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kanasthings · 9 months

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Band-aids - Nicholas D. Wolfwood

Summary: He was never very good at vocalizing his needs, especially when it came to anything of the intimate kind. He'd much rather beat around the bush or simply never ask at all. Thankfully, he has you. And you're always happy to humor him. Content: Fluff. Angst if you squint? GN!Reader. Possible spoilers for Trigun, so don't read if you don't wanna risk it. Poor man is whipped in this one. Word Count: 1,400 Kana's Notes: So, this is the very first time I've ever posted any of my writing on this site. Ever. And I'm too lazy to make a separate account for it, so here ya go. I hope y'all enjoy! I always have so much fun writing for this sad, wet cat of a man. This was also written under about an hour, so if the flow is kinda fast, that's why.

"Come sit. I’ll be back.”

Nicholas, for once, was at a loss for words on what to say. Usually, he’d have a snarky remark to toss around or some kind of silly little joke to chip away at the tension within his body. It helped to distract him from the real feelings that wanted to rise to the surface whenever you did this for him. This time, all he could do was nod as he did as told, sitting down on your bed to wait patiently for you to come back.

When you return with some alcohol wipes and a box of band-aids, you find Nicholas staring out the window, watching the setting sun cast a golden glow against the stained walls that enclosed you both within this quiet moment. You come to sit beside him, dark eyes gazing in your direction. You smile.

“What happened this time?”

You reach out and gently take his larger hands in yours, your thumbs rubbing purposeful lines against the valleys of his knuckles. Your eyes look down to begin inspecting the damage, finding at least one or two little cuts against each finger, some roughly crossing against the lines of his palms, others scratched against the calluses of his fingertips. Small, fleshy cuts and scratches that definitely weren’t there yesterday.

Nicholas turns his gaze towards the covers of your bed. The waring tension he felt was a feeling he deeply hated, but could never outrun.

“S’clumsy. Thas’all.”

His words were as soft as the breath that leaves his lungs as he hears you chuckle at his horrible excuse. You knew. This was the third time in the last three weeks that he’s come with scratches on his fingers. They were deliberate. Intentional. His roundabout way to ask for your affection once more.

He knew you knew. He just didn’t know how to bring it up.

All you give is a hum and a nod, taking his answer before ripping open one of the alcohol wipes to begin cleaning the small cuts.

Like every other time, your touch was gentle. You handled him with the sort of care someone would give to one who was worthy of such a thing. As you gently swiped the white pad over the rough lines of his dark skin, Nicholas recognized that sense of quiet intimacy that he was never familiar with until he had met you. Maybe if he pushed himself to think back far enough to those fleeting, faded memories of his childhood, he could grasp at some semblance of what this was. Before he ever had a gun and an impossible responsibility shoved right into his hands. The very hands you were now tenderly wrapping with band-aids.

His dark eyes finally peer over to look at your work, and he feels a lump form in his throat as he watches you rub soothing circles into his rough palms. His chest tightens, and he brings his attention elsewhere just as quickly.

Nicholas was fighting for his life to keep himself together whilst you gave him tenderness that he felt less than deserving to be on the receiving end of. His jaw is tightened, and he’d hold his breath with the useless hope that would stop the tears that threatened to form.

He mentally curses himself when he feels his hands begin to shake within your hold.

You respond by squeezing them, your fingers delicately tracing the lines of his veins that pushed against his wrists before bringing his hands up, and pressing the bandaged pads of his fingertips against your lips.

Nicholas’ breath hitches in his throat, and he keeps his eyes fixed down.

He couldn’t take it. This was too much.

“Y’don’t gotta do alla that…” He croaks. God, he sounded pathetic.

“I know.”

His eyes snap up to look at you, and he swears that he caught the guise of a halo glowing around the crown of your head as the sunlight peaks through the window.

“Then why do ya keep doin this for me? Why do ya keep goin through the trouble?...”

The words stumble over his tongue before he even realized what he was saying. Regret flashes across his face. You could see it race through his mind just by gazing at his eyes.

He wanted to run. To pull his hands away from yours and put a stop to this little game he created to drag himself out of the cold, thick mud of his life. To ruin this fragile, painfully wonderful good. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he felt fear rise within his chest as he awaited your answer.

You simply smile for him, pressing small kisses to the inside of his palms before peeking up at him once more.

“Because I love you,” you utter against his skin. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

Incredulous, Nicholas forces out a huff of laughter and shakes his head, letting it gently fall forwards with heat washing over him in benign but firm waves. You bring yourself closer to him, kissing at the muscle of his palm before slowly trailing up his wrist.

The image of his skin staining yours with blood crashes against the looming walls of his mind, cracking his fortress. It’s enough to send him reeling.

“Purity is something that was made to shame you.”

You breathe out. Confident. Forever infallible.

His dark brows press together. He bows his head low, and the waves become stronger.

Please don’t. Don’t say anything else. He was hanging on by a thread and if you uttered one more word, gave him one more reason to be as greedy as he was now, he’d fall apart at the seams. You’d witness how pitiful and alone he was, see how dirty and broken and scared he truly felt. Wretched to his core.

“You don’t need to be pure to be good, Nico.”

You let go of his hands, and the thought that you finally made the good decision to leave him crossed his mind for a split second. He instead feels your hands cup his cheeks and wipe at the tears that had come spilling over his lashes.

Now, Nicholas is gently guided to look up to you. He stares into your eyes and tries to keep himself afloat. He fails, miserably. But how could he not? You, in everything that made you, were the Creator of a universe that Nicholas had given up in finding the key for long, long ago. For years, he watched as others were given the chance to intimately know and study this very thing that bound this world together. He’d witness them all fall and sink down with such peace; such wondrous expressions of awe as they come to be made new by this. It filled him with such a horrible ugliness that slowly coursed through his blood like a poison.

Nicholas made peace with knowing that he would never be able to grab hold of this miracle.

And then you found him.

How could you blame him for failing to breach the surface when you, in your goodness, allowed him to know what this was? To know you?

He bows his head lower, his forehead now brushing against your lap. How pathetic it was for him to cower away from a lie he knew his heart wouldn’t survive from.

You smile, and bring him into your arms.

He sinks into your lap as your hands—ever forgiving and filled with reverence—tangle themselves within dark locks. They smooth over the muscles of his back, cascading over the hills and valleys of his shoulders and gently caress the back of his neck.

“Sorry-” He chokes on his tongue as his hands find purchase at your sides. His fingers twitched back. You press your hands over his and guide them to rest at your hips. “Don’t know why I-”

“Don’t say sorry.” Your voice cuts through whatever he was about to say as you return your hands to play with his hair. “Take up all the space you want.”

In that moment, Nicholas did his best to ignore that foreboding feeling that he was running out of time. It had always been something that grabbed and gnawed at his ankles. He was a dead man walking, and he knew that very well. It was always at the back of his mind. But for once, he lets that thought slip past. He lets it go, and focuses on everything that encompassed you as that cruel God was forced to bear witness to a heaven He could only create within His dreams.

“I’ll be with you. I’ll always patch you up through it all.”

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