sticksandbones | If you wanna cry, use my heart

Entry tags:

trigun: wolfwood

If you wanna cry, use my heart

Who: Nicholas D. Wolfwood and YOU!
What: Vash is gone, and it's slowly sinking in he isn't coming back this time
When: Mid-late May
Where: Various locations in the Grove
Warnings: Wolfwood's mouth, otherwise will warn if needed

[Vash disappearing is nothing new, at this point. Wolfwood doesn't fly off the handle searching for him the moment he wakes up and the Plant isn't where he expects him to be, because that's just...something he's come to get used to with him. He knows better than to think Vash would split intentionally, because they've come to an understanding in regards to him doing that. Besides, a lot has been going on lately. He could just...be anywhere, you know?

No reason to worry.

Right?

...

But as the hours pass and the day wears on, with Wolfwood checking up on his people and his Church, he doesn't see hide nor hair of Vash. He still tries to just do his normal thing and not be a weirdo freak about not seeing him, though it doesn't feel great to see the sun set and still not know where he is. Where the hell has he wandered off to this time? Did he go on a trip to the Lighthouse again and just not say anything?

...

Now it's been almost a full week, and suddenly it's not so little of a problem anymore. He's certain he's not the only one to notice yet, though maybe he's the first to rip off the bandaid, so to speak. Angelina has been the most confused, pacing around the house and the Grove trying to find him, sniffing all of the old scents he'd left behind only to come up empty.

It really. Really fucking sucks, and for the first time, Wolfwood is realizing he's having to contend with something he had hoped he wouldn't for a while. It feels...numb. It's easier to repress and bottle up his feelings through the numbness, but god only knows how long that will last.

Anyway, after he's watched Angelina stressfully pace around for another hour, he finally pulls out the notebook to send out a message.]

if any of you have seen Vash in the last couple days come get me right now.
im at the church.

[Maybe someone's seen him. Maybe he can just find him and shake him until that one braincell rattles loose for scaring him like this.

It's easier than admitting to himself that Vash isn't here anymore.

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[Unlike Wolfwood, the Vash she knows tends to just... disappear. He's slippery. It's normal. Even if he disappeared before she could even say hello, or anything like that. But as the mood of the man shifts the longer the week goes on, the more on edge she grows.

When she sees that message appear, she makes for the church. She doesn't have good news, but she goes there anyway. She slips inside and... can only stare at Wolfwood.]

... Has anyone come yet?

[One would think during one of Ain's many forays into the woods that he would've seen Vash if any of that "he's not gone" stuff was true. After all, Ain — as a taur, and one that can fly — has the tendency to wander into the woods for snacks, and his sensitive hearing should have let him hear any shouts or cries. Perhaps, he thinks, it happened when he wasn't in the forest. Maybe it was when he was nestled up with Add in the grass. Maybe, during one of his many trips with Moder to go find leaves to snack on, they went the opposite direction, and had they gone the correct way they could've prevented this. Maybe Callan was hungry.

Ain, someone who is often anxious and fears the worst, really hasn't had his fears come true like this before.

With the El Search Party, he relies on them. It's easy enough for him to fall into a familiar rhythm of "we're all together, so why would we be torn apart?" And maybe now that's a moot point — Add showing up after a year had at least partly solidified the fact that he's not ever going to actually lose anybody, right? — but still. For all his anxiety and nerves, he's never actually had to cope with a real, gutting loss before. Gotten close... but never experienced it.

To say Ain's depressed doesn't even come close to it. While Wolfwood sits in denial, Ain is fully cemented in belief, if only because the scars on his body are a reminder that, yes, at any one moment they could lose anything. His idealism and his realism are often at war like this, and as much as he hates it, as much as he refused to confront it when Add initially called him out on it... it sure is hitting him in the stomach now.

Ain, too, spends time looking. But when Wolfwood puts the message out, Ain comes back to the Grove, taking on his little faun form and slipping inside the church.

Wordlessly, he shakes his head.]

