It had been a short drop into darkness, and now Meryl blinked rapidly against the after-image of the suns above as she had last seen them. When she tried to stand, the floor moved under her feet and she fell back onto all fours, startled. Her fingertips slipped through the floor and she finally recognized the surface as a thick metal grating.
As her eyes slowly became accustomed to the dark, Meryl could see vertical supports and attached handrails and realized she was on a suspended catwalk. Suspended over what, she didn't know (still too dark to make out) but she was familiar with this type of walkway from her steamer days and she felt comfortable enough to stand now, steadying herself with one hand on the rail as she got to her feet. The toe of her boot struck something as she stood and moments later she heard the sound of something clattering against metal somewhere below her.
Far, far below her.
Meryl gripped the handrail more tightly, willing her eyes to adjust more quickly. The air around her was stuffy and stale, and she wondered how long this place—whatever it was—had been buried here. There was no immediate sign of Vash or Wolfwood, but she hadn't really expected she'd be lucky enough to just fall in here on top of them.
Soon Meryl could see well enough in the dark to be certain there was nothing here to indicate which direction the two men might have gone next. With a fifty-fifty chance either way, she arbitrarily chose to go left, one hand gripping the railing as the other drew a derringer from her cloak. She had no idea what might be waiting down here; there could be more of those mechanical creatures anywhere, or maybe something even worse.
After twenty yarz Meryl reached the end of the catwalk, where it connected to an enclosed passage that reminded her more of the narrow back halls of the Inepril plant than a steamer's wider corridors. There was dim light coming from one end of the hall and Meryl took another left, hoping light meant she was headed the right direction.
The hall led to another catwalk, this one high along the wall of a huge, well-lit open space. She paused to holster her derringer and put both hands on the railing, leaning out to see the floor below. There was a path that ran the length of the room with a door at either end, flanked by rows and rows of what looked like huge radio tubes.
Puzzled, but more concerned with finding Vash and Wolfwood, Meryl continued across the catwalk, which just led to more narrow halls and cross-corridors, more rooms of different sizes, all variously lit.
She tried to keep track of her own passage through what she now had to assume to be a lost plant, though she had no idea how it could have gone so long without being found. It was obviously still viable; plenty of lights were on, and Meryl could feel the tiniest vibration of live machinery under her feet when she passed through some of the narrow halls.
Her muddled thoughts were on the plant and not her immediate surroundings, so when she ran headlong into a dimly-lit area she was already halfway across the catwalk before she realized there was a mechanical creature at the other end.
She skidded to a halt, hurriedly drawing two derringers—why hadn't she already had them in hand?—as the creature sped toward her with that familiar hissing sound. Its heavy bulk rattled the grate under her feet, so much so that Meryl had to hastily stow one pistol and grip the railing to steady herself.
She fired at the creature before it could turn its weapon on her, damaging one of its front legs. The creature—could you call it, stumbled? Its leg buckled and it listed to the side, trying to force the rear limb to straighten and right itself.
For a moment it seemed like the thing might catch its balance, but the straightened leg slipped off the surface of the grate and hooked one of the catwalk's vertical supports, pulling it sideways with enough force to send the creature toppling over the edge.
It took the support with it, stripping the whole left handrail off the catwalk as it fell. The rail twisted out of Meryl's hand, yanking her off-balance. More supports tore loose and the catwalk began to sag, tilting to one side, and Meryl lunged for the opposite handrail.
The catwalk hung nearly vertical here and she scrambled to get both feet up and stand on the narrow edge of the grate. Holstering the second derringer, Meryl gripped the railing tightly with both hands and peered down past her toes. The area below was too dark for her to see where the creature had landed, but she was pretty sure it hadn't survived the fall; it was heavy enough to destroy itself on impact.
Meryl was relieved to find that her footing was surprisingly steady on the damaged walkway. She gave a quick bounce (perhaps inadvisably) but the catwalk held firm. She started shuffling sideways along the grating's edge, continuing her way across the room. The surface began to level out again as she approached the remaining vertical supports and Meryl had just put both feet on flat catwalk again when she heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire—not of the creatures' laser weapons—from somewhere behind her.
