Work Text:
They were in Jenora Rock when she first noticed it. How touch starved Vash is.
Meryl can see it in the way he hugs his jacket late at night, out in the wide expanse of sand with the cold settling into their camp as they sleep under the stars. A nightly routine he’s gotten used to doing, Vash would squeeze it like he was giving it a goodnight hug, preciously tight to his chest with his nose nuzzled in the red fabric before he’d fold it carefully, then set it by his side. She's never seen him use it as a pillow.
Or when he draws little smiley faces on the foggy backseat window as they drive aimlessly through No Man’s Land, using his finger to smudge hearts and silly things. One time, he drew a cartoon version of Wolfwood with a crumpled cigarette in his mouth and smiled at himself before he wiped it away. Vash probably thought no one would notice his funny doodle, but Meryl did.
That's why she's so good at her job—she can see things for what they truly are.
And unlike the easily recognizable patterns tattooed under his pigment—pulsing blue when he heals the sickened plants—these subtleties in Vash’s demeanor have sparked a star that keeps shining brighter and brighter and soon, Meryl can see the entire galaxy that is Vash and the simplicity of a magnificent wonder packaged so beautifully within a human form.
Like most things that happen on No Man’s Land, it began with sand.
Across the wobbly table etched with scrapes made from pints of ale and markings left by brawls and bandit blades, Meryl hides behind her journal and tries to sequester her shivers. She doesn't like bugs. Worms. The weird entities that have slithered over Gunsmoke long before humans got here. She doesn't mind the heat, the cold at night, nor the dryness of the desert because that’s all she’s ever known, but the bugs are an entirely different story.
And there's a cage of them that has just been plopped on the table.
The innocence of a child’s curious eyes stare up at Vash, unblinking as he stares down in return, a smile growing on the humanoid’s lips.
“Are those for me?” Vash chuckles, the sound a light comfort after such a heavy conversation.
The little boy blinks, then nudges the cage closer to him.
“Thank you Tonis, I’ll keep your buddies safe,” Vash assures, then extends his hand out towards the kid, forgetting all about the problems he’s just shared with her and Roberto.
Meryl remembers it all so vividly considering just how desperate she was, hoping someone would take the rusty cage of bugs off the table, how she was looking everywhere besides the creepy crawlies that could probably smell her fear. At that moment, Meryl didn’t question it, thought nothing of his expression of gratitude nor the amount of ruffles he patted into the child's hair. It wasn't until much later when everything clicked for her, when Vash had saved her life and she had saved his, it all leads back to this ephemeral connection of an independent plant expressing his love for humanity.
It was that head pat, that lingering touch of Vash’s fingers combing gently through the child’s hair, that has Meryl realizing just how simple his needs are. Vash, the Humanoid Typhoon, only wants to love, and to be loved in return.
Metal and ash, scarce bullets and rusted steel, it’s all he’s ever known.
There are fleeting moments which scatter across his mind that don’t involve gunpowder or machinery set ablaze. Soft moments he cherishes deeply, distant memories Vash locks away, using them to ignite comforting dreams in his sleep as he snoozes. Sometimes it works. Sometimes there are birthday cakes and red geraniums, happiness in the midst of all this rubble, and sometimes there’d be contact. A physical connection in the form of a hug, a shoulder to cry on, a hand in his to hold—the one that could still feel something.
They drift in his mind like the sand outside the hotel window, grazing across darkened dunes as he hunches over the wobbly desk in the corner, cleaning his gun. It’s a mindless act, practiced fingers tracing the same old metal etched with bangs and dents and scratch marks from fights he didn’t want to have, but it’s the only weapon he chooses to carry, only one handed to him by promises of false hopes that are tangled amidst a violent heart.
On nights so cold and quiet, he tries not to think about his brother.
For this very reason, Vash carries a radio. He likes to listen to the news as more of a distraction than anything, but he also likes to stay informed about the wanted outlaws because sometimes he hears his own name, and that usually means he either needs to hide or leave before he gets found. Tonight, the radio broadcast is just rambles, the same poignant topic of discussion that usually ensues when there’s no breaking news and no sandstorms to warn the towns nearby. It means he’s safe to let his eyes drone over the desk light, allow his mind to wander to simpler times, and forget his worries for a while.
