1Fate of Awakening Love
Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun. Life is that cruel.
A/N: Chapter 11! Okay I'm apologizing in advice for Knives' personality (so no flames about it later on). Just having him fall for a human in general makes him OOC but...well, work with it okay? It'll be better if you do. And I promise Knives doesn't get really emotional or anything but he is still OOC. Sorry, I tried.
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With his gun pointed directly at one man in particular, Knives noticed the others meant to gang up on him from the sides and from behind.
"Just lower your gun." One of the men to the side of him said gently.
Intending to do no such thing, a future scene with Meryl popped in his mind. He could already see her reaction if he were to shoot and kill the surrounding men. He could see her anger and possible disappointment in him. Most of all he knew she'd never forgiven him if he killed another.
'But who cares what she thinks of me?! I could care less if she never spoke to me again. She's just another human, one that will fall in my plan of great destruction.' He thought to himself.
He could vaguely hear the pleas of the men to lower his gun as his mind wasn't focused on them any longer. Meryl was overpowering his every thought, and he didn't like it one bit. 'I already gave her the chance to be by my side and she refused it. She said she didn't want to be with anyone like me, so I don't want to be thinking about her.'
He refocused his gaze on the men and tilted his head to the side, about ready to pull the trigger and let the gun fight begin. As his finger clamped down harder, he felt his sudden release of it. He glanced at his gun and at the men whom he now loathed more than he had before, because he knew he would never kill them. Flipping his gun in his hand he rested it back in its holster and shoved past the men who stared at him in disbelief, as he walked away without a direct word to them. Muttering incoherent swears to himself.
'Damn that woman, getting to me like this.' He swiftly turned back around and pulled out his gun shooting it before he had time to reconsider. The men jumped and yelped. One cried out that he'd been shot, but on closer inspection none of them had been. Knives had completely missed the target. He could see his bullet wedged in between a building.
'Damn her!' He placed the gun back in its rightful place and stalked off. More angry than he had been in the beginning. The men gaped at him in silence.
"He was gonna shoot us," one said quietly.
"I wonder what stopped him?" asked another.
"Who cares? Let's just be sure to stay away from that one," a third man said. They nodded together in mutual agreement.
-
The next day...
Riding the Thomas at a trot, with Vash on the other one parallel to them Millie spoke. "What do you think Mr. Knives is doing?" she asked.
"Probably reeking havoc on the unsuspecting." Meryl grimaced.
"You'd think the woman who loved him would have a little more faith in him," Vash responded and Millie gasped.
"Then its official Meryl? You love Mr. Knives?"
Meryl grumbled out a response. Sure she loved him but like he had said long ago, she wasn't exactly happy about it. She wasn't exactly pleased that she had fallen for a murderer and for it to be Knives? Well that was the absolute worst of them. Who knows what her family would say about that one.
"I've got plenty of faith in Knives. There's a good side to him. I know there is, but there's an even larger worse side to him," she said in response to Vash's statement.
'But he is kinder.' She thought to herself. 'He had the opportunity to kill all those people in February, but he didn't. He let them live with only a few scrapes and broken limbs, things that will heal in time.'
She smiled to herself thinking of all the fights she had with Knives during the time of his recovery. He was always so difficult and he was cold to her for a while, but now he'd changed. 'Enough to leave our race alone though?' She thought to herself, unsure of the answer.
While Millie was happily humming to herself, Vash was eyeing Meryl's smile that quickly faded into concern. He had hid his disappointment well. The let down of not being the brother that Meryl chose was weighing him down. He was constantly forcing himself to stay happy on the outside, for her sake and Knives'. He wasn't lying when he had said he wished only for their happiness. If that meant them being together then he understood, he would back down.
But did that mean he'd have to back down for good? He knew his own brother better than Meryl did. She'd figure him out soon enough but for the time being he was the current expert on Knives' thoughts and mannerisms.
'Knives may have softened for Meryl, but he has not softened for the rest of the human specie. Meryl won't want anything to do with him if he doesn't change his ways. Is he willing to drop his beliefs that he's harbored for over 130 years for her?' Vash thought, 'Meryl said Knives only said that he wanted her. Not that he loved her, and those are two very different things.'
Vash looked guiltily away from Meryl and focused his eyes on the town ahead. 'If Knives doesn't change, Meryl could easily be mine. Unfortunately then, the human race would have a bigger chance at being slain...'