Of course she'd gone the wrong goddamn way, of course.
Meryl turned back the way she had come, in such a hurry that one of her feet slipped off the edge of the grate as she shuffled across the vertical portion of the catwalk. She caught herself immediately, but her adrenaline spiked at the near-miss and it lent her an extra burst of energy as she made it across the catwalk and into the hall.
The gunfire had been so distant that Meryl had no real way to guess which way to go next, and she waited, hoping for another clue. Another few shots rang out, but they echoed strangely through the metal halls and didn't give her anything like a solid heading. She made her best guess, and could hardly believe her luck when she turned the next corner and found a pair of broken creatures that Vash and Wolfwood had obviously left in their wake.
She followed their trail with a derringer in each hand and broke into a run when she heard more gunfire from just ahead, alarmed when it ended with a wordless shout. She turned another corner to find Wolfwood on the floor, backing away from a creature looming over him. Red lights blinked to life on its faceplate and Meryl put a bullet there, dead center, before it could fire the weapon. Wolfwood's head spun to face her and his eyes went wide in bewilderment.
"Short-stuff?"
Meryl didn't have time to dispute the nickname as another creature appeared behind the first, already clambering over the wreckage to get to Wolfwood.
"Move it, preacher!" ordered Meryl, unloading the derringer into the second creature.
Wolfwood didn't need telling twice and he scrambled to his feet.
"Behind!" he said, and Meryl turned quickly to fire at another two creatures that had rushed up from the empty hall at her back. Wolfwood grabbed her elbow and dragged her sideways into the cross corridor before she had the chance to see if she'd done enough damage to prevent the creatures from following them.
After being hauled around a few more blind corners, she managed to yank her arm out of Wolfwood's grip and hissed, "Slow down! We could run into more of those things anywhere!"
Wolfwood grunted in assent and finally stopped to crouch low and peer around the next corner, giving Meryl the opportunity to stow her empty derringers.
"Okay, it's clear," said Wolfwood, waving her forward with a hand wrapped around a heavy revolver. With a jolt of alarm, Meryl recognized the gun as Vash's. She seized it and twisted Wolfwood's arm up behind his back, shoving him forward into the wall of the corridor.
The preacher gave a grunt as he fell awkwardly to his knees from the crouched position and Meryl put her knee into his spine, leaning forward to keep him pinned. She pressed her elbow against Wolfwood's neck, holding Vash's revolver iches from his nose.
"How did you get this?" she demanded. "Where's Vash?"
"He gave it to me!"
"Bullshit," snapped Meryl. "Where is he?"
"I don't know, we got separated back in—on the left!"
Meryl turned at his bark of alarm and saw another pair of the creatures descending on them. She released the preacher and dropped Vash's revolver, ducking to one side as she pulled more derringers from her cloak.
The first creature fired before she could get a shot off and missed Wolfwood by iches, its sizzling bolt leaving a weird, ringing echo down the corridor. Wolfwood swore and scrambled up to his feet, collecting the revolver from the floor as Meryl emptied both pistols into the approaching creatures. He seized her elbow and yanked her around the corner—again—before she could make sure she had put the creatures sufficiently out of commission.
"Come on, Short-stuff," said Wolfwood. "We have to get down to the factory floor."
"To the what?" asked Meryl, before ordering, "Let go, idiot. I'm the one armed, here, I should lead!" He released her arm and she replaced the two empty pistols with fresh ones before checking the next corner.
"How many of those do you have?" asked Wolfwood, staring at her cloak.
"Plenty," Meryl told him, though her heart wailed, Not all of them! She ignored it and said, "Now move. Where are we going?"
"There was a walkway where you found me, up along the wall of some kind of factory. It's what's making all these things."
"Yeah, well, we're not going back that way," said Meryl, certain she could hear the creatures' strange hissing echoing louder through the halls behind them. "Any other ideas?"
"I don't know, head north and look for a way to circle back around?" offered Wolfwood.
"Which way's north?" Meryl asked, honestly surprised the man could tell cardinal directions underground. When he said, "Left," she led the way.
