CHAPTER SIX: BEHAVE (cont1)

"You're not really going to sleep alone with him, are you?" Vash murmured, shoving his hands into his pockets in frustration.

Vanessa nodded. "He wouldn't let me be alone, and you need time to be on your own. Besides, I'll be sleeping in my own bed, and I'm not about to let him…you know…"

Turning to look into her eyes, Vash took a low, serious tone. "How's that? Are you going to whip out that book and put him to sleep or make him cry? Your tricks aren't going to save you with any more certainty now than they did back when…I mean, you've gotten away, but your scars…"

Vanessa narrowed her eyes at him. "So what if my methods aren't COMPLETELY foolproof? I've done the best I could. And YOUR scars prove your talents are flawed as well!" She looked ahead and crossed her arms.

He stuck out his lower lip in reply, accidentally ruining the solemn expression. "It's just that…I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Like before, huh?" she muttered, shaking her head.

"What?" Vash asked, alarmed at her response.

"Huh? Like when I got the scars, like you said," she mumbled.

"Hmph," Vash replied, frustrated suddenly by her vague answers. "You know exactly what my life was like, but everything you've told me was so brief…I wish you'd be frank with me."

"There's no need to hear the details," she replied quickly. "You should try that restaurant there. You've been a waiter before, so they'd hire you," she added, hoping to change the subject.

"See? You know I was a waiter like you know about all the other things!" Vash again uttered a frustrated grumble. "I'll do that later; we have a few hours, remember? I want to talk to you about this!"

"Well, I need to check at the hospital before they close. So you do whatever, and I'll wait for you…" Vanessa pointed at an empty bench at the street corner. "…there. When I'm done." She walked away briskly, waving goodbye without looking directly at him.

Defeated, Vash sauntered back to the restaurant, where they hired him in desperation alone. Two of their waiters had left town yesterday on the sand steamer, unexpectedly, and they had to fill the positions quickly. Vash left with his new uniform under arm, and seated himself on the bench.

"Whew! I had to drop all kinds of names, and practically beg, but I got a position there!" Vanessa said with a smile as she parked herself beside Vash.

His eyes were hidden by his sunglasses as he stared off into the distance, and he only smirked for a moment in reply.

Vanessa folded her hands on her lap. "We should be back by 6. It's just 4:50 now, so…"

"Please tell me what you've gone through," he asked in a hushed voice. "We can sit someplace else; I'm sure these memories are just as painful for you as mine are to me..."

She shook her head. "Here's fine. I don't really get upset about it anymore. But you're going to have to be more specific with your questions."

"Okay…Um…" Vash stuttered, unsure of how to word his thoughts. "You've got a lot of relatively small scars, and lots of different kinds, right? So, did you get them here and there, once in a while, or did…sometimes, did you get several at once?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

Vanessa cleared her throat and played with the seam of her cloak. "A lot are just everyday scrapes and scratches, but mostly there were times when people would…you know, they'd…" she stammered. "It's not really important anymore, I mean…"

"No, please tell me, I want to know," Vash insisted softly. "What you mean is that sometimes people would…um…beat you up?" he offered, wincing from his own words slightly.

She nodded. "I guess you could call it that. They used knives sometimes. Or they'd shoot me. But they typically didn't aim to kill me. Just…to…" Her voice trailed off suddenly. She paused, then picked up with a different thought. "And their words were weapons, too, considering some of the things they called me; told me I was…"

"Why did they do it…to begin with?" he asked in a voice so quiet it bordered on a whisper.

"One way or another, they found that their suspicions were correct – that I was…What with the ears and the book and all, it's always bound to happen. I get sloppy and someone sees something I shouldn't have let them see. And that makes me what they fear, whether it's a witch, or a demon, or what have you."

"It was different for you than for me," Vash commented. "Because usually they just tried to take me out as soon as they found out who I am…or WHAT I am. But for you they…"

Vanessa held the edge of her cloak closer as she leaned forward, hiding her face from him. "Oh, they wanted to kill me. They were taking their time – that's why I always had chances to escape. They took out their anger and fear on me in increments. They wanted to humiliate me, demean me. It seemed fun, for them," she added with a melancholy irony.

