Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ After the Fall ❯ And Worse I May Be Yet ( Chapter 5 )

Title:After the Fall
Author:Girl.Interpreted
Betas: Alaena Night & Sugar Pill
Timeline:Post-anime (a few days after Vash returns to the girls with Knives in tow), with a manga topping
Pairings:Vash/Meryl, Millie/Wolfwood, Knives/wouldn't-you-like-to-know
Genre:Deep Space Planet Future Gun Action
Rating:T- for violence, language, sexual content: all the great dirty pleasures of life
Archive:Please contact me for permission.
Disclaimer:Trigun, its characters and universe, are the intellectual property of their respective owners. I am merely borrowing for entertainment purposes. I make no claims of ownership, nor do I profit from my storytelling.
Summary: Last time: Knives and Meryl had a nice little chat. And by “nice little chat” I mean he took her hostage and ran off into the desert. Vash tried to think of the best way to let the girls know Wolfwood was alive, but was spared that awkwardness when he realized his nutjob brother had made off with his chick. Then Vash shot Wolfwood. Damn. Wolfwood didn't mind so much because the only thing ruined was the shirt Vash had let him borrow. Millie was clever enough to plant that tracker the Chief gave her on Vash. And this time it didn't end up with Kuroneko-sama. Millie shared a bath with her favorite priest (strictly in the interest of water conservation, of course), much to the squee-ful glee of the reading audience. We also learned that bargaining while naked is effective, if not underhanded. Meanwhile Meryl pissed Knives off by daring to gasp! be nice to him. When we last left our heroine, she was in (shockingly) big trouble.
A/N: Sugar Pill and Alaena Night are alphas among betas. I'm erecting a shrine for them on the potato farm west of my sofa. Additionally, the title of this chapter is a quote from one of William Shakespeare's plays. Do you know which one? Ms. Night is making chili-cheese dogs as we speak.


Chapter 5: And Worse I May Be Yet

Knives hadn't had enough time to heal properly, he knew, but he couldn't risk staying any longer. He didn't dare to seek out Vash's consciousness, lest his brother inadvertently glean anymore information than he already had. From what Knives had sensed earlier, however, he knew it wouldn't be long until Vash was upon him.

His sister had refused to speak with him inside the bulb. She merely offered her energy, helping him to rebuild his damaged body. Her emotions, however, were pouring off of her in waves. And though he knew that he'd done what was best for her, feeling how broken-hearted she was, and knowing he'd caused that pain, made him want to apologize. Luckily for Knives, he'd never had too much trouble converting an unwelcome emotion into the familiar burn of anger, guilt included.

By the time he was ready to leave the warm swell of the energy plant, Knives had been able to distract himself with thoughts of his next move. With any luck, Vash's human would intercept him in her escape. Maybe Vash would even sense her. From what Knives could tell, his brother was projecting like a madman. It wouldn't be too far off to imagine that he'd pick up on the distressed little insect as she fled. And that would give Knives even more of a head start.

Dammit. He'd let the girl go, which meant she'd taken the truck, and all the supplies packed inside it. He'd made her take a change of clothes for him before they'd flown that beaten-down shack, but he'd been so weak and overwhelmed before he entered the bulb, he'd completely forgotten to command her to leave them for him. Not that he had any particular problem with nudity, but traveling across the desert in the buff wasn't an option.

He coughed as he slid from the bulb to the ground outside, blinking rapidly as his eyes struggled to refocus. No matter. The settlement had been abandoned in a single evening. Surely there was a vehicle he could use, probably with the keys still hanging in the ignition. There were plenty of homes where he could find something to wear, and...

He had to be imagining things. His eyes were telling him that the dark-haired scrap of a human was standing not more than fifteen feel away. Surely this was a mistake, the result of a half-assed attempt at healing himself. Maybe the fever was back. But no! She was there. With the stupidest expression on her face. A combination of curiosity, fear, and... something almost... hopeful? She was wringing her hands uncertainly, her teeth tightening over her bottom lip.