After a few more corners and corridors, Wolfwood suddenly sprinted forward past her. Meryl followed as quickly as she was able, hoping that the man knew where he was going—and that there wasn't a whole army of creatures waiting for them there.
They ran out onto another catwalk overlooking a massive room full of pieces of machinery that were the size of small houses—and one did seem to be spitting out more of the creatures at an alarming rate.
"Yes, that's it, he's down there somewhere!" said Wolfwood, pulling Meryl to a halt with one hand as he pointed down with the other. The catwalk shuddered under their feet as creatures appeared at either end, blocking any retreat. Meryl spotted a ladder attached to the wall nearby and shoved Wolfwood towards it.
"Go! Quickly!" she told him. Wolfwood climbed onto the ladder, but hesitated after descending just a few rungs.
"What about you?"
"Get down, and get out of my way," Meryl snarled. The creatures didn't immediately shoot—perhaps afraid of being caught in their own crossfire?—but she wasn't going to bet their lives on the theory, and she traded out two more pairs of derringers before the creatures finally stopped coming.
She stowed the empty pistols and jumped onto the ladder, squeezing the outside rails between her boots as she slid down after Wolfwood. Either he'd get out of her way or he'd get a face full of her knees, and right now she really didn't care which. She still didn't trust him, and until she found Vash alive and well to corroborate his story, the man was lucky she was even going out of her way to keep him breathing.
After a few seconds Meryl heard a gruff, "Whoa—shit," from just below her, but she landed with both feet on the ground without barreling into Wolfwood on the way down.
Meryl turned to face the open room and gasped. A huge wave of the creatures was pouring in from a passage that hadn't been visible from above and they rushed forward to surround her and Wolfwood in a wide arc. Meryl had no time to react before the preacher shoved her behind him and backed her into the wall, putting his body between her and their mechanical firing squad.
She screamed and cringed away in anticipation of the onslaught that would be tearing Wolfwood to shreds before making its way to her...
Except nothing happened.
Seconds ticked by in silence, and eventually Meryl peeked warily out from under Wolfwood's arms. All the creatures were still there, still standing ready to fire on them, red lights blinking steadily on each narrow faceplate. Then the lights went out and they simply collapsed, falling to the floor like marionettes with their strings cut.
"What the hell?" muttered Wolfwood, giving voice to Meryl's own thoughts. She heard something else approaching them—could be footsteps, could be something new entirely—and Meryl put herself in front of Wolfwood this time, two derringers drawn.
A moment later Vash appeared from behind a central piece of machinery at a full sprint, his boots sliding to an abrupt halt as he caught sight of them.
Of her.
Vash's face cycled through so many expressions so quickly that Meryl was struggling to keep up. He'd clearly been in a panic when he rounded the corner, then the briefest moment of relief, followed by some strange mix of confusion and anxiety and an exasperation that bordered dangerously on anger as he advanced on her.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
Meryl hadn't expected this vehemence and she frowned, fighting the initial instinct to take a step back in retreat at the severity of his tone.
"Rescuing you," she snapped back, trying to sound angry, too. She was surprised by how much his reaction bothered her, until she realized...
You think I'd just leave you to die?
She opened her mouth to throw his words back at him, but Wolfwood spoke before she could manage it.
"It's a good thing, too," said the preacher, oddly cheerful as he stepped forward to stand next to her, hooking a thumb in her direction. "Short-stuff here really saved my bacon, I'd have been in real trouble without her!"
He tossed Vash's revolver back to its rightful owner and Meryl glanced sideways at Wolfwood, wondering if he was going to say anything about her earlier assault over his possession of the weapon.
Wolfwood caught her eye and winked and Meryl blinked back up at him in confusion. He just grinned and reached out to ruffle her hair with one hand, saying, "Thanks, kiddo."
For a split-second she was shocked, and then she was furious, and she let out a wordless snarl of rage and shoved Wolfwood's hand away. She lunged forward with one fist drawn back, ready to strike the man—nose? gut? groin? she couldn't decide—but Vash's arms wrapped around her waist from behind, hauling her backwards and off her feet before the blow could land anywhere.
