*I died a long, long time ago...*
Legato's pale lips lifted in a grim, heart-wrenching smile, the creamy white of his skin as his face drained of color contrasting to the darkness all around him. Panicked. Calm. Waiting. Ghost-like in his anxiousness, he was almost pleading for demise with that look in his golden eyes, but, bit by bit, he was fading away in an excruciatingly slow death. However, beneath that gloomy exterior, there was a rapidly beating heart, and even as he seemed to be disappearing from existence itself, that sorrowful smirk and gleaming, aureate eyes remained.
Vash felt like he was crushing that fragile life before him even as he just stood there, motionless, the gun clasped in his shaky hands.
*Killing me is not an act of cruelty, but one of release...*
The blonde plant was trembling all over now, shivers of fear coursing through his body. A churning sensation in the pit of his stomach started up with a vengeance, and a bead of sweat trickled down the bridge of his nose, slide off to the side, and traveled down his cheek in a hot, sticky path.
*You're my last hope, Vash the Stampede. If you can give me nothing else, just let me indulge in this. Please. I...I want to be...free.*
All this time, the human with the normally sun-baked skin, the frighteningly beautiful orbs of gold, and long, lean body of grace and power, had been kneeling in front of Vash, his heavy white coat seeming to be dragging drown his strong, broad shoulders, dark aqua hair shaggily covering part of his face in a messy gesture of defeat. And now, a sound like thunder shook the broad expanse of inky blackness and although Vash was visibly unsettled by the sensations bombarding his senses, Legato remained perfectly controlled.
*This is the way it should be.*
Legato's body suddenly stiffened as the two of them were plummeted into darkness, and when the spiraling confusion came to an end and the dim light had returned, Vash gasped and stumbled back. Blood was pouring down the front of Legato's face in a thick, warm, pulsing trail, over his forehead, to the side, down his jowl, and dripping from his chin. And still he was smiling.
*Th-thank you, Humanoid Typhoon.*
And Legato fell forward, face down, into the cold murkiness beneath their feet, and lay still, bleeding his life away until the calm of death overtook him.
Vash lowered his gaze, mind spinning intensely, and realized that he was standing in a puddle of the scarlet life fluid, which he quickly lifted his foot out of in a dizzy panic. He felt sick to his stomach, like he was going to throw up, but as he tried to back away, tried to escape, he only managed to slip and fall, being further covered in the blood.
And as he screamed, everything began to spin out of control.
~~~~~
Vash woke up, the shriek of horror still leaving his mouth, and quickly drew in another lungful of air as he sat up rapidly. Knives, just across the room at the typewriter, writing away furiously, didn't even turn around to face him as he went through the calming down process, gasping and wheezing.
"'Nother nightmare, Vashu?"
"...yes." His blue-green eyes bored into the back of his twin. "What are you doing? That's Meryl's typewriter." There was a dangerous edge to normally gentle Vash's voice. To him, that old, outdated typewriter was near sacred. No one, NO ONE, was allowed to use it lest it wear out or get broken.
Knives, wearing nothing save his black sweatpants, was bringing his fingers down upon the keys with such a roughness that Vash winced each time one 'plunked' down painfully. Still continuing to pound upon the letters, he casually answered, "I didn't feel like writing by hand. Stormie is coming back tomorrow."
Vash sighed hopelessly. His brother had not been talking to the female plant since their big blowout over who ate the last apple in the refrigerator. For the last few months, they had been communicating through little notes and letters, most short, angry, and sarcastic.
Vash wasn't about to confess he had eaten the apple.
As for Stormie returning home, she had been away on vacation along with a little side trip to a friend's house for some 'equipment'. Stormie was skilled in the medical profession, and had come to them shortly after hearing of Vash housing an injured Knives nearly twenty years ago, only three days after their gun fight.
That was how Legato died...
Vash shivered and flopped back down, recalling his dream. It was a frequently occurring vision that haunted him nearly every time he closed his eyes. He just couldn't help it. Legato was the first person he had killed after his preaching of 'love and peace'.
Knives yelled something obscene as one of the keys on the typewriter rebelled beneath his angry finger, refusing to rise once more.
