Whatever You Want

3+3 linear vignettes

by Seishuku Skuld (skuldchan [a] gmail com)

Series: Trigun

Pairing: Knives/Legato

Warnings: yaoi, not worksafe

Date: October 2006

some text inspired by or taken verbatim from the Vienna Teng song

*~*~*~*~*

No detectable ambition. A model of efficiency, far as you can see…

I open my eyes. It's morning, though there's no indication of it except for the clock on the wall, its bright yellow numbers blinking the early hour at me. I dress in the way Master bids me to, shrugging on the heavy coat of white, strapping the skull of my first kill to my arm. The tortuous spikes sit on my other shoulder, reminding me of what will befall me should I ever happen to fail him. The clothes once weighed heavily on my body, making my movements slow and lethargic, but now I bear them easily with dignity and the same air of despair that follows each and every one of his servants.

I make my way through the ship that has been my home—his home. The hollow of my footsteps echoes in my ears as I make my way to Master, to prostrate myself before him. I fall to my knees, bow my head to the ground so low the tips of my hair brush against the dull, tarnished metal of the floor. I wait until he speaks to me.

"Rise," he says, his voice a sonorous baritone that washes over me like the cooling, life-giving waters of the sea. I am the shore to his deep blue ocean—sandy, dry, barren without him. "I have a mission for you."

I bow again. "I will do all in my power to fulfill your wish."

"And this will require all of that." I sense rather than see the smile on his face, a smile that I cannot read, that holds for me an infinite amount of mystery, an enigma I cannot unravel. I lift my head to regard him, my gaze drawn to his. His smile widens into a grin, and I sense that perhaps he is reading something in me that he finds pleasing.

"I give it all freely," I reply, my voice low, a coalescing whisper he coaxes from my ragged breath.

I have served him for all my life and I have only ever asked for one thing. I will wait patiently and when the time comes, perhaps I will ask for a second.

*~*~*

And every time you ask him for another vanishing act, he half-smiles as if to say…

I've only recently returned but immediately I go to my Master. He is almost completely recovered from the incident at July City which almost completely destroyed him; he is almost ready, almost whole again.

"I feel him."

I nod. "I feel him as well." As if on cue, my left hand begins to spasm.

I am drawn to these two men whose destines are to decide the fate of mankind on this tiny, wasteland of a planet—gods ruling over children. But I am of neither party, neither a god nor a child, I am the pawn that serves their whim, a toy of deities who sometimes I think are more like the children they seek to destroy or protect than they are willing to admit.

"Find him." Very few words pass between us. Very few words need to.

I smile and bow my head and I feel a ghostly touch upon the back of my neck, sliding around to cup my chin. I stare at Master in his great class encasing, his skin a soft white glow that I find irresistibly beautiful. The look in my eyes tells him so, but his eyes are hidden to me and they reflect nothing. I am not disappointed and neither is he when he sends me away.

I promise myself that one day I will see my master restored. I will see him through to the glorious destiny he has planned out for this poor little planet, his shining dream of paradise and life eternal where I, not a child nor a god, will have no place.

*~*~*

He's a pair of legs wearing a face in the bed opening his arms out to you…

He presses me to the bed, his arms planted on either side of my head. I can feel the heat from his body, from his breath when he whispers a name in my ear, against my neck. He carves that name into my body in something much thicker than blood, something that seeps into my bones, rots my flesh, and invades my mind. But still I serve for I know no other and will let no other hand touch my skin, no other body pressed so close beside mine.

His hands, his hate envelops me as he runs hot touches over my chest, down my torso, around my neck. My imprisonment is a voluntary one, a cage created by myself as much as by my master, and inside I willingly sing until the day he tells me to stop.

The name he cries out in the loneliness of most nights is not mine but nevertheless he has given it to me. He presses into me hard as if he means to push me into the ground and right through it, and I cry out involuntarily. Master's new body is hungry to make up for all those years he's been deprived.

His fingers close on my throat, flexing as they squeeze and choke off my tattered breaths. I struggle weakly as he continues moving against me, writhing in uncomfortable ecstasy. It matters very little what role I fulfill in his life, in his plans, in his bed, so long as there is a purpose and I serve it.

Knives leans over me, his hairs tickling my cheek as he whispers a name I've rarely heard him utter with such heat.

"Legato."

And then I gasp.

*~*~*

I am the last one you'd ever suspect of setting the fire…

Hatred is insufficient.  It is a mix of digust, repulsion, horror as I find myself close to him, my fingers touching his body. He responds in the best ways he knows—the ways I taught him when he was younger, the ways that arouse the most desire in me, the most violence, two impulses over which I have little control.

The feeling of my arousal between my legs is very real, a keening fire that beings at my groin and then spreads, warms my stomach and my chest, burns through my mind. I can feel my breaths growing shallow and short as he brushes my body in tentative, hesitant touches.

