Words: 310
Warnings/Notes: Written for Beth. She requested Trigun, Silver, and "Field of Innocence" by Evanescence. The fic was inspired by the song, rather than actually incorporating the lyrics.
Spoiler warning! Mild spoilers for Vash's past. Paraphrasing and creative alteration of the "flashback" scene, because I'm too lazy to go look for transcripts. Besides, memories get hazy sometimes. Also, though she requested Vash, this appears, somehow, to have been written in Knives' POV. :Eyedarts: It was the one-armed fic-writer!
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"Vash? What are you looking at?" Peering around his brother, who was kneeling in the dirt staring sadly at something, Knives saw that a butterfly had become entangled in a spider's web. In its struggles to free itself, its gossamer wings had come into contact with the sticky strands, thus trapping it further. The spider, summoned by the vibrations in its web, was moving slowly toward its hapless prey. The butterfly, sensing the predator's approach, redoubled its efforts to get free, and Knives realized that, if it continued to struggle, it would likely tear its own wings off.
"Knives, it's awful! We have to do something!" Vash turned pleading eyes on his twin, eyes full of innocent sadness.
"What do you want me to do?"
Vash didn't answer, simply continued staring sadly at him until Knives, growing frustrated, sliced his hand through the web, ripping the fragile thing apart and killing the spider.
"Knives!" Vash's voice was a combination of shock, betrayal, and anger. "What'd you do that for!"
"Now the spider won't eat the butterfly," Knives responded carelessly, standing.
"But I wanted to save them both!"
In the fight that ensued, they both forgot all about the butterfly.
Many, many years into the future, Knives lay on a bed, comatose, recovering from multiple gunshot wounds. Wounds inflicted by a gun he had made. His brother, his attacker, once again knelt by his side, staring into his face with eyes full of sadness, though perhaps a little less innocence. Knives's brow wrinkled, as though he dreamed. He dreamed of silver metal, flashing in the sunlight, of gunfire and Vash's face, unreadble behind yellow-tinted glasses. He dreamed of sunlight glistening on a spiderweb, on Vash's tears, and he remembered dimly that the butterfly had died anyway.
Vash would no doubt try to make a lesson of that.