NOTE: This work discusses an unnamed female companion to Vash. She is NOT meant to be any canon character within Trigun. This is why she remains unnamed and only vaguely described. This means she can be whoever you want her to be, whether good or bad.
Dedicated to myself, and to anyone who ever felt like they were too far away to touch the ones they loved, so they hid away instead.
To be completely honest, there was a tightening feeling in the pit of my stomach at the thought of going to visit my lover’s brother and spouse. I could sense the same hesitation from him.
They’d been writing letters back and forth for a little while now. It only happened after a little bit of convincing on my end (which makes my faltering all the more hypocritical). At first, the letters were short and simple. Gently, they eased into longer letters. Vash would talk about his new life, his good friends that he’d kept in contact with over the years, and of course, his (then) girlfriend.
Knives didn’t talk about me. I didn’t ask him to, and honestly, I didn’t want him to. It felt exploitative, at least in my baneful human eyes, to use my love towards him as leverage in Vash’s eyes.
And what hypocrisy was there, too, as I often found myself keeping a strong arm around Knives’s waist as we walked around the city, showing him that physical affection he was still adjusting to, showing everyone around him that yes, anyone can change. Something that not everyone believes–and truthfully, not everyone wants to believe. Because if someone who hurt you can change, it just means they could have been different before they hurt you.
But never did he raise a blade to me, so I guess I can’t talk about that.
A few years went by, and in the letters, girlfriend turned into fiancée which turned into wife, and soon he was talking about expecting and then a few children came into the picture. Knives, in his replies, would talk about the mundanities of his new life. He kept practicing piano, and he started doing carpentry work. All truthful things (even if I did have to convince some of his clients that, no, he would not kill them, he just wanted to fix their floor installation).
My relationship with him remained. We were partners. We both agreed that it was a good term for the two of us, but it remained vague enough that people wouldn’t raise a fuss. Behind closed doors–there was passion that remained to drive me wild, probably until the end of my days, and beyond. He was my family.
And for being my family, that meant his brother, and whoever he chose to live with, was family, too.
When we arrived at the door, I gave Knives's hand one last squeeze before letting go. To walk in there with such brazen romantic appearances would make us look bad. I didn't want to screw this up for Knives, not when he'd worked so hard to see his brother again.
“It's going to be okay,” I said, feeling like I was more reassuring myself.
“I know,” Knives replied.
He put his fist up to the door and rapped once, twice.
A middling tenor voice approached. “Coming!” And then, the door clicked open.
Knives looked forward with expectancy, bringing up the small basket of alms and fruits from his other hand. “Brother–Vash. It's good to… See you again.”
“Nai,” Vash nodded, a placid smile coming over his face. “Would you like to come in?”
“If you permit it.”
Vash stepped aside and motioned for us both to come inside. Knives went in first, and I followed just a few steps behind.
Me, I'm from an old world. Some would call it the Old World. Some say Pre-War. I say Pre-Conceived. There is a notion hidden behind all their words, when I reveal this information, that I was born well over 500 years ago and kept in a cryogenic state for centuries, they look at me as if I've grown a third head.
The Old World Blues kick in, I think about taking off my shoes. I don't even bother as I spot the head of a nail poking out an inch from the harrowed wood floor.
“You look well,” Knives says, giving his brother a once-over.
“Thanks,” Vash replied. “So do you.”
Knives hands the basket over to Vash, nodding slightly as he does. “For you and your family. It would be… Nice to meet them, if you'd allow.”
“Vash, honey, who are you talking to?” A voice rang out like a chiming bell as footsteps approached across the floor.
“Darling,” Vash smiled, looking towards the person. “This is my brother, Knives. I've told you about him, yes?”
I could see her body tense up, ever so slightly. Her hand grazed down Vash's forearm, finding his hand. They squeezed, Vash trying to reassure her.
This was it–this was his wife.
“Oh, and–” Vash cleared his throat, turning towards me. “Is this… A friend?”
