Legato: It's hot, we're bored, and Sunshine-chan is fast asleep!
Midvally: So we're gonna write the next chapter of Unmarked.
Legato: Someone, we forget who, said it was a good title in an ironic sort of way, so we've decided to keep it!
Midvally: Even though we are part of it, we don't own Trigun.
Sunny: ::from another room:: MIDVALLY! LEGATO! GET AWAY FROM MY COMPUTER!
Midvally: -_-;;
Legato: -_\\;;
Sunny: ::looking tired:: Oh. You've started it. ::boots bishies off of chair:: ::opens one of her 3 cans of soda::
Legato: Are the other 2 for us?
Sunny: ¬.\\ What makes you think that?
Legato: Well, there are three cans, and, presently, three of us.
Sunny: ::shakes head:: I need to stay awake while I write this chapter. Now, GET OUT OF HERE!!!
::Midvally and Legato run away::
Unmarked--Chapter Two
If Knives was unconscious, how was I able to hear him? Was he able to communicate with me even so?
Voices wafted up from downstairs, as I watched the twin suns set outside the window.
"Wait, Vash-san!" I heard Milly say. "I just want to check on Knives before we eat!"
Now that was a load of bs.
Actually, it probably wasn't. Milly was the nurturing type, but I knew then that it wasn't Knives who she was going to look in on.
"Bokushi-san?" she whispered, opening the door.
"Are you ever just going to call me Nicholas, like I ask?"
"Nicky-kun?" she said hesitantly, and I felt my skin prickle. She'd called me that, just once, as I was leaving that morning.
"Better," I said, trying to sit up, and a fresh stab of pain shot through my side.
She hurried to my side and helped me up, again a crutch. The warm smile on her face, marred slightly by flashes of concern, told me that she didn't mind at all.
"I'm so happy that you're here," she cooed softly in my ear.
She eased me down the stairs slowly. I could have probably done it myself, but she insisted.
"Sempai?" she called out before we reached the kitchen. "Could you come here a moment?"
Meryl poked her head into the living room, a major part of the whole first floor (actually, the kitchen and a bathroom were just two offsets of it), and smiled at me. "Of course,"
"What's go--" Vash followed her out into the room, and dropped the mug he was holding. Coffee, tainted from its original strength with generous amounts of milk and sugar, spilled to the floor.
The tall blonde man gazed straight into my eyes, almost not recognizing me at first, then staring at me with a look somewhere between fear and confusion.
"What?" I asked him, slightly aggravated. "Doncha recognize me?"
"Of c-c-course I d-do," he stuttered, clearly amazed that I was actually standing there in front of him. He reached out and gingerly touched my arm, then walked over to the side of the room, where a coat lay discarded on a chair. He rifled through the coat for a few minutes, then found what he was looking for.
"Are you leaving without saying good-bye?" he asked me cautiously, walking back over to me. He held out a pair of sunglasses, which I immediately recognized as my own.
"Sorry," he whispered. "I took them from you, as my own little physical memento,"
"So, then what was my cross to you?" I asked him, aware of the brashness of my tone.
Vash winced slightly. "I didn't want something that dangerous falling into the wrong hands. Milly kept it,"
"So, how did it end up in a giant crater in the desert, with a considerable amount of other rubble?"
"The only other things over there that weren't rocks or organic material were my coat and my and Knives's guns."
"Ya left them out there were any fool could stumble over them?" Like myself? I thought.
Vash looked away. "They wouldn't be able to use the guns; they're too heavy. And, only Knives and I are able to destroy cities with them."
"Nicky," Milly whispered softly, "please,"
I looked down. I had so many reasons to be angry at Vash, so many to hate him, and, yet, I was unable to. I still had to kill him, as my lesser boss, the one residing on this planet, was still alive, laying unconscious above our heads.
'You have a job to do, Wolfwood,'
His voice echoed through my head, and I raised the arm that Milly wasn't clinging to up to my temple, to soothe the throbbing that Knives's messages induced.
