Bullet the Blue Sky
Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun.
A/N: Title borrowed from U2. All thanks goes to he wonderful Celesma, who betaed the whole thing and helped me with one wicked phrase.
There is a spider in the bathroom's window.
The window is tiny, located a little higher than the shower and opened to the outside. You could see a small fraction of blue and white sky behind it.
Wolfwood notices the spider in the window when he inspects the bathroom after having rented the room for two nights. He stares motionless at the window for a few heartbeats, then turns on his heels, throws his dusty jacket on one of the old chairs and lies down on the bed, eyes hard on the ceiling.
He's almost through his second cigarette when Vash comes banging through the door in his usual loud, unconcerned manner.
The Stampede throws him a strange, confused look, then turns and enters the bathroom. The shower is running a few minutes later, water hitting the ceramic floor in random splashes, the spider no doubt still out there, testing the deadly webs for victims. Wolfwood lights his third cigarette the second the last one dies.
When Vash comes back, he's right on his way to the fourth, while Vash is right on his way to gleaning some incredible insight from the priest. The Humanoid Typhoon watches him while scrubbing his wet hair.
Wolfwood can anticipate what comes next, but it doesn't matter. He's not in the mood to talk about this, or anything else for that matter. And it's not like it would do any good anyway. He is determined to lie there and smoke until he falls asleep or they leave again and that's it.
"...this is about the spider, right?"
"..."
"Are you afraid? No, okay, that was silly. It's a spider-and-butterfly thing, right?"
"... no, Tongari, it's not. Forget it. It has nothing – nothing to do with you." He says the last bit with a sigh and forces his eyes to stay away from Vash's gaze. He's good at that – too good, sometimes.
Vash wrinkles his forehead, but in the end he forces himself to look away from Wolfwood and do something else. He's good at that. Too good, sometimes.
Because, if he weren't, he might have seen the fear in the priest's eyes and how rigid his body is, all muscles tight, trying to stomp down this fear, suppress it. He might have seen the way the soft, golden glow of the sunset makes the priest shiver as if in remembrance of something dreadful.
But, well... does he know who Wolfwood is? Does he?
So, it will go like this: Vash won't kill the spider. Wolfwood can't.
He'll try.
In a few hours, he'll have given up. On his knees, he will take a quick, cold shower, eyes wide open, counting his breaths.
Then, he'll lie down beside the sleeping Vash, his back to the stars.
Because Vash isn't right. This is not a spider-and-butterfly thing. The spider is not the problem. And although his fear is great, even greater is his anger.
His problem is the web he's caught in, the web that restrains him, directs his every breath, and gets tighter each time he looks up at the blue, blue sky and hopes.