There’s a soft knock on his hotel door, and Vash’s fingers freeze, halting over the barrel. Without a word, he steels his breath and looks over his shoulder, silence in the room besides the static words spoken through the radio.
“Vash?” A familiar voice rings out behind the door, and the stiffness in his shoulders ease. “It’s me, Meryl.”
With a widened grin, Vash abandons the cleaning of artillery to stride across the tiny hotel room and find out what his friend needs from him. A couple of extra bullets? To use his portable radio again? To remind him about the money he borrowed earlier when he bought himself some doughnuts? She never lets him forget about the money he borrows for food.
When the door opens, Meryl finds the sheen of his glasses easily in the dim light. Her usual jacket is off and so is her hat and she stares up at him with fixed determination. He’s only known her for a few weeks now, but he knows her well enough to understand that look. There’s a plan tucked away in her mind, and she’s on a path to see it come to fruition.
That still doesn’t mean she’s completely brazen.
Her fingers fidget in the air between them before she asks; “can I come in?”
“Sure!” He answers cheerfully, a bit excited someone had dropped by in the middle of the night for something—anything. These are the hours that are usually the hardest; when everyone else is fast asleep and his nightmares keep his spiky head away from the pillows.
“So,” Meryl waltzes in, little legs carrying her towards the center of the room. “Whatcha up to?”
Vash closes the door with a soft click, then turns to her with a grin and a single raised brow. “Up to my usual, I suppose. Did… you need something, Meryl?”
“Not particularly,” she chews the inside of her cheek as her index finger smoothes over the uneven desk surface, dawdling. “I was just wondering if maybe you needed something.”
He opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again—quietly contemplating if she means something else by that. Vash knows she doesn’t fool around with mind games. Truthfully, he admires her for being an honest person, for calling out things as they are, but there’s a curious undertone to her offer that has him suddenly smiling. “Some company would be nice.”
Meryl’s bright eyes dart to him quickly, and she smiles right back. “Okay, good, because I’ve been having writer’s block trying to write in my room and I’m going crazy all cooped up in there. You’d think with all the stuff I just learned that it wouldn’t be hard to write about, but… seeing as though your case is a pretty heavy one,” she laughs nervously through her teeth, “I guess I’m struggling to put it all into words.”
Vash’s laugh fills the room, a warmth that blankets the cold, then returns to the desk and turns off the radio. So she did need something, she’d just been too nervous to ask. Setting a hand on his jacket that’s hanging over the back of the chair, his prosthetic rises to scratch the nape of his neck.
“I’m a pretty open book,” he admits shyly, though his grin is still lingering. “If you have extra questions for me, I’d be happy to answer.”
“Well, that’s the thing… I guess. I know about your past, your brother, your approximate age, and that you’re an independent,” she lists them on her fingers, pinching the tips with one hand by the thumb and index of her other, “but I’d like to know more about you.”
“Me? I—I’m not sure I follow. All that stuff is me—”
“I think that’s why I’m struggling to write your case,” Meryl elaborates, completely unphased. “I need to know more about you, the Stampede. The Humanoid Typhoon. I need to know the type of person you are instead of just your history.” She plops onto his bed that’s raised from the floor by cinder blocks, and her little feet lift off the ground just slightly. “Sometimes writers will construct a personality chart to the character they’re writing and I was wondering if maybe… you’d like to do an exclusive exclusive interview. Just between you and me…?”
Well, when Meryl puts it like that, he just can’t say no. It was his idea in the first place to do an exclusive interview when she had lassoed him out in the arid wastes. “I guess, if you’d think it’ll help my case.”
That washes all her remaining nerves away. In an instant, Meryl has her notepad out and a chewed-on graphite pencil. The sound of flapping paper fills the room as she finds a blank one to start on, then sits up a little straighter. Vash follows her lead and sits down on the bed beside her, getting comfortable by resting his elbows on his knees.
“Alright, let’s start with something simple. What’s your favorite color?”