[Something about hearing Meryl's voice, a familiarity through the haze, feels both weirdly comforting as it is a little bitter...but where normally he might have had something smart to say, this time he simply doesn't. She'll find him sitting at the front on one of the pews with his arms folded over his knees, and he'll look back at her past the edge of a wing before shaking his head and looking towards the altar again.]

No.

[Plain and simple, just...no.]

[Denial and Depression. Two halves of a whole person who is Fucking Going Through It.

Wolfwood hears Ain before he sees him in the form of the soft clip-clop of hooves, prompting him to glance back from where he's slumped over the frontmost pew, just in front of the altar. The way he's hunched over makes it hard to tell if he's just sitting like that because he's upset, or if he's actually been praying for a positive outcome.

The way Ain shakes his head no tells him more than he'd like to admit, as his ears swivel back and his chest tightens.]

...c'mere.

[Her bows low. It was foolish to hope, but she couldn't help it. Vash was her friend, a dear one at that. Years of missing him wouldn't change that. And that was to say nothing about the relationship she knew he and Wolfwood had. That said, she didn't know what the right move was.

Would comfort even help? Or would he spurn her?

She takes another step forward, before glancing toward him. Her mouth opens once, then presses closed before anything can come out. She racks her brains for a few more minutes before...]

He's Vash. He always makes it back. We've both seen that. So he - he will this time too.

I don't...

[He starts, and then shakes his head as he creeps closer. Dachie is, of course, at his heels with his head down, trotting inside the church in quick little puppy steps despite being anything but. Obviously, being emotionally linked to Ain as he is, he too is feeling it.

Ain sinks into a sit at the frontmost pew, breathing out a shaky sigh, head in his hands.]

...the El Search Party has never lost anyone before. I-I mean... there was a little Nasod boy we lost once, and a lot of people in Velder and Hamel's armies, but I didn't understand why people were sad about that back then. I didn't have emotions. And... none of them were people I was that close to.

[Turns out, loss hits a lot different when it's someone you really cared for.]

I don't know what to do.

[There's some sort of cruel irony in the fact that Meryl has been missing Vash far longer than Wolfwood, and she still didn't really get to see him, in the end. Wolfwood isn't naive enough to think that she isn't as affected as he is by his disappearance, even if she hasn't been here long enough to know what kind of horrors this place dishes out on a regular basis. Awful, terrible horrors.

But he'd take any of them- any- over this.

He's quiet for a long while.]

I dunno. It's...different, here.

[For a long moment, Wolfwood says nothing. The fact he reeks of cigarettes gives away the fact he's definitely been more-or-less chain smoking for the past couple days, even moreso than he usually does. Ain's worry reflects his own, and he's only just barely holding it in if it weren't for the way his good knee won't stop shaking.]

There ain't nothin' you can do...other than hope that you're wrong.

[...]

That they'll be back.

It doesn't matter if it's different! He's Vash! And Vash wouldn't just die!

[Does her voice crack a little? Absolutely. She was just told he was alive again, she doubted she could handle it if she thought he'd died again.

But what does she know, really? What has she ever known? How long had she been at a disadvantage back home because of how out of place she was. Even Roberto had known that, had tried to tell her as much before he'd died.]

We can go look for him, right? He wouldn't be far. And it's not like he wouldn't leave a trail somehow. If I found him once, I could find him again.

Edited 2025-05-20 01:28 (UTC)

You know I can't do that. Not here. It was one thing to hope on Elrios, 'cause it always seemed like it would work. But this isn't home for me.

[Somehow, he's still not better off at home either, functionally dead as he is (or so he thinks), but it hurts to admit out loud. Realistically, Ain was never going to get his way. He was always going to outlive everyone close to him, because he's a functionally ageless being and everyone he surrounds himself with are humans and slightly-longer-lived-humans. Maybe he would've been able to stay with Lu, but that's it, right? Even Eve would eventually shut down, even Rena would eventually grow old. And sometimes when he thinks about it for too long, it feels like how it feels now, to have lost Vash.

Ain really, really doesn't know how to cope with things like that.]

Why can't things ever be easy? Back home, they were so... so easy. Even when we were facing the impossible, I always felt secure, like I could change fate if I believed hard enough.

Nobody said he died.