I quickly glanced at Knives, who glanced back at me. “My name is Jason Doe,” I said. “I've heard good things about you from Knives.”
He smiles at me. “Jason, it's nice to meet you.” He reaches out his hand to shake, and I take it. It's his cold prosthetic hand. Like the coldness in his blue eyes.
“And you,” I reply.
“And this is my wife–”
I blink, and it feels like an eternity of darkness. I hear a train rushing through a tunnel. I hear a flock of birds escaping an island in the center of a lake. I hear someone screaming as they get shot in the Nevada desert.
I don't hear her name, but I know it. My heart has always known it. When I open my eyes again, the moment is gone, and everything is back to how it was before.
“Well, you're already here, so–why not join us for dinner?” Vash motions towards the dining room.
Knives didn't eat food. I did, but I didn't know how comfortable I felt eating here. It felt like his wife's eyes were boring into my skull.
“Dinner would be much appreciated,” Knives answered for me.
“Great!” Vash clapped his hands together. “Honey, would you like any help with dinner?”
“No, I'll be alright,” she replied. “You two just relax and catch up, okay?”
“Will do!” With a quick kiss, the two part, and we're guided to the living room.
Her words, you two, stick with me. It's like I was a ghost, an unmentionable. Well, I suppose to them, I currently have no relationship with Knives. By all means, I'm just some stranger. But I know I'm not. I know I'm not…
The silence in the living room, save for an intermittent sputter of the fireplace, is deafening. It's exhausting, excruciating, and suffocating. These two cannot communicate verbally for the life of them. Which would be fine, if only…
“Daddy!” A young voice calls out, two pairs of footsteps stomping down the stairs. Children, they had to be. And children they were–appeared to be an older daughter and a slightly younger son. Their attributes completely passed me by.
“Hello, you two!” Vash hopped out of his chair and gathered his two children in his long arms, swinging them around. “Knives, these are my kids.” He put them down and patted their heads. “My oldest here is Mary, and my youngest is Nick.”
“Hi there,” said Mary, the little girl. She was perhaps no older than 10 or 11.
“Hi,” said Nick, the little boy. He was younger, maybe 8 or 9.
Knives stood up, watching them. “Hello there.”
I stood, too, even though the kids weren't exactly paying attention to me. (Sometimes I find myself thinking, who would? After all, I am some unremarkable man. And Knives is, well, he's like some sort of god to me. One I'd gladly worship if it wouldn't cause our relationship to crumble. And I think I love him too terribly to let this go poorly.)
“Hey, you two play nice with Uncle Knives, alright? I'll be right back.” Vash steps out of the living room and into the kitchen, presumably to check on his wife.
The kids stare at Knives, eyes tracing over him, processing the word uncle. (I presume they'd already known–I heard the talk about Vash's friends, about these strangers’ names, Nicholas, Meryl, Milly. How Nicholas was to be the godfather, but the kids preferred calling him Uncle Nick. How Meryl and Milly were Aunt and Aunt. I never had anybody like that–I mean I never had kids, my own or from my siblings, to call me Uncle. Fuck, I'll never have kids of my own, not unless we adopt… Would Knives be okay with adopting? No, more like–are either of us ready to be parents? Yes, that is the million double dollar question.)
My inner thoughts caused me to not realize that Knives was actually attempting to be good towards these children. Was that something I taught him? It had to be. He was doing that stupid coin trick I had shown him a while back, where you use sleight of hand to pass a coin back and forth between your hands. Make it appear behind an ear. Or come out of your pocket, despite never being there. Though he struggled to give the children a smile or much engaging dialogue, he pulled the old coin out of the little boy Nick's pocket, and both of the children laughed in glee.
