Chapter Text
It's a beautiful morning in July City, grey but sunny, in the way that only springs on the California coast can be, and Vash is absolutely nowhere near awake yet.
He yawns as he fiddles the keys to the shop out of his hoodie pocket, juggling the cardboard holder of multiple coffees, an impressively large box of donuts, and his backpack, yelping as the keys slip out of his tired fingers.
He heaves a sigh of relief as a hand snags them from the air and holds them out by the carabiner on one perfectly manicured finger topped with a shockingly long, brilliantly crimson nail.
"Thanks, Elly!" Vash laughs as he manages to get the door unlocked, and Elendira rolls her eyes, waving his thanks off with a smirk, the morning breeze catching the whorls of smoke from the cigarette in her hand.
"I saw you walking from your car all the way up here, fighting for your life. I figured it's the least I could do."
"Heh. You're always looking out for me, aren't you, El?" Vash props the door open with his hip and offers the box of donuts to Elendira with a flourish.
She taps her chin thoughtfully before selecting a Bavarian cream, somehow managing to bite into it without ruining her flawless red lipstick.
"You flatter me, darling, but your brother has that covered, I think. Where is he, anyway? You two are usually joined at the hip until the place opens."
Elendira leans against the front window of her nail salon, Crimson Rouge, as she eats her donut and smokes her cigarette, and Vash can't help but think she looks far too put-together for seven in the morning.
"Oh, he's sick. Yeah, that husky that got free after his deshedding bath and ran through the shop yesterday? All the dander almost killed him. He's at home. Looks like death. The one day he decides to hang out after the dogs show up, right?"
Elendira muffles a laugh into her cigarette before she stubs it out in the ashtray atop the garbage can between the shops, adjusting the already perfectly centered wreath of red roses on her front door.
"I'll never understand why a man so deathly allergic to animals decided to open a grooming salon..."
Vash laughs and shrugs as she heads into her shop, and he sees the lights cut on as she starts to prepare all the nail technician's stations for the day.
It had been a joint decision between both the twins to open the grooming salon, in reality. Vash had dropped out of veterinary school after the third sick dog he'd had to assist in putting down and Nai had graduated business college two years early and proclaimed he'd rather swallow glass than work in an office. The result after many months of discarded business plans and investment ideas was the grooming salon, a place where Vash could work hands-on with animals every day and Nai could work on crunching numbers and supply reports and order forms from his laptop in the comfort of their garden - Though he still insisted on coming in every morning to count the safe and balance the tills.
They had used their inheritance from Rem to open Who Let the Dogs Sprout? (a name Vash had come up with, of course), which was half-salon and half-little pet supply boutique. Nai had been the one to find the perfect storefront, a charming redbrick building with cheery glass windows and a green striped awning, tucked into a semicircle of independent shops in the part of July City known affectionately by locals as 'the gayborhood'. July was a welcoming place, but Vash always felt the most at home here in midtown, where the buildings were older and covered in ivy and people waved when you walked by.
He's about halfway through turning everything on for the day - booting up the register out front and the computers in the salon, cutting on the water in the tubs so it could warm up, and counting out money in the till - when he's interrupted from his reverie by a knock on the front door.
Vash smiles bright when he sees Meryl waving at him from behind the glass, purse on one shoulder and cat carrier over the other, and jogs across the shop floor to unlock the door and let her in.
"Hey! Sorry I'm late. Zazie stopped me at my car and wanted to see Scrunch." Meryl opens the front of the carrier and lets the black cat inside hop out onto the floor, where he immediately winds his way around Vash's legs in greetings.
"Ah, they didn't try to sell you a python this time?" Vash snorts, leaning down to scritch Meryl's cat between his fluffy ears.
"Yeah, but, Scrunch distracted them pretty fast."
Zazie owned the exotic pet shop at the end of the avenue - Named The Hive, the place sold all kinds of reptiles, amphibians, insects, and sundries for their keeping, that Zazie bred themself. They were nice enough, if not oddly insistent everyone should know the joys of owning a slithery, slinky thing.
