Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Insomnia ❯ Chapter 1

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Thanks to Renet and Anon for the wonderful beta work, and also to Angsty for additional comments.

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The stars never changed.

They did, he knew, their rigid patterns an illusion of time and distance; they would shift and become unrecognisable with the passing of millennia. But after a century, they looked the same.

Vash wriggled and sighed, hanging onto his blanket to keep the night air out of his cocoon as he shifted. Lina and her grandmother would be asleep now. They would have cooked their meal, and that one floorboard by the stove would have creaked whenever they trod on it. He'd relaid it more than once and it never fixed it. Grandma Sheryl would have played jazz on the radio while she stirred at a saucepan, and Lina would have made a face and tuned it to something more modern. And he would have laughed and set the table, except Lina would have done that the last couple of nights.

He rolled onto his side, fixing on Wolfwood’s dark figure lying a couple of feet away.

He didn’t blame Wolfwood. It would have played out the same even if he hadn’t turned up; the trouble with Lina and the gang was already in motion. But it would have been harder, alone and using Grandma Sheryl’s appropriated shotgun.

He would have had to leave anyway, once they knew who he was. And Wolfwood had been there, asking him to come with him. It hadn’t been much of a choice – he could leave alone, or with the man he barely knew.

He *felt* like he knew him, but that was an illusion too, one caused by the way their lives and personalities hooked together so easily. He knew some things about Wolfwood - quite a bit more than the man had told him. Enough to know there was still a lot more he wasn’t saying. That should probably bother him more than it did.

But he was here now and following Wolfwood's half-explanations and hints of something tied to Knives. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

He didn't want to think about Knives.

He rolled onto his back again, the stars still there, their patterns unaltered from every other time he'd stared up at them from this planet. He remembered looking from the windows of the ship with Rem, as she told him ancient myths of beasts, and of gods who played with people’s lives on a whim. He'd shared those same tales with Lina, pointing up into the night and cheerfully inventing the constellations as he went along, as Rem must have done. It hadn't felt like cheating – it was the stories that mattered, not which points of light in the sky had been given the names, passing them along to keep alive the people who'd believed.

He wondered if Lina would spread them further, telling her friends, maybe her children.

Keep them safe, Rem, he pleaded silently.

He'd done the best he could to protect them. Where there was a vacuum, more people would come with guns; it was the way this world worked. His designated town guard was hardly the most reliable man to trust people's lives to. He was scared enough to do as he was told, for now. But how long would it last? How long before he shook off the memory of Vash the Stampede and slunk away into the night, leaving Lina and her grandmother at the mercy of whatever band of thugs cared to wander into an isolated town?

Staying wouldn't have helped. He had to keep telling himself that. Staying would have brought the violence to them sooner.

He turned over once more, dragging his annoyingly reluctant blanket with him. And met Wolfwood’s wide open eyes glaring at him. “For Christ’s sake, Vash, can’t you just jerk off or something?”

Vash blinked a couple of moments before he managed to reply. “Ah. Am I keeping you awake?”

“Yeah. And last night, and the night before.”

“Ah. Sorry.” No wonder he was irritated. It wasn't all that surprising, really - nobody who lived their kind of life dealt well with irregular rustling noises in the night.

“Don’t apologise, do something about it. If you don’t, I’ll do it for you.” Wolfwood was still glaring, but Vash caught himself for a stunned second wondering if he was offering.... He probably meant that he’d brain him with the cross-gun or something.

"Okay, I'll... yeah." He rolled again so he was facing away from Wolfwood. After two years at Lina's, he was kind of out of practice with people talking so bluntly about how he dealt with his sex life, or the absence of it. Though there weren't many people **quite* as blunt as Wolfwood, not that he'd met, and he'd met a lot.

"I don't give a damn what you do, so long as you quit squirming."

Vash just sighed. Wolfwood obviously wasn't going to shut up about it until he stopped answering. Besides, there wasn't a lot he could say to that that he hadn't already said, and it didn't seem to make Wolfwood any less annoyed, so he lay and stared across the planet, keeping his breathing low and steady.

The fifth moon hung low over the horizon, a slender crescent that showed no mark.

The night was calm with only the lightest stirring of the air, too cold now for the chirpings of insects. He listened carefully for Wolfwood, but the man's breathing gave nothing away about his state of sleep. He could fake just as well as Vash, obviously, since Vash hadn't known he was awake before.

He lay still, cautious, determined not to piss him off any more. Tense, so he didn't rustle.

