Whew...I've been dead for such a long time!! I guess it's just school work
and snow boarding and hanging out with my friends and all! Plus, my
English teacher wants me to enter some writing contests to try to get
published, but all the stupid entries have to be boring stuff about
emotions and crap. I mean, I'm an original fantasy writer - I suck at
Fanfiction, but I write it anyhow cuz I like reviews. *grumbles* Not like
anyone reads and reviews this anyway.... Ok! On with the story!
~~~~~
"Vash the Stampede." Legato's dull golden eyes had lost their shine, were as dead as they had been when he had served Knives. And now, as he fixed them upon the buttercup-haired brother of the man he was hunting, his strange accent grew thicker, and melodious voice, deeper.
Vash returned the gaze in obvious surprise. One moment, he's sitting in his little garden (which he had been desperately coaxing into life for years now), and the next, a supposedly dead man walks up and starts staring at him. It was disturbing.
"Where's Knives?" Legato looked dully around, not really interested in his surroundings. "I have to talk to him."
"Legato.am I.imagining this?" Vash raised a hand to shield his green eyes from the sun, squinting at the blue-haired man. "I killed you.how can you be here?"
Legato sighed and patiently repeated, "Where is Knives?"
"He's in the house, but."
"Thank you." Briskly, Legato breezed by, reminding himself that his former master's twin had always been a little slow. ...or so he had thought. It was hard to know what anyone was anymore, what with his ideals being completely converted. Pushing open the door and stepping into the tidy kitchen, his gaze swept upon Meryl (he vaguely remembered her), and then he strode past, flinching slightly when her scream pierced the air. Why did women have to be so noisy?
The next room he came to seemed to be some sort of living room, and it was a very lucky thing for him that Knives was found asleep on the couch there. At least he didn't have to look far. Clutched in the greedy man's hand was a golden scepter, which he had pulled somehow from the dream land. Legato thought a proper awakening for him would be to snatch away that delicate piece of finery and snap it over his knee, which was the course of action he took. Startled, Knives jerked awake.
"What the heck are you doing?" he demanded, scowling at the psychopath before him, eyeing the broken pieces of the staff clutched in his hands. "How dare you - "
"How dare you," interrupted Legato, "take this from me. This scepter is the only reason I went in there - I was to retrieve it. The worth is - well, was - indescribable. Here, all yours now." And he tossed the pieces carelessly at the plant's feet. Now it was his turn to scowl. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't get away with that part of my life."
Knives didn't know what to say in reply, and he didn't have to conjure anything up, for at that moment, Vash slid into the room and frantically tried to calm everyone down. Once he was convinced there would be no bloodshed, he curtly invited Legato to stay for dinner, and much to his surprise, the man nodded and answered, "That would be nice." However, he never stopped glaring at Knives.
And so, they ate dinner together. Meryl was white as a ghost, Knives was as silent as one, and Legato was as spooky. Vash talked up a storm and eventually coaxed Legato to tell his tale. And he did so. Quite rapidly.
"I somehow survived and moved on to being an assassin, but one of my employers poisoned me and promised to exchange the antidote for a golden scepter from ancient times. I found it in the dream kingdom and imagined up my own little world where I had friends and a wife. Of course, my wife was real, just somehow departed from her real body, so I only had a part of her - the soul, so to speak - and I planned on using Knives' life energy to restore her, but he shattered the dream and took off. I followed. And here I am. This meat is a little dry, by the way."
Meryl frowned.
Knives rolled his eyes.
Vash smiled pleasantly. "Legato, do you have anywhere to stay?"
"No."
"Then why don't you stay here? I'd love to talk to you some more." Ah yes. Good old Vash. Always killing himself with kindness.
Legato nodded faintly and continued to eat.
~~~~~
Meryl had said absolutely nothing the whole night and resolved to keep it that way, locking herself away in her bedroom and making sure to barricade the door so that Vash had no hopes of getting in. If her husband was so determined to assure their deaths by keeping a psychopath in the house overnight, he was going to brave it all alone.
