Sex & Sorrow

A short piece pertaining to the life of Legato.

No; I do not own Trigun, and you have some serious issues if you think I do.

x

Sex and sorrow were two seemingly contrasting things that had long ago become impossibly connected to each other in his mind.

For him, there was no difference between the concept of sex and the concept of sorrow, because they both inevitably lead to the same hurt; and so, with him, were always associated. He never imagined that things could ever be different for him because in his entire life, he'd never known anything but Master Knives. Yes, he was, of course, aware that there was life beyond his Master. However, that life was insignificant.

The life that had been made for him was terrible enough -- even with the Master, whom he loved above all else. And yes, he did know, if he did not say, that he loved Him as much as he could ever love any thing in his whole godforsaken life and more in death, and yes, he did know the difference between rape and love, which was also why he could not say that because he had touched the glory of his Master's flesh before and witnessed the great depths of his Master's eyes like spacious seas of boiling glass, that his Master ever loved him more for it, or at all. Sex was not the associate of love. Always, for Legato, it was sex and sorrow.

Who had taught him better than the object of both his greatest desire and his steepest sadness?

Now was a time for solitude taken away from the flesh, (which was disgusting after all; the movement of spider in spider -- breeding; plague, repulsion) and more time spent to dwell on death, both as an exercise and an idea, which both fascinated and excited him, and sorrow, which he was naturally inclined to and either not or quite particularly fond of. He could not know which, because sadness was as much himself as he was himself; and he could neither say he was fond of himself at times or he was not fond. This sadness was the essence of Legato. Only coupled by the death-lust and the self-loathing, of course. The unending devotion.
The hate that his Master fed purely into his veins through tiny ventricles; spurring him on through the desert wasteland, forever, in search of blood and not respite.

His soul would never quite be settled.

He might as well just level it.

All of this, he hoped, (his life, his death, his mission, and his constancy) would add up to enough of a thing that if he did not quite make an impact on his Master, and if he could not win his favor -- and he should not -- then at least, he could be of some use. A convenience, if you will.

( After Legato died, Vash inquired after Knives of him one day, as he was cleaning out the bandages and washing soiled bed sheets.
At length, Knives had replied, "Convenient." And would say nothing more. )

There were few who knew about Legato's theory of sex and sorrow. Even less who had seen it come to life. In fact, there was only one person. The Hornfreak.

Many nights he had borne witness to the strange man's outbursts. Explosive emotions; first, particularly lust, which usually involved the Hornfreak himself, and was like letting a vicious, lonely animal out of its cage for the first time, and the sorrow. The sorrow was not loud, nor was it physical. It was Legato mechanically rising from the end of the bed to put on his clothes by just the moonlight. It was the thin, drawn lips still red with brutal kisses tilting downwards in the corners to hold a precarious, contemplating little frown; painting his features with silent remorse. It was the quiet which dawned on them as Midvalley lay back on his white-stained haunches, panting and flush and almond eyes still impossibly hazy, and Legato swept himself up and away from him and never looked back, for the hatred and the guilt. It was the way he never stayed to sleep with him or touch -- or to do anything at all -- but simply leave, in secrecy, in painted sadness, and in moon glow on the steel and plexitile, like the haunted thing he was at soul.

Midvalley still bled and throbbed. He sank under the covers underneath their dirt, and filth, and sweat, and their release still sticky on his stomach and the sheets. He licked his lips to get a taste of what was left of those long kisses -- staining his mouth the dark color of a bruise.
And he wished that he could be enough to stay.

Before Midvalley died, he thought fleetingly of Legato, standing cold and proud against the stretch of sky and rocky peaks. The man who would be watching his death from above.

At length, he thought, "Beautiful,"
And never had the chance to think anything more.

Sex and Sorrow were only two of the many major ruins of Legato's life.

/end.