tampered | Log; complete

When; April 21st, evening (late-ish)
Rating; PG for a bit of language
Characters; Vash (mildlyreckless) and Autor (freakyfanboy)

Summary; Autor's still shaken by what he saw the night of Vash's death and still rather worried about him, so he sneaks in to pay a quick visit to the recovering Vash—whether or not Wolfwood likes the idea.

Log;

Autor hesitated outside of the door to Vash's room. This wasn't exactly the circumstances he wanted his first visit to be under…
He still couldn't quite believe what had happened, even though he had seen Wolfwood carrying Vash's body home that night. The man was a bit of a goof, but he still had a strength hidden behind the wide grin. It was difficult to explain how Autor knew this, it was just a feeling he had.
But that night his coat had been soaked with blood and he had been hanging from his friend's shoulders like a ragdoll.

Autor frowned. His initial anger had cooled, but he was still hurt that Vash hadn't told him what he was really planning on doing over the weekend. If he really thought about it he could understand Vash's reasoning, but…that didn't keep it from being upsetting.

Well…there was no sense in standing outside the door brooding all night. He reached out and knocked on the door to let the man know he was entering, then opened the door and walked in. "Vash…?"

Vash opened his eyes at the sound of the knock and lifted his head a little with a wince. He was lying on his back now, propped up by a couple of pillows. Thanks to the thorough... coverage of his injuries, there really wasn't anyway to lie without pressing on something painful, but at least this position didn't look quite so bad.

He really didn't want Autor to see him like this... It just wasn't right. But Vash decided that it would probably be good for Autor to see him awake and... alive after witnessing what he had the night before.

"Ah, hey, Autor!" Vash said with a cheerful smile, stifling a grunt of pain that came with speaking just a little too enthusiastically. "Sorry about the mess..."

Autor winced a little when he walked into the room. After what he had seen the night before, he wasn't exactly surprised to see Vash covered in bandages…but it was still difficult seeing someone he cared about so…battered.
And there he was, grinning up from the bed like an idiot and trying to pretend he wasn't in pain. He knew his friend tried to have a cheerful outlook, but this was ridiculous. Did he ever do anything but smile?

"It's alright," he responded, walking over to a chair that was by the bed and sitting down. "You've been dead for the past 24 hours, I wasn't really expecting the place to be sparkling."

He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. "Um…how're you feeling?"

"Pretty rough," Vash admitted meekly. "But better. ...Kinda hungry, actually, but I don't think Wolfwood's gonna let me eat quite yet."

Vash leaned his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes for a second or two, glad for the button-down shirt he was wearing to cover the scarred flesh the bandages didn't. The idea of Autor seeing him like this was bad enough. The idea of anyone seeing him like this was bad enough.

"You know," Vash said, opening his left eye and smiling, "I'm just glad you didn't do what Meryl did to me once. She came to visit me in the hospital and hit me in the head with a board. Or a bat. Or something along those lines."

As odd as it sounded, Autor was relieved when his friend admitted he wasn't feeling well. It showed a level of honesty that he was starting to find refreshing in his dealings with Vash.
He nodded at the mention of food. "Well…your body could probably use some time to recover before it has to worry about processing food."

Autor raised an eyebrow when Vash told him about what someone named Meryl had done to him at a hospital. "You've been beaten up enough at this point, I think. Hitting you with a bat would be rather unnecessary…Is Meryl one of the insurance girls you were talking about?"

"Yeah," Vash said fondly, "She was the short-haired one. Really scary sometimes. But she was a sweet little thing. ...She would probably kill me for saying that."

Vash suddenly solemned as he thought back to the last time he saw Meryl. When he reached out to her and...

"It's been a long time since I've seen her or the big girl," Vash went on to drown out his own thoughts. "Millie was the big one. She was..." He paused here for a second. "Well, you'd have to know Millie to understand her... And even then she's hard to understand. She comes off as really spacey, but she's pretty sharp."

A sharp wave of pain shot through Vash's body and he was obliged to stop babbling.

"Sorry," he said with a grimace, "I tend to... ramble... sometimes..."

Autor smirked a little and rubbed his hand over his mouth to try to hide it. "It's alright," he said, silently adding 'I'm used to it' onto the end of his sentence.
"It sounds like you were as popular at your home as you are here!"

Popular was a relative term... People with multi-billion double-dollar bounties on their heads tended to be very popular. Localized disasters tended to be even more so.

"Hah," was the only thing Vash could get out for a while. He froze and stayed perfectly still until the pain that had seized him dulled before trying to speak again.

"I guess you could say that," he said at last, quieter this time. He was learning quickly about what he should and should not do in this state... "How are... things at the Opera House?"

