Chapter Text
He leaves Punisher at the inn. The key he shoves into his pocket keeps digging into his leg, an uncomfortable weight he is not used to, right next to the gun he can‘t bear to leave behind. Noman‘s Land teaches you the hard way that leaving anywhere without a means to protect oneself is a terrible idea.
The road to Hopeland Orphanage though, that one‘s familiar. He hasn‘t visited in a while, too busy running from Meryl, July, Vash.
Vash.
He would have loved this place.
Wolfwood looks up at the building, its white walls painted at the bottom, a bunch of different colours he remembers scavenging all over the place, bringing them back so the other kids can paint for the first time. It appears they have found a canvas on the outside walls, giving the whole place a brand new image.
There are children playing up front. Three girls, one boy, a bunch of chicks hopping around their feet as they screech and dance across the front lawn. Wolfwood stops at the entrance to watch them. They look… good. He has to give Knives‘ group that much, the kids look healthy and happy, laughing so much more than he did when he was a kid.
One of them is holding a doll. It‘s ugly, terribly hideous, the dress off and loopy, the hair all over the place, its beady eyes and empty smile terrifying.
It‘s one of Wolfwood’s first works and how the fuck did this thing survive his first purge.
„Nicholas?“ His head snaps up at the voice and he meets brown eyes, a few shades darker than his own, set in an ancient face covered in wrinkles and marked with age.
„Hag.“ He grins at the little twitch of her eye, softens, walks up to her.
Her hands reach up and carefully frame his face, „You have grown, child.“
„I haven't changed at all, old hag.“
„Still as rude as ever, I see.“ She smiles, pulls at his cheek. Tiny, she is tiny now, her fingers calloused from all the housework. Her eyes are soft, so, so soft, too soft . They turn blue in his head, the wrinkles make way to orange glasses and a gentle smile.
For a second, Wolfwood's heart stops.
BehindtThe matron, the kids have stopped playing and are now watching them. The boy eyes his gun, his whole look, frowns. One of the girls stares up at him. She looks a bit older, maybe twelve? Thirteen years old? Old enough to remember him, maybe. Definitely too young to remember Livio.
„Did you really expect me to change?“
„I expected you to learn how to behave, travelling all over the place like this. But I see those bandits out there also never learned to greet their elders.“ She pulls at his cheek again, „You‘ve gotten thinner, Nicholas.“
The last person alive who still calls him that. She grabs his hands, turns them over, smooths out a scar on his palm.
Someone tugs at his shirt and Wolfwood looks down. It‘s the oldest girl, the one holding the doll, „Hello.“
Black, empty, worn eyes stare up at him and Wolfwood shudders. Going head to head with the most dangerous man on the planet? No problem. Looking at his ugliest creation as it stares up at him from the arms of a little girl? Yeah, he‘ll take on Knives any day.
Thank you very much.
„Look, Leslie knows how to do it.“ Matron grins and pats his face. She can‘t reach his hair anymore.
„Fine. Hello, old hag, it‘s nice to see you, how have you been? Are you still smoking like a furnace or did you finally stop torturing your lungs with that bullshit you call cigarettes?“ Wolfwood has exactly half a second to dodge the swipe aimes his way, the laugh that bursts out is raspy, difficult to stomach. He hasn‘t laughed ever since they entered July. Especially not since he dropped Meryl off at the nearest trading town and left her there to find ehr way back. Wherever she is, he hopes she is okay.
The kids introduce themselves as Leslie, Kai, Erin and Neele. They don‘t really warm up to him, but the matron has always been a good mediator and it seems to help that Wolfwood knows his way around the orphanage and its caretakers and inhabitants. Some of the older kids do recognize him, several now clad in the uniform of the day shift caretakers, they greet him happily, ask about his health, some much snarkier than others.
