A/N Yeah! 2 chappies in one day. GO ME!! Vash is weird in this one. Hope everybody likes it. R&R!
-Tanx!
* * *
"Few! That was stressful. I hate talking about myself."
I was outside the hotel, leaning up against the front wall, musing out loud on the events that had taken place in the twins' hotel room.
"Definitely could have gone worse though."
I giggled to myself. "Knives looked so shocked when I told him to get better! It was worth risking life and limb. Heehee!"
A man walking by gave me a wide berth, not liking my one-sided conversation. I watched him go, just to see if he would do anything. All he did was to pick up his pace till he rounded the corner.
"Everybody lacks imagination these days. It's not like I'm the only one to ever talk to myself."
I shook my head, resigned to the fact that everyone was too caught up in their own little worlds to take on another person's perspective.
Maybe it's that I do it in public. Oh well.
I heaved myself off of the wall and trotted down the street, knowing I needed to get back to the bar.
I should really get a watch. Wait, do they even have watches here?
Jess was just scooting behind the bar when I walked in. He looked up, the corners of his mouth twitching up slightly in response to my happy grin.
"Good. I just finished the stew. That gives you about a half hour to eat. Sit."
He pointed to a stool and as I sat, he placed a big bowl of some kind of stew in front of me.
I dug right in, the smell tantalizing. It tasted a lot like beef stew with a bit of chicken and some mixed vegetables that were unknown to me.
"Jess, this is great!" was the only thing I managed before I went back to eating.
He looked exceptionally pleased with himself.
"It's an old family recipe. Glad you like it."
The stew was gone in 10 minutes, washed down with a glass of water. I cleaned up the dishes and helped Jess get the chairs down off of the tables and set everything up. By then, it was time for the bar to open.
"Aren't you going too put your earrings in?"
I looked up from wiping down the bar-top. "Sure. Why not?"
I scurried up to my room and grabbed my earrings off the bed stand and put them on as I grabbed my boot knife and Colt. The knife went into my right boot and I put the Colt into my waistband as I went back down stairs. Jess saw and gave me a curious glance.
"I don't think you need to worry about that. Word travels fast here, so I think everyone knows not to give you a hard time."
I shrugged. "Force of habit."
He turned back to putting up the 'Open' sign. "Ok."
I finished wiping down the counter and started checking the drinks, glasses and ice, humming Michelle Branch's song, "Everywhere".
* * *
After breakfast, which consisted of toast and eggs, Vash did the dishes and picked up around the room, while Knives sat watching him and brooding.
"Where is my gun?"
Vash looked up from his crouched position on the floor, startled.
"Your gun? Why?"
Knives rolled his eyes. "You know very well 'why'."
His kind twin straightened up, his arms full of the clothes he had discarded that morning. "Do you really expect me to tell you?"
The blue-eyed plant smirked. "No. I just wanted to see if you would surprise me and do something smart by telling me."
Vash's eyebrows drew together and he frowned. "Not one of your better attempts."
Knives shrugged, causing him to wince.
His twin sighed, setting the clothes down on his bed and went to grab the bandages and basin of warm water from the bathroom. He found the bandages, but stood in the doorway, looking around for the basin.
"It's here, by the bed."
Vash turned at Knives' answer to his unspoken question.
He walked to the bedside table and picked up the half full basin.
"What's it doing here? I know I put it away yesterday."
Millions Knives narrowed his eyes up at his brother. "Your human 'friend' got it from the bathroom when she threw me against the wall."
Vash almost dropped the basin, his eyes incredulous. "What are talking about?"
Knives closed his eyes and leaned back upon his pillow. "When she threw me against the wall, I was unconscious, so she went and got the basin to try and cool me down and wake me up. Unfortunately, she kept touching me and…"
Vash shook his head. "No, wait, go back. She threw you against the wall?!"
One of his brother's eyes opened. "Yes. But…"
The Stampede landed heavily on his bed and promptly put the basin back on the bed-stand. He sat like that for several minutes, lost in his own thoughts and oblivious to the talk of his brother when…
Vash!!
The blond gunman's head snapped up.
"What?"
Knives was starring intently at his twin. "Pay attention."
Vash blinked. "Oh. Sorry."
Knives nodded and went on. "As I was saying, she threw me against the wall and I was unconscious. She went and retrieved the basin with a cloth and mopped my face, trying to get me to wake up. But when she picked me up and put me on the bed, even unconscious I could feel that something within her. Her mind is broken, and a great energy is confined within her, not unlike the energy of a plant."
