No Place to Run
Notes: Trigun is not mine. It isn't...really. Maybe if I keep telling myself that I'll get over my grief. Love y'all for the great reviews you've given! Thanks for the encouragement to keep writing!
Two figures interrupted the flawless expanse of sky, backs to the rising yellow suns that cast reflected colors through the scattered clouds. The few small clouds in the sky had been painted with vivid lavender and maroon. "Oh, how much farther?"
"If you stopped complaining and just shut up, I'm sure it wouldn't seem too long, brother," Knives hissed tolerantly, a shark-like smile gracing his cold features.
Vash sighed and blew air up his face so that his hair ruffled over his eyes. It had already begun to droop in the desert heat. It wasn't like he'd made a huge effort to keep it spiked in a long time, anyway. "It's so hot out here. I'm tired." He actually wasn't too tired, but anything to break this silence that had been between them for the last three hours. They'd walked through the night and continued walking as dawn made its debut. Now the suns were up and it would be a lot harder going.
Knives frowned, sending a telepathic retort to Vash. 'Stop talking. As in now. Only an hour more and we'll have reached the car.'
The cold silence again spanned miles between them despite the fact that they stood only inches apart.
Vash shrugged and glanced over at his silent brother. Well, he'd tried.
A bit more than the promised hour passed before they saw a boxy car settled deep into the sand. The jeep had accumulated several inches of sand on its seats, and the steering wheel displayed an impressive pillar on it. Knives winced. It looked like they'd spent years away from this thing rather than weeks.
He brushed the sand off of his seat and left Vash to fend for himself. He'd pocketed the keys when he'd left, and stuck them into the ignition now. Mentally crossing his fingers, he twisted it. The engine gave a sound similar to that of a man gasping his last rattling breath. Knives waited. The engine finally turned. It wasn't a purr by any means, but it was running, and that was all he could ask for.
Vash's fingers brushed a bullet hole on the car's side. "Knives..."
He looked over. "That's what happened when I was trying to take you out of that disgusting technologically inferior pit of a hospital. The gun was fired by a man who called himself a doctor, no less. Aren't they supposed to repair the harm that others have caused? Get in, Vash, before this engine quits."
Vash opened the door and sat down in the passenger seat. He grabbed a few handfuls of sand and threw them out. Knives did a quick U-turn and continued to drive away from the sunrise.
Knives looked at the fuel gauge. "We'll need to stop in the nearest town. Tell me if you see anything."
Vash nodded, but his eyes went back to the blinding light of the suns, where he could imagine Millie and Meryl just waking up. I'm really sorry, I didn't have any choice but to leave.
"Are you listening to me, Vash?"
Vash jerked around in the seat at his brother's tired question. "Huh?"
"I thought so. You're thinking about those spiders, aren't you? Why do you waste your time on such things? They're helpless, useless and painfully imperfect. It's like having mercy on a parasite, brother. If you do not crush it while you hold it in your hand, by freeing it, you allow it to feed off of others."
Vash wanted to speak up, wanted to tell his brother that the insurance girls were nothing like that, but a few simple words would not change his brother's perspective. Vash wondered what it would take. Do I have to die by your hand before you see what I'm trying to tell you?
They both went silent. Knives stared straight ahead and Vash just looked back behind them, not caring that the dust obscured his view. The suns had risen and shone straight above them by the time the car finally gave out, its engine choking, catching and dying.
"I'd hoped we'd be able to get closer to the town, but I suppose this will have to do. At least we have a destination." Knives stared at the jagged outline of a town a few iles off. He sighed and opened his door.
Vash got out of the car before his brother did, avoiding the wisps of hot steam rising from the hood.. "We need food and water, too. I'll get a jug of fuel to hold us. Um...you wait here, okay? We both don't need to go."
Knives looked at his brother and thought for a moment. "Okay. Hurry up, though. This confounded heat is killing me."
Vash nodded. "I will."
He raced off.
The closer he got to the town, the more familiar it seemed. A tall cliff fenced off the outskirts, shading the town from sunlight. His eyes almost instinctively wandered to the top, and he was suddenly, painfully certain where he was.
