Nothing Else Matters

Chapter One: Sad But True

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This one's for you, Ms. Katherine.

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Everyone makes mistakes. This I forced myself to accept early in life, for if I believed myself incapable of mistakes, I would have gone mad.

It feels strange to say that now. To admit I might have gone mad.

There were times when I thought Legato was a mistake I made. He was a distraction to me. Time could pass with him in my presence without my ever noticing. It agitated me, and because he understood this, he did not seek my attention very often.

He was always different from my experience of humans. For one thing, he was quiet. I have always known humans to be noisy; from the way they walk to the volume of their talking, humans are a loud bunch. Except Legato, who moved like a cat, booted feet padding as softly as they did when bare. When he spoke, it was careful and muted, but always dignified- even when he spoke to me.

Clever and eloquent, conversation with Legato could be surprisingly pleasant. I expected him to grow out of his devotion to me, to turn on me and seek self-sufficiency in the normal course of human nature. I asked him once if this would happen, and he simply stared at me for a moment, eyes wide like I had caught him off guard. "Never, Master," he said softly, looking away.

I never got used to that. That he was, with me at least, shy. He would look at me directly in silence, but when he spoke, his eyes would shift to the side or his head would tilt down. If I forced him to look at me while we spoke, his face would often color just slightly. He behaved like a man in the presence of something holy. To him, I suppose that was the case.

Of course, I must admit that I liked the effect I had on him. I have always enjoyed being in charge and I have always appreciated obedience.

He did everything I ever asked of him, no matter his opinion on the subject. He was loyal to a fault, and when he made a mistake he accepted punishment without argument. Even when I expected him to object to something, he would perhaps hesitate for a moment before simply doing it.

Legato lacked the sexual appetite I associated with other humans. The gunslingers in his little gang were some of the worst examples of mankind, controlled by vices like greed and lust and pride; he stood out from them and above them not just by rank or association to me, but because he was free from these things. To look at him, to observe him, one might think him free from all desire. He could sit beside his radio, listening to music play softly and keep himself so still and so quiet it appeared he had fallen asleep. Most people, of course, did not know him well enough to know that; aside from his devotion to me; he was as self consumed as they came.

Many who followed him assumed he was in love with me, and he was. But he had no desire to be bedded by me. I assume the desire for sex was taken from him before I allowed him to follow me. His… unfortunate circumstance before I stumbled upon him certainly contributed to his penchant for stillness- if he was still, people might take no notice of him.

My sexual involvement with him started as a lark. It was something of a personal joke to me, when I realized that he was in love with me. (Vash asks me if it made me angry at first, that a human would fall in love with me. It didn't. I can't say I was truly flattered- he was of course only a human- but I wasn't angry by any means.) Naturally, I knew he had something of an aversion to sex, but I also knew he did everything I asked without question, and I was curious as to what his response would be.

He came to my room promptly when summoned, as always he did, and I told him to take his clothes off. His eyes widened; I can still remember how bright the gold in them seemed in the dimness. When his lips parted, I expected him to object… and to my surprise, he simply let out his breath in a sigh, his hands going to the hem of his shirt. He stripped artlessly, removing his clothing in an almost economical way- quickly and efficiently.

Plants were genetically designed to appear as idealized humans. We look for the same things as humans do regarding appearance and sexual attraction. As a Plant I can still look at a human and find them comely. Legato was nineteen that first time; long limbed and fine boned, with sun-darkened flesh and longish azure hair. I was unsurprised to find that he was quite lovely when I took the time to look at him.

I told him to lie down on the bed, and he did. There was no pause, not even the moment's hesitation I expected- he moved across the room in three long steps and folded himself down onto the bed near where I sat. He did not flinch when I touched him, and when I kissed him he closed his eyes and hummed softly. When I persisted, he fell into a rhythm, reciprocating with a shyness that was somehow becoming. (He would tell me later that, as far as kissing went, most of his clients hadn't been interested. Did that bother you, Vash asks me, and of course it did. In the vague way that it has always bothered me when something of mine is soiled.)

There are moments when his telepathy was an irritant. Playing chess, for example, was a futile endeavor, for though he did not consciously try to cheat, his mind would pluck images from mine of its own accord.

In sex, however, the telepathy was a blessing. He was able to read exactly what I wanted and give it to me before I even realized the idea had formed, making the experience one pleasurable for mind and body.

Not knowing this that first time made the act all the more spectacular. When I opened my shirt, he greedily reached beneath the fabric, touching my flesh with warm hands exactly as I had hoped but surprising me nonetheless. I had no more than a passing thought when he broke our kiss, running his lips in surprisingly light kisses down my neck, burying his face I the crook of my shoulder.