But I felt a shiver, a mass of goosebumps running up the nape of my neck, making my hair stand on end. I’d felt the same sensation a few times when Knives had gotten especially angry (not at me, never at me, he told me he’d never get angry at me, ever). I chalked it up to all of that extra energy pouring off of his Plant body converting to electrostatic charge. Dancing across my skin. It wasn’t coming from Knives, though. There wasn’t that familiar, frankly comforting, smell of spearmint and sharp steel. It was something hot, flaming, burning. The smell of a lightning strike on a dry tree. That had to be his brother.
Boots stomping into the living room. “What are you–?!”
Knives looked up. The children looked up. I kept my eyes away. I felt uneasy, like if I were to look at him, I’d end up as blood red as his coat.
Vash let out a tight sigh, walking towards his kids, placing his hands on their shoulders. “I just had a great idea. Why don’t you two play outside for a little bit, and we’ll call you in when dinner is ready? Maybe Lina’s out there?”
The kids cheered at the mention of this other girl, Lina, and rushed for the backdoor, clamoring to get outside. Vash watched them go, and then he turned back to Knives.
“You can come into my house,” his voice dipped low. “You can stay for the evening. You can look, but don’t touch.”
Chastising him like a child.
“If you lay so much as a finger on my kids or my wife, I’ll–”
“He didn’t hurt those children none,” I snapped.
Green-blue eyes flickered back to me, remembering that he was in the presence of another. Another human. Not his wife, not his children, me. Yes, yes. Here I am, the bastard of this conversation.
Vash straightened up, putting a placid smile on his face yet again. “Sorry about that. Wow, I really am some kind of jerk for assuming the worst, huh?” He laughed.
You are, I thought to myself.
A voice pushed into my mind. Are you here of your own will?
That’s not the warding chill of Knives’s will pressing against my brain. He did it infrequently, but it was comforting, in a way, to speak to him without verbal words. His coldness, ironically, was like warmth to me. It reminded me of blistering winter days back home, 500 years ago.
No, this was a scalding hot splash of water. A boiling pot that overflowed too soon. I remembered the technique that Knives taught me, how to push him out, if I ever needed to–not that I ever did–so I focused. I focused in on the unknowable, the imperceptible, those things beyond the knowledge of these blessed or cursed angels from the cosmos.
I let my mind conjure images of huge bodies of water. Those great lakes that my home was renowned for. I remembered the feeling of the cool, brackish sea lapping at my bare feet. The wind tousled my long, brown hair. Long, it used to be long. A long, long time ago. (And now it was short, out of some fear that someone would grab it, drag me up by my head. No one ever has. But I won’t let anyone do that.)
Vash’s prodding simmered away, evaporating as I recalled pulling my hands through the reeds, plucking a cattail out of the marsh to chase my sister with.
“Dinner should be ready soon,” Vash said, clasping his hands together. “Why don’t you two go relax at the table?”
Soon we’re at the dinner table, two people on each side. It’s not a particularly big table. It’s clearly made for only four–like the size of their family–but Knives doesn’t take a plate, and I only take a small one, my appetite soured by what’s happened so far. I sit next to Knives. On the next edge, Vash sits to Knives’s left, with his wife next to him. Across from us are the children, the son across from me and the daughter across from Knives.
I wonder if they’ll say some fucked up form of Grace, but then I dissipate the thought from my mind. Maybe it’s just rough. Maybe things are just rough in the beginning. Come on. Those letters were doing just fine.
I’m staring across the table at the son, who’s staring back at me. Nick looks a little like me at that age–chubby-cheeked with hazel eyes and hair. I wonder what he sees in me. For a while after I landed on this god-forsaken planet, I didn’t look in the mirror. I didn’t want to know how tired and haggardly I looked. I was scared of the truth. I remember the first time I saw my reflection again. It was against one of Knives’s blades. He dragged it out in front of me, and it was so shiny, I saw myself.
I really thought he was going to kill me that day. But I couldn’t think about the strange phenomenon of a segmented knife wriggling in front of me, or the coldness I felt in the strange building I’d found myself in, I could only think about how sad I looked. That expression on my face, it was empty. I missed everyone, my entire family, all my friends. All gone in what was just a blink in my life. I remember what happened that day.
