But what if I want lots of sleep? I don't get to get lots of sleep when I write the chappies….
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Knives eyed his brother warily. He let the wind drop, having made his point. "I think we might," he responded.
"Where did you learn to do that?" asked Vash, slightly wild eyed.
Knives merely grinned, then used the wind to whip sand into his eyes. While Vash was distracted, he rushed closer. He didn't really want to hurt his brother, so he didn't pull his gun while he had the chance. But his brother did need to learn that things had changed.
Vash had thrown himself to the left to get out of the way of the stinging sand, and Knives learned some of the drawbacks of using that little tactic. One, it obscured visibility of his target. Two, when he ran where his brother had been, the sand stung him as well. He spun around as he dropped the wind, but some small particulate matter still got in his eyes, making them water as he searched for his brother.
He found him sitting, shocked on the sand. "Whoa. How do you do that?" he asked, standing up and brushing sand off his rear.
Knives grinned again, and Vash's gaze turned towards Kiley. "How does she do that?"
"Magic," said Knives, drawing the word out.
"Really?" he looked a little scared.
"No." Knives' expression darkened as he contemplated his brother's gullibility. "It's not really magic."
"Oh. Darn." He looked disappointed. Knives cocked his had to the right and looked at his brother searchingly. "Well, magic is cool," he protested.
"There is no such thing as magic."
"It's still cool."
Knives shook his head, then got the wind knocked out of him as Vash tackled his waist. He twisted and had managed to elude his brother's grasp by the time he reached the ground, but his knees and left wrist stung as they caught his weight. He rolled to his right, catching Vash's grin as he got back to his feet.
Knives merely grunted in response, then sent some of those stupid balls of light toward his brother's eyes, dazzling him. He chased him around with them a bit until Vash decided to close his eyes and rush him. With a grin, he shifted slightly to the side and tripped his brother as he rushed by. Vash plowed into the ground chin first, creating a furrow in the sand.
"Hey, no fair," he whined as he rolled over. "I can't do that."
"I can. That makes it fair," replied Knives. He had walked over to his prone brother and now stood over him, one arm extended. His hand was held out, palm parallel to his brother's head, and he exuded threat. Vash cringed and started to try to crawl backwards, and Knives laughed. "What?" he asked. "I was going to help you to your feet."
Vash looked at him nonplussed. "Sure you were. You were going to do some more of that freaky magic stuff."
"Maybe," responded his brother with a smile.
Vash stared. "You… aren't taking this seriously."
Knives stopped smiling, then thought it over. "No. I don't think I am."
"Why not?"
"Because… I'm mostly innocent this time." He took in his brother's startled expression. "I said mostly."
"But… how could you be innocent? You're never innocent!"
"I haven't done hardly anything since I left the ship except follow that woman around and beg her to teach me these tricks," he muttered, his voice pitched so only Vash could hear.
"But, someone died," Vash responded in the same tone.
"One, she did it. Two… it was rather an accident."
"How do you accidentally kill someone?" his brother asked. Knives was about to dance around that subject when he felt a strange draining sensation. From the look on his brother's face, he felt it as well. Spinning on his heel, he turned just in time to see the beam of light travel from midway down the spire and impact on the shield Kiley had hastily erected. He didn't see the light get harmlessly reflected into the desert as the flash from the impact had clouded his vision for a moment. He blinked back tears, then was roughly pushed aside as Vash sprinted past him. He fell to one knee, then pushed himself up, eyes still watering, and followed after his brother.
He watched Vash drop to his knees beside Meryl, watched him carefully check her over for any harm that might have occurred to her. She seemed shaken but all right. As he approached the scene, he caught her glaring at Kiley, asking what all that had been about.
"She saved your life, pet," he said coldly, looking down at Kiley. She looked up at him, obviously tired. Her face was an unhealthy shade of gray, but at the moment he could have cared less. "What did you do?"
"Sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't really think about where the energy was coming from. I just pulled. I didn't have much time to realize what I was doing." She shifted slightly, a hiss of breath escaping her lips.
"That was disgusting. How dare you?" He kneeled down beside her and slapped her, knocking her head back against the rock. "How dare you do that to me?"
She didn't respond quickly. Instead she blinked hard a couple times, trying to think past the shooting pain in her head. "I said I was sorry. I didn't do it on purpose. I needed power and it was there. I didn't have time to think about where it was coming from."
"You should have."
"Then I'd probably be dead, Knives. Ace wasn't shooting blanks at Meryl. That would have killed her." Meryl's breath hissed through her teeth as Kiley said this, but both she and Vash stayed quiet. Kiley sighed. "Go check on Ace, alright?"
"Why don't you?" he asked with a sneer.
"Because I've been fucking shot, that's why."
He grabbed the hand she had clutched to her stomach. It was covered with blood, and more seeped through her shirt as he watched. He dropped her hand and looked in her eyes.
"Go get Ace. She's too young to do this sort of thing."
"Fine," he snarled, standing. "I'll climb the dammed rock."
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A/N: Yes. I used the R-Rated word. I'm not changing the story's rating for it. So there.