He stopped there.
Vash stared at him. "She isn't a plant though. You just said she was human. And how do you know what's going on in her head anyway?"
"Even though she has energy like a plant, she is not a plant. And the physical contact allowed me to sense the condition of her mind." He shivered, just the thought of her filthy human mind again disgusting him.
Vash leaned forward, closing the gap between the two of them. "Ok, but half the things you're saying aren't making sense. How did you know what she was doing even though you were unconscious?"
Knives crossed his arms. "Simple observation and logic, dear brother. I was on the floor when I passed out and I was on the bed when I woke up. She had a wet cloth in her hand and was placing it on my forehead. And she was relieved when I awoke and saw that I was alright."
"Oh." Vash was a bit embarrassed that that hadn't occurred to him.
He shook his head. "Fine, but could you please explain how she threw you against the wall in the first place?"
The bedridden plant shifted uncomfortably. He did not want to recount a failure of his, especially to Vash.
"Knives, come on. Tell me." Vash whined.
His brother cleared his throat. "Alright. Shut up, I'll tell you. She wouldn't leave so I tried using telekinesis on her. She blocked it somehow and it rebounded on me."
Vash sat for a moment, watching Knives, before he got up and started hanging up and folding the clothes. When that was done, he sat beside Knives and told him to take off his shirt.
Knives looked quite surprised at him. "Aren't you going to say something?"
Vash looked questioningly at his other half. "Like what?"
"I don't know, like, 'don't try to use telekinesis on humans'?"
"Well, yeah, don't do it again, but you already guessed I would not approve of something like that, so there was no need. I do have a question though."
"What?"
Vash unbuttoned Knives' shirt while he talked. "Do you know haw she blocked you?"
Knives lifted his arms up slowly, as it hurt, compliant under his brother's light touch. "No. I asked her but she had no idea what she did."
The Humanoid Typhoon carefully unwrapped the bandages from his brother's sore wounds. "Well that's probably it then. You're still weak. It most likely wasn't anything she did, but the fact that you just couldn't handle expelling all that energy. You fell off the bed and just thought someone had thrown you."
Knives was quiet as he thought about Vash's theory.
It's plausible.
He didn't say anything else as Vash redressed his wounds.
"We should be able to leave by the end of the month."
Knives looked up at him. "Why not sooner?"
"Well, one of your thigh wounds is infected a bit, and it will take a week or so to get you up and walking again."
Knives sighed, not entirely pleased, but knowing if he didn't fully recover before traveling, his wounds might very well get worse. Even with his accelerated healing, it still took awhile to heal from bullet wounds.
"You could just take me to a plant."
Vash raised his eyebrows in mild astonishment. "You have got to kidding me."
Knives shrugged his newly bandaged shoulders and smiled.
The gunman went back to picking up and disposing of the using dressings. "There isn't a plant in Slater anyway."
Knives was a bit surprised to hear this. "How can the town survive? Not that I care if it does."
"They are connected to the plant of a larger town a few dozen iles away."
Vash grabbed his coat and headed for the door.
"You're not going to see that damned human right now, are you?" Knives asked disgustedly.
Vash turned back to him as he opened the door.
"No, I'm going to get some food, some more bandages and some disinfectant. We're almost out of the first two and we have no disinfectant. I'll be back within an hour."
He turned and left, leaving Knives alone and brooding.
Hmmm. It's true that I could just be too weak to control all the energy. But, somehow, I doubt that.
To test his theory, Knives threw his book onto Vash's bed, near where the girl had been sitting. Concentrating, he summoned the same amount of energy that he would have used to throw her and released it on the book. The small novel shot up and hit the wall by the door.
So, releasing that much energy didn't do anything to me. That rules out the theory of my weakness. It had to be that girl then! She did something to block my telekinesis, even though she said she didn't. It figures a human would lie about something like this. Perhaps all the humans are developing these abilities.
A shiver ran to the base of his spine, the hair at the nape of his neck standing up.
All the more reason to exterminate them, and quickly.
He levitated the novel up off the floor and over to the bed-stand. It would be a while yet till Vash came back, so he might as well read to pass the time. Too bad he'd already read the Bible, and it wasn't any better the 11th time.
* * *
Even though it was still relatively early in the morning, the shops of Slater were doing a brisk business anyway. There were already women in the grocery store Vash went to, buying that days supply of bread and milk.
Man, the women in this town are pretty good looking.