Vash grins as he snaps the till drawer shut, offering Meryl the box of donuts and the coffee he'd gotten for her out of the holder.
"Thanks. Anything crazy on the book today?" Meryl flops down in the spinny chair behind the register to eat her blueberry cake donut, and Vash remembers when she'd first walked in to apply for a job.
She'd been a recently graduated journalism student who'd been appalled at the lack of ethics from all the papers in town, and was trying to find any job to float her until she could start her own publication. Five years later she ran a wildly popular online news blog and still worked at the shop part-time, citing that she just couldn't bear to leave.
"No, nothing even until one, can you believe it? But it's a Tuesday." Vash groans, grabbing himself a chocolate donut out of the box.
"Tuesdays," Meryl commiserates with a sigh, patting Scrunch who's just hopped up into her lap.
Seniors flocked to the shop in droves when they got their social security checks on Wednesdays, Thursdays were usually buzzing with the people who'd taken long weekends, Friday and Saturday were predictably unpredictable, and the place was closed on Sunday and Monday to give the employees a break. Tuesdays were like Purgatory - Empty, identityless, and always the slowest days of the week at the salon.
Vash had already texted Milly, the only other groomer on staff besides himself, to not bother coming in until noon instead of eight when the shop opened unless she just wanted to because they had so little to do. She'd been hired at her girlfriend Meryl's recommendation, having been grooming her own family dogs all her life back home, and Vash couldn't think of a better coworker and friend to be bored with all day.
The morning goes as slow as he expects it to. Vash has swept the salon of imaginary hair at least four times by twelve o'clock when Milly rolls through the door with lunch for everyone from Le Cyclope, the little bistro across the plaza ran by a no-nonsense Frenchwoman named Dominique. He lets Milly take the first scheduled grooming client of the day after lunch, a big grey cat appropriately named Greycie, who's owner is worried she's not bathing herself properly.
"She's kind of dusty," Milly remarks in awe as she pats Greycie's back, and Vash can already see the wheels turning in her mind as to how she'll take care of her.
Greycie's owner had mentioned she really hated men, and Vash feels a pleasant rush of gender euphoria as she hisses and swipes at him when he walks by Milly's grooming table as she's brushing her. Even at twenty-nine, after thirteen years on testosterone, it never gets old to have an animal gender him properly.
He takes a few walk-in clients for nail grinds and face trims, bathes a pitbull who's terrified of water, fixes a broken velocity hair dryer, and walks the shop with Greycie's owner to recommend some at-home grooming tools to keep the dustiness down. He waves off Milly's request to take an unpaid break to pop down to Hornfreak's, the music and instrument repair shop, to buy some new strings for her guitar before they close, insisting she stay on the clock for it since they're so slow. A few phone calls, an outline trim on a German shepherd, and a shih tzu that takes a solid half hour of cajoling to calm her down enough to shave her feet, and it's finally five P.M. - Time to close the salon.
The storefront doesn't close until seven, and Vash shoos Milly out so she can hang out with Meryl behind the register. He likes cleaning up, doesn't mind doing it alone - It's another reminder that this place is his, that it's his and his brother's and his friends' hands that keep this little machine running, and there's nowhere else he'd rather be.
He's shutting off the shop vac and sneezing out doggy dander when the little bell over the salon door tinkles, announcing a customer.
"Oh, I'm sorry, we're closed for walk-ins!" Vash calls out from the ground where he's wrapping the cord back up on the vacuum, popping up from behind Milly's grooming table in a flurry of long limbs and blonde hair.
"I wanted to see about makin' an appointment? The girls at the register said I could do that here."
Vash has no problem doing it, of course, but he does wonder why Milly couldn't do it on the tablet up front since she knows he was cleaning, but then he adjusts his big round glasses and sees why she sent the customer to him.