"Yeah, I wouldn't do that," Vash advised, from over her shoulder. Low laughter rumbled against her spine and Meryl could practically hear the Idiot grin on his face.
"Noted," said Wolfwood, another huge grin splitting his face, too.
"Put me down," Meryl demanded, kicking and wriggling in Vash's grasp.
Wolfwood's grin faded as he looked down, nudging the limp form of one of the mechanical creatures with the toe of his shoe. "What happened?" he asked.
"I shut it all down, from the control room," Vash said, shrugging as he finally set Meryl back on her feet. She pushed him away and made a show of straightening her cloak, scowling again.
"How the hell would you know how to do that?" Wolfwood asked, frowning.
Meryl spoke without even thinking:
"He read the manual."
It came in perfect unison with Vash's own explanation and he looked at her in surprise, giving her such a radiant smile of utter delight that Meryl's insides did that gooey-acrobatic thing again in reaction.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Wolfwood glance between them, once, and frown more severely. He gave a wordless, disapproving grunt and Vash turned to face him, sobering.
"Let's get out of here," said Vash. "The lights will only last another hour or so on residual power, and we don't want to be wandering around this place in the dark."
It was obvious that Wolfwood wasn't going to be satisfied with Vash's non-explanation, and honestly neither was Meryl, but she knew better than to try getting the truth out of Vash right now. She recognized him as the man in red at the moment, which meant they probably weren't really out of danger just yet.
They exited the room by that same passage that hadn't been visible from above, and Vash led them confidently through the maze of corridors Meryl had puzzled through earlier. She wondered how he knew where he was going.
Occasionally they came across the broken remains of creatures that the three of them had destroyed on their way in, and in other areas they had to clamber over piles of undamaged creatures that had ultimately, somehow, collapsed at Vash's command.
At the end of the next hall, Vash led them into the wide room Meryl had seen from the catwalk earlier. What she had guessed to be massive radio tubes were actually empty plastic capsules, large enough even for someone of Vash's size to fit comfortably inside. She noticed a removable panel at the front of each capsule and finally realized what they were.
"This is a colony ship!"
Meryl knew that people had come to Gunsmoke from Earth over a century ago, but the ships that brought them here had long ago been stripped for parts and built into the cities and plants that supported life on the otherwise barren planet. This place seemed untouched, intact. "I thought it was just the plant, but it's the whole thing!"
She approached one of the capsules and looked inside, but it wasn't until she saw the chamber was empty that it occurred to her that it might not have been. She hurried to catch up to Vash and Wolfwood again, feeling a little queasy at the thought of what she could have found if the capsule's occupant had been unable to escape...
"What's it doing here?" asked Wolfwood, pausing to look around curiously now.
"It's abandoned," said Vash. There was a curt finality about the statement that felt strange to Meryl, and he didn't break stride to wait for their rubbernecking.
"While fully functional?" she asked, doubtfully.
Vash said nothing, and Meryl and Wolfwood shared a bemused glance as they followed him quickly out of the room. After another few corridors, a steep set of stairs, and a passage so narrow that they had to walk in a single file, Vash halted abruptly at the end of the hallway.
"What the hell happened here?" asked Wolfwood.
Meryl pushed past him and saw that Vash had led them back up to the damaged catwalk she had crossed earlier.
"It's not that bad," she told them. "It'll hold, if we go across that middle bit one at a time." She stepped out onto the catwalk and Vash caught her arm, pulling her to a halt.
"No," he said, flatly. "We'll find another way around."
"You're the one who said we need to get out before the lights go off," argued Meryl. "We're halfway through that hour already, you have a better idea?" Vash let go of her arm, but he grimaced as she continued forward. When she reached where the catwalk began to tilt, Meryl turned toward the rail and stepped onto the edge of the grate, shuffling sideways.
Halfway across she glanced back at Vash and Wolfwood, who still looked worried and skeptical, respectively.
