A/N: Since the prologue was so short, I decided to post the first chapter along with it. Don't forget to review. Oh, and if you see this: ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ then that means it's a different scene or something, okay? Not really that hard.

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Along Came A Spider

Chapter One: PORTRAIT

In a small village near LR, two men sat at a table. One held a large pad of white paper which he continually drew on. The other man, not able to see what the other was drawing, nor caring, stared across the road at a lone man gently rocking in an old wooden chair.

The man across the street wore a pair of old brown pants and a dusty white shirt. His hair shone like gold compared to his worn out clothing and stood atop his head like wheat swaying in a breeze. A light smile, one that showed relief of a great burden being accomplished, rested upon his face. He continually glanced at the sky and watched the people going about their business. He was especially fond of watching children, although they were all made by their parents to avoid the man living in that particular house.

"I still can't believe it's him," the man doing the staring said. The drawing man, who only looked away from his work to casually look at the man across the street, only nodded. The first man shook his head in disbelief. No matter how many times someone would tell him, or how many times he saw it for himself, he couldn't believe it. "The one and only humanoid typhoon…"

The drawing man nodded.

"You'd expect sitting across the street from someone like him, we'd be a little more on edge…ya know…I'd expected half the town to have gotten up and left when they heard about him living here."

"Yeah, well, the ones that got rich from hitting that water vein have left, and as for everyone else," the drawing man spoke, "they probably would leave if they could. It's not like he's done anything, but still…it is Vash the Stampede over there."

"I'm surprised he came back, after what they did to him…dragging him by a rope across the ground. Most men would have been swearing their heads off and tossing threats left and right after something like that."

"He's a lot tougher than he looks, I'll give him that. And that might be an understatement considering what he's been through," he erased a little from his drawing.

"Well yeah, he slept for ten days straight the first time he came here, then they dragged him around, and then he leaves for a couple days and comes back in worse shape than when he left carrying some unconscious guy over his shoulder. Then he sleeps for another two weeks.," he shook his head, "I'd just like to know what could possibly be bad enough to make a guy like that sleep for that long."

"It must have been pretty bad considering the fact that even after he got dragged around and beaten, he was walking around afterwards like nothing happened. I've even heard that the man he brought with him is still asleep."

Vash the Stampede casually looked around, and then set his gaze onto the sky. The twin suns were generous that day; it was, compared to normal weather, fairly cool and windy. The Humanoid Typhoon's smile grew even bigger as he gazed into the blue skies.

"Strange," the man with the pad said.

"What?"

"I just think it's weird that a man with a reputation like his would be able to smile like that. If I had a hundreds of hotshot bounty hunters looking for me left and right, I know I wouldn't be that happy."

"Yeah, now that you mention it, it is kinda weird…" He noticed that the other man was done with whatever it was he had been drawing. "Are you going to show me that, or what?"

The drawer smiled, "Of course!" He turned the pad around. On it was a drawing of Vash the Stampede's face, both a frontal and a profile. By the odd look on the other man's face, he could tell he had confused him, "You know how Vash the Stampede has always been identified by rumors or people that had already seen him? Well, I just figured that I could get quite a bit of money for an actual picture of the 60,000,000,000 double-dollar man."

"I suppose you're right…" the other man said, looking at the sketch skeptically, "I never did remember seeing any of those wanted posters with pictures."

"Now all I have to do is sell it to someone…I wonder who would pay more, the Feds or Bernardelli? I probably could make a copy and sell one to each…"

As the two men continued their conversation, Vash the Stampede, the fearsome Humanoid Typhoon, watched happily as two children played tag with one another, far from his spot on the deck of his new home.

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Inside of the home Vash, the Insurance Girls, and a comatose Knives occupied, Meryl Stryfe, Bernardelli insurance agent, was making salmon sandwiches. It wasn't what anyone would call her most admirable job, but yet she did it with a smile on her face.

Since Vash was still incredibly exhausted from his fight with his brother, he could barely walk for short periods of time, Meryl decided that she and Millie would help Vash and his brother as much as possible…which, at first, Vash, being the stubborn man that he was, didn't want the woman to go too far out of their way for him.

This led to Meryl finding Vash wandering the house when he was supposed to be resting. After a few, let's say, 'encounters' between the two, Vash got the hint that the girl was not kidding about helping…he also got a few migraine headaches and a couple lumps on the head from Meryl's method of, literally, bashing the idea into his skull.

Millie, being the sensitive and kindhearted person that she was, had been a little worried about Meryl's method of getting Vash to listen. The shorter girl used the logic that if it got him to rest, then it was a good method.

Besides, how many people could really get hurt by a suitcase to the head?