That was really going to help him sleep.

There were slight differences in the stars if he looked closely. A couple had turned nova over his lifetime, leaving dark wounds where once there had been fire, maybe even life.

There had to be life somewhere else, didn't there? Something sentient, aware? This struggling planet couldn't be all that was left of it.

Was there anyone still alive on the Earth?

His left leg wasn't comfortable. He'd rolled over in kind of a hurry, and it was tucked in too tight under his right, and if the bolt digging into his ankle wasn't annoying enough, his foot was going to go numb soon.

He'd have to stretch it out. Wolfwood couldn't really object to that. He'd still move around a bit if he *were* actually asleep. A small amount of noise was unavoidable and Wolfwood would just have to live with it.

But then Wolfwood had done the polite forbearance thing for two nights before he finally said anything, which Vash was feeling a bit guilty about now that he'd pointed it out. He probably didn't have much patience left.

He could just put up with a numb leg. He'd put up with worse. It wasn't like it would stop him from sleeping, since he wasn't sleeping anyway.

"Don't tell me you won't jerk off just 'cos I'm here," Wolfwood said.

It pretty much instantly killed off both the guilt and his own tolerance. "You're supposed to be asleep. I haven't moved once!"

"No, you've been lying there frozen like a scared lemming and I know it's not gonna last."

The scared lemming analogy wasn't doing a whole lot for Vash, but he ignored it in favour of Wolfwood's more important transgression, rolling back to face him and narrowing his eyes. "You've been listening deliberately! You expect me to be jacking off and you're listening!"

"I'm only listening 'cos you're so damn quiet. I wouldn't be listening if you actually **did* anything!"

"So first you complain that I'm noisy and then you complain that I'm quiet? That makes no sense at all!" Vash objected. "And now I'm really awake," he added, taking a certain malicious pleasure in knowing he'd inflict sleeplessness on Wolfwood too.

"You're not the only one," Wolfwood muttered, but loud enough to be sure he'd be heard.

"Good," he said, making no effort to keep the smugness from his tone.

The silence stretched out as they stared. Some insect noise would be really good about now, Vash thought.

"Damn it, Vash, come here!" Wolfwood sat up, shifted closer in a single smooth movement, and reached out.

Wolfwood's hand was resting on his blanket over his stomach. Just a pressure on his body, and a casual question in Wolfwood's eyes, and a tension that abruptly had nothing to do with irritation.

“I like women,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. He did like women. It just didn’t preclude him liking men.

“Whatever works,” Wolfwood replied easily, “but there aren’t any women around here right now.”

Vash exhaled softly; at least he knew now exactly what was on offer, because no telling the scale of the disaster in getting it wrong.

He smiled. "Yeah," he said, and Wolfwood's fingers were already tugging at Vash's blanket and then at his belt. Light, brushing touches against his groin as his trousers were opened, fast and efficient, and there was definitely something to be said for Eriks' simple clothes, because Wolfwood would have had a lot more trouble getting into Vash the Stampede's.

Brief shiver of cold air, and then Wolfwood's hand curled around his still mostly soft cock, skin calloused and rough against him. God, it was so simple, so warm, so good, a surge of anticipation and 'Oh, yeah' that shot along his spine far faster than his cock could get up to speed.

He hadn't been touched like this in years, only by himself. Eriks hadn't been high on anyone's list for sex, not in a small town where he would forever be known as the derelict Lina found in an alley, and suddenly a hand job seemed better than water.

Wolfwood's thumb rubbed slow circles around his tip, the grip of his fingers adjusting as Vash's cock grew into his touch. In contrast with that touch, the blanket felt so much scratchier against his feet, the breeze across his face that much colder, desire increasing sensitivity everywhere and setting a whole new baseline for 'good' that centred on exactly what was happening to his dick. Wolfwood's hand tightened around him as soon as he was hard, moving slowly down the length of him, sliding his foreskin, and 'good' became *'better'*, something that tightened his body and tugged at his hips. Slight push upwards to meet Wolfwood's hand, soft exhale of air past his lips as those fingers reached the base of his cock and drew away again in a smooth motion.

Yeah, that was what he wanted. Movement slow and steady, and the gentle stroke of a thumb across the head of him at the end of each upstroke, becoming more of a glide as Wolfwood's thumb caught up his precome. That dampness, that smoothness, made it better, most of his body relaxing into the looseness of real desire, even as his buttocks tightened and his hips pushed for more, his lips parting as he reached for more air. So good, what Wolfwood was doing, and not enough....