"It's fine," she assured them. "See? It'll—"
Meryl's words were cut off by the sound of stressed metal giving way, though not from under her feet. She looked up in time to see a straining seam in the ceiling split open and let in a massive torrent of sand. It caught her full in the face and chest and the weight pulled her hands free of the rail. Then she was falling backwards, choking on sand as she tried to scream.
"Stryfe!"
She recognized Wolfwood's bark of alarm, but if Vash called her by any name she didn't hear it.
Meryl twisted as she fell, fighting the smothering weight of the sand as she tried to orient herself to land on her side, figuring that she'd rather break an arm than split her skull open. Thankfully the ground came sooner than she expected, and the worst of it was probably having the wind knocked out of her when she hit. Bruised, but not broken.
Sand was still falling heavily on her from above and Meryl rolled to the side before it could bury her, spitting out grit and gasping for air. Wherever she had landed, it was almost pitch black, and she squinted into the dark as she tried to sit up and move farther from the sand piling up on the floor.
Something landed next to her with a heavy thud, and she squawked in surprise as hands groped over her head and shoulders.
"Hey!" She was about to complain about the manhandling when the fingers in her hair gentled, moving down to find her ear and trace the line of her jaw before settling under her chin. The other hand squeezed her shoulder.
"There you are," said Vash, sounding relieved. "Are you alright?"
Meryl pushed his hands away, but they found hers again and Vash helped pull her out of the sand and up to her feet.
"I'm okay, it wasn't too bad a fall," she told him. "But you could have squashed me! Jumping down here blindly?"
"Who said I jumped? I slipped and fell, same as you."
Meryl knew he'd be wearing an Idiot grin, and she scowled at the dark where she thought it might be.
"Wow, the whole ceiling is busted in," said Vash, and Meryl looked upward to see what he meant. The only illumination came from the dim lighting of the larger room above, and with the wide column of sand still pouring down she could barely make out one jagged edge of the hole she must have fallen through. Vash whistled, impressed. "How did you manage that?"
"I didn't!" Meryl argued. "That's plate steel!"
"Well, you bent it down enough over there I think we can climb out," Vash went on, apparently ignoring her observation. She scowled again, but followed him to where a segment of the ceiling had split apart and was sloping down at an angle. It was still out of her reach, but Vash offered her a hand, saying, "Come here, I'll give you a boost."
She went, as asked, but it was less of a boost and more of Vash just picking her up and placing her halfway up the slope. There wasn't a lot of space between the bottom edge and that endless flow of sand from above, but she was able to wriggle her way up by staying flat against the metal surface.
Meryl got onto her hands and knees and was halfway to standing when an increase in the flow of sand dumped an extra weight on her shoulders, dragging her back down. She fell flat on her belly and scrabbled at the surface with both hands, but she found no purchase and slid backward over the edge again.
Or she would have, if Vash hadn't planted both hands on her ass, halting further descent and holding her in place with her legs dangling below her.
"Oopsie!"
Meryl thought she could feel just the slightest of squeezes, and she growled and flailed around with her feet for a while (not quite kicking, exactly) until she got the toe of her boot on one of Vash's shoulders and pushed herself up and out of his grasp.
The sand seemed to be falling even more heavily now, but she still managed to crawl up and onto the undamaged surface above. She found what felt like a relatively solid place to stand and peered down into the room. It was too dark to make out Vash's figure, but she called to him anyway.
"I'm out!" she shouted, hoping she could be heard over the constant shhhhhhhhh of sand streaming past her. "Can you make it up on your own? I don't think I can—"
"Look out!"
Meryl glanced up at Wolfwood's bellowed warning in time to see one end of the damaged catwalk break free of its supports entirely. The grate bent under the weight and the free end swung down into the area below, plummeting straight towards her. Meryl scrambled away, finding nowhere to go but down, and flung herself back into the room beneath her.
Vash caught her, or at least broke her fall, and she landed sprawled across his chest on her back as they tumbled into the sand still pouring down from above. Meryl tried to push herself off of Vash and out of the way, but he wrapped an arm around her waist and rolled to the side, dragging her with him. He curled up around her, shielding her body with his as the end of the detached catwalk slammed into the floor beside them.
