Reposting this more clearly for airynothing, who asked about it in the WIPs list.
I took a look at this one, and then dumped what I had on my writing LJ, because I was surprised to find that, despite having been written five years ago, it’s actually GOOD.
I don’t remember the details now, but originally I wanted to do a sort of Wolfwood fix-it fic, but the idea of just going, ‘Oh, it didn’t really happen that way’ seemed cheesy. So there were going to be some Plant-related shenanigans, and some dude who had hooked them up to channel their power, and probably—gosh, I don’t know how much time had actually passed, but I think it’s been at least a few generations. I don’t know why people were still on the planet, when they’d had a chance to leave at the end of the manga. I suppose some of them just decided they wanted to stay, once they had access to off-planet resources. Eventually Wolfwood was going to find Vash, probably chilling in a little shack in the desert…I dunno. This is an example of one of those long-ass plots that I started on and never managed to get past the beginning off. I’m littered with them.
It occurred to him for the first time that he might never see that pointy-haired punk again. If…things had already happened, if the priest had slept through them, then he might’ve vanished off into the sunset by now. He might even be dead. Wolfwood didn’t know how to feel about that.
He had plenty of time to think about it, though, and little else to do. The thing about the desert is that sleep and travel are both equally dangerous during the day and the night. Only in the twilight hours around sunup and sundown is it safe for a man to relax his guard. Wolfwood slept a few hours before the suns rose, hunted for a few edible bugs in the morning, hid in the Punisher’s shadow in the afternoon, and began to walk again when the light grew thin. By then, he thought maybe he was okay with it if he’d missed all the excitement. Maybe…maybe he’d finally paid his dues? Laid his burdens to rest back at the church? Could someone like him start over again? He tried that thought on for size a few times as he walked through the deepening evening, images from his past flickering through his head. The children. His master. Legato. Livio. Knives. The insurance girls. All the men dead at his hands. A sofa in the middle of nowhere and a spiky idiot in a red coat and a lying, lying smile.
Oh God, he wanted to start over. But… He stopped and swung the Punisher around to set it down in front of him. If he wanted it so badly, why was he still carrying it? “Put it down, Wolfwood,” he muttered. His hand shook on the strap. “Just…let it fall to the ground and walk away.”
He stood there another moment, enjoying the fantasy. But that nagging sense of something unfinished still wouldn’t let him go. After a bit, he slung the cross back over his shoulder and started walking again. ‘I have promises to keep,’ he thought bitterly. ‘And miles to go before I sleep.’
He just kinda wished he knew what those promises were.
Trigun fic (unfinished): The Desert Breathes