Unbelievable! Rage bloomed in his chest, soaking his vision like blood through fresh linen. The world became a pinpoint where she stood. He was marginally aware of his shaking hands, the muscle above his eye that twitched as he approached her. “What the hell are you still doing here!?”

The girl tried to stand her ground, but her body betrayed her, shrinking away from him as he closed in. She watched him with large eyes. Knives distantly remembered a flower in the rec-room that had been that color, a thistle. Vash had liked it, liked the idea of something beautiful that one couldn't risk touching. Another man might have been softened by the look in those eyes, so very frightened and helpless. Knives, however, was not a man; he was a plant. Her fear, her fragility, filled him with nothing but disgust and a predatory insistence to destroy.

“Answer me!” he roared. “Why are you here?”

“Because...” Her voice hitched and she tried again. “Because of Vash.”

Her words were awkward, halted by the primal, instinctive whisper of 'danger! run!' that, undoubtedly, clouded her mind. Still, he understood her meaning. Understood as he hazarded a glimpse at her mind. She actually thought, had the audacity to believe, that she was somehow important here. That something she did or did not do could have an effect on his brother. Could make a difference in the way things were going to play out between the twins.

“Stupid bitch!” He hit her, fist closed, and noted how satisfying it was. Normally, he would have simply sliced her to ribbons with his angel arm, almost a distant observer as the transformed fibre of his body did the work. This was different. Instinctive, personal. Her teeth scraped the skin from his knuckles when his fist slammed into her mouth; the pain of it was dull and sharp all at once. The bubble of adrenaline that burst within him as he felt her flesh give, and watched her topple heavily to the sand, was particularly rewarding.

“I don't think you understand your place in this.” His voice was strangely calm, as if the act of striking her had blessed him with a new clarity, a clarity he was more than willing to share with her. “I can see how you'd be confused. I'm sure my brother led you to believe you were... special. He is, after all, very good at pretending. Do you know why?” He dispassionately regarded his bloody knuckles, as one might glance at a hangnail. “He believes his own lies. Even something as simple as you should have caught on by now. You know what he is, after all. Vash was alive for a hundred years before your parents rutted and grunted you into existence, and he will persist long after you could merely aspire to be some of the dust on his boots.”

Meryl heard his words, even as the world swam and a thousand tiny lights flashed before her eyes. She struggled to draw breath, as the fall to the sand had knocked the air from her lungs. The air rattled at the back of her throat, her mouth filling with blood, and she was forced to cough and spit. She saw something odd in the splattered pattern of thick red. A tooth? Her tongue found an empty space in her gum, and she guessed that it must be hers.

She thought about what Knives was saying. How long would Vash live? Forever? There was a certain logic in Knives' words that she couldn't dispute, however much she longed to. How could she even begin to understand what it meant to live that long? It was a perspective beyond her reach. Surely there had been others, people like her who'd gotten close to Vash, only to die and be absorbed into the ever-widening gulf of Time. She wondered if he ever thought of them.

“Why do you think I let you go? Gratitude? Sympathy?” Knives crouched over her, his grin arrogant and predatory. “It's insulting to consider it. I gave you the opportunity to escape simply because you'll be more trouble dead than alive.” Her eyes widened marginally in surprise, and he laughed unpleasantly. “As long as you are flesh and blood, you're no threat to me or Vash. Do you know what would happen if I killed you? Vash would forget you. Of course you'd be a convenient reason for him to continue to resist me. I'm sure he'd turn you into a practical saint. But who you are, how you are?... the details would fade quickly enough. You understand now, parasite? He doesn't care about you; it's the idea of you he finds so appealing... Did you really think otherwise?” He noted her expression with a disapproving click of his tongue. His voice was a cold, condescending purr, “Oh, you did. That's so pathetic, it's almost endearing.”

Meryl laughed. The sound was strange, even to her own ears. She gave up on trying to push herself to her feet and instead rolled to her back. Facing the sky, every vital organ exposed as she let her hands fall to her sides, Meryl should have been frightened. This man could gut her with a casual flick of his wrist, somewhere she remembered that, but currently he appeared to her no more than a childish bully. His brow creased angrily over his eyes. “What are you laughing at?” he demanded.

