Chapter Text
The third thing Wolfwood suggested they try was temperature, but Vash was unaffected by heat and actively recoiled from cold, so that was another thought hastily scratched off his list.
Flashing lights came next. Plants glowed, he reasoned, so maybe that would trigger something on a subconscious level? Maybe it wasn’t the physical element that was lacking at all, but some sign his brain could latch onto that there was another plant around.
No luck.
Submerging himself in water to mimic the environment of a tank was no good either, and Vash confessed to him that it wasn’t actually water the dependant plants lived in anyway but a chemical soup they would be hard pressed to get ahold of outside of a dedicated lab.
Wolfwood decided to put a pin in that thought. He wasn’t quite ready to break into a plant facility in the name of advancing their sex life. Not yet.
Instead, he’d proposed Vash had a go at doing whatever it was he did when he connected with his sisters – extend his mind, open his brain waves, signal a telepathic handwave, that whole song and dance – pretend Wolfwood was in any way equipped to answer. If it was a mental link he needed, some kind of feedback loop, then maybe he could jerry-rig his way into his head, and if not then maybe faking would be enough? Possibly? God, he had no idea, but it sounded plausible.
Bizarrely, this was the suggestion Vash was most reluctant about. Precisely why he refused to say, and Wolfwood gave up digging for an explanation and just asked him flat out if that meant he was up for it or not. And after a few minutes of soul searching, sighing, and kicking his heels, Vash decided that yes, he was in fact still up for it.
That left Wolfwood with the challenge of keeping him stimulated enough that his tendrils would stick around and simultaneously not ‘distracting him’. Normally he’d take being distracting as a compliment, but there was a delicate balance to hit here, and failing to land it would just create further frustration.
Once he’d had his fill of kisses Vash settled himself in his lap, set his hands on his shoulders, and demanded that he remain still. For a minute that was just how they stayed. Vash was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t read, but if Wolfwood dared to speak he thought he might break whatever spell this was, and Vash would pull away, call this off, and they’d be back to square one. So he bit his tongue. Held his silence.
The tendrils had wound around his arms like they tended to do when he engaged with them in any measure, and that made it easy to give them some attention without fidgeting around. Just a stroke of his fingertips if they seemed to be growing bored. Encouraging but fleeting, not gunning for anything big. Vash would shiver at the touch but he didn't tell him to stop so Wolfwood figured that was more or less what he wanted, and contented himself to wait.
He wasn't sure how much longer it was, but eventually, abruptly, Vash bent his head and pressed his brow to Wolfwood’s. Then he began to glow.
It was beautiful in an ethereal sort of way… how those markings faded in, flaring slowly across his skin in intricate whirls of pale blue light that brightened until they solidified into a steady luminescence. Up close he could tell they were symmetrical. Could see the places they were absent - how they lined the bridge on his nose and ran up over his chin, but left his upper lip and the center most parts of his face clear.
He wanted to touch them. He wanted to marvel at them, pull back so he could get a look at the whole of him - how they must spill over the lean muscle of his torso and out along each limb. But Vash had told him to stay still, and that was what he did. Just sat there, bathed in that blue light. Watching. Tasting the faint static prickle that often hung in the air around a plant.
Vash frowned. His lips pursed tight, twisted in what Wolfwood thought was concentration. It was a long minute before he finally murmured, “I can feel you.”
“Well yeah,” Wolfwood said, “you’re sitting on me.”
A huff of laughter. “I don’t mean that, I mean... like I can tell you’re there? Like I can hear you but also not?”
Not in the literal sense, he gathered, but Vash wasn’t painting much of a picture. He’d never said more than a handful of words about talking with the dependant plants - preferred to brush over the subject - and that had the awkward consequence of giving Wolfwood no basis for comparison and no idea what sort of questions to ask. But if Vash could sense him then that was probably good?
“Wanna try explaining that one more time?” he asked.
Vash made a grumbling noise. He chewed on his lip for a bit, fingers idly rubbing over Wolfwood’s shoulders. “Okay. I guess... I can pick out the shape of your mind but I can’t actually touch it? Like you’re hearing someone all muffled through a brick wall, and you can’t find the door, and you know the only way in is if you break something?”
“And that would be bad?”
“I’m not smashing your mind, you need that.”
He sounded genuinely offended at the suggestion. Privately, Wolfwood was a little relieved. He’d been prepared for the possibility of Vash gaining fragmentary access to the contents of his head - made his peace with it, with that vulnerability - but having it pried open through brute force did not strike him as a particularly pleasant experience.
“Alright,” he agreed. “And this... what you’re doin’ right now, it ain’t helping? Not making anything feel different? Better?”
He made a few hopeful circles with his thumb, petting the nearest tendril just to test his response.
