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“This is gonna sound weird, but, uhh… Can I use your shower?” Vash asks in an unsteady voice.
Milly was just resting in her and Meryl’s suite, catching some alone time after Meryl went out to turn in their most recent report when Vash knocked on their door.
“Of course,” she says simply, letting him in. She’d actually been worrying about him.
“Oh? Oh.”
He looks surprised, probably expecting more pushback. Then, clasping his hands together, as if getting into a role:
“Oh, you’re a life saver! Thank God, Milly, I didn’t know what to do… It’s just that I’ve ran out of my shower tokens, and I tried to refund the days I’ve payed for ahead to get more of those — better on the streets than dirty, right? — but the manager just wouldn’t budge…”
Milly breaks off his unasked for explanations with, “It’s alright, you don’t have to tell the whole story.”
Vash stares at her for a few moments. It almost seems like he has a hard time understanding what she’s saying, and his eyes keep twitching like he can’t fully focus on her. He must’ve had the whole speech prepared — it almost seems like he was rattling off a script as fast as he could, — but her interjection threw him off.
When he lowers his hands but still doesn’t respond, she finally gathers up the courage to ask what’s been nagging her this whole interaction — hell, the last few days if she’s being honest:
“Mr. Vash, are you alright?”
He giver her a facsimile of a smile.
“Aw, no need for mistering, you girls’ been chasing me for how long now?”
Three years, actually. That’s counting the two years he went missing, but still, it makes for quite a long time.
Of course, Milly doesn’t say that, nor does she say something close, like it just being the way she was raised — not the whole truth, but a truth nonetheless… But it’s not about honorifics at all. He only said that to avoid her question.
So she repeats again, “Are you alright?”
By now she’s certain he isn’t. He’s been avoiding everyone’s company, but not like when he’s about to skip town — he’d be gone by yesterday if that was his intention. More like as if something has been bothering him, and he didn’t want anyone to see. And it is something that could be seen: now that he’s standing close to her, she spots the beads of sweat on his temples, the redness in his eyes, and the dark circles underneath...
Vash’s practiced smile falters, but he doesn’t give up his farce as easily.
“I’m just not feeling well… Nothing contagious,” he puts in quickly,” just… Under the weather. A bit.”
He certainly looks unwell, she’d gathered that much. But it doesn’t look like a fever or a stomach bug. Can he possibly be hiding a wound? But then, he’d been acting off way before their latest shootout, and if it were that severe he wouldn’t be able to hide it for so long. There’s something going on, and it’s bothering him, and it bothers Milly that she doesn’t even have a clue what that something might be.
“Are you hurt? Is there anything I can help with?”
“Yeah,” he says weakly right before adding, “No! Ha-ha… Silly me, mixing up words…”
He tries to pass it off as a joke, but his breath falters and he tries to hold back a grimace. He grabs the fabric of the coat at his chest, pulling and readjusting it as if it doesn’t fit.
All the while his eyes keep darting past her to the bathroom door.
If Meryl were here she would’ve probably interrogated him until he gave out and explained himself properly. But Milly can’t help but see the effort it takes Vash to just stand there and talk, so she takes pity on him.
“Alright, c’mon.”
She puts a hand on his shoulder and nudges him towards the door. He takes the first couple of steps automatically before his brain catches up to him.
“Oh, uhh… It’s fine, you don’t have to—”
“Uh-huh,” she nods, all the while lightly pushing him into the bathroom.
There, Vash goes straight for the sink and grabs onto it for support. His shoulders sag, and he sits heavily on the edge of the tub. Again, there’s that vacant look in his eyes, like he has little clue where he is or what’s going on.
Milly closes the door behind them. It seems like he’s not going to be able to handle this alone.
“Do you need help undressing?” she asks.
She doesn’t want to assume: after all, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong exactly, and besides that, wouldn’t want to go against his wishes unknowingly.
After a small pause, he says, no longer playing it up:
“Yeah… Yeah. If you would be so kind…”
“Of course.”