"I have no intentions of leaving this time," I said, casting a sideways glance at Milly, who laid her head on my shoulder angelically.
I shook myself free of the girl, and followed them into the kitchen.
"We're going to need another chair, obviously," Vash said brightly, as I took one of the four.
"Not if," Meryl cut herself off, silencing herself with a look from Milly. I smiled within myself. Apparently, the shorter insurance girl still had the misfortune of occasionally saying the worst thing possible.
I watched her mouth, "Not if Knives dies", her head tilted downwards, so Vash couldn't catch it. She was sitting directly across from me, so I spotted it. If Milly or Vash saw, they attempted to remain blissfully ignorant of it.
Of course, Vash didn't even want the mere thought that he may have killed his own flesh and blood, much less mention of it from someone he was clearly in love with.
"You know what would be really funny, Bokushi-san?" Milly asked absently after we'd all served ourselves. Once again, Meryl had cooked dinner, and it looked as though her cooking was just as I remembered.
"Milly-chan," I reprimanded her softly. I did not need to be called "Mr. Priest" by her, still.
"Nicky-kun?"
I nodded. Vash shot an amused glanced at Meryl, who shook her head and smiled.
"I think it would be really funny if you and Sempai were related," Milly continued, twirling her spaghetti around on her fork. "You do look somewhat alike."
"Milly," Meryl said, sounding slightly exasperated.
"Well, it would give you something to do in your free time, Sempai," she said innocently. "If you did some research on both of your backgrounds,"
"Speaking of free time," Vash murmured, glancing at Milly. He looked over at me, then continued. "Milly's going to have an awful lot of it soon,"
"I know," I said, picking up on the bait he'd clearly cast out.
Milly looked up. "How do you know?"
"Intuition," I said, smiling softly at her.
'Wolfwood! I did not assign you to fraternize with spiders! You're supposed to kill Vash!'
I gritted my teeth, Knives's voice again streaming through my brain.
"Well, I thought Daniel or Rebekah would be excellent names, depending on what it is," Milly said brightly. I merely nodded.
"What does the D stand for again?" Vash asked me.
"You aren't going to learn that until I know your real name,"
He put down his fork. "I'm not going to jinx this by saying what I said the last time you asked me that."
"We don't have two Gung-Ho Guns on our tails this time, you know,"
Milly and Meryl exchanged a glance, which clearly read 'When was this?'
"All of them are dead," Vash murmured. "Except you, obviously,"
"WHAT?" Milly screeched. I winced again.
Meryl stared at me, with a suspicious look in her eyes.
I looked over at Vash. How'd he know? I hadn't really become one until the day I'd supposedly died.
"Knives," he said softly.
I should have known.
'Do as you are told, and you shall inherit my title,' Chapel's words repeated themselves inside my head.
'Well, Chapel?' I heard Knives ask amusedly.
"I think your brother's awake," I said icily. "Shall I go look?" I rose from my seat.
"No," Vash said, challenging me. I didn't move.
"Not alone, at least,"
"Fine, then," I said, walking out of the kitchen. Vash followed me, leaving the girls to their own devices in the room.
I walked up the stairs, unaided, though I relied heavily on the railing, and continued down the hall, stopping in front of the room next to the one Milly had left me in. Knives's.
Vash opened the door slowly, and I brushed past him.
"I wonder which is truly more pathetic: spiders, or my own brother," Knives said disgustedly. "'Best thing that ever happened to me,'" he mimicked his twin's voice, eyes flashing maliciously.
"Glad to see you're awake," Vash said coldly.
Knives raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure,"
He turned to me. "Chapel, Chapel, Chapel. I really hope you are nothing like the man you inherited your title from. He was so broken up over your death."
"I didn't die," I said, keeping my voice level, a talent I had perfected, at least in his presence. All the Gung-Ho Guns had learned it from Legato. It hid emotion and weaknesses, making us seem like impenetrable fortresses of human soul.
"Clearly," he said, sounding amused. I turned and saw that Vash had left the room.