[He grinds out, despite knowing good and well just what happens when people "disappear" here. But the denial...it's running fucking deep right now, and it shows. His fur is all bristly, yet his ears are flat against his head. Two emotions that have been constantly at war with each other for days now.

And as Meryl mentions looking for him, that's what gets Wolfwood to stand, his claws digging furrows along the back of the pew he's holding onto.]

You ain't goin' out there. You'd soon as step one foot in the forest and either get lost too or die, and I ain't gonna let you do that when you literally just got here.

[There's an ugly, upset part of him that tries to claw it's way up through his chest in that moment that wants to say that Ain's world had something this one- and his own- don't. It had magic, and this sense of being able to fight against impossible odds no matter what. That everything would just work out, because it was meant to.

But he knows it wouldn't be fair to say something like that just because he's hurting, so he swallows it back down, feeling the muscles in his arms and legs tremble under his fur.]

...I dunno, Ain.

[He finally supplies, his voice low and defeated. He can't even find an emotion that's easy enough to latch onto over the way he feels right now, so...hollow. Despairing.

Not unlike back then, when Vash broke apart into ice in his arms.

Wolfwood sags, resulting in his head dropping against Ain's shoulder.]

Wish it could be easy too.

[Meryl takes a step back. Fear briefly glints in her eyes. She isn't sure if it's Wolfwood himself, or the form he takes. There'd always been a hint of distrust and trepidation around him, and they haven't exactly dealt with each other since she found out his origins, aside from the brief time when they were both too focused on the fight happening in front of them.

He saved her, though. She should trust that. But those claws tell a different story, and she finds herself reaching for her gun all the same. She hadn't been able to buy a set of silver bullets yet, but it probably would still hurt like hell if she shot him. Probably.

She doesn't plan on shooting him, though. Not really. Her hand stops short and she instead folds her arms over her chest.]

So you're just going to sit on your ass and let him run off? [She shakes her head.] I know you care about him. And I know I'm perfectly capable of handling myself. So what are we doing, waiting here?

[Realistically, magic exists here, too; perhaps it's for the best that Wolfwood didn't say that either way, because Ain would've launched into an upset spiel about how it wasn't the magic, it was never the magic, it was the fact that they had Elsword — his Elsword, not the fake one here, the glue that held them all together, the sole person that's kept everyone focused on their goals.

Saying that much would've just driven Ain off, too. That's the last thing either of them need.]

...Sorry. I know it's not very helpful to hear.

[Oooh Meryl...

Wolfwood is, at least, thankful for the new emotion to grab, because it's so, so much easier to be angry than the gnawing upset he feels over everything right now. His gaze narrows, and though he's still wearing those stupid shades, she'll see the way the light reflects off his eyes as he glowers at her.]

Who gave you the right to put words in my god damn mouth?

[His tail lashes behind him, and honestly he dares her to shoot him. He doesn't seem afraid, and if anything, maybe the pain of a bullet will make the pain of losing Vash lessen somewhat.]

You ain't been here long enough to tell me what I have, and haven't been doin'. This place will fuckin' chew you up and spit you out, over, and over. The only reason you ain't been humbled yet is cause you ain't gone into those woods.

[As he steps forward, his prosthetic hits the ground with a tinny sound, as if to emphasize his point.]

Do you think I haven't looked? You really think I just sat here and ain't looked?!

[Losing Ain right now would have been too much, so it's definitely for the best. Of course, Wolfwood still feels bad that he can't be more articulate right now, and he can tell that Ain is in the same boat. It's why he's just leaning on him right now, trying- and failing- to keep himself in one piece.]

Nah. I just...

[...]

He's run off so much, I keep thinkin' maybe he'll just...come back like before. Then I can kill him for disappearin' myself.

[He exhales on a weak, watery sounding laugh at that.]

[The sheer wrath that WOlfwood faces Meryl with is almost enough to get her back down. Maybe it would have been, had Wolfwood not used a particular set of words. They're both clawing at each other's weak spots it seems, considering he just so happens to use the phrasing that Meryl so fondly recalls from Roberto.

This world will eat you alive, Newbie.]