She bends down to help him unbutton his long coat from the bottom up while he works on it the opposite direction. It’s a relief, honestly, that he accepted her offer. Although… Maybe not that much of relief after all, she realizes, because it must really be that bad for him to give in so easily. If “easy” is even fitting for several rounds of poking and prodding…
The coat is unbuttoned almost up to his waist when all of a sudden the rest of the buttons pop themselves out simultaneously.
“Ah!” she yelps in surprise.
“My bad! Forgot there’s this…” Vash points at a small button (but not the clothing kind, the kind you press) hidden on the inside of the coat’s tall collar. “Uh, whatcha-call-it… The thing that makes it pop.”
She looks at it closer, but it’s just a little button, no clue as to how in the world it connects to the front panel of fabric, or what mechanism it uses to make every button undo itself at once.
“Is that how you’re able to slip out of your coat in an eye of a blink?” she asks excitedly.
“Yeah, that old trick…”
She’s itching to learn all about how it works — she’s never considered that was something you could pull off with clothes! Her aunt Mark, a professional seamstress, would be so eager to hear about it! — but has to remind herself that it’s not the time. And besides, Vash probably wouldn’t be able to give a comprehensive answer right now even if he wanted to. So she just helps him out of the coat and weighs it in her hands. It’s heavy, but also lighter than she imagined it to be. It’s definitely a testament to its craftsmen’s talent.
“Sorry I had you undo it by hand,” Vash says sheepishly, “I’m sorry you have to deal with all this, I… I just couldn’t come to anyone else with this.”
As he unbuckles the boots, she folds his coat so that its coat tails don’t wipe the floor, and puts it on the closed lid of the toilet seat for the lack of a better place.
“Not even Wolfwood?”
Vash makes a sound indicating complicated feelings on the matter.
“Well, he’s out of town anyway…”
Huh. And there she was, thinking they would be close enough to… Regardless, she doesn’t press further on that.
She hears Vash unbuckle his belt and turns away both from awkwardness and to give him a semblance of privacy. Then he unbuckles his belt, the second one. Then his other belt. Then his other other belt. Then… Just how many belts does he have?! She considers counting but it’s hard to make out in the click-clack of his pants. Eventually they hit the floor with a dramatic clatter. Another heavy thud follows, and she stays turned away for just a little extra time as Vash crawls into the bathtub with a groan.
When she turns to look, she sees him sitting in the tub with his knees pulled to his chest. He still wears his leather undergarment, and with some relief Milly sees that he kept the bottom piece on as well. She also sees his myriad of scars, as prominent on his legs as on the rest of his body, but she tries not to stare.
“Could you, um, help to get this off?” he asks, not looking up at her. “I took off my arm too soon and, uh…”
He shrugs his stump.
“Of course."
She pauses to move aside the clutter of his be-bealted pants and boots — now that gear is properly heavy! She leaves it all on the floor, but picks up the prosthetic arm and places it on top of the coat for safekeeping.
Stepping close to the tub he has situated himself in, she asks, "Do I just pull it up, or…”
He shows her to a hidden zipper on his back, and the thick leather armor comes undone, making her think of a turtle shell. Vash straightens his legs out a bit so that she can peel it off of him at the front. As she pulls it almost feels like it’s glued in place, then with a tug comes a sick gurgling noise. Like an unplugged drain.
Vash shudders.
Milly is too afraid to ask at this point. As she pulls away his shell, viscous strands of something dark cling to it, only breaking apart when she shakes it.
What hits her the strongest is the smell. It smells like forgotten wet laundry, stale and stuffy, but worse. Like a sewer… No, much different. It reminds her of rot, but not the trashcan kind and not like a dead animal, more so like a compost pile, except there’s something home-like and earthy to compost. This smells awful in every way, and it smells like sickness. The closest Milly can describe, it smells like if rotten apples got themselves tangled up in forgotten laundry, then fell in a hole filled with water where they died horribly.
And then she finally looks at what’s been hiding beneath the leather.
“What…”
She doesn’t even know how to put it. She’s never seen anything like this.