"Knives!" Vash cried in distress, his voice high and whiny. "You broke Meryl's typewriter! That's why you're not supposed to touch it!"
Knives spun his chair around to face him, face blank and eyes slightly puzzled. For the longest time, he merely stared back at the accusing glare. "Sorry."
Vash sighed. Knives would never understand what Meryl had meant to Vash, and how much it pained him when she had left, her last words sticking with him even twenty years later.
*We're different, Vash. You'll stay young while I grow old... You don't want that and neither do I. It'd just be too hard. I think...I think it's best if we just go our own ways before things get too serious and someone gets hurt.*
Knives was back at pounding on the keys again, grumbling to himself. The sound of paper scraping against metal registered in Vash's ears as his brother ripped out the letter and then crumpled it up, tossing it into the wastebasket.
Clack-plink-clack-clickety-clack-plunk-clack...
Vash fell asleep listening to the noise and trying not to remember when Meryl used to be up all night, causing the same sort of racket.
~~~~~~
"Vash the Stampede!"
"Stormie the Dark Cloud!" he teased back, picking up the tall woman and spinning her around as she giggled, arms around his neck. Her bags remained forgotten at their feet, and Vash promptly tripped over them as the couple ended up sprawled out on the ground in a tangle of limbs, she on top with one arm trapped beneath his back and the other hand resting on his chest, and he beneath her with her long, white-blonde hair spilling across his face and into his mouth as he laughed loudly.
"Gee, Stormie, you feel heavier. Didja gain weight?" he chuckled, spitting out the silky strands and leaving them wet and stringy with his saliva.
"Hmm...no more than you did, it feels like," she said mock-seriously, patting his stomach with a grim smile. "Lay off the donuts, why don't you?"
Knives snorted from where he stood in the doorway of their small house just on the outskirts of town, the building just a flower garden short of a cottage with its wooden walls and flat roof. It would've had a thatched roof for a more homey feel, but Knives had insisted that was impractical, though he had allowed the small, square windows with white shutters that could be swung open to display a perfect view.
Stormie lived next door, in what seemed to resemble a garage. It looked very small on the outside, but had the largest basement Vash had ever imagined. Outside sat a little garden gnome and a marble fountain that was never filled with water, but rather with sand and plastic salmon. Stormie had a weird sense of humor that Knives more often than not didn't appreciate.
"Pick up my bags, Forks! I'm home!" she commanded, winking at the other plant with a powder blue eye that always held a mischievous glint. She then collapsed into laughter, still lying entwined with Vash, when Knives cast her a disgusted look and stalked inside.
~~~~~~
Sometimes, Stormie reminded Vash of Millie. She could be just as ditzy and naive, and other times she was the picture of, well, no one Vash could ever imagine. He found her doing such weird things. Like the time she just sat out in her yard all day with a bucket of watery glue, chicken wire, and old paper.
"What are you doing?" he had asked.
"Making a paper mache donkey."
"Oh."
That was just one of several instances, many of which he would not get into, and she had started many a project only to get bored after a few hours or so and never even look its way again. But she was a very good doctor who treated only plants, being one herself, which limited her patients to Vash, Knives, and herself. Her origin was quite unknown to everyone save herself, and she wouldn't budge on her policy of never revealing that secret.
It was dark now, and the wind was getting pretty rough outside, whistling through the cracks of the walls and beating upon the roof. Stormie was curled up in an armchair in the corner and Knives was sitting at the table with a magazine, dully flipping through.
Vash, who had been in the kitchen, returned with a chocolate pudding and handed it to the deeply tanned female plant, causing her pale azure eyes to widen and grow glossy in appreciation. "Oh, Mr. Vash!" she cried in a dead on impression of Milly, who she had met but a few times and declared to be the most delightful person in the world. Ever since then, she had been imitating the woman, saying childishly, "I want to be just like her when I grow up!"
Vash had to laugh and admit to himself that he really enjoyed it when Stormie took on the part of the now absent Milly. How he missed that girl. And Wolfwood too. They would've been so good together, and he would've loved to have seen them get married, have children, eat dinner with them and reminisce over old times. If only...if only he hadn't died.
He sometimes spent hours pondering over where the two insurance girls had gone to, and where they were now. Meryl, crying, had insisted as they parted that there be no communication because it'd only make things harder. She said she loved him, it just couldn't be.
