
"Small, how?" He squeaks, prosthetic fingers balling up the covers. His flesh hand splays across his lower stomach, plucking at the hem of his turtleneck. "Mayfly, describe. Please."
You give another sweet laugh. His fingers are already moving by the time you speak again, tucking the receiver under his chin as his he scrabbles to undo his fly. "Shirt's a little tight, s'all. It keeps riding up."
"Tight—on your—" He parrots back, his hand slipping beneath his waistband to find his slit already flushed and seeping pre. "You're trying to kill me, aren't you."
"Baby," you call. "Are you touching yourself?"
"Mmf—" He replies pitifully - caught. He parts his sheath with middle and forefinger, the tapered head of his cock peeking from between pink folds. “T-Touching—everywhere, but I can’t stop rubbing where you—ngh—you touched me—"
(Before the Home ship, a week ago. You'd crowded into a tiny motel shower together, his back pressed to chipped tile as you laid your cheek on his scarred shoulder. After, you'd stroked at his slit until he unfurled for you, Vash choking on steam as his cock wriggled against your fingers.)
"Ah," you sigh, and there's another shift, like you're moving, like your hand is going snaking beneath your own underwear now. "You liked that, pretty boy?"
"Pretty boy," he echoes, moaning as his cock nudges between the lips of his slit. "That's—that’s new."
"Is... is it okay?" You ask, muffled, like you're burying your face in a pillow. "Too much?"
"'S—it’s okay. More than okay," he squirms a little on the bed, cheeks flushed, but he’s smiling. "Just... still knocks the air out of me sometimes, when you say stuff like that. Is that weird to admit?"
"Oh, Vash. No," you murmur, in that breathy tone you've taken with him the few times you've slept together, the one that makes him feel dumb and lost as a puppy. "Not at all. Wish I could see how pretty you look right now... are you stretching yourself open?"
"Yes," he sobs in reply, his length flopping slick and heavy into his awaiting hand. "Wish—wish it was you—wish your hands were still inside me—" His breath hitches, legs kicking out against the sheets - he tries so hard to imagine his fingers are yours, but it's not enough - he hates sounding so needy, hates needing anything as badly as he needs this— “Wanna show you so badly, mayfly. Next time, I’ll spread for you—beg for you.”
"You're so good to me, Vash," you croon. "You'd look so handsome like that, all open for me..."
He wails at the praise, a moan slipping past his lips as he shoves two fingers inside his nerve-laden slit, his cock laying neglected against his stomach, weeping fluid onto his skin.
"Mayfly, he gasps. His prosthesis flies up beneath his shirt, pinching his nipple, and he tastes salt against his lips - he's crying. "Tell me you're - tell me you're touching yourself too, I can’t—I need to hear—”
"Yeah," you moan. "Wish you were here with me, pretty boy, wish it were you touching me instead..."
“I’d crawl to you,” he shudders, the words leaving his lips before he realizes he’s speaking them, “if I were there. Sit between your legs and lean down. Lick you until you scream.”
“Oh—“
“Then I’d—I’d climb up, ask you to touch me—let me ride your fingers, please,” he whimpers. “And - and after—I’d fold up in your arms and cry—but you’d kiss me—and tell me I was good—“ He laughs wetly, self-deprecating even in his fantasies.
"C-Close, sweetheart—"
"Come for me," he pleads. "Pl-Please, I need it, need to know you're feeling good—"
You do with a shattered little moan, and it's not fair, he needs you, adores you, would do anything to see you come apart beneath him. He follows you anyway, as always, his hips twitching through it as he paints his toned stomach with a little whine. His voice quivers as he overstimulates himself, physically incapable of not overdoing it.
As he comes down, dizzy with pleasure: "Love you. So good to me."
You're quiet for a moment, and he worries he's overdone it, been too much - before you're answering him with a love you too, your voice soft as anything. "You okay?" You ask breathlessly, like you're a little wrecked, too. "Makes me a little nervous when you cry."
"I'm okay. Good tears," he sniffles, a pathetic little chuckle bubbling up in his throat. "You nearly killed me, you little slip of a thing."
You hum, voice spent and sleepy. "Okay. As long as they're good."
Vash aches to hold you, to press his face to your collarbone and dissolve. He settles, instead, for smushing his cheek against a too-thin pillow, grounding himself with the smell of antiseptic. "You were really good at that. I really wanna kiss you now."
"Yeah. Me too."
"Next time," he laughs, giddy and more than a little lovesick. "Gonna kiss you so much when we get to Augusta. And cry again. And bite you, just a little."
"You better. Holdin' you to that," you mumble, already loopy with sleep. "I love you."
"Love you so much," he answers, savoring the words on his tongue - before he realizes you're already out, breathing quietly. He hangs up only when the receiver gets concerningly warm.
Around him the ship hums - steady despite everything conspiring against it, closer to the stars than anyone planetside would ever dream of being.
Sleep, for once, is dreamless.