There is a vertical slit running down his scarred chest, all the way from protruding clavicle to the lower ribs, although with the way he’s hunching it’s hard to judge just how far down it goes. It’s not like an another scar, and it can’t be, because its cleft is black as tar and the foul liquid stains the skin surrounding it. It’s not a scar, and it’s not blood that’s bleeding from it. Some part of Milly wishes it was. If this was a wound, that would explain everything, and although dangerous, she’d know how to bandage it before forcing Vash to go to the hospital.
With this… she doesn’t know what to think.
“Disgusting, I know,” Vash says, trying to force a chuckle. It sounds pained.
Milly catches herself staring and wants to contradict him, but can’t find a way that would be convincing. He saw her reaction, saw her nose wrinkle when the smell hit her, saw the apprehension… She feels bad for making him feel even worse than he already does.
And that’s what’s important here, she reminds herself: he is in a bad shape, and he came to her of all people for help.
This shakes her out of her trans somewhat. She turns away to grab a handful of tokens from her stash on a shelf and fumbles putting a couple into the slot near the shower head. She puts the rest on the side of the tub so that she doesn’t have to reach far — one token grants a meek minute of water flow, and they’ll certainly need a bunch.
Vash flinches when the first drops of water hit his skin.
“Sorry,” Milly mutters as she adjusts the temperature.
It takes a few precious seconds, but doesn’t cause the same reaction on the second pass. Vash still tenses up, breathes through his teeth, but holds still.
The black gunk clings to his skin, and there are visible outlines of his undergarment where the substance had dried and formed a flaky crust. As though blood, except it’s definitely not that, but something just as bad…
Vash grabs a bar of soap — Meryl’s personal bar, but Milly doesn’t tell him this — and lathes it on his chest gingerly, avoiding the edges of the slit. When much of the grime comes off she sees why: the skin there is red with inflammation. She bites her lip, thinking about it building up in the last few days. No wonder he had been so cranky and withdrawn! Why on earth didn’t he deal with it sooner…
Despite being unfocused, Vash manages to wash most of the gunk off before the pressure in the shower head dips out and slows to a trickle, marking the tokens expiring. Assuming all that’s left is washing off the soap, Milly is about to put in another one, but Vash’s attempts to catch the slippery soap bar cause another portion of dark liquid to bleed out.
“Shit!” he hisses. “Shit-shit-shit…”
He fumbles the soap again, and it escapes to the other edge of the tub, where the abandoned leather gear is soaking. Milly puts down the sadly dripping shower head and fetches the renegade. She places it on the edge of the tub and looks at Vash in uncertainty. He’s still avoiding looking up at her.
“Where…” — she swallows, — “where does it come from?”
“Do you really wanna know?”
She doesn’t, not really. But that doesn’t really matter, because how is she supposed to help if she doesn’t know what she’s dealing with?
“But there…” She fumbles with trying to phrase the question differently. “I just think if it’s goin’ to keep comin’, there must be somewhere it comes from? Wouldn’t that be more helpful to clean out the, um… the source, then?”
Vash sighs.
“Yes. Yes, that would be more productive.”
“Then why won’t you just tell me?”
Vash sighs again, and it’s a sigh of an adult getting annoyed at a toddler for asking something stupid.
Milly is much too familiar with that kind of sighing, and it makes her act defensively.
“Listen, I’m already helpin’ you! If you want to keep secrets, that’s fine by me, but you’re makin’ it harder for me to help you. Why don’t you want to make it easier for the both of us?”
That finally makes him look up. He meets her eyes with surprise, but then his expression softens somewhat and he looks apologetic.
“Because…” he begins, but then cuts himself off. “No, you’re right. I’ve already asked too much of you, it’s not fair to keep you in the dark.”
In that moment, Milly is the closest she’s ever been to understand Meryl’s persistent annoyance with him.
“Alright,” she says, voice even now. “Tell me then.”
He nods, but doesn’t look so sure. If anything, he looks scared. He breathes in and out slowly, purposefully, and it seems he tries hard to keep it under control. His fingers tap out a rat-a-tap-tap on the side of the tub.