Vash casually scanned the female patrons, some of them returning his passing glance and adding to its length. Vash smiled sadly to himself, knowing, as he had told Nicolae, that he could not afford to be in a relationship right now. As he left the store, bag of food in tow, he stifled any urge he had to run up to one of them and request a date.
He almost died when a hot brunette winked at him as he was passing a women's apparel shop. All the Humanoid Typhoon could do was blush and smile, but keep on walking.
Walking briskly, Vash passed the bar and then the hotel and turned left at the corner. The general store was on the right side of the main street, and once he had the bandages and disinfectant, Humanities first localized disaster decided ice cream was in order. The suns were shinning and it was a beautiful day to be alive. He didn't see the need to head straight back to the hotel, since he'd only been out for a half hour. Vash found a bench by the side of the road and sat to enjoy his ice cream in peace. He quietly watched all the bustling people go about their day and saw a priest rushing by, receiving the odd frown as he hurried to start the morning service on time. Just after he disappeared from view, Vash heard a faintly tolling bell at the far end of town, signaling the start of church..
The blond gunman paused in his eating, a pang in his heart brought on by the ringing of the bell and the priest. It reminded him of how fresh his friend's death still was and how much he missed the rugged priest. Sighing, Vash finished his ice cream, the once sweat treat now tasting bitter in his mouth.
Picking up his bags, Vash trudged slowly back to the hotel to help heal the man who was inevitably behind the death of his friend, the priest, Nicholas D. Wolfwood.
The porter smiled as Vash walked in, but only received a halfhearted and sad smile in return. Once at the top of the stairs, Vash stood outside his door, desperately wishing he could just leave and forget about Knives.
But I can't. If I did leave, what would he do to the people of this town? I know what he would do, and that's exactly why I can't leave.
He grabbed the knob and pushed the door open.
* * *
Knives looked up as Vash came in the room. His twin went straight to the kitchen and spent several minutes putting the food away. After that, Vash returned to the bedroom. He almost chocked as he saw that Knives was reading the Bible. Knives put the small tome down and sat watching his brother. Vash blinked and sat on Knives' bed, refusing to look at him. He removed the bandages and disinfectant from the bag, but didn't make any move to use them.
"What's wrong?"
The Stampede picked up the book and stared at it intently.
"Why are you reading this?" He asked quietly.
"I had nothing else to do." Knives replied nonchalantly.
"So it's not like you suddenly decided to have a religion."
"Of course not. Where did you get that idea? Religion is a waste of time. Wolfwood proved that." He scoffed.
Vash uncovered Knives down to the knees and unwound the bandages. He pulled out the disinfectant spray and quickly sprayed some on the infected thigh wound, not bothering to ovoid getting it on Knives' private area. Knives flinched severely and grabbed the spray from his brother.
"What the Hell are you doing?"
The green-eyed plant started winding new gauze around the wound. "It was just disinfectant Knives." He answered tersely.
Knives grabbed is twin's shoulders. "I know its disinfectant! The least you could do was not get it on my private area idiot, it burns!"
Vash's head shot up and he looked angrily at Knives. "I don't have to do anything if I don't want to. I don't have to be here helping you. I could have left you out in the desert to die of blood loss, but I didn't because you're my brother, which is actually starting to look like a pretty poor reason right now."
Knives looked at Vash, surprise and shock etched on his face. "What has gotten in to you?"
Vash wrenched himself away from Knives and stood up.
"You've gotten into me Knives. All my life you've done nothing but make me miserable! You kill off Rem and the others, you shoot my arm off, force me to use the angle arm, and then you have one of the only friends I've ever had killed and you aren't even sorry about it!"
Vash's face was quite red by now, and Knives just watched him.
He answered quietly, "Why should I be sorry? He was just a filthy human."
Vash could have killed Knives right then.
"You even insult his death! He wasn't a filthy human, he was a good person and my friend!"
Mad as Hell, Vash strode to the door.
"Where are you going now?"
"It doesn't matter. Just as long as it's away from you."
After the echo of the door slamming died, Knives picked up the Bible and scanned it.
"Wonder what set him off?"
From the far side of town, a church bell chimed quietly thru the clear morning air.
* * *
A/N I like this chapter. If you don't that's OK. I actually typed it on the computer without writing it out first. Was it still good? Sorry if any of the characters seem OCC. Actually, I was thinking about changing the title of the whole story. What do you all think? Tell me in a review. Must go eat now.
-Later Dayz!!