The man standing behind the counter separating the little client area from the actual grooming bay is tall - Maybe even an inch or two taller than Vash himself, which is no small feat. He's broad, filling up the space in the little room. He's got warm brown skin and shiny dark hair in a shaggy mullet that somehow works for him, and a thick Southern drawl. He's wearing all black head-to-toe, complete with cowboy boots and a leather jacket.
He couldn't be more Vash's type if he'd been asked to write down his ideal man.
Vash shoots a glance out of the big half-frosted glass windows around the salon into the front of the store, squinting a little at the register, and predictably both the girls are openly staring his way. So maybe it's been a while since he had a date. So maybe it had taken him an embarrassingly long time to get over his last girlfriend after she moved away for a job opportunity in England. So maybe his friends had been trying to set him up ever since.
"Oh, sorry! Of course you can!" Vash smiles at the man, maintaining his constant aura of friendliness even though he feels the back of his neck flush as red as his dog-hair covered hoodie.
He pushes his sleeves up as he walks to the front of the shop, brushing his hands off on his black workout pants, and he notices how the man's eyes flick curiously to the teal metal of his prosthetic, but he doesn't say anything. Vash doesn't really mind questions about his arm or his legs anymore, but he always appreciates when people don't lead with that.
"Hi, I'm Vash Saverem. Head stylist and co-owner of Who Let the Dogs Sprout?!" Vash thrusts his hand forward to shake the man's, and he fights down the butterflies in his stomach when he feels how big his hand is, warm and broad and rough with callouses.
"Nicholas D. Wolfwood. Dog owner. Potential future customer?" the man grins a little around the toothpick in his teeth, and Vash notices his front teeth are ever-so slightly crooked in a charming way.
"It's nice to meet you, Nicholas. Nick?" Vash crosses his arms over the swinging door that leads to the grooming bay, leaning against it with a smile on his face.
"Either's fine, or you can call me Wolfwood."
"Got it." Vash nods as he leans further over the door, straining to get a glimpse of any potential dog that may be hiding behind Wolfwood, eager to meet whoever he may be working on soon. He's so excited about the dog he doesn't even notice Wolfwood's ears reddening, or the girls at the register flailing their arms and pointing at them.
"Oh! And who is this beauty?" Vash gasps with delight when he finally sees the dog.
She'd blended into the shadows under the counter and Wolfwood's dark jeans, but Vash can see her now that he leans over a little more. A huge black Newfoundland that comes up to Wolfwood's knee, clearly well-taken care of but in desperate need of a trim as she somewhat resembles Cousin Itt.
"This is Angelina," Wolfwood strokes between her fluffy ears, and she bumps her head into his palm, gazing up at him with pathetically sad brown eyes. "We just moved to July. Been in December all her life."
"Oh, wow, you're both a long way from home. That's down near the Rio Grande, isn't it?" Vash props his cheek in his hand as he wiggles his prosthetic fingers at Angelina, giving her a slow little wave. She doesn't seem impressed.
"Yeah... As you can see, she's in desperate need of a groom. I'm brushin' her at home, but.. We been here about a month and I haven't been able to find a place that'll take her yet... Y'all are sort of one of my last options."
Vash notices he doesn't mention why he left December, and Vash tactfully doesn't ask, keeping the conversation professional as he nods along.
"I'm flattered to be your last resort." Vash shoots him a grin that shows he's joking, but Wolfwood looks a little flustered anyway, eyes widening, so Vash quickly jumps to reassure him.
"It happens a lot. We're in the 'W' listings on Google and in the phone book, and kind of a little hole-in-the-wall. Call us a local secret."
Wolfwood looks a little relieved at that and he snorts, rubbing Angelina's head soothingly, nodding along.
"Yeah, I actually heard about you from my new neighbor - Work neighbor, anyway. The Japanese guy who runs the teashop down the street? Says you're the only guy in town who can do his dog's nails."