She managed a scowl as disapproving as his own. “You think I'm pathetic? Like I'm going to listen to someone who doesn't know the first thing about what it means to love somebody else. Everything you've done has been for him? That makes me laugh. Everything you've done has been for no one's benefit but your own. You obviously don't know shit about Vash. But I do. I know him very well. He trusts me.” She knew it was foolish to provoke him like this, but God help her, she didn't care. Knives thought he was an authority? That he could tell her that Vash didn't really care about her, and that she'd actually believe him? Self-important bastard! A grin cracked the blood that had started to congeal on her split lip. “Jealous, Knives?”

In the past hundred years or so, there had been lots of things that pissed Knives off. He was comfortable with the feeling of anger, knew it inside and out. It could range from mild annoyance to full out ire, with plenty of undulations in between. There had only been two instances where the rage had been so profound, it actually frightened him. The first time he'd been leaning over a control panel, programming the new flight plan that would later be known as the Great Fall. The anger had been like a separate person, compelling him forward. He'd bitten through his thumbnail, the blood dripping on the controls, and hadn't even noticed. The second time had been when he'd witnessed the Last Run, and watched helplessly as the life of his sister was forcibly torn from her screaming body. In that moment, as he watched the dead plant sink to the bottom of the bulb, he'd remembered what Tessla had looked like. He had a vision of her floating form, her exposed innards, as clear as it had been that day. He might have passed out, reduced to the terrified child he'd been so long ago, except that the other person was back. The vengeful double that he hadn't felt since the Fall. By the time he'd realized what had happened, everyone was dead.

Knives felt that person now, felt him like a coiled spring in his gut.

A blade formed and slipped between his fingers before he'd thought to summon it. He didn't care that he'd decided not to kill her. He didn't think about the potential consequences of his actions. All he cared about was slicing off chunks of this creature, carving his rage into her very flesh.

“KNIVES!!” He had barely any warning, just a flicker of red in his periphery before the first bullet screamed past his ear. He could smell singed hair. Vash's warning shot had been close.

Damn. And Knives had thought he was pissed off.

Where the hell had he come from anyway? He should have sensed his approach, unless... That bastard was shielding! When, exactly, had he learned to do that? Knives allowed the blade to retreat, and grabbed the girl by the throat. In a swift movement, he lifted her in the air, placing her body between Vash and himself.

Vash was practically crackling with power. He held his gun in a steady hand, his stance practiced and stable, but that arm... He was wearing that damned red coat he was so fond of, even though the right sleeve was entirely missing. The skin on his right arm crawled, feathers and little blades bursting at the surface only to be reabsorbed.

“Dammit, Vash! I thought I told you not to use your powers!” Knives extended his own energy, forcing Vash's angel arm back into dormancy. Just as he expected, the idiot hadn't even been aware he was using it. “Opening your gate like that, unchecked...!”

“I'll kill you, Knives! Don't think I won't!” Vash didn't even seem to notice what was, or was not, happening to his arm. His eyes were locked straight down the barrel of his gun, over the girl's shoulder, right between his brother's eyes. “Put. Her. Down.”

Knives felt a new storm of outrage boil inside his skull. He would really do it. Vash would honestly kill him. Knives narrowed his gaze, fixing it on the colt he'd made for Vash. “Don't! Point that thing! At me! She'll be dead before you get the round off!” Vash's expression didn't change, but something flashed behind his eyes, and Knives knew he had him. He wouldn't risk his pet, and Knives could crush her windpipe whenever he wanted. There would be nothing Vash could do to stop him. “Good. Now that you're being reasonable, throw me the gun.”

Vash hesitated, his eyes flashing to the girl suspended at the end of Knives' arm. When Knives had first lifted her off her feet, she'd clawed at his hand and forearm, drawing thin, jagged lines of blood. She'd been kicking too, for all the good it did her, with those short little legs. Now, her movements had slowed. Her legs hung straight, and her hands barely gripped at his wrist. Knives gave her a violent shake. “The gun, Vash!”

