Takes place during episode 10, Quick Draw, right after the Quick Draw Competition in Mei City.
The pretty woman smiled, blushing, as she accepted the money.
"You are so kind, Mr Wolfwood."
"Hey, it's nothin'." The priest grinned. "Happy to help out."
"Then you must let me prepare a special meal for you. And for your friend." She glanced around the restaurant. "Oh! Where is he?"
Wolfwood frowned slightly. Where had Vash gone? "He was here a moment ago... Can we get back to you?"
"Of course!"
"Catch you later."
There was no sign of the gunman in the street: Wolfwood shouldered Cross Punisher and headed back to the hotel. Maybe the insurance girls had seen him...
They were in the bar, drinking tea. Meryl nodded in answer to his question.
"He said he was tired and went up to his room."
"And he was limping." Milly added. Meryl stared at her.
"He was not!"
Milly's voice was apologetic. "Oh, yes, he was, Meryl. I think he hurt his leg in the competition."
"You're imagining things."
"I'll go check on him anyway." Wolfwood waved a hand at the pair and lugged the cross up the stairs, pausing outside Vash's room and tapping on the door.
"You awake in there?"
There was a moment's silence, then, "Door's open."
"You sure disappeared in a hurry. I thought you'd be hungry." He propped the cross in a corner of the room, and turned to Vash, who was sitting on the bed, one arm clutched against his side. Wolfwood frowned.
"Hey, you OK?"
Vash looked up at him, eyes narrowed in pain. "I was careless. Let a couple of bullets hit me."
Wolfwood lit a cigarette and folded his arms. "Let's see - couple hundred gunmen firing at you, all at the same time, and you didn't manage to dodge all the bullets? Yup, I'd say that's careless. What's up - you losing your touch?"
Vash glowered at him. "Hey, I didn't have a cross to hide behind..."
Wolfwood grinned. "You're so easy to tease... C'mon, let's have a look."
"It's just a scratch."
The priest sat beside him, reaching for the buttons on the red coat.
"Let me see."
Vash yanked himself sideways and away from Wolfwood - only to stop with a high-pitched yelp, grabbing at his side again. The priest frowned.
"Doesn't sound like just a scratch to me. Here..."
He reached for the buttons again. Vash crossed his arms over his chest, pouting: Wolfwood sighed resignedly, gripped his wrists and gently moved his arms aside.
"Why so shy? You haven't got anything I haven't seen before." He smiled into Vash's startled eyes. "Who d'you think put you to bed last night?"
Vash's face assumed a very strange expression for a moment, then he gave in and allowed the priest to unbutton the coat and push it from his shoulders.
Wolfwood frowned. From what he could see, through the tear in the shirt, a bullet had ploughed along Vash's side just above his hip: the wound was bleeding freely, but didn't appear to be too deep. He sat back for a moment.
"You got any medical stuff?"
Vash nodded towards his pack.
"OK - get the shirt off and I'll patch this up."
Vash hesitated for a moment. Wolfwood scowled at him.
"Get a move on, willya? We've got a date with a decent meal, and I'm hungry even if you aren't."
Wolfwood carefully kept his expression neutral as he turned back to the gunman, antiseptic, gauze and tape in his hands. The damage to Vash's body looked even worse than it had felt to his hand last night - so very little smooth, unscarred skin left! - and this current wound did nothing to improve the situation. The priest sat back beside the gunman and gently examined the bleeding gash, nodding in satisfaction. Painful, but not dangerous.
"You're right - it's just a scratch." Without warning he splashed antiseptic over the wound, swiftly sitting back out of the way of the expected reaction.
"Aiaiaiaiaiaia! That stings!" Vash's arms swung wide before wrapping round his body. He glared at Wolfwood, who grinned.
"Don't be such a baby."
Vash's lower lip trembled. "Why does everyone call me a baby?"
"Probably because you act like one." Wolfwood shifted the gunman's arms out of the way and taped gauze across the wound.
"I don't!"
Wolfwood glanced up into the pale face, expression wry. Vash half-grinned.
"Well, all right. Maybe I do sometimes..."
He winced as Wolfwood pressed the tape firmly against his skin and pulled himself upright, grinning. "There you go, all done. Want me to kiss it better?"
Vash's mouth dropped open - and a faint blush coloured his cheeks before he snatched his shirt from where he'd dropped it and hurriedly pulled it back on. The priest smiled to himself - he'd had the distinct impression, just for a second, that Vash had been tempted to say yes...
As he swivelled, Wolfwood's eyes were drawn to the splash of bright red across the gunman's thigh. He frowned and laid a hand against it: Vash winced, hissing sharply through his teeth. A closer inspection revealed another gash, deeper this time.
"Hmm. So that's where the other one hit you. OK - get your pants off."
"No!" Vash's face - and voice - were indignant. Wolfwood reached for his belt - only to find his wrists caught immovably in a strong grip. He stared down for a moment, then looked up into Vash's face.
"No." It was said softly, but firmly. Unable to break free from that startlingly powerful grasp, Wolfwood had no choice but to nod acceptance.
"You make sure you treat it yourself, OK? I don't want infection setting in."
Vash gave him a strangely empty smile. "It won't. And I will."