Knives reacted much the same as Meryl.
And then there was Vash. "It looks like I've been banished from the family," he cheerily told Legato, "but that doesn't really interfere with my plans, so I guess I can't complain. Hey, from what I've heard, you like junk food, right?"
"Yes," was the dull answer.
"Well, how do you feel about donuts?"
"I'm more of a hot-dog person."
"Aw, just try 'em. You'll like them." Solemnly, he raised a hand and added, "After all, donuts make the world go round."
After Vash had gathered up two boxes of glazed donuts and motioned for Legato to follow him outside, he took a seat on the porch swing and patted the seat beside him, inviting, "Sit on down."
Legato did as asked, although quite hesitantly. "You're much more easy to deal with than your brother," he said softly, gingerly taking a donut between his fingers and licking experimentally at the icing. "I used to treat Knives like he was all there was in the world. Now I wonder why I just couldn't see that the abuse and frustration was spawned not from a superior being, but a very violent mind. To think...I had power back then. It makes me wonder why I felt so powerless."
Vash gazed at the younger man sympathetically. "Legato, what exactly has brought you here?"
Legato began to slowly recount his tale, and this time in greater detail. He started at the very beginning - his childhood - and went on to tale of his early relationship with Felicity, her supposed death, and then his meeting of Knives. His golden eyes shone with unshed tears when he spoke of the death of the gun-ho guns and how Knives would beat him mercilessly. And by the time he had finished, it was nearly three in the morning and Vash himself looked to be near crying, a guilty expression on his face. He didn't like seeing anyone in pain, and just the fact that his brother had been the root of the problem made him feel slightly responsible.
"Legato, you said the real Felicity is out there, somewhere." He peered curiously at the blue-haired man lounging across the opposite end of the porch swing, chin dropped to his chest in exhaustion. "Why don't you try to find her?"
"I am," was the guttural reply. "Just don't know where to start."
"Well...you know where I think would be a good place to start looking?"
Sleepily, Legato's head rose and life and emotion stirred within his golden orbs. "Where?"
"I'll take you there tomorrow."
~~~~~
"Knives, be more gentle!" scolded Meryl, anxiously watching with hands on slender hips as the blonde plant carelessly tucked her daughter beneath his arm, leaving his other hand free to shovel cereal into his mouth.
Meryl's daughter, Charity, didn't seem to mind in the very least though. In fact, the small, dark-haired toddler was hanging quite contentedly over her uncle's arm, appendages dangling.
"She enjoys it," insisted Knives flatly. He pushed another enormous amount of cereal into his mouth and chewed three times before swallowing, which resulted in his near choking. Of course he had always been warned this would happen one day, and not wanting to prove everyone right, the stubborn plant, wide-eyed, pounded on his chest heartily until the lump in his throat became unstuck. Then, at of the corner of his eye, he glanced to the left to see if Meryl had noticed. She hadn't, having been too busy washing dishes.
"We're home!" called out Vash happily, and the sound of a door slamming followed shortly after.
Legato shuffled quietly into the kitchen with his head bowed, only glancing up occasionally from beneath his bangs. Briefly, he laid his attention on Knives, and then smiled at Meryl. "You're being very kind," he said softly. "But I'll be out of your hair shortly."
Meryl pressed her lips together in a thin line, but nodded as graciously as she could at the moment.
Legato then quietly excused himself for a nap, murmuring the plausible apology that he had not slept at all during the night.
Knives, who had determined not to acknowledge the other man's presence, broke this vow and turned to his brother with a flat expression, not at all realizing that his eyes were tortured with curiosity. "So.where'd you two disappear to last night?"
Vash took his sweet time answering, pulling out a chair at the table and relieving his brother of Charity, settling the toddler in his lap. "We talked all night about Felicity," Vash said softly, running his fingers through his daughter's fine hair. When she giggled, his lips curved into a soft smile. "He said that she was really out there somewhere, but unreachable all the same. So, we went to go find her."
