Author's Notes: Arg... No matter how weird this one is, I really like it. Which is strange for me, liking what I wrote and all. I was watching Cowboy Beebop with the sound down low and listening to 'Rain' from the same anime over and over. Jeez, I love that song...
I just have to say that Gilder is the sexiest man I've ever seen. I love him to death and he is now my most recent Steamy Sex God. And I love Vyse. How could you resist determination and dramatic pick-me-up speeches all wrapped up in one cutlass swinging package?
Well, anyway... I hope you like it! Because I actually like this one...
Warnings: Lots o' cussing for such a little piece. Be forwarned!
"Gilder... I want to live forever."
"Why would you want to do that, kid?"
"I want to see everything! I want to do everything! I want to meet everyone! I want to go everywhere! I've seen what's beyond the sunset... I want to see what's beyond the moons."
"...Naw, kid. You don't want to do that."
Vyse shoot a curious glance over at his companion's profile, studying it carefully with his gentle brown eyes. A cigarette was clamped tightly between Gilder's thin lips, the softly glowing tip the only thing that lent any illumination to Gilder's handsome face. The light danced across his high set cheekbones, casting hollow pools of inky darkness. Frowning slightly, Vyse turned his attention back his knees, softy beating the heel of his boot on the crumbly edge of Crescent Isle. The calm sounds of late night air surrounded the two, soothing the mind, relaxing the body and releasing the soul. The flagless pulley system clinking slowly upon it's metal pole just behind them, wind currents sweeping across the small, isolated island to form a comfortable breeze. Nothing but churning clouds below, churning clouds above. Nothing separating them from the clear dark skies ahead.
Vyse and Gilder didn't mind their precarious perch at the very front tip of Vyse's base. Both loved the skies. Both loved to fly. They didn't mind.
"Why not?"
Gilder sighed, brushing a stray kink of hair away from his eyes with an absent swipe of a slim hand. "Because forever is never a good idea."
The boy's frown grew harsher with the reply. "Of course it's a good idea! Think of what you could if... if... you very had to worry about dying! About the million different things you still have left to do, and how there was no way you were going to be able to do them all..."
The tall man smiled, a barely perceivable upturn quirk, that held the same wistfulness that wrapped about his normally cool voice. Though he did not physically shrug, the mind set practically radiated off his thin form. "You are so goddamn young."
Vyse whirled to once again face his friend, open features twisted in indignant hurt. "What's that suppose to mean?"
Gilder just chuckled lowly, distant gaze never wavering from the unreachable stars above, and blew a narrow stream of smoke out into the empty, black air.
"Gilder," Vyse, one of the most respected and well known men on Arcadia, practically whined, sounding just like the child the gunslinger accused him of being. "What the hell is that suppose to mean?!"
Gilder didn't answer. Finally Vyse gave up in a huff, returning back to his pervious reclining position just as the elder man spoke, tone unnaturally quiet. "Tell me, Vyse. Did this all start because Drachma..."
"...Died?" The shorter brunette tested the word as if it was new delicacy, swirling each letter over his tongue. Separated, it held no meaning.
"Yeah..." Gilder pulled the dying fag out of his mouth, and smothered the last few remaining embers in the grassy dirt. Gloveless, his hands looked painfully white; pure, smooth and pale in the murky night. Vyse stared at that hand, and wondered about dying. Killing. Gilder killed people those hands; those pure, unblemished hands. Vyse killed people. He was eighteen, and he killed people.
"What a bitchy turn of events."
"Hum?"
Gilder patted down his white shirt, long red coat left behind in his room. Finding what he was seeking, his pulled out yet another cigarette and lighter from the same breast pocket. With an ease born from years of practice, Gilder flicked the lighter into life, blinding both with it's momentary brightness, and took a deep drag from the fresh butt. Once satisfied, he placed the lighter beside him in a careless gesture. "Drachma. Dying."