“It’s, um… Even if I could explain it, it would take too long. I think… I hope it’s easier to just show you. Please don’t…”
He sucks in a breath and grabs the edge of the tub firmly.
“…freak out.”
He arches his back as if he’s about to do a nice stretch, but instead freezes in that position, his muscles taut like a loaded arbalest. He takes as deep of a breath as he can manage and then he… unfurls. She doesn’t know how else to describe that action of his chest unraveling: caving in at the edges before contracting and tearing apart. No, not tearing, opening. It opens. His chest opens like a mouth, like a clam — like his ribs became jelly and curled outwards, revealing a pit full of that same black liquid. Despite the unnaturally smooth edges the opening turns out lopsided, restricted by a metal cage on one side and the tension of scar tissue all around it. It resembles a mouth twisted in a painful grimace. Barely any light makes it inside, but there is something moving there, something that’s not just the liquid oozing out and trickling down Vash’s stomach.
Milly feels her own stomach turn. It’s gross and mesmerizing at the same time. This isn’t a contradiction, even, but a double-edged truth of it.
It’s so strange, so alien, it makes the curiosity take over apprehension. Without thinking it through, she reaches out to touch the edge of the opening, just to see if it still feels like skin or maybe something else entirely…
Vash grabs her wrist.
The speed of his reaction startles her.
“No,” he says before she can make a sound.
He lets go of her hand slowly, making sure she got the message. She sure did. His grip verged on painful. And she almost jumped out of her skin right there!
Vash must realize this, because he tries to elaborate in an apologetic tone:
“No, it’s, uhh…” His eyes hop all around the bathtub, desperate to escape anywhere from his revealing position. He just can’t seem to find the right words. “It’s, um… It’s sensitive…”
“A sensitive spot? Or matter?”
“Yeah...” he manages.
That’s not helpful, not at all, but she can’t just spend the whole day pulling words out of him. That’s just unpleasant for the both of them. He’s shaking slightly, she notices, probably still feverish… His hand felt hot on hers. It’s best not to drag this out, she thinks. Better to just move on.
“Alrighty then,” she says a bit too cheerfully. Truth is, she’s about as nervous as he is. And her heart is still racing from being grabbed so suddenly. It really didn’t like that, her heart. “How are we going to go about this?”
“Shower head blast.”
She waits for an indication that this was a joke. Then maybe that it was a really dead-pan joke. Then, maybe just a little bit………….
No, he seems serious.
“Are you sure? You said it’s sensitive…”
He waives her off.
“Yeah-yeah, but neither of us gonna have to touch it that way, so… Go for it, I’ll be fine.”
He doesn’t sound so sure, but Milly doesn’t argue. She pushes in a token and waits the few seconds it takes for the water to start running. Vash takes a deep breath and straightens up for the thing in his chest to open wider. Milly looks at it as she counts the seconds. Hesitantly, she aims the shower head at Vash’s stomach to wash off the fresh black streaks. Then water pressure builds up and she aims it straight into the the dark gap in his chest.
Two things happen then: black liquid splashes out, and Vash doubles over with a pained groan.
Milly drops the shower head, startled. Water splashes everywhere before she shuts it off.
Vash coughs and dry heaves like he’s been hit badly, cursing with just his lips because he can barely make a sound apart from wheezing.
“Sorry!” Milly yelps. “I’m sorry, so sorry, you said it would be fine…”
For a few moments he can’t even respond. Milly can only stand there and wait for him to catch his breath. She pats his shoulder awkwardly, scared and powerless to help in any other way.
He coughs and coughs and coughs and coughs... The sound of that painful in itself.
Black goo spurts out, thinned out by water but still viscous enough to slather down his chest and tummy, slow and gruesome.
She knows this isn’t blood. She knows this, but it doesn’t stop this from looking like he’s bleeding out in front of her. Feels just like it too.
“Do you need water, anything?” she tries.
Vash lets out a laugh that sounds like a cough that sounds like a sob.
“Nope. Too much water! Fu-uck…” he groans.
He leans back a little to see the extent of the damage: his lower half is splattered all over, and so is the whole tub. Some stuff even got on the walls and floor.