"And you actually did?"
"Well, it took a lot of phone calls, and a two hour trip, but we finally did find her."
"And where, pray tell?"
Vash grimaced at his twin. "I would tell you...if I really thought you cared."
"Hn." And with a look that said, 'Fine, be that way,' he went back to eating, only to find his cereal had gone soggy. With yet another grimace, he pushed away the bowl, rose to his feet, and ambled off down the hall. Already he couldn't even sense Legato's thoughts or movements, and that frustrated him greatly. "Freak," he hissed venomously, referring to the blue-haired psychopath.
Stalking into his room, he flopped down on the bed and buried his face in the pillows to fume. Instead, he fell asleep.
Ironically, he dreamed of golden eyes piercing into his mind, boring through his soul. He saw crimson blood in blue hair and felt his hands running mockingly through the silky strands as berating whispers fell from his lips. Visions of a broken figure lying at his feet, coughing and gasping, wounds gaping, floated through his mind, and one by one, he saw the gun-ho guns, some lingering longer than others.
Golden, metallic notes.
Pink.
Black.
Brown.
Smile.
Midvalley...?
Midvalley's hands sifting through the blood and repairing the wounds that branded Legato, soothing away the pain and reassuring quietly.
So that's why he had been in the dream world...
And then Knives saw his brother pointing the gun at Legato's head on the cliff, saw how both trembled with fear and anxiety. When Vash's finger looked ready to pull the trigger that would end Legato's life, he saw the way the blue-haired man ducked his head ever so slightly and then brought it up a fraction of a second later, his eternal frown changed into a heart- wrenching smile. So sad....so accepting of his fate.
And then the gunshot...
Knives woke in a cold sweat, clutching at his covers in desperation. The breath rushed from him in a panicked gasp. The gunshot...it had sounded so real...but it wasn't, right?
"LEGATO!"
Knives froze, recognizing the panic-stricken voice as his brother's. And it was real. Too real to ever deny.
~~~~~
"What's going on?!"
"Meryl! Get back in the house!"
Biting her lower lip, Meryl hesitantly did as commanded, backing into the doorway and remaining there. Before her, a very odd scene was playing out. She didn't know how it had come about, but she did know that when she had heard that gun firing, she had immediately rushed outside to investigate, Vash surpassing her in moments and bursting outside ahead of her. What they found was Legato standing in the front yard, facing the house with his hands raised harmlessly in the air, the sign that he had given up and held no weapons. A slightly taller man with a build defined by formidable muscle, his thick, black hair slicked back, stood behind the defeated man, a gun pressed to the back of Legato's skull.
"Why are you doing this?" demanded Vash, slowly deliberately, his green eyes narrowing with suspicion, with fear and anger.
"Mr. Bluesummers was hired to retrieve an item, and in addition to his up- front payment, he was given nine thousand dollars in supplies and transportation." The man who held the gun to Legato's head was completely deadpan, his expression near matching Legato's, who, at the moment, had closed his eyes with a grim frown. "His contract stated that he would either carry out his mission or die paying for it."
Vash clenched his jaw tightly, knowing that all reasoning possibilities had just flown out the window.
Then, silent as a shadow, Knives moved smoothly past the terrified Meryl and directly behind Vash, not even letting his brother sense his presence. Or at least not until the man who held Legato's life in his hands began to twitch spasmodically with a look of utter shock.
Vash glanced over his shoulder at Knives, whose blue eyes were narrowed to mere slits, lips twisted in the most sadistic of smiles. Fury enveloped him, radiated from him, the fingers of his left hand curving and trembling before clenching into a tight fist.
And then the man began to choke back screams, stepping away from Legato, who remained in his neutral pose. His arm twisted unnaturally to the side, cracking as it was forced to twist to the point where the joints and bones snapped. He cried out, fell to the ground, and lay there, writhing in immense pain, not comprehending what was happening.
Legato's golden orbs opened and slid towards Knives in surprise, focusing on the plant with nothing but questions in his mind. Why...why would he do that for him?
