Work Text:
To my dearly departed Nico,
Right now, I'm sitting here with a bottle of Bride and a tattered letter addressed to me. At least, I believe it's for me. You write my name enough to think it was your own. Matter of fact, you reference me enough that you might as well shout upon rooftops that you're in cahoots with Vash the Stampede. You always were, don't try to hide it.
It's funny—reading this with you right next to me. You're trying to play off the fact that even though you say you've never written anything except for your name or your day's worth of work on a check, you've dotted your I's and crossed your T's in delicate and precise ways I won't be able to forget. Poets and scholars who are long gone from this universe must envy your literature. You write so beautifully, I almost would think you're embarrassed to admit you strategically wrote this out with the intention of it landing in the right hands.
This letter was for me the entire time, wasn't it?
There are about two other letters in here as well. All with the address. Your dearest and definitely most wanted makes me laugh. I didn't take you for a writer, Nico. Next, I'll find out if you have a book published. Meryl would be quite proud of the work you've put into this. If only I could have seen it sooner to the words fall from your lips rather than reading expired feelings etched into a paper. Now, I will have to take my time dissecting each letter on these pages until I can finally taste the sweet hint of comfort with your passing.
A man like me can only dream.
I'm sitting here with a bottle of Bride, a tattered letter addressed to me, and your hallowed body beside me. It's cold. It's gone very cold since I laid my heavy head against your chest, trying to light the fire into your heart. Nothing comes up, not even a spark. It's like a match in the wind no matter how hard I try . I'll even beat your bloody and bruised heart for you with my bare hands to warm it up. But your body has already begun to deflate—lungs expelled, blood stagnant—and the moment it stopped flowing, was the moment I knew I lost you.
It's all my fault.
It's all my fault.
It's always my fault.
I was stupid. I should have known when you said you had something to protect, that you truly meant it. I was blind. I should have known that you would go to the ends of the earth to fulfill your duty. Whether it be a contractual obligation or your own sick version of a reality check, I can never repay you. I could scream to the sky, and bang my fists on the ground for the Gods to return your soul to me, but I still wouldn't amount enough to repay you.
I know my morals were never up to your standards. We viewed life with two different lenses. Yet, we saw each other from across our own hills, heads so far up, so clouded by our own morality to realize that you and I—we just wanted the same thing. Peace, love, comfort. There has been a century full of lives I have seen taken, ripped right from my hands in cold blood because I couldn't be strong enough. I never realized you saw that same view.
Your life being taken from me has wounded me most of all.
Did you think I couldn't do it, Wolfwood?
I was never able to return the favor of you contently protecting me. You spent all this time bending your back, swallowing bullets, and walking on two broken feet that you never once let me help you. You know how much I hated that. How much I hated each moment I saw you ache in pain from the play of events. There was something I could have done each time. I could have changed our fate, you just had to ask me.
Why couldn't you have put your pride aside, just this once?
God damn it, Nicholas. Even in death, you make it so hard to be angry with you.
Sorry, sorry.
Thou shall not use the Lord's name in vain. It's only fair I somewhat upkeep your beliefs even after you're gone.
As a child, I had this impression that time healed all wounds. You let things simmer, and you wade carefully enough, the chaos will eventually subside. I thought this about the Great Fall. In due time, I thought could reason with Nai, and he would loosen up his ideologies — humans and plants would both heal. They would grow from their mistakes and someday, we could leave this forsaken planet and start anew. Everyone would get a chance. Disregarding all the crimes and sins of the past, we could live in harmony. I could pioneer that. It's what Rem —
It's what she would have wanted.
After all this time, one hundred and fifty years later, I am still burdened with the wounds of the past and bear the innocence of a child.
Rem always told us time is a construct. It's something humans put in place to keep track, organize, plan, and execute things in a formal manner. Counting on fingers, tallying lines, or waiting for the passing of moons or suns wasn't organized enough. Tracking time was more governable even if we couldn't control the revolutions. She told us this so that Nai and I wouldn't let our apologies expire, always encouraging us to resolve our faults — regardless of distance or conviction—to make things right.
But time has done nothing to allow me to control outcomes.
Out of all the deaths I've had the unfortunate luck to experience in over a century of living, yours hurts the most. Yours may have been the quickest, blinding me in the blink of an eye, but the most painful. I've lived what feels like almost an eternity without you, and now my soul aches as if I have known you all this time. I've looked into lifeless eyes, touched calloused hands, and shared the same unfiltered oxygen with the people of this planet, yet your passing has broken me in unexplainable ways.
Your life being taken from me has wounded me most of all.
My heart will forever pang for yours. My mind will constantly ask me where I went wrong. At what part did the path that I chose lead me to your demise? Was it always completely out of my hands? Were we too far up the hill that we were nearly out of touch?
Why is that?
Why is it that the one person I want is intangible?
It feels as though sometimes we have lived in two completely different universes. Our paths crossing was a glitch in the code—a fault link in the chain. I curse the creator of time, for they had wished it upon us too short. Across the planet, I try to find you in every corner I can. The warmth of the sand between my fingertips mimics yours, and I curse the ground for it. The coolness of the moon reminds me of your eyes and I won't be able to lay awake and stare at it the same.
With time, our universes will collide again.
I know you will be on the other side of the universe we share. I won't have to wait for the moon every night to see you. I could open my eyes, and you would be in the same flesh and blood as me. Maybe I won't know your name, but I will know you are like the rising sun—warm, familiar, and inviting. You are like fire in the cold of a winter night. I will embrace you time after time, never fearing the engulfing flames.
I'm not a cosmonaut, but I have as many memories of you as stars in the sky. I've seen your skinned knees, I've seen your bloody nose, I've seen your sorrows—things done that cannot be undone.
But regardless of it all,
I loved you.
I love you.
I love you in the same way the sun loves to kiss the horizon just to see the moon for a fleeting moment. I love you the way the moon hungers for the touch of warmness. We're untouchable, but I know in my heart there's a universe out there we can share. No matter if I descend to the heavens above or if I'm hell-bound below, I know my soul will find its way back to you.
As a saint or a sinner, as a man or a plant, as a human or a spirit. I will remember directly that I have loved you in a thousand universes across the span of time, and will love you in a thousand more. If we're granted another chance, promise to find me in another life. This time, I know we'll make it right, or I'll gladly spend another eternity trying.
Your dearest and definitely most wanted,
Vash
P.S. I think about tomorrow with you every day. About the orphanage, about a home just a few doors down, about a family bursting with love and laughter. I thought about it from the moment we first met to every cold and lonely night away from you.
Tomorrow won't ever be the same without you.