I am so tired of hearing that. Like I don't know how to function anywhere. I'm not a child. And you can't just boss me around. [Despite his height, despite his menacing features, Meryl still steps to him. Her hand hovers close to the pocket with her gun in it, but she doesn't pull it out yet at least.] You think I haven't been humbled? Do you know how many people I've watched die because I didn't do something?

[Meryl feels her eyes start to burn, and it's all she can do to shake her head and keep the tears at bay.]

I don't think you know a thing about looking. Because I was the one always going back to JuLai. Because I used every resource I had at my disposal to keep looking for him? [Another step closer, enough to be able to jab him in the chest.] And where. Were. You?

...yeah. I dunno. I can't...

[Ain leans forward, putting his forehead against his knees and sighing.]

...even our flightiest members weren't that flighty. If that's really what happened, I'll be upset. I'll be glad he's okay, but... I don't know. It's difficult for me to forgive something like that. I'm too clingy.

[Ain was sort of aware of Vash's habits, but it's not like he actually thought he'd live through them.]

[...]

Honestly, I don't...think so. Not this time.

[As much as it SUCKS to have to say that.]

I got this feelin', I guess. And I ain't ever been one to trust just what my gut's sayin' without seeing it for myself, but...

I don't think he'd do this. Not again.

[He, dare he say it, trusts Vash enough now not to.]

S'like when he swam off when we were stuck in the sea. Just...

...happened.

[Again, Wolfwood growls. He snarls, though it's maybe saying something that he doesn't move further. He isn't attacking her, nor is he trying to make her leave...but boy, is he sure clearly unhappy with the way this conversation has turned.]

I. Don't. Know. You got different memories than I do!! Don't you get it, that's the way this fucking place works!

[He just barely restrains himself from grabbing that hand that pokes him. Probably for the best he doesn't, especially when he knows he's much larger, and more...bestial right now. He doesn't know his own strength.]

The last thing I remember is JuLai gettin' nuked, and then nothing else. Suddenly, I'm in this place for the next two years. That's where I've been, Little Missy.

[Ain is realising he's having a lot of regrets, suddenly. He regrets not talking to Vash more. He regrets not getting closer, and for waiting so long to try. He regrets the time he got a bunch of people killed by being stupid and giving Vash the El fragment, thinking it would heal him. And Ain can't say he wasn't slightly mad at him for other things in the end — he wanted Vash to stop picking on Add, because he just wanted all his partners to get along or at least pretend to for his sake. But at the same time, he regrets not speaking up more. Not trying.

He sits back against the pew and breathes a shaky sigh. All of these negative emotions are doubling back on him now, and he doesn't know what to do with them. He feels like he's going to explode. It's much, much different from when he was fighting with Add constantly, and fighting with Wolfwood by extension. That, at least, ended with both of them alive.

Suddenly, something in Ain snaps, and he winds up swinging his leg over Wolfwood's and sitting down in his lap, holding his shoulders too tightly with his dragon strength.]

If you ever do something stupid like this and get yourself killed, I am personally going to march into the Garden, drag you back, and tie you down so you never do something like that again.

[To be honest, he's not sure where the outburst comes from. But he's... scared. He's scared that Wolfwood will go look for Vash and that Suri will get him, too. And then what would Ain do? Suffer two losses at once?

No. No, no, he can't let that happen.]

[Meryl flinches back the second that Wolfwood growls. The earlier, prickling fear develops into a full blown serpent, coiling around her heart and injecting its venom into her blood. She takes a step back, but her shoulders don't drop, nor does the pinch in her brow loosen to any degree.]

Don't call me that. You haven't earned any nicknames, Undertaker. [She knows she's a hypocrite. That's the point.] So great, you've been here! That doesn't change anything. You're still sitting back and watching Vash run away. You know how he is. So go after him. Or at least help me find him.

You owe me, after everything!

[Wolfwood had been in the middle of rubbing his hands over his face again, trying desperately to come to terms with this awful numbness clashing with grief that's going on like a hurricane in his brain, only to be shocked out of his reverie when Ain suddenly swings himself across his lap and plants himself there, gripping him with a force that's almost shocking.