Knives turned and shoved past Meryl into the house.
Gingerly, Legato began to follow, taking one shocked step after another with a contemplative frown. He hadn't gotten very far when Vash turned around to smile at him, but ended up gawking in horror, screaming his name in alarm.
Legato whirled around but it was too late. He could only watch as the fallen man jerked back on the trigger and a bullet screamed fast in an invisible run, traveling too fast for him to do anything but gasp. Pain exploded in his left shoulder, red blood splashing across the sand as he crumpled to the ground. Dark patches bloomed on his navy blue turtleneck and he groaned, faintly feeling Vash's gentle hands rolling him onto his back, holding his face, calling out for him to answer. Shortly after, however, he realized Vash had been pushed aside and a new pair of arms was lifting him up, carrying him hurriedly inside.
Knives.
He clenched his teeth and then let his head roll back over his former master's arm, still feeling the blood soak through his shirt. How could he have not seen this coming...? He had stupidly let his guard down. And now, he was paying for it, he thought, pressing a hand firmly to his wound.
"I can't believe this," Knives muttered, gazing down into Legato's pained face. "How could you have not realized this was coming?"
"I'm sorry," he whispered in reply. "I didn't..." He trailed off, not sure why he was apologizing. Aw, forget it, he thought, just pass out. Just allow yourself to do it this once - to be selfish and tend to your own needs.
And he did.
~~~~~~
There! Only one more chapter left! Happiness! See? I can finish a story. Anyhow, I am so happy cuz my friend just got me a Legolas poster - I just love Orlando Bloom! Chapter summary:
Uhh...Knives angsting (sorta) and...Legato dreams and Vash reassurances and even a letter! Gosh, I'm surprised I'm even finishing this. It's such a piece of crap. No one even reviews *pouts* I don't blame them. I just can't write fanfiction. I only do good original stuff. Oh well. I'm determined to get better.
FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!
Legato: *glares* The love of...humanity?
Shangri-La: Aw! Come on! I changed you for this story! Anyhow people, just tell me anything. Suggestions or compliments or whatever...I just like to know someone is paying me attention. Do I sound childish? Right now, I'm too tired to care...
____ Shangri-La
~~~~~
"Vash the Stampede." Legato's dull golden eyes had lost their shine, were as dead as they had been when he had served Knives. And now, as he fixed them upon the buttercup-haired brother of the man he was hunting, his strange accent grew thicker, and melodious voice, deeper.
Vash returned the gaze in obvious surprise. One moment, he's sitting in his little garden (which he had been desperately coaxing into life for years now), and the next, a supposedly dead man walks up and starts staring at him. It was disturbing.
"Where's Knives?" Legato looked dully around, not really interested in his surroundings. "I have to talk to him."
"Legato.am I.imagining this?" Vash raised a hand to shield his green eyes from the sun, squinting at the blue-haired man. "I killed you.how can you be here?"
Legato sighed and patiently repeated, "Where is Knives?"
"He's in the house, but."
"Thank you." Briskly, Legato breezed by, reminding himself that his former master's twin had always been a little slow. ...or so he had thought. It was hard to know what anyone was anymore, what with his ideals being completely converted. Pushing open the door and stepping into the tidy kitchen, his gaze swept upon Meryl (he vaguely remembered her), and then he strode past, flinching slightly when her scream pierced the air. Why did women have to be so noisy?
The next room he came to seemed to be some sort of living room, and it was a very lucky thing for him that Knives was found asleep on the couch there. At least he didn't have to look far. Clutched in the greedy man's hand was a golden scepter, which he had pulled somehow from the dream land. Legato thought a proper awakening for him would be to snatch away that delicate piece of finery and snap it over his knee, which was the course of action he took. Startled, Knives jerked awake.