„I changed your diapers, Leon, don‘t sass me, you little shit.“ Wolfwood calls after a young man who is trying to wrangle three toddlers into the direction of the bathhouse. He gets a middle finger in return and a scandalised gasp from the matron, followed by , „Boys, will you behave in front of the other children! I am not above striking dessert from your dinner!“
„It‘s probably another surprise pudding, I can deal with that.“ Wolfwood snorts, „And for good measure: fuck, shit, crap, bitch…“ He doesn‘t get farther because the matron grabs him by the ear, much faster than anticipated, and drags him off, „Ow, fuck, hag, not that hard!“
„You!“ She pulls harder, „Language!“ Her head is red, red like the seams of her dress, red like his memories.
Wolfwood bursts out laughing and… it‘s good. Terribly good and he is home, he is right here, right where he belongs.
And yet there is this big hole in his chest, this great canyon painted black the size of July, the size of one man with a kind smile, kind eyes, kind hands.
A hole shaped like hope and warmth and the most gentle „I can see it in his eyes.“ and „I will save everyone, even you.“ running in circles in his head. There are days where Wolfwood barely remembers the exact shade of blue, but the cadence of his voice, the way he speaks, breathes, laughs, it‘s burned into his very soul, etched so deep into his heart that his whole being has been changed from the ground up.
He thinks of a man so beautiful he eclipses the sun and they morph into black feathers and tired eyes and tears shed in the heat of battle.
The fingers in his ear disappear, „Nicholas? What…“
„Nico?“ It‘s Leslie. He stares down at her, her concerned little face, the doll. A thread is loose.
„… Let me fix that.“ He murmurs and blinks away the sparks dancing in front of his eyes, motions towards the doll. Black hair, black eyes, a green dress. A loose thread.
No gold, no blue, no red. This is fine.
He can fix one doll.
„You can?“ She tugs at the thread and Wolfwood breathes out a laugh, a small one, a gentle one, one that lingers in the back of his mind, not unlike the one Vash made shortly before…
Well, before.
July in shambles, Vash gone, meryl god knows where. Roberto buried in the rubble of a fallen city, his cigarettes wedged in one of Punisher's empty compartments.
He reaches for the doll and takes it carefully into his hands, fiddles with the thread, then looks down at the little girl, „I take it the old workshop is still in the east wing?“ He doesn‘t even wait for her, just takes off and barely registers the matron calling after him, or Leslies tiny steps right behind him.
He repairs the doll.
It starts a trend.
Kids start following him around with broken toys and big eyes, clutching onto cars and dolls and plush worms. Half of them he remembers making as a kid. There is a memory of the matron sitting next to him, placing his hands carefully around a crochet hook, the yarn rough between his fingers, burning his skin.
He fixes all of them.
He fixes the cars, he fixes the dolls, he fixes the plushies, he fixes balls and drums and building blocks.
He makes new toys, repaints the old.
For a while, Hopeland becomes home again. Leon introduces him to Caleb and Sienna, the other two dayshifts and later he meets Lisa, Elaine and Hugo, the teenagers helping out at night.
He follows the matron to breakfast and he follows the kids to dinner. At prayer time, he is nowhere to be seen.
He pays for the inn. Punisher stays in his room, collecting dust.
And then he finds the chicken. Livio‘s chicken.
That horrible, ugly thing, his first project, the first toy he made as a kid, blue thread rough enough that he had the burns for days on end. The scars are gone now.
Fuck, he misses Livio and his calm eyes, the way he would cry into his shoulder and laugh into his hands, the bright light in his eyes when he finds the yarn and offers it to Wolfwood with hopeful eyes.
He made a whole clutch for the other kids that day. Many, many chicken toys, half of them lost to time and his embarrassment.
Maybe Livio would have known how to make himself feel again.
How to get out of this state of smoke and mirrors, how to step back out into the sun without breaking under the pressure of blue skies in the wrongest shade of blue.
Wolfwood stares down at the chicken, at the blue lump with a lopsided beak and worn, wooden eyes.
It‘s blue. Vash blue. Of course the toy is sort of faded, it‘s old, it‘s been used by many children, it appears, but it‘s the right blue.
