Title: sōlus eō
Rating: General Audiences
AO3 Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Categories: gen
Fandoms: Trigun Stampede (Anime 2023), Trigun (Anime & Manga 1995-2008)
Relationships: Nicholas D. Wolfwood & Vash the Stampede, implied Nicholas D. Wolfwood/Vash the Stampede
Additional Tags: Unreliable Narrator, Introspective Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Ambiguous/Open Ending, spoilers for the manga, Prose Poem
Summary:
To love a God was a privilege for us savages. We wore the skins of loyal sheep walking amongst those considered less fortunate.
Oh this shithole of a sand planet, nobody was supposed to seek salvation. There were neither religions nor morality to abide people with. Laws existed in a zero-sum game whereas absolute power had a monopoly on justice. Nicholas had known this since the earliest days of his so-called childhood. Was it blasphemy of him, an agent of Gods, to criticise the act of loving Gods?
To love a God was a privilege for us savages. We wore the skins of loyal sheep walking amongst those considered less fortunate. We might call ourselves priests, but in the end we were just butchers in the name of repentance. All the scars on Nicholas’ body were a testament for that. Yet there were days like today, when Nicholas looked at Vash and yearned for all the things he knew that were impossible. The seeds of hunger were planted and watered daily with glimpses and facets of Vash. It fabled himself still, for Nicholas was first and foremost an obligate carnivore, and despite all Vash’s walking breathing human qualities, he distinctively smelled like the purest herbs.
On days when the weather was neither too sunny nor windy, as the temperature was borderline accommodating, Nicholas would categorise Vash to parsley—herb to go for sour stomach. The roads they marched were full of bitterness, from those brainless hunters gunning for Vash’s head, to all the broken promises Vash scattered along the way. Nicholas was self-aware enough to recognise himself as a terrible babysitter, but he was quite confident that he was otherwise an excellent companion of voiceless guns. Scratch that, thinking about Vash’s vow not to kill anyone, even all the trashbags walking around pretended to be human, voiceless guns might be the most useless companion ever for him.
Nicholas was lying awake under the three moons when the questions surfaced his mind. He wondered how much knowledge was lost, and how many legacies were left behind, when his kind first settled on this sandhole and decided that leaving was a no-go. He wondered if they had known how the five moons would wreck havocs on his body. He wondered if they had used parsley when they feasted, both as the forerunner of death because he was a troll, and as a delicacy because he was curious about Vash’s taste. Vash felt warm to his touch, his heart beat so strongly it was as loud as a drum in Nicholas’ ears, and more than ever Nicholas realised his unhealthy fascination with this walking phenomenon named Vash. He might not be his typical human, with all the mouth-watering smells of tender meat, but he still possessed one of the most diverse profiles of flavours. The beast inside Nicholas cocked its head, intrigued.
The longer Nicholas travelled with Vash, the more he associated Vash with sage, because of immortality, wasn’t it an irony? Nicholas saw Vash bleeding countless times, for himself and others, trashbags or not. His blood was red, viscerally warm, it was so plainly ordinary Nicholas startled himself for thinking otherwise. Sometimes, Nicholas would look at Vash’s red coat and wonder if he could put a purple sage flower on the left collar. Vash had walked alone on this desert years before Nicholas, and he would walk alone many years more after Nicholas. Perhaps for Vash, there weren’t any differences pre and post Nicholas, perhaps for him all Nicholas would ever be was nothing more than a tiny palm of sand out of this vast forsaken desert.
Long ago, the first time Nicholas got bitten by a sand snake and thought of dying, it was also the first time he was taught of using sage for medicinal purposes. The harsh environment of the desert made it impossible for most of common medicinal herbs to survive. The snake bite opened Nicholas’ eyes to the reality that the lance-shaped violet flowers spiking in the backyard of the orphanage were not only for the kitchen nor show. Every time Nicholas called Vash Spikey, he also thought of those purple lancers, smelled and felt distinctly like flowers, but much better endurance than just a single bloom. So yes, he was secretly calling Vash the Stampede sage flower in his head, but nobody needed to know that, and he was gonna carry this knowledge to his grave anyway.
