Yay! Wolfwood fic! Written completely on whim, so bear with me. Oh please, bear with me.

In this, I tend to use the word "Tongari" as opposed to "Needle-Noggin" or some such thing. I've only seen the Japanese version of Trigun, and it's o-so-much easier to simply say Tongari. So, that's the way it is.

Meh.

Not Quite Right

Crying.

Unmistakable, yet sounding surreal in the peaceful silence of the middle of the night. It had jarred Wolfwood out of sleep—light sleeper though he was—and caused him to sit up in his bed, where he immediately reached into his suit jacket for a cigarette.

Problem one: He was sleeping in a hotel bed with his jacket halfway across the room.

Problem two: The crying was getting louder. If the crying didn't stop, people would start waking up. Angry people. Angry short insurance girl people.

Immediately Wolfwood got out of bed, not caring that he was only in boxers and an undershirt. Dressing would wait until later. After he had made that Tongari pay for waking him. He approached the door, and immediately found himself facing…

Eck.

The small insurance girl stood in front of his door, poised as if to knock but stopping—freezing, really—when she saw him. "Wolfwood-san?" she questioned, sounding perplexed, as if he were the last person she had expected to see coming out of his own room. The Priest's eyebrows furrowed in immediate irritation. Had she heard Tongari crying too, then?

"Why are you awake?" Wolfwood questioned, sounding gruffer than he had intended. He hated being woken up in the middle of the night.

Noticing her hand was still poised to knock, the insurance girl flushed, and put her hands behind her back. "I heard crying…" Seeming unsure of herself. Like she didn't know quite why she was up, either. "I thought I might be Vash-san…"

"Then why are you at my door?" The Priest asked, irritated still. The crying was still audible, and it was driving him crazy that he had to deal with this girl. He should have just punched Tongari before the small girl woke up and saved himself some trouble. "If you heard him crying, why aren't you knocking at his door?"

The small girl blushed again. "I… I can't go to his room in the middle of the night!"

The Priest leaned down to look her straight in the eye, eyebrows raised in irritation but eyes half-closed with tiredness. "Why not?" he asked without any curiosity. The Insurance girl clenched her fist, face completely red now.

"It… It would be…" Searching for the word, but not quite finding it. "It would be… improper!"

Normally Wolfwood would have laughed out loud at a stuttered, silly statement coming from the small hot-headed insurance girl, but his annoyance overcame him. "Then… what's coming to my room in the middle of the night?"

He found himself actually grinning at the insurance girl's shame-faced look. However, as she decided not to respond, he sighed, wishing he had a cigarette about now. The crying had ceased during the last of his conversation with the girl, but something still didn't seem right. He gave her a soft look.

"Look," he said, trying to sound as if he weren't really irritated and sleep-deprived. "Just go back to bed. I'll handle everything with Vash."

"You sure?" the short girl questioned automatically, with that trust-no one attitude of hers. Wolfwood nodded, and she seemed satisfied. Quietly she turned back to the room she shared with her partner and entered, silent as a cat, giving him one last "you-better-not-do-anything-wrong" look before closing the door.

That out of the way, the Priest made his way to Vash's room, which was now silent—a sharp contrast to the noise that filled it before. Without bothering to knock, Wolfwood opened the door, to find Vash sitting up in his bed with his legs pulled up to his chest, his head in his hands, and looking for all the world as if he had just witnessed a million people die in the most horrible of ways.

Wolfwood stood in the open doorway, hands partly shoved into the pockets of his boxers, silently cursing himself for at least not grabbing his pants. "Tongari?" he said into the darkness, where sad eyes looked to him, illuminated by streaks of moonlight through a curtain less window. Unnerving the Priest, the look in those eyes. What in hell could have made eyes look that way?

On silent and bare feet, Wolfwood approached those eyes. "You were crying." Said bluntly, the Priest wanting to get out of there as fast as he could. So much in those eyes. Didn't want to see those eyes suddenly, wishing he had sent the small insurance girl in his place. However, he found himself sitting on the bed beside the spiky-headed blond man, whose grief over something shown plainly in his eyes.

Vash stayed silent, head now resting on his knees. Wolfwood was glad for this, because it meant the eyes were hidden. This made it easier to talk.

"Bad dream?" Wolfwood questioned, already knowing the answer. Of course it was a bad dream. What else could it be in the middle of the night? The Priest watched as Vash silently nodded his head, sniffling a bit. Like a little kid, for crying out loud. There was a pause.

"She…" Vash broke the small silence, filling the dull air with his voice, sounding grainy from crying. "She died. I watched her die again and couldn't do anything."

Wolfwood didn't bother to question who or what Tongari was talking about. Sometimes, he found that simply letting someone talk made them feel better. However, when there was another pause, Wolfwood realized that Vash was waiting for something. Advice? Maybe. The Priest gave it a shot.

"Vash…" Not really sure what to say about something he knew nothing about, but tried anyway. "What do you think you could have done?" Going good. "If there was nothing you could have done the first time, what do you think you could have done differently now?"

The blond man silently regarded his dark-haired friend, then turned away, looking almost… shameful. "I could have stopped him," he murmured, voice filled with remorse. "I could have stopped him from killing her and all of them."

Him? Her? All of them? Damn! He was so vague! Wolfwood wanted nothing more than to simply punch the damned Tongari on his bristly head, shout "get over it" and get back to his sleep. But no. He was a preacher, and Vash was a person in need. As a preacher, his duty was to people in need. Listen to them. Help them. So he tried.

"Worrying about something in the past won't help the current outcome," he said, filling his voice with as much compassion as he could without sounding phony. "If they're all dead, they're all dead. There's nothing you can possibly do—nothing even God can do—to save those who are already beyond saving."

A long silence suddenly filled the room, though around the room, the word "nothing" seemed to echo, hanging in the air, making the silence eerie and uncomfortable. Constantly Wolfwood waited, waited for the resigning sigh that most people did when realizing that what a preacher said was truth.

It took nearly a full five minutes of tenseness for that sigh finally to come.

"Of course…" Vash murmured. Sending a strange feeling through Wolfwood, making the pit of his stomach cold. What emotion? He wondered. Guilt? Pity? Not seeming right, but not seeming wrong, either. "However…" The dull voice of the Tongari making the air cold. "I can't help but wonder sometimes…"

Silence, more tense this time.

"What if…?"

That last question, spoken with such emotion. Almost a dull longing hanging onto those words. The words suddenly made the dark-haired priest shiver, almost as if a complete frost had filled the room. Made him shiver in a way that was not so right, making him feel insecure, unsafe, pitiful, suddenly. And he wanted to get out of there, fast.

Until the room became warm again, when Vash lifted his head, a smile on his face. "Sorry," he said, his voice lighter, far lighter, than before. Compulsively, in one of the few moments that he had ever felt like a true friend to Vash, he laid a hand on the blond man's shoulder, smiling encouragingly.

"Have good dreams," he said, rising to exit the room, knowing he was no longer needed. "Otherwise, I may have to kill you for waking me a second time."

Vash smiled and nodded, letting himself laugh a little. Wolfwood felt the Tongari's green eyes on his back as he exited the room, going about it quietly. Although he had not really done or said much, as the Priest entered his room once more, he felt that perhaps he had accomplished something.

However, as silence filled the air in the middle of the night, deep and cold, he knew that things were not quiet right.

The feeling followed him even as he rolled over and slept.