His eyes are watering from all the coughing, or maybe crying. He makes another awful laughing-but-wrong sound, taking it all in. He touches the stuff pooling at the waistband of his boxers and squirms in disgust. Then he wipes his eyes, realizes his hand is too dirty for that and he just smeared the stuff all over his face, and — she doesn’t know if that’s what sets him off but it just might — just runs his hand along his temple and rests his head on it. A tear cleans a narrow path down the dark splotch on his cheekbone.
Milly doesn’t know what to say apart from a quiet, “I’m sorry…”
“No, no, I’m an idiot for thinking this…” He shakes his head, not-really-laughing. “That this would make it better.”
“I can still help you clean up.”
He looks up at her for a change, his expression blank. Devoid of life.
“Why bother?”
“Because… Because I want to.”
“I don’t get you.”
It looks like he really doesn’t, and that stings.
“Sure,” she shrugs. “I’m still here, helping you.”
He doesn’t have anything to say to that. But she’s still set on her wish, just like she said so many times already. For such a smart guy it’s a real shame he doesn’t get things simple as this.
“If you don’t want to touch this… stuff, I can. Sure, it’s unpleasant, but I grew up on a farm, and it seems much better than cleaning out thomas stables. I can try to get my hand, well, in there, if you’re okay with that.”
He shakes his head emphatically.
“Bad idea.”
“Okay. Is there any other way we could—”
“No.”
“Well…”
She shrugs with her hands, showing there’s not really much a choice then.
He looks at her again, an embodiment of the phrase “like lamb to the slaughter”. Milly’s family never grew lambs, but she gets the saying now.
“Please don’t…”
“But you need this,” she says in a small voice, basically pleading.
It hurts to look at him, and it hurts even more to do nothing about it. Just what is that thing that it’s causing him this much anguish?
“Please,” she tries again, “just let me help you.”
He shuts his eyes tight and leans into his hand. Tears keep making their way out, but she’s still not quite sure if it’s him crying or not. She’s just never seen a person cry like that, with just their eyes. Holding up a conversation as well, however strained. If he is crying, and he still turns her down, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. Maybe cry as well.
After a long pause he mutters, so quiet it’s barely audible:
“Okay.”
“Oh thank God.” She breathes out a breath she didn’t know she’s been holding in. “Alright, okay.”
She picks up the abandoned shower head and straightens up. The routine movements of putting in tokens and waiting for the water pressure to build up grounds her somewhat. She decides to sit down on the edge of the tub, facing Vash who’s been following her preparations with a weary look.
“Would you, um, lean back a bit?” she asks.
She tries not to make a big deal out of it, God knows he’s already beyond uncomfortable, but sticking your hand inside of someone is kind of a big deal no matter how you prefer to think about it, so yeah, it is at the very least awkward.
Vash says a barely audible acknowledgment and leans back, but also away from her. She has to scoot closer.
“I’ll stop if you tell me to,” she says, angling the shower head to wash down the black streaks on his chest. “Sorry if I came on too strong, I don’t—”
“No, you’re right. Just… Just get on with it.”
His voice is strained and as much as he tries not to show it, he looks properly scared. Milly doesn’t question him, though. There isn’t any way to make this less awkward or scary or uncomfortable, all that’s left is to do what needs to be done. So she switches the shower head into her left hand and wets her right one.
Vash takes a few deep breaths and unfurls his chest for her, although he’s so tense it doesn’t spread as wide as it did before. But with the way he pointedly faces the wall and blinks off tears she doesn’t have the heart to ask him to adjust. Welp, no easy way about it…
Gently, or as gently as she possibly can, she brings her hand close and slowly reaches inside the opening. She tries to avoid the edges, but it’s quite a tight squeeze, and the backs of her fingers brush the entrance despite her best efforts.
Vash flinches and makes a pitiful noise.
She mutters her apologies, but there just isn’t an easy way around it.