This was LR Town. This was where he had...where he'd...killed. No matter how much he thought about it and rationalized it and promised that he would look to the future, it still made him sick to think that a man had died by his own hand at the precipice of that cliff. He averted his eyes, realizing that he had spent several minutes staring up. Several minutes he'd not spent walking. He hurried on, forcing those thoughts from his mind. Anything but that...
Boy was he hungry! In fact, he remembered a really great donut place here. Knives wouldn't mind. After all, who could possibly have anything against those soft, warm wonders of man?
Vash hurried, and about twenty minutes later, he arrived at the edge of town. He hoped no one would recognize him. At the very moment Midvalley had spoken his name on that day, the people had panicked. Vash winced. He didn't think they'd associate the person they remembered with the person he was now, though. The coat was gone, as was the gun and the spiky hair, replaced with a messy mop of blond strands and his black bodysuit with a scarlet jacket over it. He knew he stood out, but not too much. No, he'd probably go through town without incident.
That actually sounded very nice.
Vash walked to the center of the city, where the masses mingled around little shops on the square. This was where the sandsteamers docked. Right now there was no sandsteamer, but life still thrived here.
The silence he'd endured on the edge of town with only his dark thoughts was replaced with children's happy shrieks and the comfortable buzz of conversation. It filled the void usually occupied by doubt, and did not give him time to think about the men who had died here. He stopped by the donut stand, where a familiar face cast an unbearably huge smile at him.
A woman as round and soft as the donuts she served cried out enthusiastically, "Hello! Great morning, huh? What can I getcha?"
Vash rummaged in his pockets. He knew it wasn't smart to buy donuts before fuel, but he could spare five double dollars' worth.
He hoped.
He tucked his bag of donuts under his arm and went to get the fuel. He filled the jug, slung it over his shoulder, and searched out some water to fill the canteens. His trip back was certainly going to be more difficult than the trip here.
Vash walked back to the center of town and stared out to the sandy horizon. Somewhere he couldn't see, Knives sat waiting. Vash's eyes traveled to the cliff again, and he shuddered. More than a few of the happily chatting people all around him were faces he recognized.
They had been the ones Legato had manipulated to hurt Millie and Meryl. Vash wondered if they remembered at all.
Memories of the blackness on top of that hill filled his mind.
All around him, the townspeople were unconscious. Millie and Meryl lay among them, and Vash wasn't sure if the two were dead or just unconscious. Had he been too late? Oh God, what had he done? What had he become? He remembered blood...Legato's blood, staining the ground, spreading out and sinking into the dust, turning it into a red-black mud as cold golden eyes stared blindly to the sky. "Rem..." But he didn't see her at all. She was gone. He couldn't recall her face or her smile or the voice that had always comforted him. More than the blood, that terrified him. Rem was gone.
"Hey! Hey Mister, are you okay? You're all quiet. What are you looking at? What's up there?"
Vash tore his eyes away from the hill, his right hand going to his prosthetic left one. He looked down to see a little head and a clenched hand pulling at his leg. Two children stood below him. "I was just thinking."
The smaller boy, a slender one with messy brown hair, nodded, a serious look on his face. "I think a lot, too. What do you think about?"
Vash smiled. "Grown-up stuff."
The boy looked at Vash's bag. "Whatcha got in there?"
"Um...donuts."
The little boy's eyes glittered. "Can I have one?"
A thin woman swept up to the boys. She had short brown hair and green eyes that wandered and worried. She bit her lip and offered Vash a weak smile. "I'm so sorry my son was bothering you!" She directed her gaze to the little boy. "Deni, you know not to ask people for things!"
Vash held the bag out to the kid. "Here...take one."
The boy plunged his hand into the bag and fished around. His mother stared apologetically at Vash. "It's no problem at all," he told her. He smiled and waved as he walked away. Knives would be waiting.
The boy Deni waved with warm enthusiasm and called a muffled thank you through a mouth full of donut.
Vash smiled softly as he headed back. The afternoon suns shone brightly down on LR.