Easy. “Red.”
“Of course it is,” she smiles at him and Vash smiles back. A moment’s pause, a shared look, and he’s discovering there’s a freckle in her blue eyes that he hasn’t noticed before. When she turns away to jot down his answer, he blinks and his cheeks are suddenly very warm. “Okay, next one. What’s your favorite food?”
Another easy question. “Pizza—wait no, doughnuts! No, pizza!” He groans in indecisiveness. “Maybe come back to that one?”
Meryl laughs and writes something anyways.
“Okay, um… tell me about your first kiss.”
Mouth open to answer, he finds that this one doesn’t come as easily as the others. Vash is silent for a moment before he pointedly looks away, trying to understand her statement and how she means it exactly. He drifts over years and years, searching through his memories until his mind eventually goes blank.
“Vash,” she beckons gently, pulling his attention back to her. “In a hundred and fifty years, have you ever been kissed before?”
“Oh, yeah! Loads of times. I get kissed on the hand a lot, well I mean, my prosthetic. Brad really admires his own work,” Vash chuckles, then ventures through his memories for another one. “And Rosa kissed me on the cheek when I helped Jenora Rock fix their plant that one time.”
“No, I mean on the lips, like an intimate one.”
Their eyes meet and his face softens. Slowly, Vash shakes his head.
“No one’s been around me long enough to want to,” he answers, choosing honesty over simplicity.
There’s a silence that fills the small room, a cool breeze that sneaks in through the crack of the glass on the window, and Vash shivers a little without his jacket on.
The sound of shifting, of a notepad being closed and idle hands falling on her lap. “Would… you like to be kissed?”
“Yeah!” He turns to her all excited, then his eyes start dancing around the room. “By who?”
Meryl deadpans. “By me, stupid.”
“Oh.”
“Wow, okay. Don’t act thrilled on my account.”
“No! Wait, I’m sorry.” Vash reaches a hand out to her, but it freezes in the air between them, always uncertain about overstepping. He settles for a reassuring smile instead. “I just—I didn’t want to assume. I’ve never had an offer like that before.”
“Well, the offer still stands, if you want one. I mean, a kiss. With me, th-that is.” Typical Meryl; even in her apprehension, she’s still just as determined as ever.
“Okay,” Vash says, voice dropping low and he suddenly doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Trying to remember typical bodily functions, he keeps them on his knees as he angles himself towards her a bit more, then waits.
She takes over from there.
With a gentleness that makes his breath hitch, Meryl slips off his glasses and she places them on the nightstand behind her. When she turns to him again, her knee brushes his own and Vash leans a little closer, flattens his palm on the bed sheets behind her, and meets her eyes.
For a moment, she seems a bit uncertain—as if she doesn’t quite know how to kiss him or what to expect when she does. The thought crosses his mind that maybe she’s hesitating because he’s recently told her everything; that he’s more than human and less than plant—something trapped in the middle of the two—but whatever uncertainty that flashes sapphire is gone when her gaze drops to his lips and her breathing slows.
Everything slows.
Motions that were once fast and giddy and natural all subside like sand suspended in the air. The tips of fingers, bold and delicate, slide under his chin as her thumb brushes a scar just below his lower lip and he knows what she’s doing. She’s admiring him, leisurely casting her gaze across his features from the spiky blonde hair cascading over his forehead to his Adam’s apple that bobs when he swallows.
Meryl parts her lips and he does the same.
She tilts her head one way and he tilts the other.
Her eyes flutter closed, but his remain open.
And then there’s contact.
Divine in touch and warm in rapture, it’s softer than Vash has always imagined it to be. And more… wet. But he likes it. He can feel her take a sharp inhale against his skin, can see her nostrils flaring because his eyes are still open albeit heavily and his lips are still parted and quivering, frozen by a feeling fueling with fervor, blooming like the plants that call out when they’re dying, but this is so different. So ethereal. So human.
She guides him into the kiss as if every move she makes is premeditated yet unplanned, impulsive yet meticulous, and he finally closes his eyes. Meryl’s lips are nothing short of angelic, and delicate fingers move from his chin to his jaw, cradling him like he’s something precious. He can understand now why people close their eyes when they kiss; so they can give-in to feeling and submit to reason—with instincts rooted so deep in the human genome that long exceeds his lifetime.
