ficlets100 - number seven.

[rawri]

001.	Guilt	002.	New	003.	Solitude	004.	Content	005.	Tale
006.	Distort	007.	Luxury	008.	Listen	009.	Party	010.	Scent
011.	Storm	012.	Lessons	013.	Apology	014.	Relief	015.	Breeze
016.	Fading	017.	Passion	018.	Stay	019.	Rain	020.	Within
021.	Dread	022.	Revenge	023.	Time	024.	Perfect	025.	Eyes
026.	Bloom	027.	Beginning	028.	Bath	029.	Object	030.	Lost
031.	Pride	032.	Death	033.	Dance	034.	Remember	035.	Savage
036.	Late	037.	Crossroads	038.	Change	039.	Hope	040.	Dawn
041.	Hero	042.	Annoy	043.	Trouble	044.	Imagine	045.	Believe
046.	Words	047.	Home	048.	Understand	049.	Cage	050.	Animal
051.	Woods	052.	Fun	053.	Dare	054.	Spell	055.	Pray
056.	Warmth	057.	Mess	058.	Leap	059.	Attention	060.	Shopping
061.	Dessert	062.	Paper-cut	063.	Compromise	064.	Mouth	065.	Gone
066.	Intuition	067.	Fairies	068.	Gift	069.	Priceless	070.	Jewel
071.	Grin	072.	Quake	073.	Blush	074.	System	075.	Pressure
076.	Crash	077.	Closer	078.	Break	079.	Habit	080.	Safe
081.	Confusion	082.	Someday	083.	Instigate	084.	Goodnight	085.	Paint
086.	Always	087.	Guide	088.	Embrace	089.	Fall	090.	Help
091.	Different	092.	Anticipation	093.	Real	094.	Enough	095.	Again
096.	Glorify.	097.	Lack thereof.	098.	Fix.	099.	Smile.	100.	A little.

Comments

Trigun -> ⌈32.⌋ Death.

[rawri.livejournal.com]

The first breath was the worst. It felt like stone and brimstone and cold, like sand and gravel and heat, and his body quaked.

“What is this--a Plant?”

“It’s got the blond hair!”

“—That’s impossible, Plants are man-made, and female beside-“

“It’s moving!”

The second breath was better. He had to struggle, didn’t want to struggle, pushed the rocks clumped up against his sides away while drawing them closer. There was something wrong with it all, contradiction, betrayal (of what? to who?) in the form of hisses and vocalizations and the feel of inner cold and streaming heat, new heat, running from his shoulder, and his nails chipped and broke on the rocks, and he couldn’t remember his name, and he couldn’t remember why not remembering was a very bad thing indeed—

He was blind, he was deaf, but he still felt the sting of a (stunner) lightning strike against his chest, felt the rise of blue-colored indignation and maybe panic in the back of his mind, but then the strike came again and that was that.

Perhaps next time, the first breath would be easier.

-----

“It’s a Plant. Put it in.”

“I-I’m sorry, sir, but - it isn’t! It might have some of the properties, but it’s utterly useless for energy—“

“No, no, see this? That’s energy. That’s plenty of energy. It didn’t survive for this long without energy.”

“Not anything we can use--“

“- We’ll find a way. We might need all the Plants we can get. Stick it in there.”

“… Yes, sir.”

-------

His hands were on the glass, big blue eyes staring up up up into the tank. His brother was messing around on the computer, as per usual, but Vash was more interested in the actual thing.

They’d never seen another male Plant before.

“Knives, Knives—do you think we can talk with him?”

“Wait a bit.” The twin with his hands pressed against the cold glass stuck out his bottom lip, but waited. It took a whole ‘nother minute, but eventually Knives looked up and nodded. Not that he had to nod. Vash understood him from the other side of the ship, nevermind inside of the same, dark room (it was off limits, and they both knew it, but it didn’t matter when you were with your brother and Rem was busy and they were adventuring). Vash closed his eyes, pressed his forehead against the glass, and concentrated.

For the first time in his year-long life, he realized just how clumsy he was.

He tripped, he fell, he got lost in vacancy, found his own head hurting in sympathy of this one’s. A burst of blue, a flash of yellow-green-mixed-together, not at all like Knives’ clean, organized mind; Vash opened his mouth and yelled, a streak of white in blurred vision, the knowledge of death and rebirth clinging to the back of his tongue as he yanked himself back, was pulled back, Knives at his back yelling Vash, Vash, as loudly as the (who he thought had been sleeping) other one was saying Soldier, Soldier.

“-diot! What were you doing? Vash, Vash, talk to me—Vashu-”

He blinked, and tripped again, fell into the blackness of Nazca, Terra, a big blue planet that had lots of green, a little bit of yellow and the overtune of his brother’s voice. The one who had been floating inside of the tank was now floating in orbit, and Vash thought that he looked sad, really sad. So he did what Rem always did when they were sad, and somehow pushed himself – it was like their zero-gravity bedroom, only without the walls – toward the other, gave the other a hug.

It jolted him, jolted them both, and afterwards, the guy just looked sadder, and Vash didn’t quite get how that worked, was about to ask this other how it worked, but then the background noise of his brother reached a deafening pitch (Knives was supposed to be the quiet one, he wanted to tell the other, because the other looked like he needed to be told things) and then Vash found out that breathing hurt, and that he couldn't get to see any color at all.