He let his guilty thoughts continue. "And even if he did try to wipe them out again, Knives would never kill Meryl, no matter how much he declared he hated her. He would never touch her. I saw that when he left her alone rather then force her on the ground like he did the rest of us in February.'
Vash's mouth dropped open and he stopped the Thomas.
Meryl pulled the reigns of the one she and Millie were riding to look back at Vash. "Vash what's wrong? Why did you stop?" Meryl asked, "we're almost there."
Vash said nothing. 'How could I think that? How could I ever think like that? To conspire as if I were... Knives?!' He shook the unclean thoughts out of his head.
"Mr. Vash?" Millie called out.
"Huh?" He looked up and saw that the girls were both eyeing him strangely. "Oh right, sorry, come on then."
He fell back into step with Meryl and Millie and they continued to trudge into the town that they had left only a month or so ago.
-
Stepping into the town cautiously they looked around. A small gather of people could be seen walking.
"I thought this town was empty?" Vash asked confused.
"It was." Meryl responded equally confused.
"They're not the same people," Millie pointed out. "Maybe they're those people that Vash had seen enter as we took off on the Thomas' weeks ago. Only there's more so maybe they brought their friends and families?
"Who would move into a town that had been void of its original inhabitants? Isn't that a little creepy?" Vash asked.
"Well, at least they won't recognize us." Meryl stated. They hopped off the giant birds and tied them to a post before walking in the town. They found themselves surrounded by the same group of men that had surrounded Knives just the other day.
"And who are you three?" The man who had first challenged Knives asked, holding out his gun.
"Err, I'm Meryl Stryfe and this is, I mean, these are my partner's Millie Thompson and..." She glanced at Vash who looked back at her carefully, "Dr. Neil... we're from the Bernadelli Insurance Agency."
The man lowered his gun. "Bernadelli huh? You were the people who had been tracking Vash the Stampede weren't you?"
"That's us," Meryl said giving off a half relieved, half-forced laugh.
"You're all insane for following that man, but since the bounty's been lifted off of his head what are you all doing out here?"
"Actually..." Meryl exchanged looks with Millie and Vash, "we're looking for someone else. There's no bounty on him but we need to talk to him."
"What's the guy look like?"
Vash answered, "well, sorta like me. But with shorter more lighter hair and with light blue eyes." Then added, "he kinda has a short fuse."
"Oh, him," the man said turning to look at his comrades, "yeah, he just wandered in here the other day. We've been avoiding him. He doesn't seem too stable up in here." The man pointed to his head.
"Do you know where we can find him?" Millie asked disregarding the point the man made concerning Knives' state of mind.
The man looked around the town. "He isn't too social, doesn't seem to like anyone so he stays to himself. Which we all like. I last saw him in the saloon, might want to check there."
Thanking them, Meryl, Millie and Vash proceeded toward the saloon when Millie stopped.
"Millie?" Meryl questioned her.
"Meryl I'm thinking if Mr. Knives is in there he might not be willing to talk to anyone but you. Maybe Mr. Vash and I should wait somewhere else?"
Vash frowned but nodded in agreement.
"Where will you go?" Meryl asked.
"There's a shop around the corner remember? We can look around for a bit, and grab some place to stay. Who knows how long we'll be here," Millie said.
"Okay then," Meryl replied and watched them walk off together.
"Good luck Meryl," Vash called out to her when he and Millie were some ways away.
She nodded her appreciation and walked into the saloon. With the extremely small amount of people that this town now held, she was surprised to see that the saloon was packed with people. There didn't seem to be a single open seat anywhere.
"It would figure that the one place these type of people would come together would be somewhere they could get drunk," she said to herself out loud in annoyance. While the place was overwhelmed with loud drunken talk, she could still hear a soft sweet melody of someone playing the saxophone.
Trying to make out the direction she heard the sound emerging from, she faintly saw a man on the saloon's small stage seated on a stool playing with his eyes closed. He was absorbed in his own music, oblivious to the chaos that was around him.
'He reminds me of someone,' she thought.
'He reminds you of Midvalley the Hornfreak, one of my better Gung- Ho-Guns.' A calm voice had entered her mind, and as she knew of only one person who could do that, she searched the room for Knives.
While looking around for him, she realized she had been surrounded by men breathing their hot sticky, smelly breath on her. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. The stench of beer had multiplied because of them.
"Well aren't you just a pretty little thing," one of the men stated. "Wanna have a drink with us?"
"No thank you," Meryl said firmly.