Her hand slips inside easily. It’s hot and wet inside— reminds her of the inside of a mouth, or, well… some other places the suns don’t shine. No matter how you put it, innards feel like innards. The stuff that coats the inner surface is viscous and clingy, verging on slimy. But the inner surface isn’t just smooth: it is covered in bumps and—
Something brushes her fingers. Then another something — lots of somethings, thin and smooth, start touching her hand seemingly from all sides. It stops her in her tracks. But these — what’s the right word? Feelers? She can’t remember anything more fitting so feelers it is — don’t seem to be pushing her out or blocking the way, merely exploring. So she gathers they’re on the same page, then. She pushes her hand just a little further and her fingertips meet the back wall that seems to consist of the thinest, tenderest filaments. Vash voices something in between a moan and a sob at that, and Milly marks this as a sign to be especially careful of those.
When she offered a more hands-on approach, she didn’t really have an idea of how exactly to go about it, but now, having felt the layout, it’s actually quite simple. Slightly twisting her hand palm side up and cupping it, she aims the stream of water at the base of her palm that remains outside of Vash’s chest. That way instead of a powerful blast he gets a steady fill of water. She moves her hand inside slowly, up and down, threading between the moving feelers, and lets the dark liquid ooze out of the bottom of the opening.
It still smells vile, but by now she’s somewhat used to the smell. All things considered, it’s way nicer than thomas manure! But she doesn’t say that because it’s not that much of a compliment: pretty much everything in this world is nicer than thomas manure. Which is a shame, cause she does like the animals quite a lot despite their nasty attitude… But her thoughts are getting sidetracked. What really interests her right now is how come Vash can still be alive and breathing with such a wide gash in his chest. Sure, she knows by now it’s not a wound, but where did his lungs and heart go? She can feel his heartbeat echo through the many feelers, and the walls squeeze around her hand tighter with each unsteady breath he takes, but it’s almost like… they were moved? It just doesn’t make sense otherwise, her being able to fit almost the entirety of her hand inside and not bumping into any organs. Was his anatomy always this weird? But then, she remembers quite clearly the first time she and Meryl ever saw him shirtless, and there wasn’t so much as an outline right there, where her hand currently disappears into his torso. She is quite sure of that, despite the memory being from over two years ago. So, does the slit only appear there sometimes? He is a plant after all, maybe it’s seasonal change…
Milly itches to ask that despite knowing Vash isn’t keen on sharing. She looks at his face for a change, just to check if something had changed. His expression still hurts to look at, but he’s moving his lips slightly, as if trying to say something. He struggles to steady his breath — she can feel the tension in him at the very source, misplaced lungs fighting it to expand further than before. She retrieves her hand a bit to let him get a breath, scooping goo on her way out and washing it away.
“Y-you’re wasting,” he gets out, trying hard not to choke up, “t-tokens… Go rough but fast. I can t-take it.”
Milly shushes him.
“Don’t you worry about that. I’m movin’ slow on purpose, don’t wanna make it even more painful for you…”
She says that absent-mindedly while gently scooping out another handful of ooze. Of course the only way about matters intimate as this would be to proceed with care, why would she ever make it hard on him on purpose…
In response to her remark Vash tenses up and chokes on air. Milly’s eyes dart back to his face, an apology ready to come off the tip of her tongue because she assumes she might’ve scratched his innards with her nails, but it’s not that.
His expression twists in such a way Milly no longer has to wonder if he’s been crying or not. He certainly does now.
Sobs make his chin bop into his clavicle, tears and snot run down his face despite him shutting his eyes tight, still refusing to look down at his chest. Milly cooes something gentle but it doesn’t do much, of course.
"It's okay," she says quietly. "I'm not hurting you, am I?" she asks just to be sure.
He shakes his head emphatically.
"N-no," he manages to get out. "Feels good. S-so good..."
At that, he chokes up again, his face twisting into a devastaded expression. He runs a hand down his face and Milly angles the shower head to help him wash down tears and blow his nose.