They stayed there for a moment, with Vash pressed tight to her back, until Meryl managed a breathy, "Thanks." He released her, and she got to her feet, still a little shaky as she stared at the edge of the grating buried in the floor. It had missed them by iches.
Meryl looked up to find that the rest of the catwalk had fallen across the previous opening in the ceiling and collapsed it further, blocking any upward escape.
"Well, now what?" she asked, dismayed. Sand still poured into the room through the grating, and she backed away as it spilled over the toes of her boots.
"Plan B," said Vash, somewhere behind her. "Find the door."
"What? Why wasn't that Plan A?" demanded Meryl.
"Because it will put us a lot farther away from the exit."
Meryl accepted this without comment, though she still wondered how Vash could be so familiar with the ship's layout.
With the grate and the sand obscuring all the light from above, Meryl could hardly see her hand in front of her face. She could hear Vash's heavy footsteps move away in the dark, though, so she turned in the opposite direction and walked face-first into a wall.
Swearing under her breath, Meryl put one hand on the wall and began to circle the room. It was tiny, she discovered, measuring less than three yarz from one corner to the next, and at the second corner she tripped over something sprawled across the floor. She flung out a hand in the dark and caught her balance on a shelf (which she would have certainly broken her nose on, had she continued her blind trek around the room) before bending down to inspect the shape.
"There's one of those things in here," said Meryl, recognizing a broken creature and leaving it behind as she ducked low under the shelves and moved on. "Must be the one I shot off the catwalk earlier," she went on, before grumbling, "That's what busted through the ceiling."
More sand was spilling over Meryl's boots as she walked, and she realized it was filling the room, sliding into the corners and building up against the walls. They needed to find the door, fast.
No sooner had she thought it than her fingers found a door handle.
"Here!" called Meryl, but when she tried the handle it wouldn't turn. "It's locked." She ran her fingers along the doorframe and added, "The hinges are on the other side, though. Could you break it down?"
Vash was at her side in an instant and Meryl moved out of his way, stepping back and lifting her feet out of the sand as it continued to rise around them. She could hear him throwing his weight at the door, over and over again, but the sand was beginning to fill the room now at an alarming rate.
Backing into a corner where the sand was at its lowest, Meryl swallowed hard and said, "Vash? We're running out of space here..."
"I know," he replied, in time with one last futile thud against the door. "It must be blocked."
For a moment there was silence, and Meryl was about to ask Vash what they should do next when he bellowed, "PREACHER!" and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
There was a muffled sound from above that might have been a reply.
"We're locked in down here, and getting buried!" Vash shouted. He gave Wolfwood a brief set of directions to their location, and when he finished his instructions with, "And hurry!", Meryl could hear a clear note of anxiety in his voice, which terrified her.
If he was worried...
"Vash?"
"Come here," said Vash, from somewhere across the room. "Come here, by the door."
Meryl followed the sound of his voice, pulling her feet up out of the sand as she moved, trying to stay on the surface as it rose rapidly around her. She put her hand on the wall and followed it to the door, then gave a start when her hand met Vash's face.
"What the—"
"Ow," said Vash, grabbing Meryl's wrist. "That's my eye."
"What are you doing?" Meryl reached out into the darkness again with her other hand, more carefully now, and trailed her fingers down the door until they met Vash's shoulder, which was about level with her waist. "What...?" She knelt in front of him, her free hand traveling quickly down over the front of his jacket until it (and the rest of him) disappeared, already half-buried in the sand.
"What are you doing?" Meryl demanded again. She tried to stand, but Vash still had a hand around her wrist and he pulled her back down to sit on her heels. "Let go," she ordered, but Vash's free hand found her leg in the darkness and she felt his fingertips skim up her thigh before settling at her waist.
"Wolfwood's coming," he said. "We need to be by the door when he gets here."
"We'll be buried when he gets here!" argued Meryl, trying to squirm out of his grip. Then his other hand was on her waist and she couldn't move an ich. Vash pulled her toward him until she was straddling his narrow hips and the only thing that kept them from being pressed chest-to-chest was her knees coming to rest against the door behind him.
