[ it’s a relief not to have to be the one to ask for it. wolfwood deserves to be true to himself, and the world deserves a wolfwood that lets his good heart lead him, but. if that means vash has to lose him? everything in him pushes back selfishly against it. ]

I don’t want to be the reason something happens to you. [ a full-body shudder, a little twitch of his natural hand, the one that can still feel wolfwood’s blood gushing out over it. ] And if you stay, I know —

… but when I think about asking you to leave, trying to make you, I — [ he drops his face into wolfwood’s shoulder, arms tightening around him. swallowing hard past the barbed lump in his throat. ] I don’t know what to do.