This is a little gift for AnyonmousTrigunOtaku, my attempt at writing a favorite pairing of hers WELL and IN-CHARACTER. I truly dislike shonen-ai/yaoi, and given Vash's character, this turned out quite one-sided rather than really a "pairing." I also love writing creepy things and this idea hit me like a baseball bat to the head and made me write it. I'm not really sure what it is, myself, to tell the truth, but here it is. Enjoy...or not.
Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun or its characters. I wonder if Nightow would want to beat meover the head with a baseball bat if he ever read this, too. I don't think he'll ever see it, so, I'm safe! I'm making no money from this.
HOTEL 64
He rode through the dusty night until he came to the hotel marked with the red X on his map. His thomas moaned and stamped her feet as he tied her up. Vash patted her on the place between the head plate and the saddle. "Easy, girl," he said, "though I don't blame you... I don't blame you at all. I'm scared, too."
He found the room that he sought and opened the creaking door. The room was dark. Vash had expected this, given the person that he was supposed to meet there. He squinted in the darkness, letting his eyes adjust to the small amount of evening light that was coming in through a single window. He caught sight of a silhouette - nails in the night, impalement stakes: the unmistakable torture-device that Legato Bluesummers wore on the right shoulder of his coat.
"So, you've come, Vash the Stampede," the man said in his smooth voice.
"Is there a light in here?" Vash asked in monotone. He put forth a calm exterior - a feeling that he did not have in his heart, but he could not show this man any fear. Vash felt lightheaded, fuzzy.
Yellow light flooded the room as Legato lit a hanging lantern. The light did not penetrate the corners of the room nor its deepest crevices. In the light, Legato's face resembled the skull that he wore as an ornament on his left arm, save for the tiny bit of it that caught his amber eyes.
Vash felt an inner shiver. He sighed, trying to contain it. Bluesummers had always a creepy appearance, an aura of evil - but in this moment he most resembled a vampire from some of the stories that Vash had read. Legato's unnatural eyes stared at him steady, like the eyes of a dead man, but unglazed.
"You called me here to negotiate..." Vash said. "Will you lead me to Knives?"
"All in due time, Vash the Stampede," Legato intoned. "I left the people of this town unharmed, as you wished it. Do you care for something to eat?"
Legato offered Vash a hot dog. Vash put his hand up, nervously declining.
"You act as though it is poison," Legato said with a smirk. "You need not worry." He took a bite. "Nor is it of dubious origins. It is said that human flesh is an addictive taste. I tried it once, but did not much care for it. Humans truly are a worthless species - not even good as a food-animal."
Vash swallowed the lump of sickness that was rising up in his throat. He remained stiff and still. "Knives," he said. "I want you to lead me to Knives. Isn't that your mission? I'll come with you willingly, as long as you don't harm any more people."
Legato laughed. "You think too simplistically," he said.
The two men stared at each other for a long time before Legato spoke again. "You really are impossible, Vash the Stampede," Legato began. "You do not realize your own beauty, your own superiority. Why do you protect them? To hold onto the prattling of a dead woman for so long-"
"Enough!" Vash snapped. "Enough of these games! Are you going to lead me to Knives or not?"
"Temper, temper. Why don't you take off your coat? It is terribly hot in here."
Legato worked his way around Vash. Vash shivered, but remained still. He felt strange. His vision and hearing felt cloudy, as if he had a heavy cold. He wasn't sure why he let Legato take his coat off and lay it down on the hotel room's single bed. He had not worn the top-shirt to his bodysuit that day. The edges of the many scars on his torso glared in the lantern-light in his reflection in the mirror in front of him.
"What has it gotten you? Protecting them?" Legato said low. "The once perfect flesh of a superior being, marred by the fangs of the dogs. He weeps for you, you know... that you have let them do this to you."
Vash jumped when he felt the tickle of breath and the warm, soft moisture of a kiss on his neck. "What the Hell?!" he cried, taking up his coat and covering himself, bunching it up in his hands. Legato knelt before him, and looked up to him with pleading eyes.
Vash shivered, stared at him, and backed away.
"Vash..." Legato began. "I do not understand love. Won't you teach it to me?"
Vash scowled at the wiry, young-looking man. "Not like this!" he gasped. "What is this?"
"I both love you and hate you, Vash the Stampede," Legato said, standing up. "You shall never understand how much I hate you. Your maddening philosophy - how you waste your life on ungrateful and undeserving creatures. You are a higher presence. You deserve worship, but will not accept it. Do you know how your brother found me, Vash the Stampede? He chose to spare my pathetic life. He saved me. All he has ever asked in return is my rightful worship."
Vash backed away a few steps more. The fuzziness in his head was increasing. He felt his back stiffen. He dropped the red coat that he carried in his hands. Legato stepped closer to him. The assassin traced tender fingers down the gunman's bare chest. Vash tried to swat the questing hand away, but found his arms heavy. He was unable to move.
"Such beautiful flesh," Legato said, "yet so marred. If I understood this foolish love, perhaps I would never kill again. Perhaps if I worshiped another... one besides Knives..."
Vash found himself lying upon the bed, unable to move. He grunted and concentrated on breaking out of Legato's hold on him. Phantom pain came up in his left arm - the arm that was not there. The cybernetic prosthesis held only the ghost of feeling, even on its best working days. The nerves in the living stump felt like fire.
Legato had taken off his own coat and was on top of him now. His pants remained on, just as Vash's pants remained tightly buckled. Legato touched the tip of Vash's nose with his own, and stared into his eyes. Legato's eyes held sadness and fear. They were the eyes of a desperate man.
"Save me, Vash," he said. "Maybe... maybe if I worshiped you... you could teach me love, and things can be different..."
Legato traced his tongue up Vash's neck and right cheek. Vash shoved him off and jumped up with a mighty "Hwwaah!" as he broke through the telekinetic hold. He grabbed his coat and ran from the room. He untied and leapt into the saddle of his thomas and rode off across the desert like a bat out of Hell.
As he rode, the fuzz in Vash's head dissipated. "What was THAT?!" he gasped. His racing heart slowed. He shook his head. "Mind games... just more mind games... that bastard had no intention of negotiating anything... Why? Wrong... so wrong..."
Legato stood at the hotel window, staring off into the night. "What might have been, Vash the Stampede," he said. He smiled, deep and dark. "You are amazing, always choosing the path of eternal pain."
END.
Shadsie, 2004