“Could you... just... faster?” The grip around his cock tightened slightly, the hand moving obligingly, changing pressure against the ridge below the head on each upstroke making him pant. But there was no twisted grin at Wolfwood’s lips, no barbed comment about having Vash writhing at his hand, no expression at all he could see on the shadowed face above him. His mind balked slightly at the sheer artificiality of it all, even as his body jerked and hummed at the touch.

Didn't matter, though, not really, not when it was this *good.* The sound of his own breathing loud in the night, cold, dry air harsh in his throat, the smooth, fast slide of Wolfwood's hand along his cock, the pressure building tighter and hotter in his groin, until finally he shuddered and came, his fingers sinking into the cool sand by his bedroll, and his body slowly easing itself into the sprawled languor of after. *So good....*

And it was just a hand job. It was Wolfwood wiping his fingers, and Vash's stomach wet and cold.

"Here." Wolfwood handed him a tissue from inside his jacket, and Vash wiped himself clean, following the lines of his scars with the paper, then pulled his shirt down to keep the desert night from his damp skin. By the time he was done, Wolfwood was lying back on top of his own blankets, watching him.

Vash ran his eyes down to Wolfwood’s crotch, and back up to meet his gaze. “You?”

Wolfwood paused, gave a bare hint of a nod. “Yeah.”

His fingers went to the man's trousers, his eyes sliding away from Wolfwood’s, though he didn’t really need to look what he was doing. Belt sliding through buckle, button squeezing through hole, zip easing downwards at his fingers, aware through it all of the erection waiting beneath the cloth, and that Wolfwood had been turned on by touching him.

Wolfwood's cock pushed into his touch as he freed it from the underwear, and he curled his fingers around the warm length of it. He guessed what Wolfwood had done for him was probably what the man liked himself, so he took the same approach, starting slow and working the head. He ran his thumb over the slit, already damp, spreading the fluid down and using it to reduce the friction as he slid his index finger back and forth over the ridge beneath the head. Yeah, that worked, Wolfwood jerking up into his hand. Good.

He felt like grinning, laughing, but Wolfwood had kept this... business-like, so he didn't. He was smiling, all the same.

It was still oddly familiar this, the heat of another man's cock in his hand, the slow tease and build of it. Still a habit to feel and judge the reactions to what he did, even though it had been so long. Deliberately drawing it out, careful when he moved his fist at last, a little faster and then easing it back again, letting sensation drop and anticipation rise, then tightening his grip just a little and winding up the pace again.

Wolfwood’s eyelids closed over his unfocussed gaze, lashes black against his cheek. The white shirt stood stark against the darker skin of his neck and chest, heaving in time with the movement of Vash’s hand. His lips half-parted, shivering slightly with each outward hiss of air, moonlit hint of sharp teeth behind them. A single swallow between panting breaths, throat bobbing briefly, quick flash of tongue sliding forward then down. And Vash wanted to see that again. Wanted to feel it move against him.

Lean forward, close the gap, just a few feet – so easy, and he could meet that tongue with his own, touch that skin with his own. Make himself and Wolfwood feel so good, so much **better* than this near-empty gesture that was little more than what they could do for themselves.

To kiss the man now would be to make this into something it wasn’t, to take something that Wolfwood’s choice of words hadn’t offered. This was about needs, not wants, practicality, not desire, friendship; not sex, not really.

He’d taste like an ashtray, anyway.

A hot, wet ashtray, with a sweeping tongue and lips that would slide against his own.

Wolfwood's body was tighter now, his cock thrusting up into Vash's hand with every stroke. Vash pushed at Wolfwood’s shirt with his free hand, enough to keep the cloth out of the way. Unmarked skin and taut muscle rose and met his fingers as Wolfwood panted, moving against him as he slid his hand up over Wolfwood's ribcage. Removed the hand fast, too much temptation to leave it there, to stroke, to *touch*, contact so good even through the pressure sensors in the synth.

His mind pushed instantly back to the touch he was allowed, loving the feel of Wolfwood’s flesh in his palm. Loving to see his friend as this sensual man who gasped beside him, shadowed eyes flicking open behind strands of hair, dark, broken voice that cursed and urged him to “Just get on with it!”

