DISCLAIMER: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro Nightow.
Unwelcome Guest
Meryl Stryfe had found herself in plenty of foul situations in her previous occupation as an agent for the Bernardelli Insurance Society. She had dealt with the aftermath of explosions, investigated chemical spills, and once been forced by necessity to sift through thomas excrement for a diamond ring to prove its owner was trying to defraud her employer with a false claim of theft.
However, those extremes had nothing on her current line of work. She far preferred the occasional bad circumstances of her old work to the routine indignities of waitressing in a roughneck dive.
Granted, there wasn't much choice in the matter. When you're married to the most wanted man alive and living below the radar, you don't get much say in your employment. Still, if she'd had a choice, she would have picked something better. There were no quiet weekends in this bar, and things often could get messy.
Take tonight, for example, the last night before the work week began again. All patrons were trying to squeeze one last gasp out of their time off, and the rowdy mood was in overdrive. The flowing alcohol brought loss of both inhibition and muscle control, and freely swung steins were sloshing beer everywhere, including on Meryl's clothes. She was going to smell like a brewery by the time she got home.
"Table two!" The cook handed her a platter that held several plates of fried wings and ribs and dipping sauce. Meryl carefully carried it over the heads of the crowd to table two, a feat which required her to navigate on tiptoe, as if her feet didn't already hurt bad enough. Unfortunately for her, the group at table two was as blitzed as everyone else, and currently in an argument over...Meryl was sure it was something stupid and didn't care beyond that. The argument became a fistfight just as she was lowering the platter to serve the plates. A big, burly man was knocked backward into her, dumping the platter's contents directly onto her shirt.
Meryl pushed the big brute away and examined the damage. The stains might come out with a hard washing. What bothered her more was that now she didn't just smell like beer, she smelled like beer and fried meat and sauce.
She stuffed down her temper, rationalizing that at least things couldn't get any worse, and managed to get herself back to work without joining in the fist-throwing.
Her theory that things couldn't get any worse was proven wrong about ten minutes before closing. She was herding those patrons who were still conscious out the door when one of them offensively grabbed a part of her he shouldn't have. Meryl flung her elbow out, striking him in the stomach.
It was an instinctive thing to do, but still a bad move. The drunk's cheeks suddenly bulged out, right before the contents of his stomach heaved themselves back the way they had come.
Meryl jumped back, but enough of the vomit got onto her shirt and pants that its reek was now added to the mix of smells coming off her. Damn, some of it was on her arms, too.
The kick she gave the drunk to propel him out of the bar was small satisfaction. She clocked out with a scowl, raging inside at life's little slaps in the face, not the least of which was that she had left her last clean outfit at home to mend a tear in them later; there would be no switching out until she made it back home. She counted up her tips and began walking, trying not to smell herself as she did so, carefully ignoring that people were sniffing the air and quickly moving to get upwind of her.
All she thought about on the way home was dumping these fouled clothes into the laundry and getting a nice, hot shower. Scrubbing away this night so she could enjoy her well-earned time off tomorrow. Thoughts of scented soap and repeated scrubbings and strawberry shampoo filled her head to the point where she was more than a little distracted, her pace hurried because she could feel the stench trying to become part of her body with each passing second.
"Meryl!"
She turned toward the loud whisper, night-adjusted eyes catching sight of her broom-headed husband. Head tilted in mild confusion – their house was still fifty yarz away. "Vash? What in the world are you doing out here? Quit waving your arms like that, you're making yourself look foolish! Oh, good grief – whatever it is you're doing, I don't have time for it. I stink and I need a shower more than anything right now!" Ignoring his fervent gestures, she proceeded on to the house.
The front door was ajar; probably Vash left it open in whatever he was playing at. All the lights were off. Well, that was ok, she knew her way around well enough to not need to waste time turning them on.
If she weren't so used to the routine of coming home and things being fine, she would have been more alert. If she weren't so used to Vash being halfway a knucklehead, she would have paid more attention to him If she weren't so distracted and fatigued from work and focused on getting these offensive odors off her, she would have wondered what was so dangerous even he would stay away from it.
If, if, if…but she was. This little quiet life of theirs had gone so long without incident that her guard had relaxed. Meryl had gotten used to thinking of Vash as her more-silly-than-not husband, instead of the Humanoid Typhoon. But even in a quiet life, threats can lurk.
With the lights off, she stripped off her clothes, laying her cape on the couch and tossing her outfit in a heap by the back door so she could wash it after the shower. Getting under that running water, washing off the stink, that was all that mattered. Nothing could smell worse than she did right this moment.
Her fatigue-klutzed legs accidentally crossed, and a surprised yelp issued forth as she went down – down right in front of a pair of startled yellow eyes. Eyes that quickly turned into the backside of a black-furred animal with a white stripe down its back.
The shriek that came from Meryl as icky fluid hit her body would have done a banshee proud. She found out too late that there was indeed something that smelled worse, and now that substance was all over her bare skin.
Half an hour later, the frightened animal having fled out the front door, the cleanup was well underway. Scented candles were lit to minimize the unpleasantness as much as possible. All the lights were turned on, inside and out, to try to send any further intruders scampering. The washtub on the back deck was full, holding not Meryl's work clothes but Meryl herself.
"You did want to get the bar smells off you," Vash commented as he scrubbed his wife down.
"Not by replacing it with something worse," Meryl fumed. "I'll smell like this for days to come!"
"If it makes a difference, you'll always be my insurance girl. I love you no matter what you smell like."
A small smile appeared. "Well…at least there's that."
Vash smiled quietly as well. As long as Meryl felt a little better, there was no need for her to know he had discreetly stuffed his nose with cotton.