Balance

Lullaby

I still remember it, my first taste of humanity.

I remember the chill of recycled air rushing past me in almost frictionless hurry. The abrasion of his coarse knuckles against my ignorant skin. The bone deep pain that rung inside my skull futilely.

The taste of blood against smooth teeth.

I remember it. On nights like these, it's the only thing I know.

That man, that grotesque, disgusting man. He touched me. He hit me. He debased me with those meaty human hands as thoroughly and vilely as any rape.

He showed me humanity.

He tried to lower me to their level, make me live their pain and suffering. He tried to drag me into their immorality, their hell.

They kill each other, you know. They steal - life and property and innocence.

And I hate them. All of them. Even her. Especially her.

She tried to make me believe.

It would have worked, if not for him. I won't even pronounce his name in my mind, he doesn't deserve one. Can't have one. He's just humanity, a soulless embodiment of that low animal race.

She tried to make me believe they were higher than that. To believe that, even if they weren't, that they wanted to be.

She called us angels, and tried to break our wings..

It's only right that they die. That she died.

Even if Vash hates me for it. I was just protecting my little brother, trying to preserve what made him better than the humans. They follow my orders, kill. Just as base as any others.

I dirty myself with their devotion, but it is for a higher cause. It's for Vash.

I can taste red, seeping blood in my mouth on nights like these, feel the sharp, madness tinged air numbing my skin. I remember the taste, the pain. Vash remembers the sound of her voice.

And I almost envy my brother.

She'd lied, defended the guilty, stolen my brother. Hurt me, more than that man.

But I can't sleep, knowing only that pain. I want my brother, the warm brush of his mind. I can't have him. Yet.

If I'm quiet, however, I can have her. The soft voice singing in the back of my brother's mind. It lulls me to sleep on nights like these.

That's why I hate her.

notes: I wrote this a *way* long time ago at about three am. It is therefore victim to three am syndrome, whereby I think that statements like "the sun emits light" and mind numbingly hilarious and that this actually has enough to do with a lullaby to be titled such. I'm a scary person at three am. As usual, not dark enough. And not pretty enough. Dangit, I like English to actually sound like the nifty language it is.

Trigun is copyright (c) Yasuhiro Nightow and Young King Ours.