"Oh, Rai-dei! Yeah, his Akita was real scared of the clippers, but we're good friends now. She even lets me give her kisses after I do a paw."
Wolfwood's lips twitch at that, and Vash thinks he's about to speak again, but the first part of his sentence finally catches up to Vash and his eyes widen as he realizes what he just said.
"Wait, work neighbor?" Vash blurts out, leaning forward over the gate a little. "Did you move into one of the vacant storefronts?"
The little circular avenue of shops was tight-knit, and Vash hadn't seen a new place spring up and actually stay there since he and Nai bought the salon five years ago. The two businesses right smack in the center of the cul-de-sac of storefronts had always been a revolving door of soulless franchise spots and generic pop-up stores until a few months ago. There'd been wild speculation about who would move in since the places got bought, especially given the construction and people going in and out in the past few weeks. Vash is definitely eager to know more if one of the new shop owners is standing right in front of him.
"Ah... Yeah. Me and my brother scooped 'em up. I heard about the turnover... They're not haunted or cursed or anythin', right?" Wolfwood chuckles, and raises his brows at how surprisingly white Vash's face goes at the suggestion.
"God, I hope not! It's just that... Nobody that rented there really fit in, you know? This is sort of a... Unique place. Everyone who tried to set up shop there was kind of, um, generic. They didn't respect that we kind of had our own identity here as a bunch of gung-ho weirdos."
Vash grins at that, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses, and Wolfwood snorts a little, nodding as he winds Angelina's leash around his palm.
"Yeah, I noticed. I liked the 'unattended cops will be carved, fried, and served in BLTs' sticker on the window of the antique shop - What was it called? What's Yours is Mine?." Wolfwood looks like he means it, his brown eyes glimmering.
Vash imagines he wouldn't have bought a business in the unapologetically queer part of town if he wasn't 'rolling on the rainbow road', as Milly had put it once when she was drunk. Or if he wasn't at least a sympathetic ally enticed by the cheap real estate.
Vash was holding out hope for the former.
"Oh yeah, me too," Vash laughs into his palm. "Just don't ask EG - the owner - about it, or else he'll rope you into an hour long tirade about the inequalities of a police state."
Wolfwood chokes out a laugh at that and Vash grins, trying to rein the conversation back towards what Wolfwood had originally walked through his door for.
"Sorry to change the subject, but welcome to the neighborhood! I can't wait to see what you and your brother grace our little corner of town with." Vash stands up straight from the little swinging door and nods at Angelina, going for the jar of treats on the desk - Handmade by Milly.
"Can she have one? They're organic, just peanut butter, wheat flour, and pumpkin, really."
Wolfwood nods and steps back to let Angelina be front and center, but she ducks back behind his legs in a way that makes Vash's heart break for her.
"Aw, baby. You said no place would take her - Is this why?"
Wolfwood nods with a pained grimace as Vash comes around to the client area, slowly kneeling down with a little bone-shaped treat in his palm, making sure to use his right hand so she can smell him properly.
"Is she aggressive? Or is it just fear?"
"Just fear," Wolfwood answers quickly, shifting to the side as Angelina anxiously sniffs the air, giving Vash a distrusting look.
"She's not aggressive to people or animals at all, I promise. She's just... Scared of everythin'. I tried socializin' her when she was young, and she's okay with other dogs, but she just falls apart around people. She hates groomin', gets so scared she won't stop dancin', tryin' to come off the table, escape the tub. The gal I used in December took ages to warm her up to it even as a puppy. The mobile places just have their hands too full for her, and she's so big, the corporate places just reject her on sight hearin' she's a handful."
Vash nods sympathetically as he kneels stock still on the ground, showing Angelina the treat, keeping his head bowed a little in deference to her. She's been slowly creeping forward the whole time Wolfwood was talking, crawling on her belly like a soldier, until she's nose to fingertips with his hand.
