Smile

A/N: Here's another Trigun drabble, hopefully to your liking.

Disclaimer: Trigun is not mine... Sadly...

Words: 230
Pairing: Wolfwood/Vash

---

The first time Wolfwood saw Vash smile, it nearly made him cry for the first time since early childhood.

The smile was pretty: flash of pearly white teeth half-hiding behind pale lips, teasingly revealing themselves to all who looked. Mouth curving up at the corners. Charismatic. Lovely.

Moving upward, the aqua eyes behind the trademark yellow sunglasses were opaque, happy, sparkling.

…They had all the practiced falsity of painted ones on a doll's face. Wolfwood knew, having practiced himself. And it pained him to know that someone else was suffering inside the way he was, conflicted between self-loathing and self-preservation; it pained him to see that friendly smile met so often with cruelty.

For the priest, the next logical step was love. He fell deeply in love with what could actually cause him pain after years of calculated numbness, wanting to be wounded again and again because the sensation had become so foreign.

One night a few months later, Vash asked Wolfwood:

"Why do you love me?"

And Wolfwood wanted to reply:

"Because your smile pains me, Spikey. You're the last thing in this universe that lets me know I'm still human."

But Vash would hate to hurt the one he loved, so, hearing this, he would stop smiling altogether. The priest didn't know what he'd do without that little reminder of humanity, so he simply said:

"I like it when you smile."