"Aww come on. We ain't gonna bite," said a smaller, lankier man.
"I'm not interested."
-
Knives was seated in the corner away from Meryl's view, but he had a good view of her. He watched on as she got surrounded by the saloon's drunks.
-
"She thinks she's too good for us," the first man said, exploding into laughter. He stopped abruptly. "You don't think yer too good fer us do ya?" He asked.
"Actually I do. Now if you'd move aside please," Meryl responded getting angrier by the second.
-
Knives yawned and rested his head on his hand, looking lazily on as the scene unraveled more.
-
"Look little missy, We're not gonna be spoken to like that!" The smaller man said.
"That's right, and that's the problem with you woman. Ya'll don't know yer place!" said another. "But I'll put you in it."
He raised his hand getting ready to strike Meryl when she elbowed him in the stomach. As he buckled down to hold his stomach in pain he gave her a surprised look. The look didn't last long as Meryl punched his face in, quickly shaking her hand after.
The others, thrown off by her swift reaction at fighting back didn't move for a moment but quickly regained their drunken wits and lunged at her.
Despite the facts that there were more of them and that they were stronger, Meryl kept in mind that they were also drunk and could not even pronounce words correctly. Elbowing them and kicking them in places the sun didn't quite reach, she pulled out a few of her derringers which she hadn't used in a long time.
A few shots were fired and an array of confusion went on as the other people in the saloon tried to figure out what was going on, and who was pulling the shots. The bar keeper was yelling out commands and by the time the place had stilled Meryl was the middle inhaling deep breaths, clutching two of her derringers at her side. The used ones were discarded on the floor in various places.
The men who had tried to attack her lay motionless on the floor gawking at her. Even though Meryl had shot a number of her guns no one had been hit. The bullets had merely grazed them on places where skin was exposed. The most damage to them was done by her own physical attacks on the men. The bar keeper shouted for the men to get lost and turned to Meryl.
"Are you okay Miss?"
Meryl blew her hair out of her eyes and put the remaining derringers away. She smoothed her outfit and caught her breath. "Yes I'm fine. Sorry about the saloon."
The saloon was, to say in the least, in shambles. The majority of the damage had been created when the drunks had fallen on tables and stools, but a few of Meryl's shots that had grazed the men had whizzed out the windows, breaking them.
"Ugh..." The bar keeper looked at the mess then back at Meryl. "It's okay, those guys had it coming. Can I get you a drink?"
"Oh, uh, just something light?"
"You got it." The bar keeper walked off and Meryl looked at the remaining people. They were still goggling at her and even the sax player had stopped playing to look at the commotion, but once he started to play again the people went back to their conversations as if nothing had happened.
While looking around her eyes fell on a tall blond haired man in the corner. He was looking straight at her, unmoved.
Her jaw dropped as she stomped up to Knives. Once she reached where he sat she shoved him aside and sat in his spot then glanced around. Bewildered, Knives looked at her looking around. She stood back up and Knives returned to the spot she had shoved him out of.
"You could see me perfectly from here couldn't you?!" she finally said. "Were you going to help me at all?!"
Knives' eyes dulled as he took a small sip of the wine that was in front of him. "No. You had everything under control, what did you need my help for?"
Meryl's jaw dropped further but she quickly closed her mouth and her eyes narrowed. To Knives' amazement she grabbed him by the shirt and started to shake him violently.
"Because its common courtesy to help someone you care about when they're in trouble!"
Amidst the shaking Knives' demure did not change. "Let go." He stated coldly.
Stunned at the sound of his voice, Meryl stopped shaking him but didn't let him go.
"Your drink Miss."
She turned and saw the bar keeper placing her drink on the table. She released Knives. "Thanks."
"Of course. Did you need anything else sir?" He asked Knives who shook his head and said nothing to him. The bar keeper walked off, leaving them alone in their quiet corner.
Meryl stared at Knives and he stared back and made a gesture to the seat across from him. A sign to sit and she did. He leaned back in his chair.
"How dare you follow me," he said nonchalantly, sipping his wine.
"Vash insisted and I'm not one to disagree with something he desperately wants, and he desperately wants to save you," she responded. 'Why am I lying?' she thought to herself, then answered her own question, 'because you can't bring yourself to tell him that you were worried and wanted to follow him too.'
Knives eyed her, his face void of emotion. She wondered if he had read her thoughts. She could never be sure of when he'd attempt to do it and when he would not. Knives' face didn't change, so she opted in thinking he had left her personal thoughts alone this time.