The weight of the sand at Meryl's back was trying to press her into him, too, and she planted both hands flat on the door above Vash's shoulders and pushed, trying to keep space between them.
"Wolfwood's coming," Vash said again. Sand was sliding around her sides to fill in what little space she had managed to afford herself, and Vash squeezed her waist. "He'll make it."
"Vash—"
"Trust me."
And she did trust him, she did, but this was too much to ask. The sand was at her ribs, and rising, and Meryl began to hyperventilate in her panic.
"I can't breathe," she gasped. The pressure of the sand was squeezing all the air from her lungs. "I can't breathe!"
"You can," Vash told her. "You can."
Meryl gave an involuntary, hysterical giggle and was startled to feel gentle fingers caress her skin as Vash took her face in his hands.
"Listen to me, you can." His voice was low and close and comforting, and Meryl could swear his words came just a hair's breadth from her lips. "Take long, slow breaths through your mouth. Eight counts. Okay?"
She just nodded into his hands and tried to do as he asked, breathing to his count:
"In: two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight."
Her ribs struggled to expand enough to make room for breath...
"Now out: two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight."
...but it was helping. Meryl's heart had settled into a more regular beat, and she was already calmer for it.
"Again," said Vash. "In..."
He counted. She breathed.
When the sand poured over her shoulders Meryl gave a shuddering gasp, back to rapid shallow breaths as she panicked again.
"Stick to the count!" ordered Vash, briefly digging his thumbs into her temples. It hurt, focusing her attention, and she nodded and went back to the measured breathing.
Meryl lifted her chin, trying to keep her nose and mouth above the sand as long as she possibly could. But what was the point? She was just going to die here, entombed in this abandoned ship, buried in the middle of nowhere. God, what a pointless death...
And she had dragged Vash into it, too, Meryl realized, her heart sinking miserably. She should never have come after him.
She hadn't known she was going to say it, but the words came quiet on her next exhale:
"I'm sorry."
Vash's thumb swept across her cheek in a feather-light touch.
"It's going to be okay," he told her, and he was the man in red, and Meryl could almost believe him.
When he kissed her, Meryl was so stunned she hardly noticed as the sand finally swept over her head, burying them both. His mouth was warm and inviting and when she finally had the presence of mind to kiss him back, she tasted the barest hint of sweetness on his tongue before he blew a gentle puff of air into her mouth.
She almost choked, startled, and Vash's thumbs began to press gently against her temples in a familiar cadence: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Oh. Oh.
Meryl felt like an idiot. Of course it wasn't a kiss, he was just trying to share oxygen. Her face burned with embarrassment and she desperately hoped he couldn't feel it through the leather of his gloves.
It took them a few stuttering, choking attempts to find the right rhythm, but eventually they managed it, giving and taking breath in steady time with the gentle pressure of Vash's thumbs.
Sharing air was better than no air at all, but how long could it last? Meryl had no idea how much time was passing; she just breathed in and out with Vash's count, unable to think about anything else.
The silence, save their mirrored breathing, was deafening and Meryl wished she could touch him. Vash's palms were a welcome presence on her skin, but she wanted some part of him to hold for herself, to anchor her.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
She was getting tired and light-headed and eventually lost count as she let out one final shallow breath without keeping to Vash's timing, starting to black out.
Pain lanced through Meryl's skull and she inhaled again, suddenly, sharply, choking Vash for a moment as he dug his thumbs hard into her temples, forcing her to stay conscious.
They struggled to find the right rhythm again, and it was harder now for Meryl to focus on the count. Blood was pounding in her ears, in time with her heartbeat.
Thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud...
Then pain again, and choking, and the hammering of her heart was joined by a hammering under her palms, something heavy striking the metal door at Vash's back in slow, steady measure.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Somehow her oxygen-deprived brain managed to make the connection—it had to be Wolfwood, finally, it was rescue, just iches away. All they had to do was survive the next few seconds.
Thud-thud... thud...
Meryl felt the door give way, just as she blacked out for good.