Vash dropped his head in acknowledgement, but his lips were sealed tightly.

"Is that what you were wondering?" she asked softly, her voice wavering faintly. "Do you want to hear the stories, specifically?" she said, a little too loudly, before again falling into low whispers. "I've avoided telling anyone the details; nobody really wants to hear them; they're depressing. Of no consequence now…"

"Tell me; these things are significant to me," he murmured in reply. "You ought to tell someone…When you're ready, I mean…"

"Now's the same as anytime, to me," she replied with a forced indifference. She leaned back against the bench, holding herself around the chest with one arm and lifting the other to shield her eyes with her hand. "Let's see…about fifty years ago, I was in the outskirts of Augusta, working as an assistant to a tailor. Things started to get uncomfortable right off, when the guy began to make off-color comments, like that he enjoyed blondes and things like that. I went into the back room one day to redo my hair, and he burst in. He started to grab at me, but he saw my ear and freaked out. A lot of people had already grown curious of my book, but I wouldn't show it to them when they asked. So the tailor told me that if I slept with him, he wouldn't tell them my secret. 'What do you mean?' I asked him. 'That you're a witch, like they think you are," he told me. So I made a quick excuse about being born with deformed ears, and told him the witch rumors were ridiculous. That night, a mob was at my door, demanding to see the book and my ears. I wouldn't show them, so they forced me to. The shouting started, and some people hit me. I couldn't see who. I fell, and a few people kicked me. I cried, and told them some made-up story, and they laughed. They dragged me off to some barn. The tailor was there – he told them I put spells on him from my book and things like that. So did another man I didn't recognize. A lot of people dispersed, but the more gruff, provoked men stayed. They tied my hands and started to call me names. They encouraged the tailor to 'take revenge' or something, so he took out his gun and shot me here," she whispered, waving her finger at her left shoulder. "When they got close to me, I could smell alcohol on their breath. They paced around, and would just fly at my all the sudden and hit me or slap me. It was like they were waiting for a cue. So, when the red-headed guy started to pull my clothes off of me, they all barked out approval and sniggered," she whispered frantically, pressing her thumb and finger onto either side of her eyes. She sniffed and continued, lost in the tale. "Three of them raped me," she confessed, barely audible. "The last one took out a knife and slashed me across the chest, then my back. Lucky the thing was dull; he didn't cut very deep. I guess it made some of them uncomfortable, how bloody it was getting, because most of them left by now. When that guy was done, he punched me hard, across the face. Called me 'bitch.' He went over to his buddies, wiping his hands on a rag, and they started talking about how to kill me, and where to dump me after that. They said a gunshot to the head was too good for me. By then, I wiggled my hand out of the rope, so I picked up this wooden stick, in my one hand, and I waved it around until I hit one of them across the head, and he fell. I ran to a toma shed and rode off into the desert. They didn't follow me for very long. It was hard to find a doctor, but once I had the bullet removed and got the stitches, I was alright," she muttered to finish, realizing that her story was too long and too disturbing for the time. And the clock across the way read 5:48 and the sky was nearing sunset.

Vash sat still, a pale frown upon his face.

Vanessa blinked and wiped her face with her hands. "We need to get dinner. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told that. I'm sorry."

"Don't say that…" Vash whispered, his words sticking to his tongue. "I'M sorry…I should've have asked you to…It's so…"

She turned on the bench to face him. "Well, you asked…" Then, she saw the glint of wetness on his face. Beneath those sunglasses, he had been crying. She reached out to wipe his cheeks gently with the back of her hand. Feeling the choke in her throat, she didn't speak.

Vash held out his hand, in which was a warm, crumpled 20$$ bill. "Could you get dinner? I'll wait here…I need a second, okay?" he asked softly, blinking hard under his orange glass lenses.

Vanessa nodded, taking the banknote. She retrieved a cheap bundle of food, and went again to the bench.

Wordlessly, Vash carried the bundle and followed her home. He put the palm of one hand against hers, and she accepted, holding his hand tight until they reached the hotel.

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