"Vash, will you please tell Mr. Forks that I am sick of his obsessing over me so he should stop writing that letter right now."
"Vash, will you please tell Stomie this letter isn't for her."
"Stormie, Knives says he loves you very much."
"I did not!"
Vash and Stormie only shared more laughter over poor Knives' embarrassment. The two had instantly clicked, which only led to more and more pain for the poor man.
A loud, insistent pounding against the door, like someone throwing their whole body into it, boomed throughout the semi-quiet room and shut up both the goofy outlaw and his partner in crime.
"Someone's at the door," said Knives quietly, setting down his pen but making no move to get up. "They don't sound happy."
"Yikes!" Vash had already dove behind a couch. "It's a bounty hunter! They're coming for me,. Knives!"
"Don't be a moron. Get the door."
The knocking had stopped now, but it did nothing to quiet Vash's fears. He was still shivering behind the furniture.
Stormie got up, looking a bit concerned herself, and walked slowly over to the door, laying her fingers upon the knob. She was aware of Knives' eyes trained icily on her back, and then pushed on, swinging the door wide open.
Hunched over on the stoop was a man, his lean body curled up into a pitiful, trembling ball, his back to the wall. A mop of black hair hung into his face and was sticky and matted with blood, as were his clothes, which were equally dark and afforded to his looking as if he was melting away into the shadows. He looked badly beaten, so much that it took her breath away.
"Guys," she said shakily, quietly. "I...well, it's not a bounty hunter."
Vash hopped up and walked timidly over, a jolt of shock surging through his body as he saw the condition of their visitor. And then, the young man raised wide, terrified, golden eyes, tortured and full of pain to the couple standing there. Blood was coursing down his forehead between the creamy ochroid globes, and as he locked gazes with Vash, he smiled, faintly. And then he went limp and fell into an unconscious pile at Vash's feet.
Stormie looked at the taller man in confusion.
"Legato...?"
~~~~~~
Well, I hope you liked this. Reviews make me write faster, and if you have any advice, be sure to tell me.
~Shangri-La~
Legato's pale lips lifted in a grim, heart-wrenching smile, the creamy white of his skin as his face drained of color contrasting to the darkness all around him. Panicked. Calm. Waiting. Ghost-like in his anxiousness, he was almost pleading for demise with that look in his golden eyes, but, bit by bit, he was fading away in an excruciatingly slow death. However, beneath that gloomy exterior, there was a rapidly beating heart, and even as he seemed to be disappearing from existence itself, that sorrowful smirk and gleaming, aureate eyes remained.
Vash felt like he was crushing that fragile life before him even as he just stood there, motionless, the gun clasped in his shaky hands.
*Killing me is not an act of cruelty, but one of release...*
The blonde plant was trembling all over now, shivers of fear coursing through his body. A churning sensation in the pit of his stomach started up with a vengeance, and a bead of sweat trickled down the bridge of his nose, slide off to the side, and traveled down his cheek in a hot, sticky path.
*You're my last hope, Vash the Stampede. If you can give me nothing else, just let me indulge in this. Please. I...I want to be...free.*
All this time, the human with the normally sun-baked skin, the frighteningly beautiful orbs of gold, and long, lean body of grace and power, had been kneeling in front of Vash, his heavy white coat seeming to be dragging drown his strong, broad shoulders, dark aqua hair shaggily covering part of his face in a messy gesture of defeat. And now, a sound like thunder shook the broad expanse of inky blackness and although Vash was visibly unsettled by the sensations bombarding his senses, Legato remained perfectly controlled.
*This is the way it should be.*
Legato's body suddenly stiffened as the two of them were plummeted into darkness, and when the spiraling confusion came to an end and the dim light had returned, Vash gasped and stumbled back. Blood was pouring down the front of Legato's face in a thick, warm, pulsing trail, over his forehead, to the side, down his jowl, and dripping from his chin. And still he was smiling.
*Th-thank you, Humanoid Typhoon.*
And Legato fell forward, face down, into the cold murkiness beneath their feet, and lay still, bleeding his life away until the calm of death overtook him.
