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English
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Part 1 of bottom ww agenda
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Published:
2024-06-06
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2,185
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1/1
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not dying, then

Summary:

Vash isn't particularly good at communicating his needs and Wolfwood never knows what to expect from Vash the Stampede - least of all when he's glassy eyed and whining all damn day.

-

And from here, Wolfwood can see the other man startlingly clear: he’s bleary-eyed, gaze never really settling, eyelashes fluttering. His gaze darts and flickers and shifts. A flush has spread just beneath the high collar of his shirt—mimicking the heat visible in his face and turning his ears a precious shade to match.

“Huh,” Wolfwood starts—sets his task aside to stare at the Humanoid Typhoon in wonder where he is wilted over Wolfwood's lap. The knot of his insides tighten under that ethereal gaze, pinning him in place. “You really don’t feel well, huh?”

Notes:

this is 100% trash that came to me in a fever dream at 2am last night and i vomited out in like 2hrs because i needed it out of my brain i aPOLOGIZE （ｉДｉ）

i also for the life of me could not settle on wtf to name this - i think i spent more time on that than the actual piece, so, apologies for that too lmao

under/un-negotiated sexual content so pls be wary if that squicks you out

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Vash has been vying for Wolfwood’s attention since they had returned from dinner downstairs—before that, truly, if Wolfwood had been pressed to answer for Vash’s behavior.

His pretty-faced quarry had been clingy and ostentatious the entire day, needling for Wolfwood’s conscious effort, his closeness, his notice.

'Whining' was the more correct term, but Wolfwood was trying this thing of living up to a better—kinder— image these days.

“Wolfwood.”

The undertaker was pointedly ignoring him, as he had been since they had retired to their shared room after a blessedly warm and sand-free meal.

Wolfwood keeps carefully turned away from where the other man is sprawled across the bed on the other side of the room. Pretends to shine his (fucking stupid) uniform shoes with Vash tucked away in his peripheral.

Each call of his name makes Wolfwood tense—like fingers crawling up the knobs of his spine. Vash has been acting unusual, even for him, and all Wolfwood can think of is a man with Vash’s face pressing the perfect edge of a knife to Wolfwood’s jugular.

In some ways, Wolfwood fears Vash the Stampede more than his cold-eyed contractor. At least he knows what to expect from Millions Knives: being maimed is much easier to predict than whatever pretty glint has been in Vash’s sky-blue gaze all evening.

But ignoring him apparently didn’t mean much to the menace in question.

“Wolfwood, I don’t feel good.”

“Take a pill,” he grunts, fighting every instinct to turn his head. Vash is like the fucking sun in that way sometimes—always drawing his eye, against his better judgement. Giving Wolfwood confusing blind spots. Reeling double-vision.

“Don’t you care if I die?” comes the whine.

Wolfwood can imagine his pout easily: Vash always pushes his lower lip out too far, eyes wet with crocodile tears, shoulders hiked and quivering. He could never hold it for long but it was enough to get a better deal on a motel room or an extra donut in his paper bag.

Wolfwood can hear it in his tone, now, and he forces himself to take a deep breath.

“A hangover isn’t going to kill you,” Wolfwood reminds him.

Vash splutters, “It’s not a hangover!”

Desperate to see the rare indignation on Vash’s pretty face, Wolfwood finally turns.

The gunslinger is curled up on his side on the bed closest to the door, knees to his chest and arms folded just as neatly. His expression is as delightfully ridiculous as Wolfwood had hoped but there is a warmth to his complexion. Cheeks pink, pout wobbly even from across the twilight-dim room.

He looks tiny and sad and it’s impossible to reconcile this man with the looming, fabled monster he and the other kids had passed around stories of at the orphanage, or with the sharp-tongued list of warnings Wolfwood had been given upon his contract.

Wolfwood knows humanizing Vash the Stampede would be the end of him, and yet he turns anyway: he imagines all these little moments with Vash like little forked paths, leading him further and further astray.

He turns another quarter to face Vash, barefoot and dressed down to soft cottons he stole on the way into Vash’s path, and pretends to be deeply interested in a scuff on his left shoe.

“You sick?”

“No.”

“Then the hell’s wrong with you?”

“I’unno,” Vash murmurs—and when Wolfwood chances a glance through his lashes he finds the other man smushing his face into his pillow, cheeks puffed. “Just feel like this sometimes.”

Wolfwood sighs, put upon at the weird feeling in his gut as he watches Vash squirm pathetically. “Drunk?”