Wolfwood glances down in the silence following his story and opens his mouth, but Vash shoots him a look that says 'don't talk about it' so he closes it immediately, watching the two of them on the floor with open interest.
"Hi, beautiful," Vash coos softly to her, his voice gentle and pitched up, soothing but not too heavy on baby-talk, the tone perfected over his years of working with animals. "I'd be scared if some stranger tried to take all that hair I worked so hard to grow, too. But there's nothing to be afraid of in here."
Angelina stares at him, droopy eyes full of worry, but she licks her chops as she glances at the treat in his palm, and Vash nods encouragingly.
"This is for you. You can take it, no strings attached, promise." he smiles then, eyes crinkling up, a small laugh coming from his chest.
The laugh seems to be what does it. Angelina tilts her head, one fuzzy ear flicking, and she reaches her big snout down to take the treat out of Vash's hand delicately, snuffling all around his skin as she chews it.
"Yeah, you smell all those other cats and dogs that were here today, don't you, pretty girl? They got me all stinky. You smell better than me right now." Vash laughs again and Angelina's tail actually thumps once, and she gives his palm a lick for any crumbs, and then retreats immediately behind Wolfwood's legs.
Vash wipes his hands off on his hair-covered, nail-dust stained pants and stands up, rocking back on his booted heels to give Wolfwood a big smile, enjoying the look of astonishment on his handsome face.
"Wow. I mean - That was impressive. I ain't never seen her take to someone so fast except my brother. But I guess that is your job to connect with animals like that."
Vash shrugs, but his face is happy as he goes back behind the gate to give Angelina some space. He flops down in the chair at the desk, shaking the mouse to wake the computer up, reopening the appointment program that Nai's boyfriend, Legato, had painstakingly coded for them from scratch.
"It is! But like Rai-dei kind of said to you, I specialize in both big dogs and nervous dogs. Aggressive, scared, just plain don't wanna be here. I like the challenge of a big dog, and I really enjoy seeing a nervous dog open up and feel like this is a safe place for them. 'Cause it is, you know?"
Vash is rambling a little while the program opens, but Wolfwood doesn't seem to mind, and it's relevant to his dog, so he keeps talking.
"It's a safe place, I mean. A lot of those corporate places force their stylists to prioritize speed over quality so they can make more money. The poor employees don't get to vibe with the animals, make them feel at ease, get to know their personalities. But here, we take fewer clients a day so we can spend more time with them and really form a bond."
Wolfwood's posture has eased up significantly while Vash ambled on, and Vash notes that he almost seems relaxed as he leans one arm on the counter, nodding along, rolling the toothpick in his teeth from one side of his mouth to the other.
"Can I have your phone number?" Vash asks absently as he types the information he already knows about Wolfwood into the new client form - his name, his dog's name and breed.
Wolfwood makes a choking sound and Vash looks up, startled, to see him taking the now-broken toothpick out of his mouth, spitting out the end of it into his palm. His eyes are wide as he gives Vash a slow, obvious once-over, tucking the broken toothpick into his jacket pocket.
Vash feels himself go red all over as Wolfwood's gaze slides over his dog-sneeze speckled glasses, the bathwater damp rolled-up sleeves of his hoodie, the animal hair sticking to his gray t-shirt proclaiming the shop's name and logo, the floppy unstyled after a long day of work fringe falling over his forehead. It's an appraising gaze, and Vash can't tell if Wolfwood likes what he sees, but - Is he imagining that faint glimmer of interest in his dark eyes, despite how sweaty and disheveled Vash looks? Did he notice how Vash stared at him when he walked in? He'd tried so hard to be subtle, too.
"Oh! Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't - Mean it like that. I meant for the client form, to put you in the system. I need a phone number to attach," Vash is definitely as red in the face as the awning over Elendira's shop now, and he rubs his neck awkwardly with his prosthetic hand, a faint little hysteric giggle escaping him.
