If it were the real me and you | OPEN

[lupusxylem]

Who: Wolfwood and YOU!
What: Wolfwood schedules a cult book burning and invites everyone
When: March 10th
Where: The Church
Warnings: Relevant info for this event can be found here, general warnings for: monster attack which could lead to blood/gore/etc in threads, please tag accordingly! Will update as needed



Netbook | Morning

Hey everyone, it's me Wolfwood. Nicholas D. Wolfwood if you're new.

So, here's the deal. The church I bought has a problem. It came with a bunch of religious texts inside of it, and while that's...you know. What you'd expect in a church, these ones are like

super fuckin culty.

Not exactly what I asked for. Not that I asked for them at all. I keep trying to get rid of them but they keep showing up again later so

Basically Im gonna be burning them again this evening if anybody wants to come to the bonfire, or help me in getting rid of them cause theres a shit ton. Bring marshmallows or whatever, I dont care.

and before someone comes preaching to me about burning books, again: its cult propaganda bullshit. read it for yourself if you dont believe me
just make sure you chuck it in the fire afterwards or ill do it myself.

Church | Evening

[Should you choose to come to the Church later that evening for whatever reason, you'll find the Priest himself already hard at work setting up a pyre in the yard just outside of it. (Just look for the massive bound cross propped up nearby, you can't miss it.) With the way he loads up the firepit he's created with kindling, it's clear he's already had to do this once before. It's a bit tricky to find anything dry given that the snow is still on the ground in a lot of places, but he's making do with what he's got. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Beyond getting the fire going, there's a matter of getting the aforementioned books out of the church. It's just as Wolfwood described, should you grow curious and crack one open. They're very religious, but strangely...plant focused. Like it's a religion that revolves around the Forest itself, almost. Definitely nothing orthodox about this, that's for sure. There are quite a number of them to take care of as they've all refilled the church pews since the last time he did this.

Or, perhaps you're just here because you think bonfires are cool and want to simply enjoy yourself for a change. The Forest seems to have had its fun with the animal race given that everyone's back to normal at this point, so really, why not kick back and enjoy the warmth of the flames while it isn't sub-zero temperatures outside anymore?

Feel free to mingle...or don't. Perhaps the distant unease in the atmosphere is enough to stop you.]

Comments

[lupusxylem]

[Wolfwood gives a wordless sound of acknowledgement.

He's tired. He's reasonably sure now that if he tried to sit up again, he wouldn't be able to. It feels like his body and limbs have been pumped full of lead, and with every second that ticks by...

Well. He still has time.

He holds both Vash and Livio's hands, so unique between their size and roughness due to the lives they've lived, yet similar in how gentle and careful they both are. Each of them means more to Wolfwood than he knows how to express. For a little while he just lays there in silence, focusing on breathing. His breathing at least has slowed a bit, though whether that's...a good thing remains to be seen.]

Vash...Liv. I love both of you so much. ...you know that, right?

[Wolfwood gives their hands a squeeze, his breath rattling softly in his chest as he takes a deeper one than before, because the weight on it is growing steadily. It's like his heart is struggling to keep him going, fighting to keep pumping his blood for just a short while longer.]

I can...be an ass. Do stupid shit. Make all these...mistakes. [He grimaces, turning his head a little bit to one side.] But you're still here...the best thing that's ever happened to me.

[He huffs again.]

Dunno what I woulda'...done without you.

[livlaughlove]

[... it's so hard to hold himself together for this. for what wolfwood makes out to be his last goodbyes.

livio knows he was too fortunate to get a second chance with him. believes that he doesn't deserve nick. not after he killed him -- and right now, in this moment, he knows without a doubt that he did kill him. without ever getting the chance to tell him how much he meant to him.

he gets that chance, now. he got the chance to tell nicholas he loved him, and to hear it back. he got the chance to kiss him, to fall asleep in his arms. and yet... that makes this hurt even more.

again, sobs threaten to overtake him. but livio swallows them down, even if he can't hold back the cascade of tears. even now, he can't stop being such a fucking crybaby. not even for nick. not even when he needs livio to keep it together the most.]

Every time I met you, Nico, you... you've made my life worth living. [he doesn't know what else to say. that... about sums it up, for as long as he can keep his words straight.

well. not 'straight' straight, the back of his mind so helpfully supplies.]

I love you, too.

[oleaeuropaea]

[There's an air of finality to every word that Wolfwood speaks, to every answer Livio gives in kind. They'd said that the serum had fatal effects, but that had been without Add. He sits up abruptly, looking desperately to the retreating medic, opening his mouth once, and then snapping it shut.

His head whips back around to the two men. There's a sheen in his eyes, tears blooming but not yet being shed.]

What - what are you two sayin'? You're just giving up?

[He thinks of the Ice Castle. He'd given up then, become resigned to accepting Wolfwood's death. Only he'd been wrong. There had been a way to save him. If they can just figure it out — another injection, time, anything. His fingers grip at the bloodstained fabric of Wolfwood's button up, as if somehow a feeble grasp on some fabric might be what keeps him tethered to the world.]

Nick, you have to hang on. You can't - go anywhere. You can't leave me. You can't leave us.