"Sempai, please don't! What are you so worried about? Please...stop for a moment! You're not doing any good for your injuries. Sempai, stop!" Millie finally stood in Meryl's path.
Meryl stilled. Her lips pressed together tightly, and both hands clenched her suitcase. With Millie in her way, she could not take a single step. "Move, please, Millie."
"But what are you doing? Where is Mr. Vash?"
"He's gone! He left again. Millie, we have to follow him."
"But...we were off the job."
Meryl glared into her partner's yellow coat. "We were never off it! I've been writing regular reports to them. We just stopped working for a while because he was gone for a while! There's no reason not to—Millie, it's our job! You said it one day...that if we don't work, we don't get paid."
"But Meryl, I already have a job. I work construction here."
"Well, you'll have to stop. We really need to go. Where could he have gone? Why didn't that idiot say goodbye? How rude of him!"
Meryl stepped past her friend and continued to huff out complaints under her breath.
"Meryl..."
Despite the fact that her friend had used her first name, Meryl still ignored it.
"Sempai, stop!"
Meryl turned around.
"Why are you doing this?"
Meryl stiffened. "Because it's our job."
Millie sighed. "Why are you doing this?" she repeated.
"I just told you!"
"What if he didn't want us to find him?"
Meryl pulled in a huge breath, but did not speak.
"Sempai...have you told him?"
Meryl glanced up briefly before shaking her head, and she let it fall to her chest as a blush stained her cheeks. "I...no. Not yet." She looked up and met Millie's eyes. "We need to find him."
Millie sighed. She herself had said to never hold back in matters of the heart, so there was nothing to say here. Sempai had not directly acknowledged that anything other than her duty propelled her to find the blond gunman, but this was the closest she'd come.
"Okay, Sempai. Let me get my things and we can go."
Vash didn't know how long they'd been driving. It must have been hours, because it was dark now, but he didn't remember the twin suns setting. Vash stared out to the world that passed by beside him. His eyes wandered over the dunes.
The car's headlights lit their path, and Vash watched the road carved out for them by the light.
Something caught his eye, and his heart felt like it had stopped.
He waited a bit before saying, "Knives, stop."
Knives turned to Vash, but finally pulled the car to a halt. "What is it?"
Vash opened the door and stepped out. "I'll just be a minute! Wait here."
Vash walked back behind him, his steps quickening with his racing thoughts. He was glad that he'd told Knives to stop several yarz ahead of his destination, because if he'd seen what he thought he'd seen, then it would be best that Knives not realize the reason for this break.
Vash wandered for a few minutes, swiping his boots over the sand in search for it. "Come on...I know it was here..."
And it was.
Vash reached down and brushed at the dust and sand with his fingers until he saw a star-like glint of metal. He dug deeper until he touched something soft, and continued to uncover it.
Even in the dim near darkness, he could see the red color of the cloth.
Vash pulled the coat from the sand and rolled it up. This coat was his past. It was a testimony to the birth of this planet and the roots of determination that kept everyone here moving, a memoir of horrible things that could not be taken back...but he wouldn't run from the things he'd done. All of his life had been spent running. It was time to face those things. Vash looked at the silver revolver on the sand. He reached toward the familiar grip, but he stopped. He didn't really need the gun anymore.
Vash walked back to the car, dropping the tattered scarlet duster into the back seat before Knives saw it.
"What was it, brother?"
Vash shrugged and took his seat again, looking straight into Knives' eyes. "Thought I saw something, that's all. It was nothing."
Knives smiled. "There really is nowhere to run. You're coming with me whether you like it or not, dear brother."
Vash looked ahead at the headlights and the sand as Knives restarted the car. I know that. I didn't plan on running away.
Author's Notes: I hope that you liked this! This seems to seriously screw up every time I save it, so...here's hoping it doesn't! I suppose this is the beginning of the end. I think this story will have around five or six more chapters, but it could end up being a lot longer, too. I hope that this was okay! Please tell me your thoughts, because reviews are a writer's fuel, you know! Whether positive or negative, I appreciate all feedback. Thanks for taking the time to read.