Somehow I was divested of my clothing, straddling Legato's waist, curving over his so as much of our flesh could meet as possible. His hands were resting on my hips, cradling them carefully even as his own rose up slightly from the bed to grind against mine. His gilded gaze met mine, one eyebrow raised in a question I could only guess at. Curiosity, I suppose, bade me nod my permission, and he suddenly and smoothly reversed our positions. Before I could more than guess at what he had in mind (and of course, had pulled from the vast supply of inappropriate fantasies in my own head) he had slid from the bed, kneeling there and arching over to take me into his mouth.

It can never be said that Legato was unselfish or lacked control in my presence. He knew exactly what he was doing, and though the compromising position he put me in was mind-blowingly pleasant, it was still compromising. I came before I realized what he was doing and why. And it was so clever, the seamless combination of willing lover and self-serving trickery. He did not yet want to have sex with me, but neither was he willing to disappoint me if that was what I wanted. So he gave me satisfaction without crossing his own boundaries.

He left me there, naked and wondering at what had happened. Simply got up, pulled his trousers on and left. It was oddly business like, and I didn't appreciate that. I didn't want him as a whore, I decided, and would break him of that sort of habit. He was long gone before I realized that I hadn't really gotten what I had wanted from him.

All I could do- can do now, thinking of it- was smile slightly. I couldn't bring myself to be annoyed when I realized what he had done. Later I would go to him, catching him off guard in his quarters. He was reading a copy of Nietzsche, one that had seen better days, and I tore it out of his hands even as he was trying to set it down. Pinned on his own small mattress, I gave him no escape route. He spread his legs for me willingly, blushing despite his long lost innocence, and when I entered him the first time, his head cracked into the wall behind him. It was amazing; our minds linked as our bodies did, letting us feel each other's desire and pleasure. At first I fought it, disliking the intimacy it implied, but it was impossible to block without ending the physical end of our contact.

He came surprisingly quickly, closing his eyes and moaning- the sound was one I previously believed could only be made intentionally, a harlot's trick to gratify his lover. From him, in that moment, it was entirely genuine, followed by a gasp for breath and (amusingly) a breathy apology. Utterly unnecessary, as his climax heralded my own, but amazingly endearing nonetheless.

There was something about him that made me obsessive. I wanted something from him that I never really got. He trusted me implicitly, gave me everything he knew how. But there was always a part of him missing, a piece of himself that he kept curled up and buried deep inside, far away from me. A sense of introspection that separated us even at our closest. At first, I thought that in sex- which quickly went from a lark to a lusty fixation- I could tease that part of him to the surface.

After that first time with him, there was a month where we couldn't so much as pass each other in a corridor than my mind ran off on a debased fieldtrip of fantasy. What I wanted to do to him, where, with what. Were we in the presence of someone else, he would bravely disregard the smut I knew he could hear. If we were in private, he waited for a physical invitation before picking a place to start.

Even when we weren't having sex- and eventually, the lust did cool off- there was a part of Legato that belonged to him and no one else. It wasn't a retreat he went to escape a moment he didn't enjoy; it was a part of his mind's make up. He lived separate and beyond everyone around him, in a very small and selfish world. This is honesty speaking, not a slight against him. His world revolved around making me happy, and making himself comfortable. Comfort, for him, was as close to happy as he needed.

I knew this was his little world, and for the most part I let it be. But there were times when it drove me mad. It would catch me off guard all at once at the most inopportune moments, how far from me he was even when we were physically so close. Especially when we were physically close. Sensitive to me as he was, he could feel my emotions shift as soon as I could, and in his little world he only closed himself in tighter and weathered the storm of my anger. He never moved to defend himself, never spoke against anything I might say in my rage- he would become very still, and wait. The soothed and angered me by turns. Soothed because I could see this was really him, and he would remain no matter what; angered because he would never change.

He never did change. Yes, this upsets me. Yes I wish I had understood what it meant. No I would never change what I did, what we… experienced together. I cannot say we ever shared anything, because we lived in such vastly different lives.

The last night we were together, he lay beside me, his eyes closed but nowhere close to sleep. He was listening to me talk, ramble really, and nodding in time. I bantered about loyalty and trust, betrayal and punishment, spiders and butterflies, and all the things that wove my logical dissent toward the current state of the world.

"Did you know there are spiders who spin themselves wings and fly, Master," he asked me absently, when I lapsed into silence. I raised myself on one elbow and looked down at him, interested and amused.

He did not continue, and so I prodded. "Really," I queried, leaning in close enough that the ghost of a word was more a brush of my lips against his ear.

I had expected to distract him, but I was of course disappointed. "Really," he confirmed, opening his eyes to stared at the ceiling. His head tilted ever-so-slightly away from me, allowing me room to kiss at his neck and jaw just the way I had been thinking of. "They're not real wings of course; more like balloons than anything. They catch the breeze and glide, wingless. Insidious."

Pausing, I felt my lips pull down in a frown. It was a reaction to his emotions, which I could still feel playing through our link. "This troubles you, does it?" I could hardly help it if my voice was a little harsh, a little mocking. Since I couldn't seem to help voicing my interest, this was my way of distancing myself from him.

