Diligo Vos
by Angela Griffen
It would make sense except Wolfwood doesn't love. He's never had the luxury.
Well, he's never loved like *this*. He's well-acquainted with Jesus-love. Father-love. Philos. Whatever one wants to call it. It's the love he feels for the children at the orphanage; it's the love he feels for the few adults on the planet who are *good* after all. He wishes the best for them, he respects them, he wishes them long and happy lives, but at the end of the day, people were always a distant concern for him. People were *there*, and deserved to be protected, but it was only an abstract. It was only his own reaction to what had happened to *him*.
Of course, he is a priest. He ought not to love one more than another anyway. His duty is to serve God, not a lover. It was always easy before, because he'd never met anyone worth loving. Maybe that's because he never got to know anyone before. He once heard someone say that to know someone is to love them. At the time, he thought that was garbage, but perhaps underneath it, there is a speck of truth.
He's not sure he would have to know someone to fall in love anymore either though. He hardly knew either of them before he felt it. He'd always thought "falling in love" was the work of some poet who'd created an awful cliche long ago, but it *did* feel like falling after all. It was a desperate feeling of sinking below as someone else rose up, falling to his knees, and realizing that *he* was the one who had been unworthy all along.
*They* never let someone's apparent badness excuse them long enough to kill. Jesus dined with whores and theives and murderers, yet Wolfwood never could love enough to do that. He never had enough faith, though he isn't sure if he means in God or in humanity.
Vash shoots blanks, and injures only to disable. Milly rescues runaways and uses only enough force to stop the conflict. They love life: their own, and that in others. *They* are the ones who truly serve the Lord, not Wolfwood with his confessional and his cross.
He's not sure when or how it happened, because he doesn't love. He's never loved. But one day, he woke up, and realized that he was desperately in love with both of them. Even in love, wanting selfishly to possess them, to say, "Look at what beauty I've found, what love of life, what tender grace, and it is, after all, mine. Finders keepers." He gave into it, with Milly, kisses, caresses. He wanted her to be his. Both of them. But, of course, that is not how it is meant to be.
Wolfwood has argument after argument with Vash over their respective beliefs. He isn't sure if he argued because he truly believed that as long as people were bad, it was all right to kill them, or because he knew Vash was right. He thinks it may have been the latter, because, in the end, the worst moment of his life, his gun aimed directly at the man he'd fallen in love with, Vash made him understand. That's what Vash *does*.
It's so hard to be good, so hard to do what he *should* do. It will not feed the orphans, and it will not win him any fame, but it will win him the ability to look Vash in the eyes. It will win him the ability to feel worthy of Milly.
Even if a man kills, even if he has done horrible things in the past, it does not mean he cannot be redeemed. He must shoot only to disable, never to kill. He must place Vash and Milly as his examples: try to fix the sinner, rather than obliterate him.
"Stay here until I come back," he tells Milly. He knows she won't listen, but he hopes.
And it is with love blossoming in his heart that Wolfwood goes to meet Chapel.
by Angela Griffen
It would make sense except Wolfwood doesn't love. He's never had the luxury.
Well, he's never loved like *this*. He's well-acquainted with Jesus-love. Father-love. Philos. Whatever one wants to call it. It's the love he feels for the children at the orphanage; it's the love he feels for the few adults on the planet who are *good* after all. He wishes the best for them, he respects them, he wishes them long and happy lives, but at the end of the day, people were always a distant concern for him. People were *there*, and deserved to be protected, but it was only an abstract. It was only his own reaction to what had happened to *him*.
Of course, he is a priest. He ought not to love one more than another anyway. His duty is to serve God, not a lover. It was always easy before, because he'd never met anyone worth loving. Maybe that's because he never got to know anyone before. He once heard someone say that to know someone is to love them. At the time, he thought that was garbage, but perhaps underneath it, there is a speck of truth.
He's not sure he would have to know someone to fall in love anymore either though. He hardly knew either of them before he felt it. He'd always thought "falling in love" was the work of some poet who'd created an awful cliche long ago, but it *did* feel like falling after all. It was a desperate feeling of sinking below as someone else rose up, falling to his knees, and realizing that *he* was the one who had been unworthy all along.
*They* never let someone's apparent badness excuse them long enough to kill. Jesus dined with whores and theives and murderers, yet Wolfwood never could love enough to do that. He never had enough faith, though he isn't sure if he means in God or in humanity.
Vash shoots blanks, and injures only to disable. Milly rescues runaways and uses only enough force to stop the conflict. They love life: their own, and that in others. *They* are the ones who truly serve the Lord, not Wolfwood with his confessional and his cross.
He's not sure when or how it happened, because he doesn't love. He's never loved. But one day, he woke up, and realized that he was desperately in love with both of them. Even in love, wanting selfishly to possess them, to say, "Look at what beauty I've found, what love of life, what tender grace, and it is, after all, mine. Finders keepers." He gave into it, with Milly, kisses, caresses. He wanted her to be his. Both of them. But, of course, that is not how it is meant to be.
Wolfwood has argument after argument with Vash over their respective beliefs. He isn't sure if he argued because he truly believed that as long as people were bad, it was all right to kill them, or because he knew Vash was right. He thinks it may have been the latter, because, in the end, the worst moment of his life, his gun aimed directly at the man he'd fallen in love with, Vash made him understand. That's what Vash *does*.
It's so hard to be good, so hard to do what he *should* do. It will not feed the orphans, and it will not win him any fame, but it will win him the ability to look Vash in the eyes. It will win him the ability to feel worthy of Milly.
Even if a man kills, even if he has done horrible things in the past, it does not mean he cannot be redeemed. He must shoot only to disable, never to kill. He must place Vash and Milly as his examples: try to fix the sinner, rather than obliterate him.
"Stay here until I come back," he tells Milly. He knows she won't listen, but he hopes.
And it is with love blossoming in his heart that Wolfwood goes to meet Chapel.