The gun shook, so violently there was little chance that its bullet would strike the figure it targeted. It was small, ordinary, a toy compared to the weapon previously wielded by its handler. But it held ammo, and it would draw blood, and the sound that it made when Vash pulled the hammer back declared that fact.

"I promise Knives. I will shoot…" he said, his voice shaking. Those words held a heavy weariness, so deep and expansive that Knives froze.

"You don't need to promise me Vash. I already know you will." He turned slowly, his movements jerky and distracted. He reached up and touched his shoulder, where the scar would be. "You'd think I would have learned that by now."

Tears were running in fierce rivulets down Vash's flushed cheeks, and his eyes were glazed with inner pain. "Knives…" The bright glare of his twins white shirt blurred with the pale skin and platinum hair, until nothing but a towering column of burning light stood before the door, with a black smudge aimed at its heart. "I can't let you go." He finished.

"You're going to have to kill me then, aren't you Vash?" Knives took two steps forward, such a short distance taking eternity.

Vash choked back a sob. "No…"

"No what, Vash?"

Aquamarine eyes met his brother's azure. "I know what you want Knives, and I'm not giving it to you. I'm not letting you do this!" he released the hammer and threw the gun away from him. Still crying and shaking slightly, he continued to stare defiantly at his twin's vacant expression.

"You know what I want so much better than I do Vash…" Knives said sarcastically. "Tell me…what is it that you're denying me from?"

"You don't think I see? The marks on your arms? You don't think I could see that in your eyes, that after all this time, that ability had left me?" Angrily, Vash waved his arm toward the kitchen of his small, creamy-painted cottage. "You think I took all the knives out of there because I was afraid of you?"

He received no immediate answer. It almost hurt him, to see his brother like this. He was always so eager to display his emotion, to let others know how he saw the world. But this was not the intelligent little boy on the SEEDS ship. And it was not the psychotic creature that had attempted to wipe out the human race. There was no emotion in his eyes, nothing but a terrible loss and hollowness.

Vash didn't know what he preferred more.

"And this bothers you?" Knives finally answered. He laughed, a soft, wheezing, mirthless sound. "There just isn't any pleasing you brother."

"Its murder too Knives. Just like killing an innocent person…no less wrong."

"But its more acceptable, though isn't it? You can't straddle those lines Vash. I'm not one of your precious humans."

"It doesn't make any difference! Rem—"

"Don't bring her up!" screamed Knives. He was shaking now, paler than before with some forgotten emotion struggling to the surface of him.

"Why then? If you won't hear me out, just tell me why?"

"Would it not make you happy? I killed her didn't I? Killed them all, ruined your life. This is what you wanted, Vash! To rid your humans of my threat and to avenge all that you cared about."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Vash closed the gap between them, taking the thinner less healthy looking of the two by the arms and gripping until some expression of pain crossed Knives's face. The pain changed to anger in the blink of an eye.

"You like to do the hurting don't you Vash? Always you…You wanted me dead when I would have laid down my life for you. You abandoned me for the people that persecuted us. You keep looking at Rem, but she was only one that ever adhered to her own beliefs!" and for a moment that haunted look deepened, and Vash thought he saw the little pale-blonde boy that used to hold him when he cried, locked somewhere in the fathomless depth of Knives' own darkness. "You loved her more than you ever loved me."

It was uncharacteristic of his twin, and it startled Vash enough that he let go of him and backed away. Knives laughed.

"Is that what this is all about?" Vash asked, stunned.

"No. This is about you letting me leave and not following me."

It took the Humanoid Typhoon a long time to answer. His face suddenly became as shadowed as Knives, and even though his face was dull with dried tears, he looked as serious and powerful as the day he'd given his brother his deepest scars. "This isn't over…"

There was a flicker of a smirk on Knives's face. "No."

"And you still hate humans."

The smirk turned into a mild grimace. "So?"

"How do I know you won't start again? Start the killing…"

Knives couldn't think of an answer…it didn't seem like a lie. Killing didn't count himself, he guessed, though he knew…he thought it was part of what Vash meant.

"Promise." Vash whispered, intensity filtering into his aquamarine gaze. For the first time in months, there was no judgment, no painful memories or the slightest twinge of hate in that revealing stare. "Promise me you won't. And I'll let you go."

It was almost simple. Lying was an easy thing to do. Knives didn't often do it, but just to get out that door, to end this hell without the guilt his brother would give him…and what Vash meant, he convinced himself finally, was humans. Those filthy humans. He of course couldn't kill them if he himself was dead.

"I promise then." He said, and for a moment was sure he was telling the truth. Was he?

Vash teared up again, and pulled Knives into a deep hug. "You have to come back too."

"Why?" Knives asked fiercely, almost bitterly. He didn't return Vash's embrace.

"Because I have to forgive you. And you have to forgive me."

Tentively, Knives returned the embrace. He couldn't think of anything to say. He wanted to protest. He wanted to push him away. But he also wanted this moment to last. How long had it been since he and his brother had embraced like this? He closed his eyes, fighting the burning in his soul, and as soon as the moment was borne his tore away.

Vash stared at the door clicking into place. He realized that this was the first time that Knives had walked away from him. He wiped away his tears and turned toward his own room. It was time to pack his bags.