To touch a god is in the form of a kiss.
And then her kisses hold still, pausing as if they’re caught weightless, and Vash allows his lips to relax and his senses to settle. His body is stimulated from head to toe, a kiss so satisfactory that he’s tingling, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why this feeling seems so familiar.
“Vash,” voice tender as the breeze, “your plant patterns are glowing.”
Slowly, Vash opens his eyes to a dim blue glow casting light in the dark of the room, and when he realizes that it’s him, his dimple appears when he smiles. Over years and years, his markings have faded to appear more human, the energy within him settling into a body that’s vastly different from his twin’s. He would’ve liked to grow up with more answers, understand what makes Vash Vash, but now Meryl has given him a seed that germinates in his heart and blooms a fusion of red and blue, anthocyanin embedded in his vitality.
He feels something just like this when he connects to the plants through thick, bulletproof glass… and now Vash understands it’s the same type of power in something as effortless as a kiss.
With a chuckle that could lift the sun, Meryl meets his eyes briefly before she leans in again, and dances kisses on his lips that he follows step by step.
It’s harder to kiss when he’s smiling, but a shared grin isn’t slowing either of them down. She presses into him a bit eagerly, pushes a hand in his hair possessively, and Vash sighs when his lips part on an exhale. His hand abandons the warmth of the bedsheets to snake around Meryl’s waist instead and is blessed with the sounds of her own sigh—lofty and sweet and making him dizzy, or maybe it’s in the way that she’s kissing him. There’s a push and pull between their lips that he likes, a rhythm unsteady in pattern but he realizes it's easy to follow when she’s guiding him so well and he wonders briefly if it would feel the same to kiss Wolfwood this way, or if it would be different.
His breath gets lost somewhere in the vastness of inhabitable land when Meryl drags him down on the mattress and he doesn’t protest. His body blankets over her, hand still wrapped securely around her waist as his prosthetic elbow lands on the pillows for leverage, and she keeps kissing him and kissing him and he keeps basking and bathing in lips so sweet they’re heavenly, sighs so smooth they’re extraordinary, that he loses track of time almost completely.
Curious heart, a generous soul, Vash begins an exploration of her body by allowing his hand to wander across her torso, and his lips trail down her jaw and to her throat and he can smell the sweet bite of apricot cognac and something stronger. Deeper. Rooted in her veins like parts of flora, there’s a scent hidden away that he tries to taste on his tongue as he kisses her, tries to bite with his teeth as he nips her, coaxing shaky sighs and sated quivers from her that drive him crazy. The smell is so familiar, almost has it, but it isn’t until she fists his hair and moans his name that he recognizes it.
She smells like red geraniums.
Languidly, Vash breathes her in and drowns in the scent of candied liquor and flora. His pointed nose presses against the softness of her neck before he lifts his head to meet her eyes, and his feathered hair tickles her cheeks in his movement. She’s already smiling when his foggy brain catches up with the rest of him.
“That was okay, right?” He asks, as if he’s done it wrong.
She nods, pillow rustling beneath her dark hair. “More than okay. I um… kinda like being kissed on the neck?”
“You do?” He raises a brow inquisitively. “Do most people?”
He could’ve sworn her cheeks tint a little pinker. “I think they do, they just don’t want to admit it.”
He smiles. “I’m glad you did though. Admit it, I mean. I like… tasting you. You smell good and you’re kinda sweet and salty, like a doughnut.” And now his cheeks are pink too, but all Meryl does is laugh.
From her cheek to the crevice of her neck, Vash grazes his nose on her skin, down and down, slow and soft and self-indulgent. He likes the sounds she makes when he kisses her, relishes in red skin as flushed as petals and the scent of red geraniums. He could stay like this all night, branding kisses until dawn, and she seems to want the same. She moves with him, permits him, allows him to kiss and touch and feel what makes him happy because he deserves to, he deserves to, he deserves to.
Tonight, they don’t tread any farther than these kisses.