"What the heck are you doing?" he demanded, scowling at the psychopath before him, eyeing the broken pieces of the staff clutched in his hands. "How dare you - "
"How dare you," interrupted Legato, "take this from me. This scepter is the only reason I went in there - I was to retrieve it. The worth is - well, was - indescribable. Here, all yours now." And he tossed the pieces carelessly at the plant's feet. Now it was his turn to scowl. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't get away with that part of my life."
Knives didn't know what to say in reply, and he didn't have to conjure anything up, for at that moment, Vash slid into the room and frantically tried to calm everyone down. Once he was convinced there would be no bloodshed, he curtly invited Legato to stay for dinner, and much to his surprise, the man nodded and answered, "That would be nice." However, he never stopped glaring at Knives.
And so, they ate dinner together. Meryl was white as a ghost, Knives was as silent as one, and Legato was as spooky. Vash talked up a storm and eventually coaxed Legato to tell his tale. And he did so. Quite rapidly.
"I somehow survived and moved on to being an assassin, but one of my employers poisoned me and promised to exchange the antidote for a golden scepter from ancient times. I found it in the dream kingdom and imagined up my own little world where I had friends and a wife. Of course, my wife was real, just somehow departed from her real body, so I only had a part of her - the soul, so to speak - and I planned on using Knives' life energy to restore her, but he shattered the dream and took off. I followed. And here I am. This meat is a little dry, by the way."
Meryl frowned.
Knives rolled his eyes.
Vash smiled pleasantly. "Legato, do you have anywhere to stay?"
"No."
"Then why don't you stay here? I'd love to talk to you some more." Ah yes. Good old Vash. Always killing himself with kindness.
Legato nodded faintly and continued to eat.
~~~~~
Meryl had said absolutely nothing the whole night and resolved to keep it that way, locking herself away in her bedroom and making sure to barricade the door so that Vash had no hopes of getting in. If her husband was so determined to assure their deaths by keeping a psychopath in the house overnight, he was going to brave it all alone.
Knives reacted much the same as Meryl.
And then there was Vash. "It looks like I've been banished from the family," he cheerily told Legato, "but that doesn't really interfere with my plans, so I guess I can't complain. Hey, from what I've heard, you like junk food, right?"
"Yes," was the dull answer.
"Well, how do you feel about donuts?"
"I'm more of a hot-dog person."
"Aw, just try 'em. You'll like them." Solemnly, he raised a hand and added, "After all, donuts make the world go round."
After Vash had gathered up two boxes of glazed donuts and motioned for Legato to follow him outside, he took a seat on the porch swing and patted the seat beside him, inviting, "Sit on down."
Legato did as asked, although quite hesitantly. "You're much more easy to deal with than your brother," he said softly, gingerly taking a donut between his fingers and licking experimentally at the icing. "I used to treat Knives like he was all there was in the world. Now I wonder why I just couldn't see that the abuse and frustration was spawned not from a superior being, but a very violent mind. To think...I had power back then. It makes me wonder why I felt so powerless."
Vash gazed at the younger man sympathetically. "Legato, what exactly has brought you here?"
Legato began to slowly recount his tale, and this time in greater detail. He started at the very beginning - his childhood - and went on to tale of his early relationship with Felicity, her supposed death, and then his meeting of Knives. His golden eyes shone with unshed tears when he spoke of the death of the gun-ho guns and how Knives would beat him mercilessly. And by the time he had finished, it was nearly three in the morning and Vash himself looked to be near crying, a guilty expression on his face. He didn't like seeing anyone in pain, and just the fact that his brother had been the root of the problem made him feel slightly responsible.
"Legato, you said the real Felicity is out there, somewhere." He peered curiously at the blue-haired man lounging across the opposite end of the porch swing, chin dropped to his chest in exhaustion. "Why don't you try to find her?"
"I am," was the guttural reply. "Just don't know where to start."
"Well...you know where I think would be a good place to start looking?"
Sleepily, Legato's head rose and life and emotion stirred within his golden orbs. "Where?"
"I'll take you there tomorrow."