Vash lowered his gaze, mind spinning intensely, and realized that he was standing in a puddle of the scarlet life fluid, which he quickly lifted his foot out of in a dizzy panic. He felt sick to his stomach, like he was going to throw up, but as he tried to back away, tried to escape, he only managed to slip and fall, being further covered in the blood.
And as he screamed, everything began to spin out of control.
~~~~~
Vash woke up, the shriek of horror still leaving his mouth, and quickly drew in another lungful of air as he sat up rapidly. Knives, just across the room at the typewriter, writing away furiously, didn't even turn around to face him as he went through the calming down process, gasping and wheezing.
"'Nother nightmare, Vashu?"
"...yes." His blue-green eyes bored into the back of his twin. "What are you doing? That's Meryl's typewriter." There was a dangerous edge to normally gentle Vash's voice. To him, that old, outdated typewriter was near sacred. No one, NO ONE, was allowed to use it lest it wear out or get broken.
Knives, wearing nothing save his black sweatpants, was bringing his fingers down upon the keys with such a roughness that Vash winced each time one 'plunked' down painfully. Still continuing to pound upon the letters, he casually answered, "I didn't feel like writing by hand. Stormie is coming back tomorrow."
Vash sighed hopelessly. His brother had not been talking to the female plant since their big blowout over who ate the last apple in the refrigerator. For the last few months, they had been communicating through little notes and letters, most short, angry, and sarcastic.
Vash wasn't about to confess he had eaten the apple.
As for Stormie returning home, she had been away on vacation along with a little side trip to a friend's house for some 'equipment'. Stormie was skilled in the medical profession, and had come to them shortly after hearing of Vash housing an injured Knives nearly twenty years ago, only three days after their gun fight.
That was how Legato died...
Vash shivered and flopped back down, recalling his dream. It was a frequently occurring vision that haunted him nearly every time he closed his eyes. He just couldn't help it. Legato was the first person he had killed after his preaching of 'love and peace'.
Knives yelled something obscene as one of the keys on the typewriter rebelled beneath his angry finger, refusing to rise once more.
"Knives!" Vash cried in distress, his voice high and whiny. "You broke Meryl's typewriter! That's why you're not supposed to touch it!"
Knives spun his chair around to face him, face blank and eyes slightly puzzled. For the longest time, he merely stared back at the accusing glare. "Sorry."
Vash sighed. Knives would never understand what Meryl had meant to Vash, and how much it pained him when she had left, her last words sticking with him even twenty years later.
*We're different, Vash. You'll stay young while I grow old... You don't want that and neither do I. It'd just be too hard. I think...I think it's best if we just go our own ways before things get too serious and someone gets hurt.*
Knives was back at pounding on the keys again, grumbling to himself. The sound of paper scraping against metal registered in Vash's ears as his brother ripped out the letter and then crumpled it up, tossing it into the wastebasket.
Clack-plink-clack-clickety-clack-plunk-clack...
Vash fell asleep listening to the noise and trying not to remember when Meryl used to be up all night, causing the same sort of racket.
~~~~~~
"Vash the Stampede!"
"Stormie the Dark Cloud!" he teased back, picking up the tall woman and spinning her around as she giggled, arms around his neck. Her bags remained forgotten at their feet, and Vash promptly tripped over them as the couple ended up sprawled out on the ground in a tangle of limbs, she on top with one arm trapped beneath his back and the other hand resting on his chest, and he beneath her with her long, white-blonde hair spilling across his face and into his mouth as he laughed loudly.
"Gee, Stormie, you feel heavier. Didja gain weight?" he chuckled, spitting out the silky strands and leaving them wet and stringy with his saliva.
"Hmm...no more than you did, it feels like," she said mock-seriously, patting his stomach with a grim smile. "Lay off the donuts, why don't you?"
Knives snorted from where he stood in the doorway of their small house just on the outskirts of town, the building just a flower garden short of a cottage with its wooden walls and flat roof. It would've had a thatched roof for a more homey feel, but Knives had insisted that was impractical, though he had allowed the small, square windows with white shutters that could be swung open to display a perfect view.
