A/N: This is my first Trigun fanfiction; I read up to where Wolfwood dies (just this past weekend). So... Here it is.
I don't own Trigun.
Word count: 550
Warnings: Wolfwood/Vash; character death
Desert.
Yellow sand; yellow sun; bright blue sky blinding in its intensity. Hot wind that feels like it's baking away skin and bleaching the bones underneath a perfect, aseptic white.
And pain. Burning, not like a fire, but like gunshots.
Am I shot? Am I shot?
Burning all over: hands, scalp, face-- eyes burning differently, sunstruck despite dark glasses so useful for shielding emotions. Squinting won't help because this is hell, to wander all alone until a sandy, withering death; to wander until bones are exposed and turn immaculate white; to wander even after that.
Am I shot? Am I shot?
Looking down, he sees no blood, and wonders if it hasn't all boiled out of him. Hot hell, hell under a perpetual high noon with no one to fight but a heavy cross to carry nonetheless. Hell in a desert.
A man of God goes to hell, carrying a cross on his back… I know I heard that in a joke once…
Footsteps behind him. Light; doesn't that idiot know this is hell? And still those steps are light, but louder and louder until a shadow melds into his own and the two become one.
Mouth open, wanting to speak but can't. The tongue has turned to sand, the tongue and the teeth and the gums. Now the mouth closes and makes another effort, a rasping effort.
"Oi, Spikey…what're you doing here?"
Looking into blue eyes full of sadness, so out of place with the happy mouth below.
You look better when you smile.
"Spikey?"
And Vash just shakes his head, eyes still not matching his mouth. Eyes that want to cry but a mouth forced to laugh. He must cope with near-immortality somehow.
"Why are you walking with me, Vash?"
I brought you into this hell, I killed and I killed and I'd continue. Not like you. You aren't human. You're too good. Too high above me, too hard to grasp, too hard to bring to my level and hate. And so I could only love.
Vash has heard. In hell, thoughts are not private. They bake under the sun. Bare bones show indecently.
"But I'm not," Vash whispers. "I'm not."
"You know what we humans do to plants. You've seen." Anger rises now, anger at this blonde mystery. "Why don't you hate us?!" And it ebbs as quickly as it came. Anger is too hot for the desert. "Even now, even in this hell, why do you stay by me, Vash?"
Cooling darkness. Red-sleeved arms encircle the priest, and Vash cries his tears into messy black hair.
There comes an answer:
Love.
Blood.
It coats everything; ground, guns, priest.
Priest…
Wolfwood's body is full of holes, gunshots, and the blood pours out. It leaks from his mouth and nose. He tried too hard to live.
Vash is kneeling on one knee, cradling the body to his chest. Eyes full of tears but a mouth that won't admit it.
You look better when you smile.
Breath still comes, ragged, fainter and fainter now. Nothing can be done and Vash finds himself wishing the man to die more quickly. Suffering shouldn't last like this, not for any human. Not for Wolfwood.
A whisper from the dying mouth, the sleeping mouth:
"…stay by me, Vash?"
Red-sleeved arms encircle the priest, and Vash cries his tears into messy black hair.