Tell Me About Eternity

Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun. Lyrics are taken from "Wake up Dead Man" by U2.

A/N: beta'd by the lovely Celesma : )

I'm alone in this world

And a fucked up world it is too

Just one moment – the bells ringing, children shouting – one heartbeat and then it's over. Just like that. Realization makes you freeze. Then the anguish hits your heart, suffocates you.

You leash out with your power and you know you have struck, but God, it would feel so much better to hit that person with your bare hands, like a human would.

Then you simply sit there and try to hold back the passing of time.

Tell me, tell me the story

The one about eternity

And the way it's all gonna be

Finally, you force yourself to turn around and reach out, slowly – once you touch, you can no longer pretend (what now? You can't do it, you just can't).

Wake up

Wake up dead man

Somehow, you manage to gather the body in your arms – it feels like nothing you remember.

warm fingers touch your face, tentatively. "Come on, wake up. You sleep like the dead, Tongari." The tone so much harsher than the touch, but you still hear the fondness behind it and can't help but smile.

at night, you lay beside him, listening to him breathe. It's soft and calm, which may be fake because you know he's a light sleeper and far too haunted to ever be at peace, but you still like to listen. You tell yourself that that's because it reminds you of what it means to be human – but in truth, the sound simply makes you happy, for it proves that the person beside you is alive.

missed bullets hit the sand while angry shouts fill the air. You're both running and cursing and trying to find a way out of this mess. You're wondering how much longer you can hold the other man back from just shooting all of your crazy pursuers, when suddenly a hand grabs your shoulder and throws you onto the dirty ground of a narrow, dark alleyway. He covers you with his darkly clothed body and shoves a hand over your mouth to silence your protests, while your pursuers stupidly run past. You blink upwards against the dust and the sudden dimness, only to find him grinning down at you, his heartbeat pounding against your chest.

"Got you, Tongari."

Somehow, that makes your breath catch in your throat and then, a black cat jumps from the junk pile in the corner onto his head and he's shrieking and cursing and you can't help but roar with laughter. In the end, the both of you have to run again, but you don't mind, you feel strangely hopeful and so, so alive.

The sand feels wrong beneath your fingers and blurs before your eyes. It's endless hours before you manage to let go.

After that, there is just emptiness, a lack of any feeling at all. It will never be all right, but it will get easier; you know that, of course.

once again, he lays beside you and you're half asleep. It's quiet until he suddenly says, for once open and strangely contemplative, " You know... whether or not you have lived a long or a short life wouldn't eternity bore anyone to death?"
You blink and then you're laughing. He looks confused and then pissed. And maybe you feel sad, or you look like it, because he's silent when you turn his face to yours. You kiss him until you both can forget.

The very air is silence and your breathing is the only sound there is; you hear it all too clearly. You start walking and still only hear your own breaths hushing in and out.

It will get better.

Still, you stop and turn around a million times to wait and hope and struggle to wake up.