Disclaimer: I'm still too upset to deny owning Trigun.
Chapter Forty-Six: Despair
Well in case you failed to notice,
In case you failed to see,
This is my heart bleeding before you,
This is me down on my knees, and...
These foolish games are tearing me apart,
And your thoughtless words are breaking my heart.
You're breaking my heart.
Jewel- Foolish Games
A/N: I'm still hurt, this is still a representation of what happened to me.
Tears cascaded down her flushed cheeks and the world blurred before her watery aqua eyes. Hands clenched into fists pounded at the ground and nails drove into fleshy palms, drawing the thinnest film of blood from the pale skin. Her hair hung raggedly about her face and her lips parted in sobs of utter sorrow and despair. Her boy convulsed with each wrenching sob that shook her slender form as she wailed, her voice cracking and pitching as she cried after him. Yet he did not turn back to her, and his name was repeated over and over again as it echoed hollowly across the dunes. Her head spun in pain as the crown of her head exploded with fire at her incessant tears; her stomach convulsed and she heaved her innards upon the sand. She shuddered violently and closed her eyes against the morning light, feeling her eyelashes melt together with the warmth of her tears. Tears she shed for the only man she had ever loved like this, to whom she had given her heart and her soul and her utter and complete devotion save for a slight mistake, yet had cast her away from him like she was nothing but yesterday's trash.
She felt arms slide around her shoulders, as though to embrace her and quell her tears, yet she shoved them forcefully away "go away Vash" she snarled, her voice filled more with hopelessness than with anger. She heard him slide away from her and let her sorrow continue it's course. She felt as though he had stabbed her heart; sliced into it so that it would never heal the same. That he had shredded her soul and her mind with his sharp words, for she would never be the same woman again. Destined never again to be happy; never again to wake to the dawn with the knowledge that he had her love, and she his.
"Knives!" she cried one final time as he reached the top of the dune. Here he stopped, turning back to look at her with a face she would remember forever in her dreams. His skin, pale and unmarred, was now red and streaked with lines of tears that shone in the light of the near-cresting suns. His hair was disheveled and shining like a halo in the light, his eyes spoke of betrayal and pain and thousands of emotions that one cannot even begin to describe. His mouth quivered so violently that she could see it; and she watched as the mist of his breath was ragged and quick. Tears welled in her eyes as she stared at him, the man she had loved with all her heart
"I'm so sorry Knives!" she called, her voice catching on his name as she sobbed it out "I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry about everything but you kept your pain hidden inside yourself and I never knew how much I'd hurt you. I'm so sorry!"
She heard a sigh escape his lips, and then the words that, for an inexplicable reason that she could not comprehend, tore at her heart and her mind and soul "don't be sorry Rhianne" Still sobbing, she rose to her feet and ran to him, hoping that he would embrace her in his arms and stroke her hair and whisper in her ear that he still loved her and he would forgive her mistake. Yet when she ran to him and threw her arms about his shoulders, as she had done so many times, she felt an unfamiliar tenseness in them as his arms dangled listlessly at his sides. "Don't do that" he spoke in his dark and teary voice as he moved from her grasp and out of her arms. Tears welled afresh in her eyes as she felt him pull away from her, his familiar warmth replaced by the cold air and the tender embrace for which she had prayed was dealt by the wind as it whipped about her as he backed away from her as though terrified of her. Terrified of her love, perhaps. Or, she sobbed listlessly, perhaps he was afraid to love her anymore because of the pain he had endured at her hand.
"Knives…I can't be without you" She sobbed, reaching out to hold him and again grasping naught but cold air. For all his tears, his eyes were cold as he regarded her "you can and you will" he stated.
"I refuse to be! I can't and I won't!" she cried, becoming near hysterical. Knives dealt her an emotionless shrug "you will be, because I won't be with you" The words drove into her already bruised heart, stepping on her soul as a child would an ant. "Knives, I love you…"
She was met with no response, only the even, steadily tearing gaze he had dealt her since the moment he had come upon her mistake. "Don't you love me?" she begged, placing a hand upon her chest, over her heart which bled for him.
"I…I don't know" he responded, turning away from her. She took a step towards him, painfully aware of Vash's eyes against her back, begging her to just let him go "how can you not know?" she pleaded "it's a yes-or-no question, Knives. There is no in-between with love" At his silence she felt any bulwarks she had constructed against her emotions crack and fall, and out poured her emotions in all their sorrowful and despondent glory.
"You aren't going to take me back, are you?" She asked half-heartedly, already knowing the answer. Somewhere deep down inside of her she prayed he would see the err of his ways and take her back into his arms again and forgive her for her careless mistake.