The contradiction between his words and expression leaves her with a bad feeling. She doesn't get how any of that might seem pleasant, but hopes it does bring relief as she intended. The feelers sure seem enthusiastic about her hand's presence, so she moves on despite it being much more difficult now. With each strong sob his chest seizes around Milly’s hand, enveloping her so tight it’s hard to move. As it does, Vash mouths a stream of endless sorries. Milly can only tell him it’s okay, and to please remember to breathe, both for his and for her hand’s sake. She wants no more than to hold him then, but can’t: the tokens she’d put in would expire if they took a break, and she’s already wasted a good part. So she can only rid him of this feeling by extruding it by a handful out of his cracked open chest while he sobs and coughs and shakes through it.
It’s rough. Her own eyes sting as well, but somehow she never ends up crying, way too focused on taking good care of him. All she can do is reassure him, stir the water inside his chest gently, scoop the dark contents out, rinse her hand off and repeat. Reassure, rinse, repeat. Rinse and repeat.
She doesn’t count the minutes, but it takes quite a lot of repetition for Vash to calm down and for the contents of his chest gash to brighten.
“Looking much better!” Milly cheers when the water coming out becomes light gray instead of black.
Vash lets out a big relieved sigh. He is breathing even and deep by then. He doesn’t avert his eyes from the scene of his open chest anymore, just watches Milly move her hand through him with a detached expression, eyes half-closed.
“Lets leave it at that,” he says quietly.
“But—”
She wants to argue that there’s still some of the vile stuff left behind, but Vash stops her by taking her hand in his.
“Please. I can only take so much…”
“Oh. Of course, then. Just one last rinse and we’re done, alright?”
He nods in agreement.
Right. She got carried away a little there, forgot that this was hard for him to bear… But she appreciates him telling her in time. And she appreciates that he didn’t grab her out of nowhere this time, touching her gently instead. That’s what she thinks about the most while she fills up the cavity in his chest one last time.
“Could you lean forward now? As far as you can, and try to squeeze it all out.”
This results in a gush of grayish water coming out. It’s still somewhat dark, but at least it’s see-through and there are barely any black clots. Speaking of the latter, Milly has been washing down the mess they had made of the bathtub with any excess seconds of water — diluted, the vile liquid came off quite easily. Only parts of the walls and Vash’s leather gear still sadly soaking in the other end still bear black traces, but that can be left for later. What matters most is that Vash is finally free of the mysterious liquid that bothered him, at least on the outside.
Well, almost.
“Oh, you have some in your hair…” she notes. “Don’t worry, there’s still a couple of tokens to wash it.”
“You really don’t have to,” he says weakly.
His eyes stay closed for way longer than it’s necessary to blink, as if he has a hard time staying awake. All that crying must’ve really tired him out.
“It’s no big deal,” she assures, “I’ve washed my siblings’ hair lots of times. Just a thing you do to help out…
“Oh, your hair feels really nice, actually,” she notes with surprise as she lathes it up with shampoo. “I mean, it looks nice, you just wouldn’t tell it’s that soft from the way it stands up…”
“Oh. Um, thanks,” he says quietly.
“I’ve always been curious, how do you style it in that way? It doesn’t shine like gel, so it’s probably a spray or powder, right? I mean, I don’t know much about all that, but my cousin Lee used to have this impressive mohawk, and it was a whole task to get it standing up properly…”
She runs her mouth for the last two tokens worth of water. Vash doesn’t really respond, and she notices he goes on crying silently, although it’s hard to tell tears apart with all the water going down his face. But he leans into her hand as she cards through his hair, taking head scratches like an old sad dog, so she hopes there’s some relief in it for him. Also, his hair does feel nice… It’s a shame people can’t just touch each other’s hair like that in polite society. Makes her somewhat glad she got this rare moment, although she wishes she hasn’t, with the way Vash got to feel… but still a little bit glad. Just for a teeny tiny bit it’s genuinely nice. Silver linings, she supposes.
After he’s all cleaned up, she dries his hair a bit with a fresh towel.
He lets her, only saying, “I’m used to doing this one-handed, you know.”
“Well, yes, but isn’t it nice to have someone to help out?”