It could be hours that drone by and Vash wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for his lips tingling and feeling like they’re swollen. Her sighs have resorted to hums and his hands have touched over waist and neck and breasts, just exploring her slowly and innocently, discovering what makes Meryl Meryl. Eventually, Vash lifts a little off the bed sheets and his lashes flutter open to look down at her. She looks a bit sleepy and he feels the same, but they smile at each other and he speaks softly.
“Meryl? Can… you stay with me tonight?”
Her hands smooth over the black fabric of his shirt, and she nods. “Of course I will.”
The grin on his face grows by her answer because the question was a difficult one to ask. He’s never requested someone to stay, to keep close to him as he falls asleep so she can be there in the morning. He’s always been content with keeping people at a distance, satisfied with the moments that are few and far between where he’s done some good instead of damage—when people are actually glad he’s around. All these years he’s gotten used to the silence of sand, but he’ll never admit it. How lonely he is.
Curled on his side, Vash falls asleep with gentle fingers in his hair and his ear to Meryl’s chest, counting every heartbeat.
The next night, Meryl sneaks into his room again. His shirt is taken off, and she kisses every scar that’s painted across him.
On the night after that, it becomes routine—this bedtime company. His shirt is off again as Meryl climbs onto his lap, thighs astride his hips when she lowers down, and she feels him.
“I’m sorry,” Vash whispers, pulling his mouth away before he can groan.
“Don’t be,” Meryl answers quickly. With a tender touch, she holds his chin in her tiny hand and he looks up at her. Her blue eyes gleam like reflective pools from the glow of his plant patterns and she asks, directly and gently, “Would you like to?”
It takes a moment for her question to settle in. It’s been three nights of kissing, two days spent hiding since reports of bounty hunters have been scouring the area—so naturally they’ve had to lay low for a while. Roberto doesn’t mind and Meryl certainly doesn't either, but Wolfwood seems antsy to get to Ju-Lai and Vash has a pretty good guess as to why. They plan on leaving early tomorrow and, not knowing what fate will befall him in the third city or what will happen when they get there, Vash finds himself suddenly nodding.
There’s not many words spoken after that, only touch.
Her lips find his again with resolve and determination, and Vash’s hands slip beneath her shirt and she’s moaning, breath hitching on kisses as she rolls her hips again and again and he tilts his pelvis up to meet her every time, eager for friction. He may be inexperienced, but he isn’t blind. After a hundred and fifty years, he’s seen how this is done, yet Vash quickly learns it’s not about knowing what to do… it’s about feeling.
It’s a smooth slip to take off her shirt, an easy clip to unhook her bra, and when she’s as shirtless as he is, Meryl wraps her arms around his broad shoulders and kisses his lips so hard, it’ll probably leave a bruise.
He doesn’t mind—couldn’t be bothered. No shame when he feels the heat of her skin and how hard her nipples are flushed against his clavicle. His fingers dance up her spine and back down again before his lips start to wander down and down, farther and farther, lips to neck to collar bones, she lets her head fall back as he holds her weight and each kiss lands between her breasts with her back arching like the divine curve of a crescent moon.
“Vash,” she says his name in a way he’s never heard before; something raspy and humid, wet and hot and inebriating. He swirls his tongue around a nipple just to see what it would do to her and he’s graced with a gasp that blooms molten heat all the way down to his very core.
Like a cresting wave, Meryl returns to him, kisses his lips and coaxes him down to lay on the mattress. His eyes open to meet hers hovering just above, and the look she’s giving him can only be described as adoration. He melts into the disheveled blankets, smiling as he straightens out his lanky legs and his hands fall naturally to her hips. Her palms are pressed on the pillows framing the sides of his face when she speaks.
“Tell me what you like as we go,” she says and he nods.
“Okay.”
She kisses down his chest like she’s making constellations, mapping out the places that make him sigh and gasp and shiver. She doesn’t deter from his scars, from the pieces of shrapnel he’s used to piece himself back together, and the sentiment alone sweetens his smile. She kisses the metal on his shoulder and he sighs. She kisses the place where a nipple once was, now covered by a nasty scar, and it milks a moan from his mouth anyway.