"Oh. Yes." Vyse responded listlessly. He found the fact startling that he could talk about the death of one of his closest friends so casually. "Yeah, it was a bitch."
"You didn't answer my question."
"You didn't answer mine."
Gilder grimaced, and silence crashed down upon them yet again. "Vyse? What do you think of when you think of life?"
"Adventure." Swift, sure, and assertive. "What can I do next?"
"That's good." Gilder blinked, and finally turned to meet Vyse's gaze, finger pushing glasses back up his long, finely boned nose. "That is a very respectable goal to have in a life." Then, in one motion so abrupt and swift that even Vyse's highly train reflexes could not follow, Gilder drew his Warrior's Pistol from it's shoulder harness, and brought it to bare straight at Vyse's head.
Darkness blurred all, but light made all that much more pronounced. The cigarette tip burn brightly with every draw of the thin gunslinger's breath, and Vyse focused upon that, keeping his eyes away from attractive glint that it made upon the gun's far too close barrel. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Gilder?!"
"Tell me again, Vyse, tell me again. What do you think of when you think of life?"
"What has gotten into you? Put that gun away!"
"Goddamn it, Vyse!" Gilder's voice cut sharply through the stillness. "I am not fucking with you!"
Vyse froze, feeling a disgustingly familiar cold lump forming deep inside his stomach. "I know you wouldn't hurt me, Gilder, so don't even try something like this." Whatever the hell 'this' is...
Gilder hissed, bloodless lips pulled back to reveal clenched teeth and crushed fag, eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "Don't give me that bullshit. Do you even really know who I am? You don't know my past, you don't know what I do when I'm gone for months at a time! How do you know that I won't blow you damned head off right this minute?"
"Because..." But Vyse's voice quavered and broke off all together. ...I trust you.
"Tell me, Vyse!" The barrel was shoved directly against Vyse's forehead, the ancient metal feeling wonderfully cool against his feverish skin. Vyse jerked spastically, silky brown strands tumbling against the weapon, and knocked his hand on something hidden in the grass, sending it careening over the edge. Gilder's lighter glinted faintly in the soft pool created by the burning cigarette. So did Gilder's eyes. "What do you think of when you think of life!"
"I... I..." Vyse gulped down air frantically through his suddenly too small throat. "I...!"
"Tell me, Vyse!" Gilder roared, applied that much more pressure upon the trigger. "I want to hear you say it!"
"I want see Aika and Fina again!" Vyse finally blurted out, voice raised to a pitch almost as wild as Gilder's. "I want to see another sun set! I want to pet Pow once more time! I want to see Don make a drunken fool out of himself! I want my Dad to yell at me for being late! I want to tug on Aika's braids again and run! I want another hug from Fina! Just... one more... I want... I want... to live."
Vyse's breath hitched from tears he hadn't felt welling, matching Gilder gasp for gasp. Both men stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, Gilder's long arm still extended and drilling a hole through Vyse's sweat slick skin. Gilder blinked, and Vyse noticed for the first time that older man was crying too, one perfectly formed salty tear making it's lonely path down Gilder's seemingly gaunt face. It clung teasingly to the man's sharp jaw bone before taking it's first and last condemning plunge, twinkling prettily in cigarette light as Gilder slowly removed his finger from the trigger. Though he seemed hesitant to release his grip on the weapon itself, he moved it from it's lethal path readily enough.
"And that... is why forever is not good enough for you."
The teen struggled to get his heart rate back to a semi-normal pace, and slipped his eyepatch from his head, wiping furiously at his damp eyes with his shirt sleeve. In the background, he could hear people moving about, lights being turned on, probably woken by their screaming bout. "Gilder...?"
Gilder puffed quietly on his almost dead cigarette. "Yeah, kid?"
"Do you... go searching for the good life?"
"Yeah, kid, I do."
"That's good."
Gilder's one tear was for Clara. ^_^