Vash might be, not one of the most, but the most loyal person Nicholas had ever known. Messiah complex aside, Vash was also a walking contradiction. He was like the rosemary sprigs they entwined to the bridal wreaths, yet also the same twigs that people put on coffins and graves, a symbol for both love and mourning. Maybe for him and his brother—the last two of his kind—wedding was just another synonym for funeral. As the days drove closer, Nicholas observed the moons and asked himself when his final phase would arrive. He was also curious about Vash’s reaction. The beast inside him growled every time Vash was on the verge of tear. He wanted to know whether Vash would shed just a single tear for him; he wanted to know whether his tears would taste similarly salty or sharp like mint with a dash of pine tree, like rosemary.
When it happened, despite having vague ideas of its arrival, Nicholas was still blindsided by how much pain, heat, thirst, itch rushed through his corrupted veins. Funny how he got here, in this abandoned church in the middle of nowhere, face down to the floor and yet head full of rosemary smell from leftover rushes and nuptial wreaths. Perhaps it was a curse and a blessing both that his head immediately got bombard by Vash and Vash smelling like rosemary, at least it soothed his hunger somewhat. He knew Vash was nearby, all his senses were so much more sensitive during this stage that he could practically close his eyes and inhale Vash’s panic, hearing Vash’s blood pumping through his heart. Nicholas chuckled out loud, he—a profane follower of God seeking relief in God’s house—came back and was ready to weep for forgiveness before the Lord, but the Lord paid no attention to Nicholas’ misery and turned a deaf ear to all his torment, an apt ending for his sacrilegious life.
In distant history, Nicholas learnt that people had linked thyme to their respective goddess of love. What did that tell Nicholas about this complicated emotional ball of yarns named “about Vash, a sprig of thyme poking on my seventh rib“? It came to nobody’s surprise that Nicholas was a shit babysitter, it was also crystal clear that the way Nicholas looked at Vash recently was different, that didn’t mean we should jump right onto the conclusion and sprinkle some salt on his fresh bleeding wound. However, Nicholas knew the perfect medicinal herb for binding wounds, and every single time he saw Vash’s skin knitting itself back together, after rains of bullets and slashings of axes and knives, Nicholas had this urge to heal him with herbs, to dress the wounds the old fashion way, with yarrow and thyme. Would it be better than leaving Vash to heal on his own? Nicholas had never known, and perhaps it would forever remain a mystery to him.
Vash was kneeling beside him, he was asking Nicholas about something, but his mind was in a haze and he was coughing up blood. The beast growled at the moons, and its hunger eclipsed everything inside his head. Nicholas wondered how long he could prolong the inevitable. Vash was right next to him and by Lord he smelled divine. He was the fresh mint tea with a taste of citrusy thyme. He was the heat simmering under his chest. He was the unparalleled sea salt that Nicholas had never tasted, yet remembered vividly thanks to inherited memories. Like a Déjà vu, because he was sure this had never happened before, he reached out and caught the side of Vash’s neck. The beast bared his teeth and inhaled deeply.
There was no soothing for his hunger anymore, and the prey was right in his claws.
Cheers to the feast.
End.
Author’s Note:
Title inspired by Greenday – Boulevard of Broken Dreams in Classical Latin (Bardcore/Medieval style).
Cross posted from AO3. Author is sleep deprived. There are two songs in this ficlet, first one is obviously above, second one is hiding in plain sight, kudo to anyone who can spot it. English is not my first language and my beta is currently the dead Rollo (/jk), all mistakes are mine.Yes it’s me and my midnight brainrot of werewolf Nicholas. Welcome to my circus.
Dead Erlkönige Society 