"My brother is naive. He does not understand what he wants. It was one thing when I was calling for him, but those days are over and I will not be followed," Knives said breaking her thoughts.
"So you have returned back to the way you used to be."
Knives' face broke out in amusement. "Did I change that much?"
Meryl nodded slightly. "When Vash first brought you back you were cold, menacing and unfriendly. We figured you were planning something, but we could not figure out what. As I started to look after you, you slowly began to soften and I felt whatever you had been plotting previously you had abandoned."
"I softened you say?" Knives asked shifting his head to the side.
Meryl began to hear a sudden grouping of gasping and choking. Looking around she saw that all the people in the saloon were the ones making the sounds. Even the sax player had dropped his instrument and was trying to regain his breath. It was more than obvious to Meryl that every single one of them was suffocating.
"Let them go Knives!" She demanded, turning back to the plant who had caused this.
She watched as Knives narrowed his eyes. "You are not to give me orders. I hold their tiny human lives in my palm and you have the nerve to act rash toward me?!" For some reason he laughed.
As he did the suffering of the people around them increased and some even fell dead or unconscious, Meryl wasn't sure. All the while Knives had stopped his laughter and had taken to drinking his red wine in contentment. As if he was blind to what was going on around him.
'These people, they're going to die if they don't get some air soon! How can I stop him?!' She thought.
Not thinking particularly hard Meryl stood and walked directly in front of him, realizing these people did not have a lot of time left. Knives looked up at her curiously. 'What's she going to do?' He thought casually.
"Stop it!" She said clenching her teeth together in anger before laying a cold hard slap across his face. "Stop it right now Knives... just stop. Please."
Her anger quickly faded as she became aware of the deafening silence that closed in on her. Forgetting about the others in the bar, Meryl gazed at Knives.
"Why have you reverted? I vaguely understand why and I want an explanation, because I won't allow you to hurt any more people."
Knives sat unmoved, his face still turned away from her. Frozen in place from Meryl's slap. He neither said nor thought anything.
"... I know you may not believe me after our last encounter, but... a very large part of me does not care what you have done in the past. As long as you're living, there is still plenty of time to change. Maybe you don't have to be so in love with things like Vash is, but you don't have to go around killing and trying to wipe out my specie either." Meryl told him quietly, sitting back down across from him slowly.
Knives said nothing for a few moments. "I always believed all humans were alike. That all they were was a more powerful pesticide, killing everything in their paths. Then I met you. You seemed a little different from the others. You intrigued me more than I could understand, more than I wanted. I watched you closely. You were not wasteful and while I sensed a sliver of fear from you toward me, you were good at hiding it. You're more than anything I envisioned a human being could be. Unlike Rem you didn't constantly spout opinionated bullshit and you did not seem like a person I could easily break given the chance. Yet at the same time you were fragile. You can be loud, overbearing, impatient and a right pain in the neck."
Knives paused at this noticing he may have hit a nerve in her but he continued on.
"And still you are quiet, thoughtful, calm and generous. Even after I had convinced myself you were better off with Vash and no better than any other spider my mind did not cease in thinking of you. You're mystifying to me and yet you're easy to figure out. That is why, despite all, I still want you."
Meryl sat still, speechless for a few moments. "Knives, I..." She trailed off. She knew what she wanted to say, but to actually say it? 'I can't, not yet.' She thought.
Knives looked at her for a little while. "Do you understand now why I have reverted, as you say?"
Meryl made no reply.
Knives took the last remaining sips of his red wine and stood. "Because I cannot have you and it's not good to suppress anger."
Not caring, or wanting to hear a response Knives walked out of the bar leaving Meryl in a dazed fog. She barely noticed the people that were coming to around her. They shook their heads as they tried to figure out what had happened. Not wishing to be questioned, Meryl made her subtle leave after Knives. By the time she had emerged out of the saloon he was nowhere in sight.
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A/N: Yup. Please read and review! Actually you know, I find it kind of odd that I (and other writers on ) say to read and review. Obviously you've read the story so I guess all I want you all to do is review.
Knives: What'll you do once FoAL is over with?
Author: Focus on Silent Pretense and Prerogative. The story in which you Knives, win the final battle!
Knives: I'll win?! (laughs eerily)
Author: (eyes him) err, yeah...
Yours Truly,
Faery Goddyss
Oh, by the way- check my profile every so often on updates on my stories.