Vash's eyes turned back to his twin. The grip on his weapon loosened. Just before Vash threw the gun, Knives looked in his eyes, and knew what he was going to do. “No!” Knives yelled, even as the gun flew through the air, and Vash made a move for the girl. Knives caught the gun in his free hand, swinging the girl behind him as he brought the gun around. Vash had to have known he would be too slow.

Knives fired. The bullet caught his brother in the gut, not more than two paces away.

He took a step away from where Vash was doubled over. The hand Knives used to keep the colt trained on him was trembling slightly. Distantly, he was aware of the girl as she renewed her struggles to free herself. “Stupid!” He took a hard breath to try and ease the shaking in his arm. “Traitor! I know what you did Vash! I saw it in your mind! You used our sister to heal a human!” Knives felt his eyes get hot, his vision blurred and refocused as he blinked. He vaguely remembered what it was like to cry. “And you'd kill me? You'd kill yourself? For this!?” He shook the girl again. She was staring down at Vash, but her eyes were starting to lose their focus. “You are not my brother! Do you hear me, Vash? You are not my brother!!”

Vash was still kneeling, his head bowed as he curled his body over the gunshot. He didn't look at Knives, but made a small grunt of pain as he stretched his arms in front of him, and began to crawl. Knives' eyes widened. “What are you doing?” His voice was alarmed, choked, as he watched Vash move sluggishly toward him, a trail of blood in his wake. He wanted to take a step away from him. Wanted to move forward to help him. Wanted to tell him to stop, that he was hurting himself. But Knives couldn't do anything but watch, the colt still trained on his brother's head, the hand that held it now shaking like a leaf in the wind.

Vash was shaking too. He reached Knives, and wrapped his arms around his brother's ankle. With a shuddering breath he leaned the top of his head against Knives's shin.

“Please,” Vash all but whimpered.

Knives looked down in horror. His brother was sobbing, pleading at his feet.

“Knives! Please... just don't. Please, Knives.” His voice was disjointed, broken by sobs. His fingers tightening around Knives' leg, as his shoulders shook with the weight of his desperation.

“Shut up, Vash!” Knives still held the gun. He felt a revulsion, an overwhelming disgust that he could almost taste. He couldn't see Vash's face, just the back of his head. The hair at the nape of his neck was darker than the rest. Knives looked down the barrel of the gun at the shaking, begging, pathetic mess that used to be his brother, and all he could see was that patch of black hair.

I did this. The knowledge hit Knives abruptly, painfully. I did this. It had never before occurred to Knives to wonder how much his brother could take.

“I'm sorry, Meryl. I'm so sorry,” Vash said fervently, although his voice was losing strength. Knives looked to the girl still dangling in his grasp. Meryl? Could Vash really be broken so easily, so completely, by the death of this woman? He felt the warmth of Vash's blood as it flowed in pulses over his bare foot.

The shields Vash had erected earlier crashed down, and Knives found himself assaulted by his brother's emotions. It was like it had been when they were children: an open empathic channel with the volume at ten. Vash could have killed him with the first shot, Knives realized. He still wasn't willing to make any sacrifices, still wanted to save both. When Knives had used Meryl as a shield, and demanded the gun, Vash had known the outcome of the situation wasn't in his hands. It was in Knives' hands. He'd rushed to take hold of the girl, knowing that Knives would get to the gun first. He'd been hoping that for once, just once, Knives would prove him wrong and do the right thing. He'd hoped that he wouldn't pull the trigger.

Knives had never hated his brother more. If I kill her now, it will be like he killed her. There will be nothing left of him.

Knives had always known he'd win in the end. The first time he'd been shot, when Vash had shot him, with his own gun, he'd promised Vash's retreating silhouette that it was only a matter of time. One day Vash would come around to the truth. Now, he knew that Vash would never see things as he did. He'd never help him create his Eden. Knives could either destroy him, or...

He felt the girl's throat working under his hand. Knives turned to look at her. Her mouth was moving, trying to form words she didn't have enough air to speak. It looked like 'please'.