Meryl looked over to see what Millie was doing. The taller insurance girl, Millie Thompson, was also making sandwiches for herself and Knives. Of course, Meryl had pointed out, on multiple occasions, that people in comas generally didn't eat much, but Millie, once again due to her thoughtful nature, used that logic that he would be hungry once he woke up and had been leaving plates of them in Knives's room everyday. The sandwiches she made were also salmon, since no one knew what Millions Knives, human-hater, would like in his sandwich; the generous girl thought that since Vash liked them so much, then his brother must, too.

Meryl didn't have the heart to point out that Vash and Knives were opposites when it came to everything, so the girl's theory was probably wrong. She was just glad Millie was finally acting like her old self. Either that, or this was just another one of those things she does when she wants to forget her sorrow.

Meryl grabbed a nearby box and placed the plates of sandwiches atop it. Inside the box was a certain something she had noticed the last time she had been traveling through the streets of town. She left Milly alone to finish making her meal and went to the front door of the house.

Meryl stopped at the door and looked at the box and plats of food that filled her hands. There weren't any tables nearby, but she couldn't open the door with her hands full. Then she noticed that the door wasn't completely shut; it was unlatched and open by an inch or so.

She lifted her leg and kicked the door the rest of the way open…or at least that's what she thought would have happened. For some reason there was a loud thumping sound and then the sound of what resembled someone falling to the ground. Meryl, this time pushing the door open gently with her shoulder, stepped onto the deck of the building.

And there, laying on the ground, clutching his face and tears streaking his cheeks, was Vash. Meryl set the box and plates onto a small table between the two chairs that were on the deck, and looked down at Vash. "Vash, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" Vash moved his hand from his face. A little droplet of blood plopped out of his nose. "I was going to see if you wanted some help and then—BAM!" Vash quickly opened and closed his fingers to simulate an explosion or something, which reminded Meryl of something a child would do, "The door flies open and hits me in the face!"

Meryl bent down and grabbed onto the wrist of Vash's natural arm and tried pulling him up. "I'm sorry Va—"she noticed two men across the street snickering at them. Meryl could have sworn, by the movement of their lips, that one of them said something to the extent of 'Typhoon's girlfriend'. Meryl blushed and let go of Vash's arm, which made him fall back down with another thump and elicited another "Oww…" from the already wounded man.

"Well," Meryl said after making sure she wasn't blushing, "That's what you get! You should have been resting, not wandering around."

"Wha…" Vash said, wiping the speck of blood of his white shirt, the same shirt and pants he had worn when he had stayed with Lena and her grandmother, "that somehow makes this my fault?! I'm not the one throwing doors open and hitting wounded people in the face!"

"How was I supposed to know you were there?" Meryl pointed out, "Besides, like you just said, you're wounded, remember? You're lucky I'm letting you sit out here, instead of sleeping in you're bed. It's your fault that you were standing outside the door like an idiot."

Vash pulled himself back into his chair, rubbing his back and nose, at the same time. "All you have to say is sorry…" Vash said quietly and not looking at Meryl.

"I did, you just weren't listening," Meryl sat in the other chair; she picked up one of the plates of sandwiches and shoved them into Vash's face, "I made these for you," she said without looking him in the face, "Now eat them or I'll change my mind and feed them to that cat or something." Meryl gestured to a little black cat sitting at the end of the deck. It turned to its head to them and let out some sort of 'nyao' sound.

Vash grabbed the plate, instantly smiling and forgetting about his wounds, "Thanks Meryl!" He stuffed a couple into his mouth and looked at the short woman, "Theeth are gooth!" Vash said with a full mouth.

 "Don't mention it…" Meryl wiped the crumbs and saliva from Vash's mouth off her face, "Literally…don't mention it."

"What's in the box?" Vash asked after swallowing another mouthful of salmon sandwich. Before Meryl could answer, Vash started sniffing the air, "Wait…that smell!" Vash lunged for the box. Meryl, anticipating this, grabbed it and pulled the box and her plate of sandwiches out of the reach of the gunman.

"Not until you finish lunch!"

"But I want some donuts!!" Vash lunged again, but Meryl held the box of donuts further out of his reach. He leaned further in his chair and flailed his arms at the box, but Meryl was able to lean to the side and hold it just barely out of the reach of Vash's fingers. He gave up and sat back into his chair, crossing his arms and sticking his lip out like a little kid.

"That's so cold…"

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A/N: Yeah, not much happening…yet. This story will be from Knives's point-of-view, but Mr. Millions hasn't woken up quite yet. Oh, and this story will have more than just the four of them trying to live together. In fact, there's an original character that will soon be making an appearance.

So, it's time for you to review! Give me advice or whatnot, but most importantly, just tell me if it's starting out any good, even though nothing interesting has happened yet.