“I like that,” he breathes, voice just as raspy as hers.
She hums in return, and continues venturing.
Soft lips down his center, blue black hair blanketing his chest as she explores even lower, and his body tenses when her hands reach for his belt. It’s only for a moment and then he’s helping, snaking the leather through enough loops so they can pull at his buttons together, and he lifts his hips off the mattress as she slides them down his legs. His erection is hard and swollen, a bead of wetness at the tip thanks to all her kisses, and she takes a moment to look at him before she meets his eyes again.
“You’re beautiful, Vash,” Meryl says and it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever heard.
Before he can say it back though, she’s wrapping a hand around his shaft and making him look even bigger in the loose fist of such a tiny palm. She rims her thumb over the top of him, coating him in wetness as she licks her lips because maybe she’s salivating or maybe she’s eager to taste him—Vash doesn’t know for sure, but he watches with anxious anticipation as she lowers her head down and opens her mouth, and places him on her tongue.
He gasps, but all he can hear is Meryl moaning.
A vibration, a hum through his spine, and his lips part on the most delicious inhale. She wets him with her lips and tongue, sliding him down her throat further and further and his hand drags up his face and claws through his hair when her nose brushes the base of his groin and she stills.
“Fuck,” he groans, and that seems to satisfy her.
She starts a slow, steady rhythm—something that eludes all intrusive thoughts that don’t involve the warmth of these bedsheets and the woman on her knees that’s catering to him. Licking his tip, she slides her mouth down halfway before doing it over and over and over and she cups his balls in her palm, rolls him over her fingers in a way he’s never felt before. No one’s ever offered this, has never been asked if he’s wanted it, so Vash has never known what it’s like to give into sins he’ll never atone for, to surrender to pleasure and reconcile with what makes him somewhat human.
Her head bobs in the low light of his hotel room, the springy mattress creaking beneath her weight the only sound filling the silence, besides his heavy breathing. He’s trying to pace himself, trying to hold onto any speck of sanity he has left, but with the way her lips are slurping over bundles of nerves and sensitive skin has his body writhing and his hips tilting, pushing up as she pushes down, both building and building before she slides him out her mouth with a luscious pop and he’s gasping.
Vash crunches up to chase the feeling, a plea lost on his tongue for her to keep going, but he watches her instead. Crawling off the bed, Meryl strips from the rest of her clothing and he kicks off his black jeans the rest of the way as his eyes never stray from her body. Small in frame and muscular in figure, he can see why plants have chosen a feminine shape to enter this world. Docile and elegant, strong and bold and powerful, a woman’s body is a work of art painted with strokes of beauty and brawn, a nurturing temperance of light and darkness.
“You’re beautiful, Meryl,” he says and she climbs on top of him.
Hands planted on his chest, Meryl leans down and drops kisses on his lips, but they’re sloppy, movements messy, thighs spreading over hips and she’s straddling his body, and Vash gets lost in the urgency of it all. He wants her closer when she’s the closest she’s ever been, and when she moves in just the right way, Vash can feel the heat between her legs and just how much she craves him.
She doesn’t waste anymore time.
Their lips break away as Meryl straightens her back and licks the tips of her fingers. One hand curling around his erection, the other snakes between her own legs and started circling, getting them both lathered and wet as he’s stunted by smooches and completely helpless. He can only watch and fall victim to their mutual muses, thoughts foggy with lust and pupils dilated and when she holds him steady and rises on her knees, the tip of his dick presses against her skin and then there’s pressure and heat and fire that burns in the form of desire as she takes him fully inside her.
A sigh falls from her lips like an angel cast out of heaven.
Vash stares at the place where their bodies connect, the blue markings on his thighs and abdomen pulsing slow and dimly. She’s impossibly warm that he thinks it can’t possibly feel any better than this—until she starts to move. A gentle curve in her spine, she lifts up on an easy slide and his eyes drag from his cock and up to her face instead. She’s biting her lower lip, brows furrowed in weakness as she slides back down, experiencing the length of him, and the look on her face is the same in how he feels right now—adrift in venery.