He released Wolfwood's hands, and the priest laid them on his shoulders.
"You OK?"
Vash gazed at him for a moment, then glanced towards the door.
"Did you say something about food..?"
In the time it took Wolfwood to drop Cross Punisher in his room and return to Vash's, the gunman had changed into an identical but undamaged set of clothes (and presumably dressed his leg wound, since he was no longer limping) and was as voluble and bouncy as ever. The priest laughed at him, shaking his head as Vash launched into a long and mostly incomprehensible ramble in which doughnuts, water, the insurance girls and someone called Marianne came together into some highly improbable tale of heroism and derring-do. Well, it kept him amused during the walk to the restaurant, anyway...
Twenty minutes later Wolfwood watched as Vash shovelled down food like he'd been on emergency rations for the last ten days.
"Thish ish good..." the priest just managed to make out. There were times he wished Vash wouldn't try to talk with his mouth full. The gunman swallowed. "What is it?"
Wolfwood grinned. "You probably don't want to know."
"Yesh I do!" Vash protested through another mouthful.
"Trust me, you don't."
Vash stopped eating for a moment, fixing the priest with a suddenly sombre, meditative expression.
"Trust you? I do."
Surprised - and to his surprise touched by the confession - Wolfwood gazed at his companion, and was rewarded with another of Vash's heart-melting smiles. They held each other's eyes for a moment, then Vash pushed his almost empty plate away. Wolfwood's eyes widened.
"You feeling OK? You've left some!"
"Wanna leave some room for the doughnuts..."
Wolfwood picked up a bottle of whisky at the hotel bar and followed Vash up to his room in what was rapidly becoming a familiar, comfortable ritual. There was a box of doughnuts on the table between the two glasses.
Wolfwood raised an eyebrow, then wordlessly poured them both a glass as Vash opened the box. The priest shook his head as the gunman stuffed an entire doughnut into his mouth.
"Don't know where you put it all. You're such a skinny guy, too."
Vash offered him the box, but Wolfwood declined, grinning.
"I'd hate to deprive you."
Vash smiled. "So anyway, what made you decide to look after orphan kids?"
Wolfwood's grin faded, feeling a sudden chill as he remembered the blinding rage that had come over him earlier that afternoon.
I won't let any more children suffer. Never again!
He shook himself. Vash was leaning forward, a gentle hand on his shoulder, expression concerned, anxiety in his eyes.
"I'm sorry. If you'd rather not talk about it..."
"No, it's OK." He managed a crooked half-smile. "And anyway, they say confession's good for the soul..."
Vash listened as Wolfwood told the story of how, when he was seven, he'd taken a gun and killed the man responsible for turning his life into sheer hell, how easy it had been to pull the trigger. How Chapel had taken him from the orphanage and trained him... How later, as a young man, he'd started his own orphanage, his place of peace and happiness, run it with love and laughter, a big brother to all the other kids. He spoke of how he'd become a priest - not because of any real conviction, but because it offered him a measure of respectability, and made it a little easier to get the money the orphanage needed to keep going. Although times seemed to be getting harder, and now he had to travel to try and earn what was needed.
He skipped over the abuse he'd suffered as a child. Somehow it just didn't seem right to force Vash to listen to that: the gunman was altogether too prone to suffering other people's grief as it was - Wolfwood had no wish to make his life more difficult.
"...but I made a promise to myself. I'd never let any child suffer as I did, never let them need to use a gun. I'll do anything to stop them being hurt."
He raised his head, looking into Vash's compassionate face, not surprised to see the tears - genuine this time - in his eyes. Though he felt guilty for putting them there. He hadn't meant to - but Vash was so easy to talk to, somehow, so sympathetic. He'd felt it since they'd involuntarily shared that moment's thoughts on the bus to Mei City...
The gunman reached for Wolfwood's hand, clasping it for a moment or two before laying it on the table, his own resting on top as though unwilling to break that gentle, reassuring contact.
"You are a good man."
Wolfwood shrugged. "Well, I try. I do what I must. But I'm just a poor sinner, like the rest of us."
They sat in a companionable silence for a few minutes - then Vash yawned, surprising himself. Wolfwood grinned.
"Time you got some sleep."
Vash blinked at him. "How come you're not tired?"
"I am. I just hide it better. C'mon, want me to tuck you in?"
Vash smiled wryly. "I think I can manage..."
Wolfwood stretched, then stood, kneading at his neck. Vash also rose to his feet, rubbing a hand over his eyes. The priest smiled.
"Well, I'll see you in the morning."
"For breakfast?"
"OK. Want me to wake you?"
Vash thought about it for a moment, then grinned.
"Only if you bring the doughnuts!"
Wolfwood groaned, theatrically, then nodded.
"It's a deal." He paused for a moment, then laid a hand against the gunman's face. "Thanks."
Vash looked puzzled - but didn't move away from that gentle touch. "What for?"
"Listening. Being here. You're a good man, yourself, you know that?"
The gunman blushed, then grinned. "Aw heck..."
Wolfwood chuckled and finally lowered his hand.
"Sleep tight."
"You too, my friend."
Wolfwood walked back to his own room. Wishing he didn't have to. And remembering the warmth in the gentle turquoise eyes as he tried to persuade himself to fall asleep...
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