"Oh," Wolfwood says, but his full lips are twitching, like he's trying not to smile. "I was gonna say... You're pretty, but, won't even take me out to dinner first?"
Vash feels like that time he electrocuted himself trying to plug too many things into the power strip under the desk a few years ago.
"I..." Vash cuts his eyes across the salon to look through the bubbles on the glass to see where the girls are, if they're witnessing his embarrassment, and he nearly slinks down into the floor when he notices how obviously they're pretending to dust the same shelf right by the window. Scrunch is even perched on the damn shelf, staring at him with what Vash is sure is judgment.
He's usually not this shy around people he thinks are good-looking. He typically just gets through the flirting the same way he does every interaction - With his easy smile and instinctive way around charming people, but Wolfwood's eyes are so big and brown and beautiful and he's looking at him like he isn't joking about dinner, and Vash's tongue feels like it weighs a million pounds in his mouth.
He thinks about how hard Meryl will punch him in the arm if he fucks this up and takes a stabilizing breath, shooting his signature winning smile over the top of the computer at Wolfwood, the nerves slowly ebbing away as he watches him smirk.
Oh my god, does he have crow's feet? Vash thinks, his stomach butterflies morphing into Atlas moths. That's like the cherry on an already delicious cake for him.
"I really do just need your number for the appointment, but..." Vash tilts his head and taps his cheek with a finger, looking playfully thoughtful. "I'd love to take you to dinner sometime when I'm... Cleaner, and smell better."
Wolfwood laughs a little at that, and he leans on the counter, teeth flashing just a bit as he grins, quick and a little wicked. It makes Vash's heartbeat race.
"Remember, I'm new here. I don't know what's good. You'll have to pick the place."
Vash puts a hand over his heart like he's swearing an oath, his face exaggeratedly solemn.
"Food is like a religion to me. I have worshipped at every temple in July. I will show you only the best."
Wolfwood really does laugh at that, and Vash can't help but enjoy the sound of it, low and a little raspy and kind of a cackle.
Vash manages to get through filling out the client form without further embarrassing himself, slotting Angelina in for what he likes to call an 'introductory groom' in his next available slot for a dog her size, on a slow day so she won't be overstimulated. She'll come in and just get the basics - Face trim, feet trim, sanitary area trim, maybe her nails done and ears cleaned if she'll tolerate it. He explains he likes to do this with nervous clients to ease them into grooming, whether it be their first time ever or first time in a new place, and Wolfwood looks like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders in relief when Vash finishes.
"God, you're a lifesaver, really. Thank you for takin' the time to do that for her." Wolfwood takes another treat from the jar when Vash offers it and Angelina eats it immediately, wagging her tail up at Wolfwood for more.
"Of course, no need to thank me. It's all about getting her comfortable, going at her pace."
"You really got no idea how much of a relief it is to hear you say that."
Vash shoots Wolfwood a thankful smile at the praise as he stands from the desk chair, coming around the gate to open the salon door for Wolfwood, pretending to ignore the sound of shoes squeaking madly on the wood floor as Meryl and Milly attempt to flee from their vigil at the shelf and no doubt look normal.
"I gotta finish closing up, but it was great to meet you. I'll see Angelina next Tuesday!" Vash props the heavy glass door open with his hip as Wolfwood walks into the shop, and he gives him a little slow wave with each of his fingers, eyes crinkling up. "And... Maybe I'll see you sooner, schedule permitting? I'll text you."
Wolfwood throws him a smirk and a wink as he makes a beeline for the shelf of Milly's homemade dog treats, picking up a bag of the same kind Vash had on the desk and heading for the register with them.
"I'll be waitin', then, Blondie."
Vash can't help but giggle at the nickname as he scampers back into the salon, letting Meryl ring Wolfwood up. He knows she'll likely burst in the second he leaves the shop and ask for every detail, but until then, he busies himself with putting away the tools at his station and lowering his grooming table, head full of the champagne bubbles of happy possibilities for the future.