Knives took comfort in the renewed burst of anger as it chased away something that felt dangerously close to shame. Vash was bleeding at his feet, sacrificing himself for a chance at saving her, and she had the audacity to beg for her life? Worthless, predictable humans! Brazen, boldfaced mongrels, intent on insuring their survival at any cost!

Then he realized she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the gun he held to Vash's head. His eyes widened in surprise. “What is it?” he asked her telepathically before he could stop himself.

Her vision was darkening at the edges. She struggled to hold onto consciousness. “Please don't hurt Vash.”

She fell from his hand with a heavy thud. The black of her hair looked odd against skin that was nearly white. He wondered for a moment, if she was dead, before he noted the subtle rise and fall of her chest. She was merely unconscious.

Knives had never felt this out of control before. He felt as though his skeleton might tear its way through his skin, if his shaking didn't pulverize every bone in his body to dust first. He had to move, had to scream, had to... something! Vash was barely conscious, unaware even that Knives had spared his pet. He was getting weaker every second, with every heartbeat and every gush of blood, and still his emotions thrummed in Knives' head like an exposed nerve.

“GAH!” Knives had meant to tell Vash to shut up, to stop screaming his pain up and down Knives' spine. Somehow, 'shut up' had become an inarticulate scream, as Knives brought the butt of the gun down on base of Vash's skull. With his brother truly and deeply unconscious, Knives was left with no one's thoughts but his own.

He found himself on his knees. He'd forgotten how difficult it was to catch one's breath when crying this hard. He held his breath, gritted his teeth, resisting each sob as it forced its way out of his throat. He shut his eyes tight, trying to trap the tears behind his eyelids. He fought, wrapped his arms around his sides, doubled over the way Vash had been. I can't. I can't.

Dammit! He stood and screamed his frustration into the air, forcing the feeling from his body. He strung together a barely intelligible litany of swear words, and gave Vash a kick in the ribs for good measure. What the hell now?

He had to bandage the hole in Vash's gut before the bastard bled to death. And then pants. Pants would be good. And then... then they were getting the fuck out of here.

It didn't take long to fix Vash up enough to be able to move him. He stripped him of that stupid red jacket. Bullet-proof it was not, at least at close range. It was an ugly looking wound. Nice shooting, he told himself. You didn't need that liver, did you Vash? Even so, Vash's body was pushing the bullet out. And if he was healing himself, he'd eventually be all right. The gash on the back of his head was another matter. A scalp split so easily. Knives frowned at how much a head wound could bleed. Vash's hair was matted with it. At least Knives hadn't managed to crack his skull with the force of the blow; that was a check in the 'good things' category. Knives focused on the good, the things he could fix and manage. The rest, the growing column of decidedly 'bad' things, would have to wait until later. He couldn't do a damn thing about them now anyway.

Knives slipped an arm under his brother's knees, his other arm braced behind his back. He got his legs under Vash's weight and lifted him with a grunt. He stumbled slightly. “You're heavy!” he accused, though Vash was unconscious and unhearing, as if his brother was being intentionally cumbersome. “You're a pain in the ass! You know that, Vash? Do I weigh this much?” He wondered how an individual fueled almost entirely by donuts, had managed, with injuries of his own, to carry him out of the desert. Vash just really was that stubborn. And stupid.

Knives carefully settled Vash into the bed of the pickup. He rummaged through the jeep Vash had arrived in and gathered what supplies he could find. When everything was ready, he considered the girl. Meryl, huh? She was still out cold, though the color in her skin was returning. Knives wondered how something so seemingly insignificant as the life of one human, could complicate everything so profoundly. She sure didn't look like much.

So what should he do with her?

It was very lucky for Meryl that both she and Vash were unconscious. Because if there had been anyone around to witness his actions, Knives would never have done what he did now. He grabbed a few meal replacement bars and one of the canteens and tossed them at her feet. Vash's red duster was still laying in the sand where Knives had dropped it. He retrieved it now and tossed it over the girl, careful not to touch her.

There. Now at least, he couldn't be accused of letting the elements kill her.