[But like them, he knows the truth. He'd felt the beat of Wolfwood's heart and the convulsions beneath his skin. His eyes still glow that terrible, haunting blue. If there was a chance for a miracle, it had long passed. And that was begging the fact that it ever existed.]

I love you so much, Nick. Please...

[He buries his face back against that bare, open chest. He prays that it won't be for the last time, even as his mind supplies the grim reality.]

✞

[lupusxylem]

Hey....hey. Shhh.

[Wolfwood can hear the tears in Vash's voice- in both of their voices, really- so the soft reassurance is meant for his partners as a pair. He's relaxed despite the dampness in his hair from Livio's tears, and the way Vash curls up against him like that, desperate for him to hang on just a little bit longer. Hopeful that maybe Add's injection will help in some way.]

M'not...the optimistic one. Not like you.

[It's not a lie, as much as he wishes he could keep up the lie this time. It's growing harder by the second, and it doesn't help that Vash is going to hear his heartbeat slowing with his head resting against his chest.

Nicholas D. Wolfwood is no quitter. He will make these last few seconds count. He'll tighten his grip on their hands. He'll turn his head, weakly, and press his lips to Vash's hair. He'll do the same to Livio in kind, using literally the last ounce of his strength he can muster to lift the man's larger hand to his lips, kissing the back of his knuckles.

This time, when he relaxes, he won't be moving again. But he's still with them, even as everything else begins to grow dark and heavy.]

I want you...both. T'look out for each other. Stick together. Don't let...this place get you...

[He blinks slowly, looking past Vash's hair and back up at the sky.]

...Lord...I don't ask for salvation.

Just grant...them hope for tomorrow.

[He lapses into silence. Over the next minute that passes, his heart thuds harder, harder, then abruptly stops.

Wolfwood's body heaves a deep sigh, his eyes still staring sightless up at the sky.]

[oleaeuropaea]

[Close as they are, Vash feels the finality of that thunk. He strains to hear something more, desperately tries to believe that he hears the ghost of a pulse or the whisper of a breath. He tries, but in the end, he hears nothing more than the combined sniffling of the both of them.]

Nick - Nick please.

[There's no answer, just as Vash expects. He sits up, rubbing at his eyes with his jacket sleeve. Grief lashes through him, vibrant and angry. After so many decades, one might have believed he was beyond feeling such grief -- he's already lost so much after all.

But even if he hasn't yet gotten used to the burden of grief, he has developed a method of grappling with it. Not a healthy one, mind you, but a method nonetheless. Vash the Stampede has always been a wanderer. He's run from every problem in the book.

But maybe this time, he can run headlong right into a better ending.

If the Forest is the source of all of this, he'll seek it out. He'll wander through the woods until the trees themselves take him. Best case scenario, he makes a damn difference for once in his miserable life. Worst case? He winds up at rest with Wolfwood in whatever afterlife awaited them here.

It's a broken promise, Vash knows this. With his dying breath, Wolfwood had asked them to care for one another. He hopes that wherever he is, Wolfwood will forgive him this.

In a roundabout way, it is care, after all. What's more caring than sparing Livio from another loss at the Forest's command?

The glasses are plucked from his jacket pocket and set upon his face. He tries not to think about Wolfwood at his feet, or the way the frames seem to pick up the serum's glow through every vein in his body. Instead, he focuses on removing his jacket, then laying it over the corpse of his now dead boyfriend.

One last kiss is pressed to his temple, a soft "I love you" whispered into an unhearing ear, before he turns his back.]

Take care of them, Livio.

[It's all he offers before he runs headlong toward the fog, plunging down the singular path that reveals itself to him.]

[livlaughlove]

[vash is gone before livio can even think to react to stop him. after nick's last breath, the world seems to move too quick and too slow all at once. distantly, he feels... angry? what the hell could possibly be more important in the goddamn forest than being here, right now? the surviving monsters have gone. all that's left is... corpses, and wolfwood's final request. but the disappointment in vash doesn't last. livio swiftly grows too numb to care.

by the time he shifts and stands up, all his wounds have sealed up, though for the first time since his augmentation, they leave marks on his skin. he doesn't register the scars beyond a lingering dull pain, which is also so far away he doesn't care. all that matters right now is lifting wolfwood into his arms, cradling his body as he carries him inside the church to lay him carefully on a pew. safe inside, where any lingering beast won't desecrate him while livio works.

he doesn't waste time, back outside, in piling the monster carcasses into the flames. and surely he can procure a shovel from somewhere in the grove. he digs a grave beside the church. refuses any help, or rather, seems to ignore anybody who may happen nearby. livio isn't all there, even though his body is. while it may take even him the better part of the night, he'll bury wolfwood properly. it's the least he can do.

and once nick is laid to rest and covered, livio pulls the wrappings back onto the punisher and places it upright at the head of his grave. a more appropriate headstone doesn't exist. by this time, livio's body seems to have run out of tears to produce. yet he still stands silently over the burial mound for... god knows how long, really. his only indication of the passage of time is the eventual dim light of the sun threatening to rise. the first sunrise nick isn't alive to see.

nick is dead. vash is gone. livio realizes this. he gathers up wolfwood's rosary and vash's coat and carries them with him in the direction of the inn. he needs to get the bloody clothes off of himself before he tends to his next order of business.]