He doesn’t admit that, but he also doesn’t argue against it, which does make it seem like he’s admitting it. He still prefers to get dressed by himself, and Milly leaves him to it. As she sits on the edge of the bed, waiting for him to leave the bathroom, she realizes they’ve been there for quite a long time, and Meryl still haven’t came back. Must’ve met someone at the office, or ran into some trouble that caused her to spend more time there… Well, she’d handle any trouble, Milly’s sure of it. In truth, she wishes Meryl takes her sweet time, because if she sees Vash in their suite, — a rare event to begin with — especially walking out of the bathroom, she surely would like to know what unlikely trace of events has led to that, and what, pray and tell, is all of this about. Oh God, she’d interrogate Vash to death…
Now, she never thought of Meryl as evil or likened her to the devil. But here she is, thinking about her, then suddenly the door to their suite opens and Meryl walks in.
Milly greets her and manages to maintain smalltalk right up to the moment when Meryl notices the clanking coming from behind the bathroom door and asks the dreaded question:
“Milly, is there someone in our bathroom? Or, put it this way: who is there, in our bathroom?”
In lieu of an answer, Vash walks out — thankfully, fully dressed at that point.
“Hi, Meryl~ Uh, I… It’s not what it looks like,” he begins meekly.
“It’s exactly what it looks like!” Milly interrupts. “Mr. Vash here got trouble with the shower in his room, so I let him use ours. Right, Mr. Vash?”
“Yeah… Yep, that’s right, ha-ha,” he says with a bashful look. “Thanks, much thanks, I’ll be out of your hair now.”
It sounds even more fake than his usual mock bravado, but that’s enough to convince Meryl. And, to be completely honest, if Milly wasn’t just there to watch him fall apart, she likely wouldn’t be able to tell this moment from any of his many white lies and omissions. She finds that revelation concerning.
“Alright,” Meryl says, rolling her eyes at Vash’s act. “Really glad you’re just a weirdo instead of a creep. He did use his own tokens, right?” She asks Milly quite sternly. “I’m not wasting any more company budget on him.”
“Sure he did,” beams Milly before Vash can put in a word. “Well, out you go, Mr. Vash.”
With that, she starts pushing him towards the door before he says something silly or, god forbid, starts apologizing for nothing.
Vash can only get out a hasty goodbye before he’s rushed out of the door. There she finally stops, and he turns around to face her. For a moment he scans the space behind her, but it seems like Meryl had moved deeper into the room, because he drops his goofy expression.
“You really didn’t have to,” he says quietly, looking at her with his sad old dog eyes.
“It’s alright.”
Not quite. She just lied to her boss for the first time. It makes her feel bad, to have it come out so naturally. Daddy raised no lier, and there she was… But then, it wasn’t for selfish reasons. She did it for Vash’s sake, and she hopes that made it okay… If only somewhat.
“Are you going to be alright?” she says after a pause, that being a more pressing issue than her consciousness at the moment.
“Of course. What choice do I have?”
He says that with a heartbreaking smile.
And Milly just can’t help herself then. Before she can think against it, she steps ahead and hugs him.
Vash grows very still for a moment, and she’s terribly afraid she’ll have to let go and it’s going to leave an awkward space between them… But then he slumps into the embrace and puts his arms around her shoulders. And she can tell he’s a hugger then, from the way he applies just the right amount of pressure, making it feel like she’s being enveloped — a sturdy and safe feeling she only now realizes she’s been missing. As much as she likes Meryl, she isn’t a touchy person. it’s a sad realization, but Milly hasn’t had a proper hug since she’d seen her family last year.
She’s sorry she has to let go as quickly as she does. She feels that Vash needed that too, and it just makes her wonder: why didn’t they come to this sooner? They’ve been through so much together and never before shared as much as a clap on the shoulder. Why did he have to be at his lowest to come to her for comfort when she would’ve given it happily any time if he just asked?
But as Vash leans away, he says, very quietly:
“Thank you. For everything.”
And as she tries to come up with something to say, he grants her a small appreciative smile of his. A genuine one. Fleeting as a patch of blue sky in a storm. Then in a true natural disaster fashion he’s up up and away, coat tails swishing and buckles clanking down the corridor.
“You too,” she says absentmindedly, mostly to herself.