My smile spreads into a grin as I run my hands across his ribs, watching the shadow of their protrusions moving beneath his pale skin with every inhale and exhale. He lies there, his hands settled at the outside of my thighs, looking up at me with those quiet, feral eyes.

I can’t stand the sight of him, that dirty mop of blue hair, the miserable expression of submission on his face. I can’t stand that he enjoys everything I do to him, I can’t stand that he lives for me, dies for me, breathes for me, and that he revels when I push his face into the ground and tell him what a pitiful, hideous existence he is. I hate how he loves every tear he sheds for me, how he savors my words when I tell him that he only lives to die for me, no more and no better than any other human inhabiting this planet.

My fingers wrap around his neck and I like the look on his face as he chokes. I cut off his air, and he struggles below me, his eyes wide, his mouth opening and closing in silence. The look on his face reflects the purity of his love, his absolute devotion to me. There is never another moment when he’ll love me more than when he’s about to die, and I bring him to this brink every time we make love. It’s the only time I can tolerate his filthy hands on my body. I laugh like I’m crazy, like I see my orgasm coming. I bend over to whisper to him; he loves it even when I call him by another name.

My lips brush the lobe of his ear, tracing the curve gently as I nibble on it.

“Legato,” I murmur, the name escaping me as I come before I can think, before I can take it back.

Shaken, I pull out of him and back away, my hands lose their grip on his neck. He gasps, stares at me in disbelief.  I see hope there and I avert my eyes.

What I can’t stand the most is that he is the only thing in the world that loves me, and I hate him for it.  And I hate myself most of all because I need that love, because without it I would be nothing but pieces of the mirror of my brother, buried in sand and forgotten.

*~*~*

Tomorrow morning you’ll hear me saying quietly…

The eyes he regards me with are not accusatory. They’re resigned, like they’ve been for all his too-short life. He’s known his final mission for all the time he’s served me, he’s known it even before I told him—he’s always been extraordinarily perceptive, even as a child. I have to suppress a shiver when he rises, his head still bowed. His hair covers one eye, but I can’t even bring myself to meet just one. I stare at some point beyond his shoulder, between the half-circles of spikes sitting on his shoulder like some grotesque mockery of a sunburst. I’ve already forgotten why I gave them to him in the first place, and I wonder what sort of special significance he’s given them.

There’s a ball of dread in my stomach as he turns to leave.

“Unstoppable things have been set in motion,” he says to me simply. His voice is low and quiet but his bearing proud. I see the faintest smile cross his lips as he turns to face me one last time.

I feel as if we’re at a crossroads, as if in this moment an infinite possibility crosses our plane. He has a choice to make—there’s a neverending list of words he can say, a neverending realm of meaning he can explore. There are a million things I can speak and in this moment it seems as if I have near infinite power and any word I say may bring him back to my side or send him to his death. I hold my breath, I wait. I weigh my options, I form the beginning of sentences in my mind, see if they will complete themselves, if they will take on a life of their own.

I realize now that words don’t matter here, that beneath whatever words we use to justify ourselves and our choices, everyone has a basic need that yearns to be fulfilled. Mine is much like his; I can make his wish come true.

In the end we both choose silence. He gifts me with that smile, the last I’ll ever see. I’ve never seen his skin so fair, his eyes so sun-golden, his hair so true to the blue of the sea I saw in a simulation once on that ship. He leaves and the door shuts behind him with a hiss, leaving just me in the room.

Belatedly I realize I must come to terms with the one unselfish act I have ever committed, and what pain it will cause me from now until I die. I have many years left to contemplate what could have been, what I could have done, and how things had somehow gone awry.

*~*~*

Whatever you want is fine by me. Whatever you say, I'll do what you ask me. Whatever you say, but do you know who's listening?

I laugh because I have to. I laugh because I know that if I don’t, I’ll go insane. I feel his tiny existence vanish, wink out with the reverberations of a gunshot.

Now I am truly alone.

I can feel Vash cry, I can see the look of horror on his face as he stares at the pile of crumpled flesh lying in the sand, blood darkening that hair to wet mop of black. I can imagine Vash’s pain as he gapes at the corpse, drops his gun, doubles over and weeps.

I laugh because I know I’ll see my brother again soon, but in exchange I’ve lost something that I cannot replace. I laugh because that’s what I do when I’m afraid, when it’s too late, when I’ve been the butt of a joke, of a great cosmic irony that seemingly everybody but me saw coming.

I laugh, but I’m really crying. I want to feel that body beneath me again, to hear that voice speak those words of servitude.

And I want to see that smile.

It’s almost silent here, nobody to hear me sob. My voice fades away to the hiss of the lights, the fans of my ship whirring, spitting stale, recycled air at me.