Brotherly Love

Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun. (Takes a moment to sob.) I'm not making any profit from this story. Wait, strike that! Reviews make me happy. Would that count as profit?

Knives awoke to the sound of soft breathing and gruffly mumbled complaints. His eyesight returned too slowly, taking several long seconds to adjust. At first, all he was aware of was pain. Every part of his body pulsed with agony so kindly sent from damaged nerves to his brain, one part of him that was unfortunately still functioning with reasonable clarity.

As his other senses adjusted, he was aware of sounds. A soft female voice drifted up from somewhere close. He opened ice blue eyes to look up at the girl. She and an older man were lifting a pale Vash from the back of a jeep where Knives now lay. The man pulled Vash head first from the truck, grabbing him under the arms and letting his feet drag the sand.

The girl just stood there, wide gold eyes blinking lazily over a nervous frown. Both lips were sucked between her teeth, a nervous habit that made Knives' patience grate. Vash's head was down, his usually spiked hair haphazardly strewn over his face, covering up closed eyes. His breathing was shallow.

"What are you doing to him?" Knives demanded, cold voice rising with anger and disgust. He tried to sit up, but pain surged through his body. He slammed to the filthy metal again, unable to catch himself. He'd bit his tongue. Knives coughed and spit warm blood onto the muddy truck bed.

He despised this weakness.

The human reached in and put a small hand on his chest. Pain reverberated upward from her feather-soft touch. "Shh," the girl chided, a wide grin on her face. "You're hurt, too. Be careful! I found you two when I was riding my thomas. You're lucky uncle has a car!"

"Don't you dare touch me." His voice was fainter than he would have liked, tainted with weakness. Knives swatted the girl's hand away despite the pain it caused, noticing the carefully applied bandages on his stomach, arms and legs. His voice came out a malicious hiss when he said, "Did you do this?"

Another smile crossed her lips, truly compassionate, but those eyes held a bleak emptiness that was unnatural considering her age, which Knives guessed to be about sixteen. "No... I actually found you like this, all fixed up. We're at the doctor's place now. He can make your friend all better."

Vash had done this to him, yet he had still bandaged the wounds? Apparently the mercy he'd shown to these undeserving humans stretched to his kin, as well. "My brother... And leave him alone. Your dirty hands will defile him more than you people already have."

The girl stared blankly at him for a moment, and Knives felt his arm twitching. He could feel the warm rush of possibility. He wanted to kill this child. "Oh. He's...your brother," she muttered at last, realization dawning in her shallow gold eyes.

Each word she spoke was measured with care before it poured from her lips, devoid of emotion. She sounded like a child a third of her age. "You two look like you're brothers, I guess. He's in real bad shape. He's got a horrible fever but he's shivering real bad, too. I sure hope he's gonna be okay."

"He'll be fine. Now put him back down." Blood and spittle came from his mouth, forming a frothy substance that he wiped away from his mouth with a weak, almost unresponsive fist.

The girl bit both lips again, fear swimming in tears that lit her eyes. "You're not nice. U-uncle? The mean man says to put him down."

The uncle's bulky body towered over Knives. As if he'd ignored every demand, he lifted Vash so that his limp form was cradled in both muscular arms, like that of a sleeping child. "I'm afraid I can't do that, son. His wounds are plain filthy, unwrapped...I'm surprised he was walking at all. He'll be lucky if he makes it through the night. Now Bob Fraser is the best doctor I know. Anyway, you sure as hell can't help him in your condition. Dalia, call Bob out here, okay?"

The girl nodded and rushed off. In moments, an old man came out with an assistant, and Dalia's uncle laid Vash onto the stretcher they carried. They went inside. Dalia took one look at Knives, who flicked his bloody tongue at her, and she ran inside. Knives smiled to the sky.

Do you fear me, itsy bitsy spider? That's good...

Dalia's uncle glared down at Knives, who returned the gaze with increasing intensity. He took Knives roughly by the shoulder. "Don't you dare scare my niece, you bastard. She used to be such a kind person, an intelligent girl. She wanted to become the Sheriff here, God help her. No woman could take that place, but she was so...so determined." He let Knives go, the anger in his face fading to a deep sorrow. "Then she had to get shot. She's never recovered, not to the way she was before. She'll always be simple like this, always innocent. I love her! She's been like my daughter since her parents were killed. If anyone touches her, I'll kill them with my own hands."

