Vash woke up suddenly with a start and was flooded with panic. Where was Meryl?! He jerked his head from side to side, searching...
And he wasn't even in the same place! He'd fallen unconscious in the tunnel that led away from the wall-door hidden in the ledge they'd landed on and he was now in a tiny natural cavelet that he'd never seen before. Golden yellow sunlight poured in through an opening in the wall; it led outside! His general unease and nervousness about suddenly fining himself in unexpected places when he couldn't remember how he'd gotten there dispersed in a wave of relief at knowing that there was a way out! Now he could bring back a rescue party to find Meryl!
A notion that was unnecessary, he discovered a moment later, when he found a huddled form near the way out. Another wave of relief crashed over him as he kneeled next to the sleeping form of Meryl Stryfe, breathing alive and apparently unharmed... though, oddly, she appeared to be soaked to the skin.
:We're getting out of here, right now, before anything else weird happens to us!: he decided an instant later. He shook her by the shoulder, surprised and puzzled to find that she was completely drenched. Meryl awoke with a small hiss of pain and Vash immediately feared that she'd gotten into an accident.
"Are you okay?" he asked in his next breath, patting her down quickly in a cursory examination for injuries.
Her eyes opened a crack, and Vash could have sworn that for just an instant as she opened them, they weren't their usual dove-grey color, but were instead a strange liquid-quicksilver. Before he could he certain, Meryl blinked, then opened her eyes fully and they were the same they had always been. He decided that it must have been a trick of the light. She stared blankly at him for a long moment, as if she wasn't entirely certain of where they were, or even who he was!
"How many fingers am I holding up?" he demanded next, certain that she had some kind of head injury.
"Two," she said with groggy impatience. "And I didn't hit my head, I'm fine."
"You'd say that if you were dying," he immediately dismissed. "What day is it?"
"The day I lodge my boot where the suns don't shine if you don't leave off," Meryl growled, glaring irritatedly at him.
:Well, I guess she's okay then: Vash thought of her abrupt return to normalacy.
She yawned tiredly and looked around her.
"How did we get here?" she wondered aloud. "And where's here?"
"Good questions, I was hoping you'd know," he said, offering a hand to help her to her feet, but she was already getting up on her own. "Last thing I knew I was freaking out because you'd rushed off and disappeared."
He shot her a Look for making him worry like that, the look bounced right on past her without a pause to rest as she seemed more interested in the exit to the caves. She was looking out of it from a position on her knees, having not gotten the strength right then to rise completely.
"Hey!" she called cheerfully over at him. "I know where we are!"
Vash looking over at her could instinctively tell that the cheer in her voice was forced, the mask of unflappable calm on her face didn't manage to conceal entirely the lingering fear in her eyes. The events that had just passed were as unnerving to her as they had been to him. Meryl made to rise fully to her feet, but Vash stopped her gently with a hand on her arm. He peered intently into her face.
"Are you alright? Really?" he asked her, his tone an manner serious.
"I-" she looked like she was trying to reassure him, and also like she was trying to lie. Meryl was as straightforward and honest as they came, and as such she was a terrible liar.
"It's alright," he said resignedly.
He knew darned well that she wasn't about to admit weakness, perhaps especially not to him.
"You don't have to say anything. I understand."
"Vash," she said softly into the room, her voice just barely above a whisper. She was shaking a little, and suddenly he thought she might be cold, she was soaked to the skin after all (mysteriously so) and the chill damp air of the cave would probably make her catch a chill. Milly would never forgive him if he let that happen to her, and an upset Milly was not to be thought of.
"Here, let's get you out of here," he said coaxingly.
He should get them back to a place where there were other people around, because if they stayed here while she was looking so vulnerably at him Vash was afraid he'd wind up doing or saying something to her that he was afraid he wouldn't bring himself to regret, and he had no right to think these things. He didn't have the right to think that he wanted to wrap her up tight in his arms and keep her all to himself, he didn't have the right to want to make promises to her that included words like forever... and for a being like him, promises like that could be literal. There was so much else he needed to worry about right then, and as much as he told himself that he couldn't afford the distraction at that time, he was distracted; he was distracted by the beauty of her. The detirmination in her stubborn little chin, the pixie-like face with the wide pewter-grey eyes, by the slight, delicate, sylph-like form of her body that held a will of tempered steel. Though slight, she had curves that just seemed to invite caresses; trim waist, shapely hips, slim shoulders and he wanted so much... he just wanted to hold her, just for a little while. Surely that would be okay.
He recognized that tiny voice inside himself trying to make deals, to allow him to do what he wanted against doing what he knew was best. If he allowed himself to listen to that voice telling himself that it was okay to cheat, just a little, that it was okay to have what he wanted for a moment or two, it wouldn't be long before he started getting greedy, and went from longing after things he knew he couldn't have to trying to get them for himself.
