Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Pain ❯ Seeking Refuge ( Chapter 2 )

Seeking Refuge

I wait as long as I can, healing myself, and savoring the exquisite pain. When I feel the blackness seeping into the corners of my mind I search out the only place I know of that I can call a haven. The closest thing to His arms, and yet, the furthest. I seek the mind of one who could never aspire to be as perfect as my Master, but one who seems to care about me. That final idea both intrigues and sickens me. He too, is only a filthy human....

*/*/** [Midvalley POV]

I could feel his mind, pressing gently at the corners of my own. Nuzzling them, licking them; tasting and testing. The voice sounded soft and eerie inside my head. "Midvalley?"

Still not used to it, I almost spoke the words instead of merely thinking them. "I'm here."

The other mind pushed further into mine, more gently than I'd ever witnessed him do anything. Legato was asking my permission, and it quite frankly scared the hell out of me. Carefully guarding my thoughts, I tried to guide him to safer territory. Safer for me, anyway. I wasn't sure anything was really a danger to Legato. Anything except Knives.

Legato was obsessed with Knives. Painfully and completely obsessed. Knives came before anything else, and anything Knives asked, Legato did without question. Legato knew he was human, and therefore completely disgusting to Knives, but that only seemed to strengthen his resolve to do anything his "master" bid him. Just as I called him Master, he called Knives master. But yet, here was that same man I called "master" asking my permission to enter my mind. Since when did Legato ask anyone's permission to do anything?

I fought the intense urge to ask him just what exactly was going on; fought the urge to shut my mind down and shove him out. To see how he would react; to push him to his limits. Not that it mattered. If I made him angry, he'd just as likely tear my mind to shreds, or worse. I briefly wondered what could be worse: him tearing my mind to shreds, or him never letting me touch him again. I'd already lost once, and I wasn't about to lose again.

"Legato-sama?" I tried not to think it too hard. I'd always assumed I had to concentrate the thought, but the first time I'd done that, he'd pulled away, shrieking at me. I soon found that concentrating too hard was worse than screaming in someone's ear, and that a thought required much less focus for him to pick up on it than it did for me. Any thoughts but his, anyway. His were crystal clear to me, and whispered through my mind like kisses; sometimes sweet, sometimes hungry, always painful in one way or another.

Legato was pain. He harbored it, and he caused it. He hid it away, and cast it out upon the world at little notice, sometimes not seeming to have any reason at all for completely destroying someone. I often wondered how long it would be before he destroyed me.

Legato continued to ignore my calling, his mind quiet and dormant inside of mine; the mental equivalent to him laying in my arms. He was lonely again. I could hear his pain. I could feel the name that he tried to hide. Not that it was difficult for me to guess. No one made Legato hurt like Knives did. Knives took every opportunity to remind him of what he was to him: Human and useless, although he seemed to mean a little more to Knives than most humans. After all, he had given Legato the "ultimate honor" as Legato put it, of his brother's arm.

Over twenty years ago, when I was still a little hornfreak, July City had been leveled, and Knives had barely escaped with his life. A younger Legato had come to his aid, enlisting several of the Gung-Ho Guns to bring back his master, and find a suitable plant for him to inhabit. Knives was wounded horribly, and needed to heal himself. This was the only way. A younger Legato had taken what his master had bestowed upon him, listened to what he had to say, and absorbed it all, as he had for the last few years. Legato was already "His" by this point. Already completely devoted to "Him." There was no shaking him. Years past, and Legato hadn't aged a bit.

I felt myself being wrenched. These weren't my memories. They were his. His mind was bleeding into mine, and I was having trouble telling what was him, and what was me. Sometimes that happened when he was inside of me. Usually it only happened after a particularly abusive session with his master. Knives gave Legato what he wanted, sometimes, but only for a terrible price. Were Legato weaker, the other man; the man who was a man, and yet not a man, would have already destroyed him. But were Legato weaker, Knives would never have given him a second thought, let alone the things he had. I wrapped my mind tightly around the blue mist that had invaded it, grasping it with everything I had. I was holding him; hugging him. Scant comfort, I was certain, but it was all I had to give him. I wondered where he was; how far away. How close to "Him." I wondered if "He" would notice. Wondered if "He" would punish Legato more for seeking comfort. Wondered if he would send him after me, and make him hurt me to hurt himself. Knives was evil that way. They say you only hurt the ones you love, but if that's the case, he must really love Legato. And he must really love his brother.

"Make him suffer, eternally." The plant-encased being had told him. "Make him know pain. Make him know hurt. And bring him back to me." Legato had, of course, agreed without a second thought.

I later asked him why. He looked at me with disgust and horror. With hate and confusion. With pity, and he looked down on me with disdain. "Because He says to," was all he said, before he turned away from me, scorning me for several days thereafter for my "foolish" question. How dare I question "Him." I snorted, and the blue mist contracted tighter into itself. It was as though he were curling into the fetal position, and pulling away from me as best he could from inside of my mental embrace. As best he could, indeed. Had he wanted to, he could have pulled out completely, leaving me to be angry with myself for thinking about such things while he was there. While he was vulnerable. He had come to me for comfort, and I was thinking about things that would only bring him more pain. He had come to me for healing, and I was, essentially, pulling off the scabs and pouring hot tar into gaping wounds. He had come to me for something resembling protection, and my thoughts may as well have been casting him right back into the burning arms of the one he was fleeing. Sometimes, I only wished he'd just keep running.

a/n: I don't like how the first part turned out half as much as the second part. I think it's still too jumpy, not detailed enough, and needs a great deal more work. That work may or may not come, I don't know.... As, per usual, this simply a fragment. Still, as of yet, unfinished, and likely to be added to the LARGE composite fic that Tsuki and I are working on. At any rate, other than outright flames, comments and critiques are, as always, welcome.