Someone else

6

As soon as everyone left, Plant calmed down and stopped making noise. No one can always be loud and lively, he wasn't any exception. It's just that this side of him was a bit deeper and more personal. He only acted like this around people who had known him for a long time and when nobody was looking.

When Wolfwood walked in, he raised his voice again, complaining and pointing out how he had dared to leave him there alone even if it had been only for a moment. They were always bickering anyways. It hadn't took him long to understand that priest's childishness and stubbornness rival his.  It also meant that he was easy to annoy and the noise was what he needed to keep his thoughts away.

This time it didn't succeed. Wolfwood saw him through and refused to play along.

"You can stop now. I know that you're acting."

Vash stopped and his expression became serious. He didn't like the situation at all and his worry seemed never-ending.

"So even someone like you gets tried." Wolfwood marked, lighted his smoke and sat down on a bed standing next to him.

"You know," he started suddenly talking after a while and Vash listened because he was sure that whatever the priest will tell him about, he will be surprised by it.

"I once met someone who blamed himself for accidents what happened to others. Thinking now, you're similar."

"Why are you tell me about him?" Vash wanted to know.

That annoyed priest, who had hot temper, a little, but he blew out a puff of smoke and explained further "Because you two are similar. He gave me a promise but didn't keep it."

"What kind of promise was it?" Plant asked a bit curious by this time. Promises were at important place in his life and he considered them important. They had made him what he's today.

"Simple. Nothing special or important but it mattered to me. He did it to protect me but I wouldn't want to be protected if someone has to suffer for it."

Vash could understand that part of him. Priest was powerful enough to solve most of his problems without needing anyone else's help.

"I was a little kid then and didn't know when to give up. I couldn't understand that he's not coming back and waited for him by the gates every day for a whole year. He never showed up."

"Did he die somewhere that you're sure he won't be coming? Right now you're talking as if it's certain that he'll never come."

"He won't be the same person anymore, but now you're distracting me. Actually I told you about it because I need you to give me a promise and to do that, I think it's important that you know what they mean to me."

It seemed he didn't like the idea. Vash noticed how he ran his fingers through his hair to give them something to do. He must've been annoyed.

"Can you promise me that you won't intentionally jump in front of danger anymore? The situation we had this morning, was a close call and I don't want to be the one who buries you."

Vash smiled a sad smile. Wolfwood was asking for impossible. "Sadly, I can't."

"Why?" priest demanded an explanation. He didn't think of it as anything so hard. Normal people don't want to expose themselves to danger.

"Dying doesn't scare me but I can't let anyone die before my eyes because I have a promise. It can be called a principle but there's one person whose memory I'm keeping alive through it. She would really die if I abandon her teachings and take a life."

Wolfwood made faces. Of course, their lives and ways they've lived them so far, have been fundamentally different, but he was at least trying to understand.

"Can you promise me something else then, to ease my worries?" priest wished for him to give other possible solutions.

"I can promise that I won't die."

Vash smiled and as a response to that, Wolfwood snorted.

"It's not for us to decide when our candle is put out."

"I don't know," Vash doubted it heavily "I think it is, otherwise, I would be dead more than a hundred times."

"Whatever." Wolfwood gave up "Let's go with that. Just be sure to keep it." he reminded Plant and then walked out of the room.

Vash looked at the door for a while after that. Something in Wolfwood was different compared to other humans and Vash couldn't decide if this feeling came from the way he talked or from the way he lived what Plant didn't know too much about.

But yet he was sure that if he would need any human to help and understand him, then priest would be suitable for that. It's only that he wasn't too sure about letting anyone get so close to him. Priest was weird and Vash careful with revealing his past to anyone.

True, Nicholas already knew more than most, but that didn't matter much. he stopped thinking about it with a sigh. It didn't take him anywhere and in every way, it was easier when Wolfwood was close.

It was in the next city when Vash couldn't fall asleep and started thinking because of that.

"Hey, Wolfwood."

"What?" asked a sleepy voice. He hadn't completely fallen asleep yet.

"How much you really know about the dangers of being involved with me? Do you know what I really am?"

Nicholas sat up, hair messy but eyes wakeful. Now he definitely wasn't going to sleep anymore.

"Why are you thinking about it now, at night? Nights are for sleeping, worry at morning, if it's completely necessary."

"It's necessary. I fear that you may die because you don't know what you're messing with and that doesn't let me sleep."

"Is that why you screamed in your sleep? Because you were afraid that someone may die?" Wolfwood asked but the whole thing came as a surprise to Vash.

"When did I do that?" he wanted to now and priest answered.

"Yesterday. I considered waking you up because it sounded so terrible."

Vash didn't remember anything about it but didn't mention the fact and stayed quiet.

 Wolfwood shouldn't have known about that.