There's a brief moment of tense, heavy air between them both after Ain says that, like his words are literally hanging, dependent on a response. His eyes dart briefly for a moment, searching Ain's face for any signs of real upset or anger there, but in the end he just finds...that he's afraid. Scared.

And he gets that. He really does.

It's why he ends up sagging forward, the stony mask his face had taken on as a coping mechanism breaking a fraction as he slowly loops his arms around Ain's waist, dropping his head forward against his shoulder.]

I...I ain't. I ain't gonna...

[And then he inhales on a deep, shaky breath, gripping Ain slightly tighter.]

[Wolfwood wants to just...scream, or cry, or demand she get out, or something. He is not in the mental headspace to deal with this right now, and honestly? If he were to ask himself, deeply and seriously, why he's reluctant to charge into the forest and look for Vash...it's not just the danger of it all.

It's knowing that he's going to very likely have his worst fears realized. He'll look for him, and come up empty-handed.

But he doesn't know how to explain that to Meryl, who clearly has fight in her that Wolfwood is struggling to cling to. His tail lashes anxiously behind him, and for a long moment he says nothing, though at least his new, wolfish face makes it harder to tell that he looks like he might actually burst into frustrated tears at any moment.

He reaches up and takes off his shades, turning them over between his claws.]

...there's a place people go when they "disappear", here. S'called The Garden. If Vash really ain't here anymore...a lil' girl named Nene would know. I'd ask her first.

[After a moment, he holds his glasses out towards her.]

If he ain't there, take these with you if you're gonna go into the woods. They'll make sure you don't run up against the wall.

[Meryl waits.

And waits.

And waits a little more.

It's hard to say what she expects. He seems to have calmed enough that he won't be straight up lunging at her any time soon, but she isn't quite convinced of that. There's a tension that hangs in the air, though, one that she's scared to place. Imagining the occasionally terrifying Wolfwood resisting the urge to cry is a terrifying one.

It indicates a reality she isn't ready to believe in.]

The garden. [She takes the glasses and... just sort of holds them aloft for a second. She doesn't quite understand, but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense yet.]

Nene... where can I find her?

[Since she actually took them, he'll at least explain what he means with giving them to her.]

They're enchanted. I got 'em done so I could move through the forest safely if I ever needed to. If you don't use somethin' like that while in there, you'll be in real trouble.

[He exhales, the sound heavy and deep.]

She's got a house here.

[And he'll describe how she can find her, should she decide to go that route.]

Just...don't say I didn't warn you if you get an answer you ain't happy with.

[The glasses are folded and tucked away for the time being. She keeps her eyes on Wolfwood, though, afraid that if she looks away, he might disappear without giving her the answers she needed. It had already happened once, after all.]

It'll be an answer. That's all I want.

[She knows that one answer will upset her more than the other, but it was far better than having to wait and wonder.]

Do you want me to tell you what I find out?

[For better or worse, Wolfwood isn't going anywhere...likely not for a long time, so she won't have to worry about that. He gets that feeling, somehow.

...]

If you will. Not that I expect you to feel obligated to, considerin'.

Just tell her I sent you. She knows who I am.

Yeah. Okay. I will.

[She takes a few steps back, then... pauses.]

I'm... sorry, for the record. That he's gone, I mean.

[Not quite sorry for yelling, oops.]

...yeah. Me too.

[Is he sorry for Vash being gone, or sorry for being a dick? Maybe it's both, but he doesn't seem to be interested in elaborating.]

If you find 'im, you've got full license to come back and tell me you told me so.

I will.

[Find him? Gloat? Either way, Meryl keeps her chin stubbornly high as she turns away from him.]

You better be here when I get back, by the way. Or else.

[Knowing Meryl, it's probably a threat to be taken seriously.]

[Even though Meryl has turned away and isn't looking at him right now, she'll still hear the derisive scoff he exhales on.]

Don't think you'll hafta worry about that. I get the feelin' I won't be able to leave this place even if I wanted to.

Yeah. Well. Keep it that way.

[She doesn't give him time to argue before she's stomped her way out of the door.]

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If you wanna cry, use my heart

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