His fingers clutched Wolfwood tighter, the snap of his wrist faster, needing to get this done. Needing to ignore the harsh rasp of Wolfwood’s breath, and his own. Needing not to see how the skin of Wolfwood's throat glistened with a slight sheen of sweat despite the chill desert air, and unwilling to look away.

Wolfwood panted softly and shivered as he came, warm wetness coating Vash's fingers and Wolfwood’s skin. Vash pumped his cock a few more times through the last of the twitches before letting go.

He looked briefly at his hand and wondered, then cleaned himself carefully with a cloth from his bag and discarded it, as Wolfwood had done. Wolfwood had already fished a tissue out of his jacket to wipe himself off with, cleaning the sticky fluid from his skin in smooth, quick motions.

Vash was finding it too hard to stop watching. And he was getting hard again. Damn.

Wolfwood looked over, curious, knew he was staring. Vash smiled at him. "Thanks."

Wolfwood smiled back, unforced. "Yeah," he said. "You too."

Vash's grin widened. "I'll try not to keep you awake."

"You better not, or I'll beat your skull till you're unconscious." But it was good-natured, easy, and Vash was relaxed again as he lay back and dragged his blanket back into place, tucking it around him. This was okay. It was okay, and they were friends, and reciprocal jerk-offs were just an addition to that.

Except that he was lying here now looking at the messy hair that was all he could see of Wolfwood above the blanket, and wanting to touch. He wanted to feel Wolfwood hard within his hand again, wanted to watch as Wolfwood panted his way to orgasm, and he wanted it with Wolfwood's body hot and tight around his cock.

So much for Wolfwood's great plan that this would help him sleep.

He liked Wolfwood, liked him a lot, despite what he knew, and what he knew he didn't know. And on an objective level, Wolfwood was reasonably hot despite the smoke and the stubble, and he was good with his hand, and probably good with the rest of him too. But it was hard to know how much of what he wanted was Wolfwood, and how much was not wanting to be alone after two years filled with genuine love, and how much was just the unfortunate lack of sex.

Maybe it didn't really matter why he wanted it. Wolfwood hadn't been averse to simply being practical, after all. But Vash didn't plan on making a habit of using people.

It wouldn't be all that easy to look at Wolfwood tomorrow without seeing the sex.

He'd looked before, yeah – hell, he'd looked over dinner that first day two years ago – but in a vague, musing kind of way. He wasn't inclined to waste a lot of time horning after religious men who were likely straight. But he had his doubts on the religion, and as for the straight part - that particular thomas had headed off across the desert now and wouldn’t be going back into the stall. Wolfwood's reply to his comment about women hadn't been particularly revealing, but he got hot from touching men. He got hard from having Vash's dick in his hand.

Vash could work with that. With the friendship, and the knowledge that Wolfwood didn’t object to sexual contact with men, he could have what he wanted. He knew the game of seduce and tease, frustrate and entice, hint and innuendo. If he really played for it, Wolfwood wouldn’t know what hit him. He didn’t ever doubt that he could get the man into his bed.

He couldn’t be sure if sex would be all that he'd want from Wolfwood, and he wanted it anyway. Lying here, watching the slight movements of the blanket as Wolfwood breathed, he wanted it.

Shit.

He couldn't just do what he wanted. Any illusions on that score had been clawed out of him years ago. Everything he did had consequences, for himself, for others; every last thought or action ended up twisted. He'd stopped living his life for the past two years, become someone else to get away from that, and it hadn't made any difference in the end, though for a while he'd thought maybe it could.

Would it make any difference this time? Whether he went for what he wanted or not, would it change anything if Wolfwood was going to be around anyway?

Damn. Now his nose was itching and he didn't want to move to scratch it. He scrunched his nose up and down a few times, trying to get rid of the sensation. It was going to get really annoying if it didn't stop.

Still, it was an effective distraction, and probably well-timed. He was going to start wallowing again if he stayed with that train of thought, and it never helped a damn. He could lie here and chew over it the whole night, and he wouldn't get any answers.

But he didn't have to know everything. Not right now. Whatever he decided, he'd still have to feel Wolfwood out a little first, work around that very deliberate guardedness that had appeared when he'd touched him. From what he knew of Wolfwood, that might actually take a bit of effort. Good thing he was always up for a challenge. It had been a while since he'd been inclined to play the seducer, and he found himself looking forward to it.

And he could call it off before it really went anywhere if he needed to, if he wanted to.

He stared at the tangled mass of Wolfwood's hair and grinned to himself. Whatever the hell came of it, or didn't, it was definitely going to be fun along the way.