And well.
Thank fuck Wolfwood is alone in the workshop when realization finally hits.
He won‘t meet Vash on the road anymore, there will be no more smiles, no more soft, off-key humming in the car, no more „I see it in his eyes“ and „I trust you“ and „Wolfwood“ spoken softly with even softer eyes.
There will be no more blue lights lingering in the early morning, patterns curling around pale fingers before they fade as Vash slowly opens his eyes, blinking sleepily at Wolfwood in dingy inns and wonky cars.
No more laughter in the late of night, no more arguments in the stomach of a worm, no more fists clutching onto black fabric, anger and grief marring the most beautiful features.
No more dreams of angels in red coats. No more gunshots echoing off walls and roofs, relief running through his blood as he carries Meryl away from the battle, Vash‘s eyes so full of gratitude.
So full of tragedy and goodbyes.
„Nicholas.“
He looks up. The matron is standing in the doorway, a tray with steaming mugs in her hands, „Do you have a moment, child?“
At his nod, she sets the tray down and hands him a steaming mug. It‘s tea, watery and bitter, but warm.
She settled down next to him, all bones and elbows cushioned by layers of fabric. For a few moments, they just stay quiet, both of them lost in thought, until, „Why did you return, Nicholas?“
„Trying to get rid of me, you fossil?“
„No. But ever since you… left.“ Ever since they took him and she had to watch from the sidelines, „You only ever came back for a day or two. You have been here for a month, Nicholas.“ Her touch is so very careful, testing waters, limits, as she places it on his shoulder and she looks so fragile in this moment, as fragile as Wolfwood feels and… “Tell me, Nicholas.”
It opens the doors to hell. These words set free the demons, torch the remains of an angel’s memory and Wolfwood tries to put the last few weeks before his return into words. He tells her of Nicholas the Punisher and Livio the Doublefang. He tells her of a blond man with the sum in his eyes and a boy who is a worm, he tells her of Rollo and Vash and grief. He tells her of the Sandsteamer Incident and his involvement.
He tells her about July.
He tells her about Vash.
About smiles in the desert and the warmth of another leaning against his shoulder. He tells her of tender nights under the stars and hordes of worms and about the faint hope lingering in the back of his mind.
In the end, the matron offers him a cigarette, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you haven’t touched yours ever since you moved in, brat. Tell me more about that boy.”
Wolfwood does, in between gusts of smoke, “He was… I can understand why Knives wanted him back. He was everything. This bright light of hope wherever he went, always with a smile and all too ready to get himself killed for someone else. He was… kind. Too good for this fucking planet with its fucking people and it’s fucking twisted bullshit. He was beautiful, matron, that’s what he was. An angel.”
Wolfwood leans forward, stares down at the smoke.
Smoke and mirrors. Memories, nothing left but ash in between his fingertips, “I can’t smoke Roberto’s shit. Bought my own before getting up here.” Same brand as that of a dead man because after all this time, it took one pretty smile to make him soft.
And that pretty smile is dead.
He grabs the chicken and thumbs at the uneven stitches.
Vash would have loved this thing, ugly as it is.
“You loved him.”
“Wrong. I love him. There is no past tense for feelings, remember? I killed my brother for him and in the end, even that wasn’t enough to keep that fucker safe. The last thing I saw…”
A black coat, tired eyes, desperation and gratitude, a barely there affection swimming in Vash’s eyes, ihn Wolfwood's heart.
He would have followed him, if not for Meryl.
Although, both of them would have followed him, into space, into hell, back home.
Vash would have loved this place.
The kids, the busybody caretakers, the matron. This place at the end of the world could have been a home for both of them. Hopeland.
Hope.
Home.
But the hole in his chest prevails, that deep abyss that keeps dragging down bits and pieces of him and keeps them hostage the way faith holds onto its believers.
He should have tried praying when there was still salvation left for him.
No rest for the wicked, no mercy for the forsaken, no salvation for the lost.
It fucking figures.