“Oh, God,” the human said, pupils widening and then going to small pinpricks again. “Is–Is that really me?”
“It’s you. A disgusting creature.” I sneered at him, blades tracking his heartbeat. Maybe I won't end it swiftly. Maybe I can wrap it around his neck, make him suffer for a little while.
Tears dripped down his face. Many humans cried before their end. Some tried to be brave, but they’ve always shattered.
“I really am.” His voice was small, like a child’s. “I’m a disgusting creature, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” Why was I agreeing with him? I couldn’t recall a human that had ever degraded themself like this. Well, maybe a few would lie, grovel a bit, trying to survive a little longer. I could see through those ruses easily. But this felt strange.
“I couldn’t have just died with my family,” he continued. “This has to be punishment for something I’ve done.”
“Punishment for existence.”
“Yeah. I know.” He swallowed, hands trembling as he reached up–towards what? “I know how this story ends. I know that this is just how it’s going to be forever on. So I’ll try to finish it quick. My god never liked me, anyway.”
His hands latched onto my blades, the serration digging into his warm flesh. I immediately dulled them into smooth bumps, but I suppose I had missed one. I’d nicked his palm, deep red blood dripping onto the floor.
“I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m tired, I’m alone. And now I can’t even properly kill myself.” He dropped to the ground, releasing my blade.
I stepped a little closer to his cowering form.
“Maybe this is all just a bad dream, and I’ll wake up.”
I took another blade out, sharp and swift.
“I’ll be back home. I’ll wake up in my warm bed, I’ll go upstairs and see my family.”
I readied the blade at his back.
“I’ll be full and sated and safe.”
It happened in mere seconds, I pushed for the blade to go forth, but stopped just short of his shirt.
“If I were a bird, I could fly far away. Far, far away.”
I retracted my blade. I was… Curious. “Where would you fly?”
“Somewhere peaceful.” His body was utterly still. “Somewhere where I don’t have to worry… I used to worry all the time… That tomorrow would be my last day… And it never came.”
“Really.”
“When I got here, I begged that I’d die. Because dying would be better than this. Having to live with the memory of the past, of what was, not what could have been–just what was.”
“Interesting.”
“Have you ever wanted to die?”
I blinked. “My brother did.”
“What happened to him?”
“...I don’t know.”
Something wet dribbled on the ground next to him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That you lost your brother.”
“I didn’t lose him, I–” I swallowed. “Well, I suppose I did lose him.”
“Maybe if we both look, we can find him.”
“Why bother with something like this? Didn’t you say you wanted to die?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I want to be useful. Even if it’s just once. You know? Heroes are so arrogant before they’re killed–or I guess before they think they’re going to get killed. They always bring up how good they were. All their good deeds. How good will overcome evil, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. I don’t know.”
“...Try.”
He shivered again. “I wish I could be remembered for something. But no one knows me. Nobody knows my name. Nobody will remember me. I mean that.”
I huffed. “Why not?”
“I’m not from this time. You know those big ships that crashed here? I’m from one of those. I know what you’ll say. Those crashed decades ago. You’re right. I didn’t unfreeze until a few days ago. All my family, all my friends, everyone I was related to–they all died. They have to have died. I told you, I have nobody. So, you know what, maybe just plunge your knife into my back and kill me.”
I blinked, and I saw a thousand ways this could go, but I only chose one.
“I won’t kill you.”
I heard his heartbeat quicken. In elation, excitement, fear? I couldn’t really tell.
I remember when I won’t kill you turned into I won’t let you die. And, yes, I have him, of all people, to thank for saving my life. I remember when he confided in me, of his horrors, and I told him my own. I told him it was terrifying, but I understood. I understood the pain of being alone. I asked him if we could be alone, together. He said that might be alright.