~~~~~
"Knives, be more gentle!" scolded Meryl, anxiously watching with hands on slender hips as the blonde plant carelessly tucked her daughter beneath his arm, leaving his other hand free to shovel cereal into his mouth.
Meryl's daughter, Charity, didn't seem to mind in the very least though. In fact, the small, dark-haired toddler was hanging quite contentedly over her uncle's arm, appendages dangling.
"She enjoys it," insisted Knives flatly. He pushed another enormous amount of cereal into his mouth and chewed three times before swallowing, which resulted in his near choking. Of course he had always been warned this would happen one day, and not wanting to prove everyone right, the stubborn plant, wide-eyed, pounded on his chest heartily until the lump in his throat became unstuck. Then, at of the corner of his eye, he glanced to the left to see if Meryl had noticed. She hadn't, having been too busy washing dishes.
"We're home!" called out Vash happily, and the sound of a door slamming followed shortly after.
Legato shuffled quietly into the kitchen with his head bowed, only glancing up occasionally from beneath his bangs. Briefly, he laid his attention on Knives, and then smiled at Meryl. "You're being very kind," he said softly. "But I'll be out of your hair shortly."
Meryl pressed her lips together in a thin line, but nodded as graciously as she could at the moment.
Legato then quietly excused himself for a nap, murmuring the plausible apology that he had not slept at all during the night.
Knives, who had determined not to acknowledge the other man's presence, broke this vow and turned to his brother with a flat expression, not at all realizing that his eyes were tortured with curiosity. "So.where'd you two disappear to last night?"
Vash took his sweet time answering, pulling out a chair at the table and relieving his brother of Charity, settling the toddler in his lap. "We talked all night about Felicity," Vash said softly, running his fingers through his daughter's fine hair. When she giggled, his lips curved into a soft smile. "He said that she was really out there somewhere, but unreachable all the same. So, we went to go find her."
"And you actually did?"
"Well, it took a lot of phone calls, and a two hour trip, but we finally did find her."
"And where, pray tell?"
Vash grimaced at his twin. "I would tell you...if I really thought you cared."
"Hn." And with a look that said, 'Fine, be that way,' he went back to eating, only to find his cereal had gone soggy. With yet another grimace, he pushed away the bowl, rose to his feet, and ambled off down the hall. Already he couldn't even sense Legato's thoughts or movements, and that frustrated him greatly. "Freak," he hissed venomously, referring to the blue-haired psychopath.
Stalking into his room, he flopped down on the bed and buried his face in the pillows to fume. Instead, he fell asleep.
Ironically, he dreamed of golden eyes piercing into his mind, boring through his soul. He saw crimson blood in blue hair and felt his hands running mockingly through the silky strands as berating whispers fell from his lips. Visions of a broken figure lying at his feet, coughing and gasping, wounds gaping, floated through his mind, and one by one, he saw the gun-ho guns, some lingering longer than others.
Golden, metallic notes.
Pink.
Black.
Brown.
Smile.
Midvalley...?
Midvalley's hands sifting through the blood and repairing the wounds that branded Legato, soothing away the pain and reassuring quietly.
So that's why he had been in the dream world...
And then Knives saw his brother pointing the gun at Legato's head on the cliff, saw how both trembled with fear and anxiety. When Vash's finger looked ready to pull the trigger that would end Legato's life, he saw the way the blue-haired man ducked his head ever so slightly and then brought it up a fraction of a second later, his eternal frown changed into a heart- wrenching smile. So sad....so accepting of his fate.
And then the gunshot...
Knives woke in a cold sweat, clutching at his covers in desperation. The breath rushed from him in a panicked gasp. The gunshot...it had sounded so real...but it wasn't, right?
"LEGATO!"
Knives froze, recognizing the panic-stricken voice as his brother's. And it was real. Too real to ever deny.
~~~~~
"What's going on?!"
"Meryl! Get back in the house!"