"Yes. It does."

Human means of communication often rely heavily on eye contact. It is important; conveying emotion and intent, a visual cue to what is meant by the noise leaving their mouths. But Legato has always been different from normal humans, and he closed his eyes against mine, separating us that much further. "It's as if… they are discontented with their place, their nature- to be earthbound and remain in their webs. And so they try to adopt the nature of another creature, one better suited to life than they."

Unable to help myself, I laughed. "A spider is a spider, no matter what it weaves itself. And it is easily crushed." Silence played out between us, broken only by the whisper of limps moving against the sheets as we left our thoughts aside for the distractions of the flesh. Afterward, I left him curled against me for a moment. There was something comforting about his cheek resting against my shoulder, the warmth of his breath on my neck. If I had known then what I know now I would call that deep comfort a form of premonition. Of course, if I had known what I know now, I would have chosen my words more carefully earlier.

"You'll be gone in the morning, correct? You and the Hornfreak both?"

He nodded quietly, disengaging his legs from the tangle we had made. "To L.R. Bright and early to set up the stage."

My hand on his back kept him from rolling away from me. I wanted to keep the feeling of warmth for a moment longer. "You have a plan?"

"Yes, Master. Midvalley knows it as well." An image flashed in his mind of the Hornfreak, lips on his instrument, playing at his window. There was a glimmer down the man's cheek that could have been a trick of the moon light or perhaps a tear. A whisper of a name echoed in Legato's mind, one I did not at the time recognize. A priest's name. I was surprised to feel something like pity from Legato attached to this memory. "He is more than willing to go. He has decided there is nothing better in the world than seeing your last plans set in motion."

A short stretch of silence followed, after which I finally relinquished my hold on him and slipped from his bed. "You're entirely prepared for this, then?"

Once again, his eyes were closed, but he smiled blindly at the ceiling. "Of course, Master. I have been for a long time. You have just given all the confirmation I could even need that I've made the right plans."

I thought he was referring to sex- I had no clue otherwise. His mind was already drifting toward sleep, and I disregarded the mental glimpse I saw of a field awash with tiny parachuting spiders, caught by children and crushed. I laughed easily, as I often could after a night with him. "Very good. Just be sure it pulls through."

He laughed, rolling over, unknowingly broadcasting the imaged of a small blonde child prying the legs off a dying arachnid. "It will, Master. For you." He sighed, the dreamy sound of a contented lover. "Nothing else matters."

Vash asks if it burns me to realize now what all this- what I thought of as bedroom babble- means. What Legato was telling me, or was trying to ask me.

I tell him it doesn't. I tell him Legato knew what he was doing and that in my heart I always knew it was one or the other, my brother or my servant. I tell him that it did upset me at first, to be suddenly alone, without any one, and that in my anger I lashed out at him- but I tell him not to mistake that for anything else. I have always loved my brother more than anything in the world; I tried to change the whole of everything just to create a world where I thought he would be safe. No matter how he shunned me, no matter what anger exists between us, I have always loved him.

What I don't tell him is that I go to bed every night knowing my sheets will be cold- clean and the bed made, but it's all mechanical and frigid. Knowing I will sleep alone this night and every night after. That I fall asleep knowing I will never feel a warm check pressed perfectly to my shoulder, or wake up to find myself curled around another's body like a Sister around her orb. Fitting so well together.

What I don't tell Vash is that I know exactly what Legato was trying to say in our last conversation. The affirmation he was seeking, something to tell him that, no matter how he changed in life, he would always be as detestable as the next human. To know that I wouldn't flinch to see him crushed like all the rest.

I don't tell him that I remember the priest's name now and why the Hornfreak cried when he heard Chapel's prodigy was dead. I don't tell Vash that I could care less, except that Legato had grown to almost like the Hornfreak and that in his strange inhuman way, he pitied the man for his loss. And had used that loss to ensure that the Hornfreak would stand with him in L.R., knowing that he would die and so would his boss.

These things I don't tell Vash because I know they would hurt his heart to hear.

What I don't tell Vash because I can't let it leave my own aching chest is that it does burn. It's like acid in my veins every night, just laying down in the empty bed that will never be full again. Because every night goes back to that night; back to making love (can I call it that if I didn't love him then?) and then whispering. Back to Legato asking if I knew he was trying to weave himself wings so he could fly with the other butterflies for me. Back to the Hornfreak alone on the other end of the house, playing blues for the dead while I told Legato he would never change, would always just be a spider, easy to crush and unmourned in death.

What I don't tell Vash, because it might kill us both to admit, is that I wake up every morning with salt in my eyes from dried tears, hearing the echo of a dream of Legato telling me Nothing else matters- nothing but me and what I wanted at a time when I didn't know what I could have.