I remember seeing his cohorts, those Gung-Ho Guns, but just from afar. I was too nervous to approach them–not out of fear that they’d hurt me, or anything like that, I just felt like I didn’t fit in. As we connected, he slowly called them off from their business. Told them to do something else. Some said they had nowhere else to go. They were dedicated to vengeance. He’d call me down to tell them stories of a world beyond this world–well, it was once my world. And I guess, now, it’s all my own. I’m the only keeper of Earth. I’m the only one who remembers the green grass, the blue skies.
They became friends, I think. A sort of really weird family. I liked having drinks with Razlo and Livio, chatting idly with Elendira. I spoke most often with Hoppered, who I affectionately gave the nickname Hops. Midvalley had a love for music, just like me.
I remembered Knives speaking about a Nicholas the Punisher, who’d defected to Vash’s side. I wondered if that was the same Nicholas that was talked about in the letters.
“I’m curious, Jason. What’s your relationship to Knives, exactly?”
I snapped back to consciousness as I was asked the question by Vash. He was giving me another one of those placid smiles, and I felt that burning again, like I’d set my hand on a hot stovetop.
Tell me if he captured you. I can get you out of here.
The lakes turn into great churning vortexes of sharp ice and snow. A rumbling storm overhead. Cold, cold, cold. The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, of the big lake they call Gichigami.
He’s gone, and I return to myself. Only a second or two had passed, but it felt like an eternity. I put my hand over Knives’s, nestling my fingers between his.
“Knives is my partner.” I felt him squeeze my hand back as I said it.
Vash raised an eyebrow. “...Work partner?”
I felt something catch in my throat, but I swallowed it away. “Yes. And life partner.”
His eyes go cold and glassy. The wife hides a gasp behind her hand. The children don’t understand this–they only know Mommy and Daddy are married. Big phrases, like life partner, and big messes, like a human is in love with the slaughterer of humans.
I don’t let their reaction gnaw at me. Too long in my previous life had I let my feelings be buried beneath layers of protection. I lift his hand to my lips and kiss across his knuckles. I am not afraid. Not anymore.
Dinner ends without another word. I don’t eat anything on my plate.
The wife clears her throat. “I can prepare a guest room for you two, if you’d like.”
“Let me help,” I say as I stand up.
She looks to Vash for guidance. He nods his head. He still needs an answer on whether or not I’m a captive. He should have his answer. I know damn well he could hear his brother’s heartbeat. (Well, to be fair, they don’t really have a heart. It’s more of this strange, thrumming thing inside of them. Like a piece of machine, like clockwork. It vibrates at resonant frequencies. Working through the overtone series. It’s magic to me. I remember one fond time, falling asleep on his chest as his “heart” played a familiar melody for me, a music-box song about a blue bird in a cage.)
“Alright, then,” she says, making her way upstairs. I follow.
The guest room is a little dusty. It doesn’t appear to have been used in a while. Makes sense. There’s a bed in the corner, big enough for one person, maybe two, if you squeezed. Knives is a good two feet taller than me. I know well that we won’t be staying the night, anyway.
“So,” she says, dusting her hands on her dress. “Millions Knives.”
“What about him?”
“Vash–well, he wanted me to ask.” She comes a little closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “He’s not keeping you, is he?”
I glare at her. “I’d be long dead by now if he was.”
She blinks.
“By my own hand, if you need to know.”
She shakes her head, stepping away. “Alright.”
“What business is it of yours or his, anyways?” I turn away and fuss with the quilt on the bed. “You two are married with children. Is his own brother not allowed the same luxury?”
“He didn’t say that, he just–you know Knives has a… A history.”
My back bristles in anger. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Her lack of response told me everything. Something persisted from the old world. I could see Christ’s crosses buried into the ground, grave markers or magnets for prayer. But it was an empty symbol without any of his words to go around. Blindly, like ignorant sheep, the people followed an angel that was never going to come. I’m pretty sure he said he’d come back to Earth, not Gunsmoke. And what was the point when everyone here would drink, smoke, adulterate, kill? The savagery was without end.