Vash’s breath hitched slightly, but when he released it it was in a deep sigh, the warmth of it ghosting Wolfwood’s skin. “Nope.”
“Time to stop?”
“Yeah.”
The benefit to a string of failures was he had a lot of practice at dealing with the after. Usually, if nothing got in his way, Wolfwood took the opportunity to fit some cuddles in. One, because he always felt guilty, and two, because Vash was a sucker for them and it seemed to mellow him out. He’d never gotten as upset as their first attempt, but he'd often turn pensive in a way he couldn't help but worry about.
If Wolfwood couldn't give him mind blowing sex he could at least manage softer comforts and reassurances. That was within his power.
Cigarette in one hand and the other sliding through the blond head of hair tucked beneath his chin, Wolfwood counted the stains on the ceiling and contemplated if that was enough.
He remembered what Vash had told him in that dingy bathroom stall months ago. He’d told him he didn’t want him chasing after something he wouldn’t find, and so far, that was exactly what he’d done.
Vash had agreed to this, but did that mean he really wanted it? To deal with constant dissatisfaction, reopening what was surely an old wound, again and again? They should try because there was the potential for so much joy in success, so much pleasure, and Vash deserved that, deserved all the good that life had denied him.
But that decision wasn't his to make.
Wolfwood took another slow drag of his cigarette. “You know you don’t gotta keep trying,” he told Vash, stretching an arm over the side of the bed to tap the ash off. “You want me to stop, all you gotta do is ask.”
“I’ve got decades of disappointment under my belt. You’re not going to break me with a little sexual frustration,” he remarked dryly.
“Yeah, but I don’t want you just... humouring me cos you feel like you have to.”
Vash shifted, pushing himself up with one arm so he could pull back and look him in the face. “I am humouring you, but not because of that.”
“Why then?”
“Because I want you to be happy, and you want to try. So it’s fine.”
He said it so frankly, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Vash was like that sometimes - could disarm him completely with words he would have scoffed at coming from anyone else. Maybe it was just how he looked at him… how his eyes were old and tired and soft and still full of wonder, and so, so knowing, and he somehow looked at Wolfwood like he saw someone completely different from the man he saw in the mirror.
“Listen…” Vash continued, evidently not happy with his silence, “I would say no if I wasn’t okay with it. I don't mind trying, it's honestly nice that you're so… invested. And it's not all bad - fooling around a little feels really good, sometimes, it's just frustrating too, that's how it's always been for me.”
“So you wanna keep trying?”
“As long as you do, yeah. Just… don't get your hopes up. There might not be an answer. Maybe it’s not even the plant part that’s the problem, maybe I’m just dysfunctional, you know? I can live with that, but I don't want you getting upset if you never get the result you want. If that's not a problem then we can keep trying.”
It was then that he realized Vash had never had much hope for success. That, probably even from the start, he’d been prepared for that outcome and went ahead with it anyway.
Wolfwood chewed on a proper response, but all he could come up with was, “Okay.”
Vash hummed. He tilted his head slightly, angling into his hand to encourage his frozen fingers to return to their job stroking through his hair. “And if we’re on the subject,” he said, his tone adopting a playful note, “you know you can f*ck me if you want? That you don’t have to do all of this as a prerequisite? I meant it when I offered.”
It was a tempting thought, but still…
Wolfwood wasn't sure how to explain it - to say that his reluctance wasn't out of some need to balance the metaphorical scales before he took even more for himself, and certainly not out of a lack of desire. It was just… he didn't know if he liked the concept of that as a one-way thing. Vash might be perfectly willing, but he much preferred the image of him blissed out and lost in the throes of his own pleasure rather than merely playing along so Wolfwood could get his rocks off. A blowj*b was a blowj*b, but actual sex…
At best, he'd feel vaguely awkward about it, and at worst it would ruin the whole experience, and he could not have Vash blaming himself for that.
Hell, even putting it into words was a risk, the man was so infuriatingly ready to accept every fault in the world as his own.
What Wolfwood wanted, more than anything, was to figure out how to get him to cum. Then he could f*ck him slow and tender, and drive him to that same edge - maybe not with his co*ck, but with whatever it was his crazy biology craved - give him a taste of all he deserved while Wolfwood found his release in the sweet clutch of his body. That was what he was holding out for.
But maybe that wasn’t something they’d ever get. Maybe there was no such thing as perfect, maybe that just wasn’t in the cards for them… And if that was the case, he’d have to decide sooner or later what that meant going forward.
For now though… for now he could wait.
“I know,” he said, and left it at that.
Vash held his gaze for a few seconds longer, blue eyes intent, but whatever he found there must have satisfied him because he hummed again before settling his weight back down and tucking himself under his chin, his right arm wrapped around Wolfwood’s chest.
“Okay then,” he agreed.