"No"
That same word, she sobbed. That same damnable word that she loathed with such hatred that it nearly tore her apart more than her pain at his departure. "Then I'm sorry you feel that way" she stated, willing her voice not to falter at this crucial moment "I guess this is goodbye then…I will always love you Knives."
That said, she turned on her heel and ran towards the towering rocks in which her world had crumbled around her ankles, sobs wrenching at her and threatening to sway her balance and send her tumbling into the tear-ridden sand. Her tears fell into the wind and she cared naught how stupid and fragile she must have sounded, for there was no point anymore. No point in happiness, no point in laughter, no point in life unless Knives was there. She brushed past Vash, who stood with hopeful arms outstretched, ready to receive her sobbing form as Knives walked silently away. Crumbling into a heap before the fire she allowed herself to wail out into the waning night in her despair. For a moment she did not move, and then she scrambled to the bag which was propped against the stone and rummaged inside of it as Vash watched silently, leaning against a rock, tears falling from his eyes at her pain. Within a moment she had found the object, and she crawled back to the fire and stared into it for a moment with tear-ridden eyes and raised her right arm up before her, and Vash saw a glint of silver and then the shimmer of blood as the razor she held in her hand cut through the skin of her arm. Her eyes glazed at the pain as she felt it and allowed the blood to fall into the fire, watching as tears fell still down her cheeks. The other arm was raised and pierced before Vash could move, and he stopped in his tracks at the amount of blood that cascaded out of the slim yet deep tears in her arms. Biting her lips, she thrust her arms into the fire and the stench of burning skin met his nostrils; the repulsive poignant stench that had greeted him upon his arrival upon the planet as the charred bodies of the less fortunate ships tumbled out of the fiery debris.
A moment they rested there, the blade turning red-hot, and he gasped with terror as she drew back her neck and brought the razor to the skin with a light hiss as the searing metal met with her skin, and her watched as her lips trembled and she whispered Knives' name. It seemed that the name of his brother who had left her so brokenhearted brought him out of the state of shock he had been stewing in, and he lunged foreword and cried out for her to stop. His artificial arm stretched out and wrenched her hand from her throat and he heard her gasp as the blade dug into her palm and felt the warm blood splash against him and stain the sand. Pulling the blaze from her hand he threw it effortlessly away and caught her when she scrambled to go after it.
"Rhianne, you can't do this" he stated forcefully, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her "he isn't worth all your pain. You can do better, I know it"
"Damn it Vash" she cried, attempting to pull away, yet too weak to succeed "I don't want to do better! There isn't anyone better for me than Knives, and if there were I wouldn't leave him anyway. I love him, Vash, and I never stopped to consider how much I loved him until he was gone. He is my world, and without him I have no reason to live"
"Yes you do Rhianne!" he insisted, maintaining a grip so tight on her shoulders that she could feel the flesh bruising beneath his fingers "you have people who care about you and love you, be it here or wherever you came from. People love you and if Knives doesn't that's his problem and his loss"
At this more tears fell from her eyes as she stared him fiercely in the eyes "it's all my fault" she stated "I shouldn't have done what I did. If I could take it back I would; I would take back every single thing I had ever done to hurt him." She paused, overcome by her sobs and Vash took the opportunity to interject "Rhianne, it isn't your fault. You made a mistake, it's true. But he should know that you love him by now, after all the things you two have dealt with. And I refuse to sit here and listen to you take all this out on yourself"
"All I want is to run after him, to call him and to beg him to take me back. To tell him that I would do anything to be his woman again…" she was again overcome by her sobs "I love him so much and he just can't seem to understand that and I wish that he could, because I will spend the rest of my life making it up to him"
She moved away from him and placed a hand over her arms, whose skin had bubbled and charred black, covered in stinking blood from her lacerations. Within a moment they were as they once were, and she crawled down into the blanket that still lay down upon the ground, closing her eyes and praying for sleep. Sleep that would, in her dreams, cleanse her pain ad her suffering and would deliver her from her overwhelming despair.
A/N: Dear Readers: I need your advice. My love says he will not have me back, yet his tears and words betray him. I am at a loss, what should I do? And so here I turn to you, you who have read my emotions through the eyes of Rhianne for 46 chapters and hopefully more. But I have no motivation for anything, and I am not sure if I can continue this story in my state. I am like stated earlier, I cannot eat, I cannot sleep, I see but I do not truly see, I touch but I do not feel. I am dead, dear readers, to all but his love, that which has been taken from me. So I ask of you, how can I regain his love? You are all intelligent and wonderful people, that I have seen in your reviews, and I need your reviews, so to speak, on this matter. Please help out an author whose will is fading…LL