Come now, everyone, and cry. Your money is worthless. Your coins are corroded. Their corrosion will be evidence against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have prayed to the wrong god in your final days.
I could have let her argue that his sin was much larger than what any of us could achieve on our own. But I also could have said that any man could be driven to madness through isolation. I could have said, when Adam and Eve had two kids, Adam went to the left and found himself a bitch. She wouldn’t have understood that, either, and I think it wouldn’t really help my case.
After a long pause of silence, I finally spoke again. “You know, I knew your husband a long while back.”
“Really?” She turned back to me, tilting her head.
I nodded. “Never did talk to him, don't even think he saw me. But I saw him.”
I remembered the glimpse of him I saw, in those first few days of my waking, as I drearily wandered through a town. I remember the blood-red jacket fluttering in the wind.
“Why didn't you talk to him?”
“Was afraid. Like anyone.” I shrugged. “But… More than that, something deeper inside of me.”
“Like?”
My voice caught in my throat. “I thought he was the Angel of Death, come to take me away. Or maybe a lover from beyond the veil.”
Her eyes widened in surprise.
“But, I think my gut knew, deep down, it could never be. A guy like him, a guy like me… It'd never work out. Untouchable, like a star.”
I knew she thought differently, the way her face scrunched up slightly.
“And here he is again today. I guess I expected him to settle down with some dame, maybe run-of-the-mill, maybe not, maybe she'd be special in her own way.” I looked down at the floor, dusty and gray. “And, well, here you are.”
“So, what about his brother?” I didn't think she meant to sound accusatory, but it nearly came out that way. “Did you only like him because of the resemblance?”
I scowled. “You think I'm that vain, lady?”
“I don't appreciate you–” She growled. “Dame, lass, lady, wife. I have a name, you know. My name is–”
I stopped her with a glare.
Of course I already knew her name.
The talk of the town, the whisper on the wind, the one who tamed the wild beast that was the Humanoid Typhoon.
The one who would always end up with him, no matter what, because a man like me, in both the esoteric and literal sense, would never be enough.
Of course Vash needed a woman. It was only natural. That was the way of nature, man and woman. And to defy him, to be his foil, his brother found love in a man–a human man, was frankly the more shocking part.
Perhaps what continually injured me the most wasn't the fact that I'd squandered my chance with Vash, but that any woman, specifically, could have been in her place. That it didn't matter, her skin color, the texture of her hair, her body type, the clothes she wears–it'd always be some woman, and never a bumbling idiot of a man like me.
Even in his defiances of existence, Vash still followed the orders of nature.
(He’s a male. He likes females. They have children now, too. The core order. Locate, mate, repopulate.)
So who the fuck am I, was all I could ever think to myself.
And here his bride stood, in defiance of me.
In defiance of the affections I could have given him–in another life, perhaps.
I wave the thoughts away and come back to this moment.
“I love Knives,” I said, stiffening up. “He's my partner for a reason. And he's changed for the better. I won't force Vash to see that. But it'd be nice for me not to be treated like a blind idiot, or God forbid some kind of hostage around my future in-laws.”
She reached up and rubbed her arm, eyes darting around. “I–I’m sorry, Jason. I just–”
“No, you’re really not, are you?” I snapped. “Why does everyone say sorry when they’re not? Why not just say the truth?”
The corner of her lip pulled back, as if she were about to grimace.
“Say it. You think I’m a traitor.”
She scoffed. “I think you’re jealous. Jealous of what we have.”
“I’d never be jealous to live as someone’s cardboard cutout of a nuclear family,” I growled. “At least I don’t have to live, never sure if he’ll leave me tomorrow. Ain’t life a two way fuckin’ street? Ask your husband if it’s you he loves, or if it’s just any woman who’ll treat him nice.”