Biting her lower lip, Meryl hesitantly did as commanded, backing into the doorway and remaining there. Before her, a very odd scene was playing out. She didn't know how it had come about, but she did know that when she had heard that gun firing, she had immediately rushed outside to investigate, Vash surpassing her in moments and bursting outside ahead of her. What they found was Legato standing in the front yard, facing the house with his hands raised harmlessly in the air, the sign that he had given up and held no weapons. A slightly taller man with a build defined by formidable muscle, his thick, black hair slicked back, stood behind the defeated man, a gun pressed to the back of Legato's skull.
"Why are you doing this?" demanded Vash, slowly deliberately, his green eyes narrowing with suspicion, with fear and anger.
"Mr. Bluesummers was hired to retrieve an item, and in addition to his up- front payment, he was given nine thousand dollars in supplies and transportation." The man who held the gun to Legato's head was completely deadpan, his expression near matching Legato's, who, at the moment, had closed his eyes with a grim frown. "His contract stated that he would either carry out his mission or die paying for it."
Vash clenched his jaw tightly, knowing that all reasoning possibilities had just flown out the window.
Then, silent as a shadow, Knives moved smoothly past the terrified Meryl and directly behind Vash, not even letting his brother sense his presence. Or at least not until the man who held Legato's life in his hands began to twitch spasmodically with a look of utter shock.
Vash glanced over his shoulder at Knives, whose blue eyes were narrowed to mere slits, lips twisted in the most sadistic of smiles. Fury enveloped him, radiated from him, the fingers of his left hand curving and trembling before clenching into a tight fist.
And then the man began to choke back screams, stepping away from Legato, who remained in his neutral pose. His arm twisted unnaturally to the side, cracking as it was forced to twist to the point where the joints and bones snapped. He cried out, fell to the ground, and lay there, writhing in immense pain, not comprehending what was happening.
Legato's golden orbs opened and slid towards Knives in surprise, focusing on the plant with nothing but questions in his mind. Why...why would he do that for him?
Knives turned and shoved past Meryl into the house.
Gingerly, Legato began to follow, taking one shocked step after another with a contemplative frown. He hadn't gotten very far when Vash turned around to smile at him, but ended up gawking in horror, screaming his name in alarm.
Legato whirled around but it was too late. He could only watch as the fallen man jerked back on the trigger and a bullet screamed fast in an invisible run, traveling too fast for him to do anything but gasp. Pain exploded in his left shoulder, red blood splashing across the sand as he crumpled to the ground. Dark patches bloomed on his navy blue turtleneck and he groaned, faintly feeling Vash's gentle hands rolling him onto his back, holding his face, calling out for him to answer. Shortly after, however, he realized Vash had been pushed aside and a new pair of arms was lifting him up, carrying him hurriedly inside.
Knives.
He clenched his teeth and then let his head roll back over his former master's arm, still feeling the blood soak through his shirt. How could he have not seen this coming...? He had stupidly let his guard down. And now, he was paying for it, he thought, pressing a hand firmly to his wound.
"I can't believe this," Knives muttered, gazing down into Legato's pained face. "How could you have not realized this was coming?"
"I'm sorry," he whispered in reply. "I didn't..." He trailed off, not sure why he was apologizing. Aw, forget it, he thought, just pass out. Just allow yourself to do it this once - to be selfish and tend to your own needs.
And he did.
~~~~~~
There! Only one more chapter left! Happiness! See? I can finish a story. Anyhow, I am so happy cuz my friend just got me a Legolas poster - I just love Orlando Bloom! Chapter summary:
Uhh...Knives angsting (sorta) and...Legato dreams and Vash reassurances and even a letter! Gosh, I'm surprised I'm even finishing this. It's such a piece of crap. No one even reviews *pouts* I don't blame them. I just can't write fanfiction. I only do good original stuff. Oh well. I'm determined to get better.
FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!
Legato: *glares* The love of...humanity?
Shangri-La: Aw! Come on! I changed you for this story! Anyhow people, just tell me anything. Suggestions or compliments or whatever...I just like to know someone is paying me attention. Do I sound childish? Right now, I'm too tired to care...
____ Shangri-La