He couldn't have her, but he wanted her, and if they stayed like this for much longer he might just damn the consequences.
Vash very carefully pulled back away from her, putting an arms length distance between the two of them. That was as it should be, he couldn't have her, so it was best to keep his distance. He'd have to go back to calling her insurance girl and short girl, rather than Meryl... he wondered when he'd gotten so used to getting to call her by her name, it was an intimacy he'd rarely indulged in until recently. He was getting spoiled.
"Wait," she murmured, looking up at him with that stragely naked gaze.
Vulnerable and Meryl were usually two words that didn't belong in the same book together, let alone the same sentence, but there was no mistaking a certain amount of vulnerability to her that he didn't usually see. Had something happened to her down there? There was so much about the events of the day that Vash couldn't fully explain and that made him very nervous. He was the one who was accustomed to knowing things that other people weren't remotely aware of, from the true events of the Great Fall to the secret of the plant bulbs that the average layman took to be no more than supermarket rags. It unnerved him that he couldn't explain much of what had happened that day, and the fact that Meryl was scared and vulnerable and he couldn't offer her any real answers at all was making it worse.
That vulnerability pulled at him, rousing every protective instinct he had, and some others he hadn't been aware existed. Everything inside of him mandated that he was supposed to give her comfort, shelter her. Surely that was okay, right?
And he still wanted--
His thoughts cut off at the feel of a sudden weight against his chest. He looked down to see that she was leaning against him, her arms around his waist. She was shivering, Vash didn't know if it was from cold or from something else, all he was really aware of was a soft shiver and then, a strange feeling of... completeness. He felt strangely warm and relaxed suddenly, all the minor discomforts that were such a daily part of his life that he hardly even noticed they were there anymore; the continual ache of the grate in his chest bonded into his flesh, the resistant stretch and pull of his scar tissue, the various small aches where bones and other peices had never been allowed to heal quite right... they all disappeared, every last one of them. In place of the minor pains was a warm lassitude, a feeling of well-being humming throughout his entire body. He felt wonderful! There was such a feeling of wholeness, of well being, like he'd somehow been missing a vital part of himself he hadn't noticed was gone until it had suddenly been restored to him.
A wild, indeterminate part of him that he'd never understood and had just shoved back into the back of a closet in his mind (that occasionally emerged in the form of the Diablo) suddenly reoriented itself, latched onto a sense of purpose and pushed. He felt the pure power and sense of "otherness" that Vash generally tried to ignore, well up inside of himself. Instead of a painful hiss and sting of that power forcing its way out, Vash instead felt a gentle hum and flow, dance and sway perfectly controlled, but almost of its own volition, rushing towards a goal he understood only instinctively. There was a sense of expectation, of anticipation, like if he could just find this thing he was looking for, then everything in the world would fall into place.
It felt warm and soft, like a golden glow permeating his entire being. It was still and the only thing between him and Meryl, it felt, was their breaths. There was such a wonderful feeling of tranquility, of peace, as though for all the time he'd spent searching in the wide, harsh world, he'd at last found the place where he could rest. The still calm center in the middle of a turbulent universe.
Vash hadn't been aware that he'd closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her until she suddenly squirmed violently in his arms. As if someone had cut it off with a knife, the wonderful feeling of happiness that bordered on a pure, divine, unalloyed joy just stopped. Vash felt simultaneously like someone had rudely splashed cold water on him and the bottom of the world had dropped out from under him; he came suddenly, instantly and unpleasantly awake.
Muffled by cave walls, there was still the strange trembling feeling of something happening nearby and Vash could sense it. He could also sense something else.
His brother's presence, which had been like a soft back-ground hum in his thoughts, constant but thankfully unchanging, had suddenly between one instant in the next went from a hum to a buzz, to a dull roar. He was awake, and interested in making his displeasure known. It was time to go.
Meryl looked at him in puzzlement when he reluctantly released her and set her at arms length, though he was unable still to bring himself to let go of her completely.
Vash looked out of the entrance of the cave noted with relief that the cave was located almost directly at one of the well sites where Milly worked, down a small ridge of skree just off the mesa outside of town about a twenty minute walk from where they lived. His relief was short lived however, for no sooner did one problem resolve itself than a bigger one took its place. Story of his life.
Rising up in the air like great black pillars were billowing columns of smoke. The town was on fire. Vash could see easily that people were running around in a panic shouting while something made a mess at one end of the town. Vash was too well acquainted with a situation like this not to recognize what it was. Someone or something was attacking.
Meryl and Vash exchanged a look filled with dread and knowing.
"Knives," they said in unison.
Ah, and so it begins. Damn Knives, ruining poor Vash's mood! He had a nice little atmosphere going on... no kiss though, that's a little disappointing.