“You–”
“I’ve already lived that life. A thousand fucking times, I’ve lived that life. You can slip your feet into heels all you want, slide your body into a sheer dress and curl your hair and put on lipstick. You can do that. See how far it gets you.”
She just stares, blank-eyed.
“Try it one night.” Something rumbled deep inside of me, something hungry, something that wanted to consume everything. “Quietly slip on your coat. Grab your children, under the veil of darkness. Disappear from the town. Disappear from this world. When you’re gone, see if he looks for you. He won’t. You’d do it for him, but he’ll never do it for you.”
I don’t even blink as I leave. Down the stairs I went, and through the living room I made myself, and I found Knives, standing and watching the flames of the fireplace. I lightly squeezed him on the shoulder.
“We need to go,” I told him.
His brow lifted slightly. “Are you alright?”
I just squeezed a little tighter. He understood what I meant.
I could hear the sounds of teeth gritting in his jaw as we quietly slipped out the front door without so much as a goodbye.
We walked silently for a bit until I finally spoke up.
“I really fucked up this time.”
He grabs my shoulder and pulls me into his side. “That was not your fault.”
“You heard what I said to her, I know you did. That was out of line.”
He snorted out of his nose a bit. “Maybe it was callous. But it held hints of the truth.”
“I just–not after the way they treated you, like a monster. For one measly day, I’d hoped, that maybe–”
“I know.”
“Your own brother! He’s your flesh and blood, doesn’t he owe you even a modicum of respect?!”
Knives shook his head. “Respect is earned.”
“Bullshit.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “What were all those letters? Just keeping appearances, or what?”
Knives let out a heavy sigh, his hand falling back to his side. “Well… Maybe.”
A gap of silence.
“I thought this time, it’d be different,” we whispered in unison.
It was like I could hear them now. Vash talking about heroics and protecting his children from his evil brother, his wife swooning over his attitude, sure to make love to him that night. And the children, none the wiser, never to truly know their uncles. I bit my tongue thinking about it, the happy family. A family I could have had if I had never…
The thought overtakes me for only a second until I dispel it. Yes. If I had lied to myself, lied to the truth of my core, maybe I could have lived a happy life like that. But I’d be playing as someone who wasn’t me. How long could I ever last like that? I was right about the shoes, the dress, the long hair, the lipstick. For once, I’m right about it all. Despite everything.
I silently waited for that false hero to come behind us, to kill me and to set his brother back into that isolation-driven rage. I was sure, deep down, that Knives would surely destroy his own brother if he’d killed me. Hate was strong, but love was even stronger. And grief is just love with nowhere to go, constantly circling, building, biting at your ankles. So grief is the strongest emotion of all.
I survived all of this–and for what?
When we arrived home, closing the door behind us, after kicking off our shoes and taking off our hats and overcoats, Knives grabbed me and held me tight. Very tight. A tightness he’d only done one other time, when I expressed the depth of my sorrow and loss to him. He cradled my head close as I heaved, knees buckling and tears racing down my cheeks.
“It’s okay,” he said, as if I were the one with a brother who wanted nothing to do with me when it didn’t make him look good. As if I were the one who lost the most in this situation.
I shut my eyes and felt white-hot rage behind my skull.
What am I?
Who am I?
Where am I going?
Was there a world–a world where it was all different?
Fuck, I can’t even comprehend it.
I wouldn’t be in the kitchen, wouldn’t be giving kids.
But I guess the one thing I can say is that I’m glad I never ended up like that.
I’d rather have this–where my life constantly teeters on the edge of a blade, where I know that I’ll be caught if I fall, than be chained up in the dark, wondering if I’ll ever be loved without a wall between us.
You bastard. You’re no hero.
You’re scum like the rest of us.
We’ll live and die like rats.
Running.
Running.
Running.
Always fucking running.
…My god’s going to answer me.
What about yours?