Stormie lived next door, in what seemed to resemble a garage. It looked very small on the outside, but had the largest basement Vash had ever imagined. Outside sat a little garden gnome and a marble fountain that was never filled with water, but rather with sand and plastic salmon. Stormie had a weird sense of humor that Knives more often than not didn't appreciate.
"Pick up my bags, Forks! I'm home!" she commanded, winking at the other plant with a powder blue eye that always held a mischievous glint. She then collapsed into laughter, still lying entwined with Vash, when Knives cast her a disgusted look and stalked inside.
~~~~~~
Sometimes, Stormie reminded Vash of Millie. She could be just as ditzy and naive, and other times she was the picture of, well, no one Vash could ever imagine. He found her doing such weird things. Like the time she just sat out in her yard all day with a bucket of watery glue, chicken wire, and old paper.
"What are you doing?" he had asked.
"Making a paper mache donkey."
"Oh."
That was just one of several instances, many of which he would not get into, and she had started many a project only to get bored after a few hours or so and never even look its way again. But she was a very good doctor who treated only plants, being one herself, which limited her patients to Vash, Knives, and herself. Her origin was quite unknown to everyone save herself, and she wouldn't budge on her policy of never revealing that secret.
It was dark now, and the wind was getting pretty rough outside, whistling through the cracks of the walls and beating upon the roof. Stormie was curled up in an armchair in the corner and Knives was sitting at the table with a magazine, dully flipping through.
Vash, who had been in the kitchen, returned with a chocolate pudding and handed it to the deeply tanned female plant, causing her pale azure eyes to widen and grow glossy in appreciation. "Oh, Mr. Vash!" she cried in a dead on impression of Milly, who she had met but a few times and declared to be the most delightful person in the world. Ever since then, she had been imitating the woman, saying childishly, "I want to be just like her when I grow up!"
Vash had to laugh and admit to himself that he really enjoyed it when Stormie took on the part of the now absent Milly. How he missed that girl. And Wolfwood too. They would've been so good together, and he would've loved to have seen them get married, have children, eat dinner with them and reminisce over old times. If only...if only he hadn't died.
He sometimes spent hours pondering over where the two insurance girls had gone to, and where they were now. Meryl, crying, had insisted as they parted that there be no communication because it'd only make things harder. She said she loved him, it just couldn't be.
"Vash, will you please tell Mr. Forks that I am sick of his obsessing over me so he should stop writing that letter right now."
"Vash, will you please tell Stomie this letter isn't for her."
"Stormie, Knives says he loves you very much."
"I did not!"
Vash and Stormie only shared more laughter over poor Knives' embarrassment. The two had instantly clicked, which only led to more and more pain for the poor man.
A loud, insistent pounding against the door, like someone throwing their whole body into it, boomed throughout the semi-quiet room and shut up both the goofy outlaw and his partner in crime.
"Someone's at the door," said Knives quietly, setting down his pen but making no move to get up. "They don't sound happy."
"Yikes!" Vash had already dove behind a couch. "It's a bounty hunter! They're coming for me,. Knives!"
"Don't be a moron. Get the door."
The knocking had stopped now, but it did nothing to quiet Vash's fears. He was still shivering behind the furniture.
Stormie got up, looking a bit concerned herself, and walked slowly over to the door, laying her fingers upon the knob. She was aware of Knives' eyes trained icily on her back, and then pushed on, swinging the door wide open.
Hunched over on the stoop was a man, his lean body curled up into a pitiful, trembling ball, his back to the wall. A mop of black hair hung into his face and was sticky and matted with blood, as were his clothes, which were equally dark and afforded to his looking as if he was melting away into the shadows. He looked badly beaten, so much that it took her breath away.
"Guys," she said shakily, quietly. "I...well, it's not a bounty hunter."
Vash hopped up and walked timidly over, a jolt of shock surging through his body as he saw the condition of their visitor. And then, the young man raised wide, terrified, golden eyes, tortured and full of pain to the couple standing there. Blood was coursing down his forehead between the creamy ochroid globes, and as he locked gazes with Vash, he smiled, faintly. And then he went limp and fell into an unconscious pile at Vash's feet.
Stormie looked at the taller man in confusion.
"Legato...?"
~~~~~~
Well, I hope you liked this. Reviews make me write faster, and if you have any advice, be sure to tell me.
~Shangri-La~