“No,” Vash murmurs into his pillow—but Wolfwood had already known, with Vash attached to his side all evening, taking nothing more than a glass of liquid almost clear enough to be considered real clean water.

It had been an out. A pass for Vash’s moody, languishing behavior, but Vash smacked it away as if the thought offended him.

Vash is giving him nothing but seems to want something. There’s a twisted feeling low in his gut, and with some mild panic Wolfwood recognizes it as nerves.

Wolfwood continues Vash’s little game anyway, “Your head hurt?”

The blonde hums affirmatively into his pillow, making no move to supply Wolfwood with any other information. He wiggles enough to hide behind his own arms and block most of Wolfwood’s glare.

For a moment, the undertaker considers crossing the room to shake him till his pretty head rattles.

“Alright,” Wolfwood grumbles, eyes trained on the scuffed shoe still in his hands. He isn’t sure what he’s saying until it tumbles from him, “C’mere, let me see you.”

Vash peeks at him, and Wolfwood raises his eyebrows as if this is all as simple and straightforward as the undertaker has mastered pretending it to be.

Wolfwood had only meant to beckon him closer to check the ink-spill of his pupils, the warmth of his forehead against the back of his hand the way Ms Melanie had taught him with the younger ones at Hopeland.

But the other man slips from his own bed—quite literally—and shuffles down onto his knees in nothing but his compression leggings and long-sleeved shirt, feet and expression painfully bare. Body carefully hidden under all that dark fabric, Vash slinks, long-limbed and exhausted, to sit at Wolfwood’s feet expectantly.

“Not what I meant,” Wolfwood groans—isn’t sure why he feels like he’s trembling but knows it can’t mean anything good. Imagines a knife at his neck, the ghost of an identical gaze on his nape.

Vash merely rests his chin on Wolfwood’s knee and stares up at him through his heavy-lidded lashes. There’s something so vulnerable in the action Wolfwood has to stop himself from launching across the room in a panic.

“Walking’s hard,” Vash tells him, as if it makes it all less absurd, the words pressed into Wolfwood’s leg. “Feel all wobbly.”

And from here, Wolfwood can see the other man startlingly clear: he’s bleary-eyed, gaze never really settling, eyelashes fluttering. His gaze darts and flickers and shifts. A flush has spread just beneath the high collar of his shirt—mimicking the heat visible in his face and turning his ears a precious shade to match.

“Huh,” Wolfwood starts—sets his task aside to stare at the Humanoid Typhoon in wonder where he is wilted over Wolfwood's lap. The knot of his insides tighten under that ethereal gaze, pinning him in place. “You really don’t feel well, huh?”

Vash's brows furrow as he shuts his eyes. He rubs his face against Wolfwood’s leg, the heat of him blistering even over the fabric, and grumbles belligerently. The undertaker can hear the soft, unspoken, told you so.

Wolfwood… isn’t sure what to do.

The Eye didn’t exactly give him a protocol for the his target catching a cold and nuzzling his leg like a docile mutt. It was a level of intimacy Wolfwood wouldn’t be prepared for even if it wasn’t his current quarry wrapping around him like an earthen sea creature—it was territory way beyond Wolfwood’s understanding, or training. Comfort wasn’t really their creed.

So, Wolfwood decides to follow his instincts, the terrifying things his body begs for: he runs timid fingers through Vash’s ridiculous hair, just one quick pet, barely anything, really, testing the heat radiating from him. Hopefully through all the stupid golden fluff on his head Vash can’t feel Wolfwood’s fingers tremble.

The gunslinger makes an injured noise and coils himself more snuggly around Wolfwood’s leg. He’s secured his spot now, arms and legs almost tight enough to restrain, and when Wolfwood doesn’t immediately put his hand in Vash’s hair again, the blond bumps his forehead into Wolfwood’s thigh and grumbles—demanding.

“Bossy,” Wolfwood snorts.

And it’s simpler to acquiesce, Wolfwood argues with himself. It’s an easier path to give in, to keep his mark happy, than to analyze how Wolfwood feels a similar flush creeping up his own collar.

So, he does.

At the first touch Vash sighs, deep and content, and Wolfwood feels the taught lines of his body melt where he clutches Wolfwood’s leg like it’s a lifeline. With the confidence of a man falling ass-backwards into victory, Wolfwood’s touch is firmer, surer.

He strokes through Vash’s hair in long, lingering touches and lets his nails brush the sweating surface of his scalp, trail down his shaved nape, trace the first few delicate bones of his spine.

Vash makes a pathetic sound and shifts against him.