"It really is a shame, though," he went on, examining his hands. I noticed bandages on his upper arms, and was sure that there were ones on his legs as well. I knew how Vash fought. Four corners to incapacitate, but not kill.
"You've been influenced by my brother--not to kill. Pity, ten years of training from Chapel gone to waste,"
"I didn't waste them, I just decided to do things my way," I said coldly, amazed that I was able to stand up to this man so easily. Even his own brother feared him, somewhat, and they were of the same species.
"Chapel,"
I bowed my head. We'd all learned this proverb, and Knives's amendment to it. I knew he wanted me to say it now.
"The cornered mouse attacks the cat, even knowing that the cat has the upper hand," I muttered. Better to say it than challenge Knives's authority.
"But the cat is wise to the mouse's ploy," he said, leaning back against the headboard of the bed. A smirk crossed his face. "The mouse seeks death to mask the pain,"
I looked up. "You changed it, didn't you?"
"Abbreviated it," he said, still smirking. "Haven't heard it since the former Chapel died. But, a spider awaits you downstairs. If you love her, go to her,"
"Gladly," I said, getting up and leaving.
"Cats and mice?" Vash asked, raising an eyebrow. "Whatever happened to spiders and butterflies?"
"I'm not related to him," I said smarmily. "I don't deserve the insect analogy,"
Vash shook his head. "I really knew when you told me where Knives was,"
"I figured," I said, heading back down the stairs.
"You don't have to be his puppet, you know," Vash said. The only reaction he got from me was a dismissive wave of my hand.
Milly was standing out on the porch, gazing up at the sunset, which was casting gorgeous colors into the sky.
"You take your coffee black, right?" she asked me airily as I leaned next to her on the porch railing.
"I don't want any coffee," I said softly, stroking her hair. "I don't need that to keep me awake all night,"
She smiled at me, her big blue eyes happy. I hadn't seen them that way in ages, but I'd gotten an overload of it in the last few hours.
"If you're one of them," she asked, turning away, "why'd you kill so many of them? Zazie, Rai-dei, Leonof, Gray,"
"How do you know this?"
Her gaze was fixed on the suns, twin crescents on the horizon. "I just do,"
I let my own vision fall upon the suns' descent. "I'm not sure. They'd just aggravated me."
"Thou shalt not kill," she whispered.
"I know," I murmured. "And I promised Vash I'd never kill anyone again,"
"I know. He told us,"
I let my arm fall to her shoulder, drawing her close to me. She still smelled faintly of sulfur.
"What have you been doing?" I asked, wrinkling my nose.
"I'm helping working on the well," she said. "It doesn't smell as bad as those horrible cigarettes. The explosives, I mean,"
"I quit, Milly-chan," I said, nuzzling her neck. "I haven't had one in weeks,"
We stood on the porch in silence until the moons were high in the sky. By instinct, my eyes traveled to the pink glow of the fifth moon. For so long, I looked up to it, as though it would lead me to Vash and the girls, back to the few things in this world that made me truly happy, the few things that didn't just mask the pain, burying it until it hit me square in the face.
"Marry me, Milly," I whispered.
She turned and stared at me. "What?"
I looked into her deep blue eyes, an endless blue sky trapped within them. "Milly Thompson, will you please marry me?"
'CHAPEL!'
I pushed Knives's voice out of my head. He wasn't important now. He was also ruining this perfect moment.
Milly kissed me softly.
"I'll take that as a yes," I teased her softly. She nodded, her light brown hair hanging in her face.
I kissed her back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eh, I know. Another short chapter. But, hey, I don't always like writing long, intense ones! I need something that's light at times.
Obviously, there's going to be an interesting plot twist regarding Wolfwood's *other* profession.
Thanks to Uozumi for giving me 'Rebekah' for a Wolfwood child!
Uh, yeah. I don't think that the cat and mouse thing is totally accurate, but I haven't seen episode 24 in a while.
Ecaep dna evol, Sunny!