"How touching. I'd cry if I actually cared."

"It's time to bring you inside. You're not going to heal just sitting here."

Knives batted away the man's attempts at help."I'll walk by myself, thank you." I'll kill you later, spider. This doctor may not work well over dead bodies, and Vash...Vash. I cannot help him now.

The man sighed and stood back as Knives lifted himself upright, moving gingerly to the open back of the truck. The pain was blinding, making an entertaining kaleidoscope of colors in front of his eyes. He landed on the ground with a puff of dust. At last, he was standing. It hurt like hell, but he was upright. Knives took a step, then another, while the fat human trailed behind him. He felt the carefully wrapped bullet wounds tearing with the effort of staying upright, sending warm blood into the bandages, but he wasn't about to give that pitiful spider the pleasure of watching him fall.

He did anyway. A few steps away from the stairs, he stumbled, and the fat man grabbed under his arms to keep him from smacking the ground. He felt muscles tear with the strain of supporting him.

Far from appreciating the man's assistance, Knives felt violated. He shuddered, close enough to smell the man's bitter stench, the stench inherent to this entire filthy race. "I said I will walk," Knives whispered. "Let me go or I will kill you." His tone was calm and dangerously pleasant throughout, as if he was making small talk.

A smile touched his pale face, but it was not a smile in the truest sense of the word. It was sharp like a blade, dripping with sarcasm, and it was what made the man let him go. Knives' legs shook as his weight was forced on them, but he lunged toward the railing and caught it, using it to lift himself up each step. The man watched with wary eyes, ready to catch him again if he fell. "Leave me," Knives ordered.

Dalia's uncle shook his head, edging past Knives into the doctor's building. Once Knives had reached the door, he let himself rest there, placing his hand over the wound on his stomach. When he pulled it away, his palm was specked with criss-cross blood patterns. Damn, it bled through. He walked into the filthy clinic, not daring to rest in any of the seats despite the way his vision dipped and swirled. He settled for leaning against a wall. He closed his eyes and listened to the frantic commands from the doctor and nurses.

How can you stand these imperfect creatures, brother? How can you have lived among these dogs for so long without realizing what they are? They are leeches, brother. They're leeches and traitors, because not only do they suck the life from our sisters, they will turn on each other for profit. They will kill, even eat the flesh of their own kind.

You say I don't make any sense, dear Vash, but I have seen it. They're savages. Even with the memoirs of their betrayal carved into your body, irreparable, you still walk among them as if you are one of them. You shot me? Why not turn the gun on yourself, or on these precious insects of yours? Like that disgusting woman whose words you hail, you are nothing but a mass of contradictions. That woman Saverem corrupted you, brother.

Anger seethed through his veins as he saw a nurse rush past with a bowl of heated water and a towel already stained with dirt and blood. "It wasn't supposed to turn out like this, Vash." He let himself slide down the wall to the floor. A nurse soon found him but he insisted he manage the rewrapping of the bandages by himself. The quicker he did it, the quicker he'd be able to keep tabs on what those savages did to his brother, anyway.

Knives found a dark room and unwrapped the bandages on his legs first, using a rag to wipe some of the blood away. The wounds were through and through. God, it hurt. Vash had done a good job. He got as far as loosely wrapping the first one before he nearly blacked out. The pain was grating, blinding, unbearable, slicing through muscle and bone and lodging itself in his skull. There was not a single part of him that didn't hurt. He hated pain. It made him feel so human, like these unimportant parasites that carried their lives on around him. Forcing those thoughts out of his mind, he made himself wrap the bandages tighter. He'd redo the ones on his arms some other time. As for his stomach... Knives couldn't bring himself to look. If only he was at his home, he could heal these markings. He smiled acidly as he thought of the man who'd given them to him.

Vash, dear Vash. Just wait, when you wake up—when you're okay again, it's not you who will save me, but I who will save you. I'll save you from yourself, no matter what it takes.

Yay, the second chapter! What do you think? I would desperately appreciate feedback. (Gets down on hands and knees and stares at reader with big puppy dog eyes) Yes, you... Please? (Pushes review button closer)