Autor's smirk faded. As much as Vash was trying to hide it, he could tell that he was in a lot of pain. Autor wished to himself that he had brought Vash some tea--although it was a little difficult to make with his hands the way they were currently…
Autor's frown deepened when Vash brought up the Opera House. How were things right now…?

"They're…pretty good, I guess." He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Fakir and Ahiru seemed to have worked out the problems they were having, so…Fakir's been in a good mood lately, which helps things. …There's been talk of us putting on some sort of ballet production of The Tempest, which might be interesting to see."

"That's good," Vash said. "I'll keep an eye out for an announcement about The Tempest. I'd like to see that."

Vash paused as his brain slowly wound through associations with the Opera House. There was something that had happened before he died...

Ha, that was it...

Vash laughed a little, pausing to say, "Ow, ow, ow..." and then chuckling a little bit more before saying, "You know... The other day... When I was saying goodbye to everyone, Rue told me not to do anything reckless. Heh."

"Careful!!" Autor said with a worried frown when Vash laughed a little too hard. Couldn't he stop laughing for one moment and allow his body to rest a little...?

Autor glanced away at the mention of Rue. How is she doing now, I wonder? She seems fine, but…knowing her…
"That…sounds like something she'd say," Autor said with a forced laugh. "That's her way of saying she cares about you, I think."

Vash blinked and realized he had just said something incredibly stupid.

Dumbass.

"...Oh, Autor, I'm sorry," he said guiltily. "I didn't upset you, did I?"

Vash knew he shouldn't have taken that stupid painkiller...

Autor straightened in his chair, shaking his head. "No, no, it's fine!" he said, avoiding saying whether or not he was really upset. "I see her every day, you know--it's not like you can't mention her name around me."

Vash could tell it wasn't all that 'fine,' but he chose to let it go. He had already potentially scarred his young friend for life...

"Okay," he said quietly. That settled it. Vash decided it would probably be best to get Autor out of there before he said something else incredibly ignorant. Or before he started screaming in pain. Whichever came first. So far the only thing that painkiller had done was make him more of an idiot than usual. "Autor, you've probably had a pretty rough day... You should get home and get some sleep."

Vash slowly crossed his right arm over his body and extended it out to Autor for a handshake.

"I'm... not really... up for a hug right now," he panted with a pained smile. "So this will have to do for the time being."

Why was he pushing himself so much? He shouldn't be doing this to himself…even extending that hand must take away so much energy...

Autor did his best to not frown too much or show how shaken he was by seeing him like this. Knowing him, Vash would probably just spend all day worrying about Autor and not his own recovery. Did he have any common sense…??

Autor gently took the extended hand in his own right hand, and after a moment's hesitation placed his left hand on the back of his hand as well.
"Vash…listen to me. Take care of yourself, alright? All you need to do right now is worry about recovering. Anything else is pointless right now. Got it?" The words came out of his mouth much more harshly than he had meant them to, but they still carried his intended meaning, so he didn't bother to correct himself.

Please, Vash. Please...

"Got it," Vash said with a smile. "I'll be okay. I've got you and Wolfwood taking care of me, right?"

Vash suddenly noticed how warm Autor's hands were. Huh. He hadn't really paid any mind to it until now, but he was strangely cold all over.

Oh. Right. The death thing.

"I'll be good, I promise," Vash assured Autor. "I'll stay in bed and keep quiet. Now you go on and rest yourself. Maybe take a nice bath or something. I'll talk to you on the network tomorrow if nothing else, okay?"

Autor forced himself to smile, to ignore the bandages, and to ignore how cold Vash's hand was. "Okay. But don't push yourself. I'll understand if you can't get on."

With a sigh, he released his hand and dropped his own to his side. "A bath does sound nice," Autor admitted, a tinge of weariness seeping into his voice. "Or maybe just a cup of tea and a good book…something like that."

Oh, wait. He was starting to focus on his own problems again, wasn't he…?

He smirked, crossing his arms and looking down at Vash. "I'm holding you to that promise, you know. If Wolfwood tells me that you haven't been taking good care of yourself, I might just bring a board with me next time."

"You should do all that," Vash said kindly. "And consider me warned. Goodnight, Autor. I hope tomorrow's better for you. Well, for all of us. Say hi to everyone at the Opera House for me, even if they don't know who I am. And then tell me what they said when they didn't know who Vash was but didn't want to be impolite."

Autor laughed--not a forced, strangled laugh, but a warm, genuine one. "I'll tell you every awkward word, Vash. …Goodnight. Apologize to Wolfwood for me."

He walked over to the door, turning to give Vash one last smile.

"Hm," Vash murmured sleepily, "That smile looks good on you, kid. You should do it more often."

He waved slightly as Autor closed the door and closed his eyes. Wolfwood would get over it. In Vash's experience there weren't many medicines better than a real smile.

...And morphine. Which he intended to have Wolfwood go look for in the morning if things didn't change.