A small thing in a world so huge it could swallow her alive, Meryl moves with an elegance he’s only seen in combat. A ballet of gunfire, bodies spiked with adrenaline to dodge bullets and prevail, the way her body rocks as she rides him, how her lashes flutter and her lips part on the most delicious whine and how her fingers dance along the scars of his chest to utter him breathless, it’s a grace rooted deep in her humanity, threaded in her soul.
Older than the invention of weapons, more ancient than crashed ships and plummeting wreckage, the desire to make contact with another person exceeds far beyond anything Vash has ever known. After so many decades of running and running and running, he’s figured the only chase he’ll ever know is the one on his wanted poster, but she’s chasing something now, something only he can offer.
His head falls back on the pillows and he groans her name.
“Vash,” she says in answer, but it gets choked on a hitching breath, stolen on the cusp of a slide back down his shaft and his eyes flutter shut by the feeling.
Detached from sin, the sweetest temptation, he wants to see her break, have her shatter and unravel, and his hips start to buck up without even meaning to, but she seems to like it. He thrusts up as she slams down, quicker and faster and harder, and she leans over him so their lips can meet but their kisses are more breath than anything—rising moans and pleas of mercy. Her motions still so he can test the waters and through gritted teeth, Vash fucks her and holds her steady, grips her hair and keeps her close and there’s a pitch she hits—voice rising higher than he’s heard before—and Vash takes over from there.
He flips them over easily, body pinning her between the wall and the mattress, and he sinks his teeth into her neck like biting into the flesh of a rosy apple. She gasps and her hand immediately finds leverage in his hair, fisting hard to keep him right there where she wants him, and Vash rocks his hips to keep building into that pressure, climbing towards that inevitable fall, and it doesn’t take much to push Meryl over the edge.
There’s a cry that breaches the room, fracturing the heavy air as it echoes off the walls and she’s falling, back arching, body writhing in his arms and she’s breaking—ecstasy flooding in her veins so forceful he can feel her clenching and he lifts his head from the crevice of her neck to witness her shatter, but when he does, her nails dig into his chest and she begs him to fall from grace along with her.
“Please Vash, I’ll catch you,” Meryl assures him, and that’s all he needs to let himself go.
If he had wings, he’d descend from the highest tower, free fall and glide like a higher power, but he has a feeling he’d probably enjoy this much better. There’s electricity that surges through his body, blinding hot but he doesn’t falter. He keeps thrusting, keeps guiding that fall so they can land together throbbing, and the sound that leaves his mouth when he comes is nothing short of his mortality.
Quivering breaths hit each other’s cheeks as they lay there in the aftermath, cushioned by kisses and the heat of their bodies. Ardent sounds fade to silence as Vash pulls out and she shivers beneath him, bodies still tingling with nerves set ablaze. When he opens his eyes to see her face, a smile breaks between the two. Just like the way he connects with the plants, Vash drops his forehead to hers and allows himself the indulgence of sex, to know what it's like to love, and to be loved in return.
“I… have a confession to make,” she whispers, but he already knows what it is.
He lifts his head so he can look at her. “You never had writer’s block, did you?”
She tsks her tongue in a very anticlimactic notion, as if he’s ruined her surprise, smacking his shoulder weakly before she hides behind her own hands in embarrassment. She peeks between her fingers. “Am I that obvious?”
“No,” he chuckles, “but a writer as good as you wouldn’t have that much difficulty with a crazy case like mine.”
Her hands fall away from her face and there’s a whimsical shrug of her shoulder that Vash finds particularly amusing. A bashfulness begins to form in her smile and in her movements as she traces a scar on his bicep, looking anywhere except his eyes.
“I just… I wanted to make sure you know you deserve things too, Vash. You’re a good person.”
Their eyes meet briefly before she looks away again, but Vash touches her cheek and they both smile.
"Thank you, Meryl," he says gently, and he has a feeling it won't be the last time he says it.
As they clean up his bed and crawl under the covers, Vash curls around her frame as she holds him, combs her fingers through his hair as she lulls him to sleep and even in his dreams, he can hear her saying his name.