Curious, Wolfwood cups the crown of his head to smooth his palm across his skull, and carefully wraps the long hair around his knuckles. The undertaker is enraptured with the sound, the feel of him—this proprietary gift, so suddenly given.

“You dying or something, blondie?” Wolfwood jokes.

But the gentle curve of Vash’s cheek has turned the deep shade of a sunset. His eyes are pointedly hidden in the heather-grey of Wolfwood’s sweatpants. Vash’s wiggling hasn’t ceased, an unfathomable shifting pressing him ever closer as he breathes deep against Wolfwood’s thigh.

At Vash’s trailing, trembling whimper, Wolfwood finally catches on—the ever-constant twitch of Vash’s hips, pressing his body desperately to Wolfwood’s in agitated little thrusts.

Wolfwood combs his fingers deeper into Vash’s dampening hair, trying to drown out the rush that wracks him so deeply at the realization, that makes him squirm in turn. He scratches against Vash’s scalp to test the waters—feeding into whatever it is Vash has such desperate need of that he would sink so low as to use Wolfwood of all people.

“Not quite dying, then,” Wolfwood murmurs, struck dumb and too hot beneath his skin.

Vash doesn’t seem to hear him. He doesn’t seem aware of much, really. He presses harder where Wolfwood can feel the line of Vash’s cock against his leg, his rhythm sloppy and desperate and grinding, and Wolfwood feels devastatingly alight all over.

Feeling possessed with some madness, Wolfwood kicks out just enough to line more firmly to the heat of the other man’s body. An easier angle for Vash to rut his pretty hips against—and a better one to watch from above.

He rasps in nervous pants on the dryness of his own throat, pressed tight as if Vash had curled his own hand there.

Wolfwood’s body responds eagerly, hard and dripping and shameful, as he watches Vash the Stampede rut against his leg like a dog.

Wolfwood wraps Vash’s golden blond hair around his fingers and tightens his grip till Vash’s hips stutter—tight enough to bear the curve of Vash’s throat, tight enough to hide the way Wolfwood is beginning to shake apart.

Vash chokes, drooling and open-mouthed against his thigh, and begins fucking against Wolfwood’s leg in a particular brand of earnestness that could only belong to Vash the Stampede.

The undertaker feels moonstruck—aching. He traces Vash’s strong jaw. The tendon in his long neck. Trails his fingers back up to press against his flushed, sacrilegious mouth where he’s still making those little fucked-out noises. They make Wolfwood feel like he’s about to climb out of his own skin.

“Go on, then,” Wolfwood tells him—because that, too, is easier than wondering. Than asking. Easier than reconciling with the way his own body curls over Vash’s, protective, audacious in the way Vash has laid himself bare.

Vash turns his face against Wolfwood’s thigh to smother the whimper he makes then, as Wolfwood feels the quick spread of Vash’s cum against his leg—warm, sticky, enough to make him shudder where he sits obediently in Vash’s hold.

Wolfwood’s free hand is desperate to touch himself, to follow Vash into the bliss clear on his face, so he idly cups Vash’s panting face instead—lets himself feel the blistering heat of the other man’s skin as he pants. Idle hands and all that.

Vash croons into the touch. Pliant, dazed smile blooming.

“Good,” Wolfwood murmurs. His voice cracks, the viscera of him twisted and sharp and dire. “Good,” he tells the myth kneeling at his feet, again and again.

On some impulse, Vash sinks his teeth into the tense muscle of Wolfwood’s palm, the cut of his fang making the undertaker gasp before he can settle the way his body reacts—the way he shamefully stares at Vash’s wet mouth, the fan of his lashes as his eyes flutter open and fix on Wolfwood’s face with the sharp catch of an apex predator.

“Wolfwood,” the other man whines, again, unbelievably.

“What,” Wolfwood asks—or tries to, for all it comes out as a wavering whisper. What do you want from me? What do you need? Me, is it me? Like an emboldened youth, clawing at the attention, finally feeling seen.

Vash calls his name again, with Wolfwood’s hands against his jaw as he lazily shapes the word—not ‘Wolfwood’, not this time—and clumsily clambers up the undertakers’ body to press the quick-breath of his chest to the cheap motel bed.

Wolfwood thinks later, in passing, that perhaps he should omit this part of his next report.

Notes:

i've been contemplating more of tristamp ww specifically and how adorably uncooked he is; he talks big but he has a lot of emotions he doesn't know where to place yet and if i don't write a more in-depth thesis of him getting properly topped soon i'm going to start over-grooming like an anxious cat (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞

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