it's cold and it's sort of merciless | closed

[brutalact]

Who: Knives & Vash & Vash(u)
What: Catchall log
When: Throughout the month of October up to November 5th.
Where: The Church mostly.

Content Warnings: Mentions of suicide ideation and past misanthropy most likely. Will update with warnings as they come up.



[if there was one positive thing knives could say about the church, it'd be the distance between it and the rest of the town. there were few interlopers who ventured out this far and most of the ones who did were either headed out of town or wandered the graveyard that sat behind the church itself. knives hadn't felt much of a need to interact with many of them unless stricken by curiosity-fed boredom, still learning how to carry himself around those whom he once upon a time would have cut down without a second thought.

times have changed and so has he. unfortunate or fortunate, it didn't matter now.

at least there is plenty to do to keep knives occupied; the few books he found on fishing and hunting, while outdated, are useful enough that he's gone out to try his hand at both. it was interesting learning about skills he would have never considered before back on no man's land, the frozen basin itself a marvel when he first came upon it.

inside the church the living quarters were small, especially with three people - plants - all taking up space together. what could go wrong?

Comments

[amo]

[ Their little dance of avoidance continues, the steps well-rehearsed. There will come a day where the both of them will have to stop running, be it because curiosity finally wins out or because outside influences force their hand; like how he'd been forced to confess the one true secret he had left between him and his brother. He hopes nothing like that ever happens again, but this place has a way of imposing its whims on the temporally displaced residents. They will have no say in it. Still, it's knowledge he would rather not burden this other version of himself with. Of course, if asked directly, he has already resolved to be truthful since there's no point in trying to lie, but he knows himself. They'll dance on a while longer.

His pleasant expression remains fixed, waiting for the moment that his words fully register and he's not disappointed when they do. He can't hide the mirth — there in a growing toothy grin and how his eyes turn to crescents — as his other self splutters and goes delightfully red. He chuckles and at least gives his double a slight break as he averts his gaze to pour himself a mug as well.

Only a slight break though. ]

You're too easy!

[ He observes out loud, eyes still sparkling with amusement when he lifts his gaze from his mug again. Was he this easy to fluster when he was younger? He can't remember, but it's a current difference he takes note of. There's a certain priest he can think of — that he does, unbidden, even if it hurts — who would have a field day with this Vash. (Something that he wonders about too, does his double have his own Wolfwood? Another thing he absolutely can't bring himself to ask when he can't even say his lost friend's name.) He'd probably agree... ]

It's cute.

[skelters]

[ one day, they will have to stop; the strings will snap, they'll stumble over a step, the music will reach the inevitable end of the bar with no repeat sequence to loop them around again. but it isn't quite yet - even if it is only a fingernail's worth of grip, vash is just obstinate like that, willing to hold onto the fraying reality of things until the very last second and beyond it too.

it's hard to look up and meet the other's gaze. it's not that vash dislikes it - far from it, in fact; there is something soothing about his presence, like feeling the sun warm against his back as the opposing wall grows gradually brighter in the light of dawn. like seeing the smoke rising up from a chimney and knowing that inside there is some measure of comfort. it's not that he doesn't want him near. right now, he feels as though he's holding onto the end of one too many strings that unravel in tangled pools at his feet like multicoloured fluorescing coils of intestines. soft and secreting, secrets tucked away between skin and muscle and bone, spilling out. it's embarrassing.

what does it say about him, when he is too afraid to look at himself in the eyes? ]

Don't- [ helpless. hopeless. only half-heartedly does vash splutter with a choked out laugh, his lashes downcast under the fall of unruly gold hair and a frown that creases between his brows. ]

Isn't it, you know, kind of odd?

[ but they have always been odd, haven't they? at odds with the world. their nature. their reality. their brother. ]

[amo]

[ It hasn't escaped his notice how his double's gaze often shies away or won't meet his at all. It can be subtle at times, but it would be impossible for Vash to miss when he knows all his own tells, made even more obvious by seeing them reflected on another's face. He understands though. If he'd been plucked from some time earlier in his history, maybe he would have a hard time looking at himself, too. To have someone near who could see right through him no matter which mask he dons is unnerving and it's not as if he's found peace with himself now. (He probably never will, their sins far too great and numerous.) He's simply at a point where he has little left to lose, where he's been playing a waiting game until he can join all those he lost in the peaceful embrace of death.

Or at least that was the case before Milton. Now hope sits alongside the grief, impossible wishes no longer so impossible. It's all the more reason to hold his secrets close to his battered heart and not ask any questions that beget questions in turn. The news of what his and his brother's rot-stained hair meant already hit his double hard, he cannot imagine telling him he will lose his brother and his best friend.

Besides, what's in his past might not even be in this Vash's future at all. He has no desire to hurt his other self with such knowledge, especially unnecessarily so. This self who looks so young to him now with his head full of spun gold. Maybe not young in age, but in experiences and tragedies. It makes him feel oddly protective and rather than shy away, want to offer the comfort he knows he himself has always craved, deep, deep down, even if he's thought himself undeserving. It feels different seeing it placed outside of his internal world somehow.

Only Vash the Stampede knows how hard it is to be Vash the Stampede. It's the only comfort he can possibly provide. ]

What is?

[ He feigns ignorance and innocence despite knowing full well what his other self means and the effect his teasing words have, blithely sipping at his own mug. ]

[skelters]

[ he is too early along in this journey - it shows in the way vash slides away from the other's presence, lingering in the peripherals like he is some misshapen shadow, half faded in the light. it shows in the way he stubbornly does not ask questions, doesn't invite any questions in turn to be asked as though that is a way to solve all the problems - just burying it down and shutting the lid and throwing away the key. it shows in the desperately bright way he smiles sometimes at the both of them, even as his hand, behind his back, stumbles with the doorknob that'll somehow let him free to run away from all of this. it is a simple way of thinking - a reckless way of thinking, when he doesn't see any way out but one.

what else is there? he has already lost a brother - the umbilical cord that connected them to one another severed as irrevocably as the glint of blades shaped from his flesh and blood and bones. his brother, perhaps, have lost him too - maybe even longer ago than what vash only dimly realises now. his friend is merely a shepherd sent to guide his way - a farce of a betrayal knowingly orchestrated by the both of them. vash knows that it's the only way - not just for himself but for wolfwood, too. there is no point of him being there, presented to his brother, when his blood is not on the other's hands. it is though it that his sin may somehow be absolved. could perhaps, he wants to believe, help the other man in saving what he loves.

that's all. vash is content with this. that's what he tells himself. ]

You know what I mean... [ the smile comes a little easier. it's easy to keep to nothing like this, keep to words that aren't very important, aren't burning a hole through his guts.

vash cradles the mug in his hands, allowing the heat of the drink to transfer through to his frozen fingers. turns it around this way and that. ]

You can't call me cute.

[amo]

[ There are times when Vash looks at his other self and wishes he could just reach out, offer him the reassurance and affection he knows they crave deep down at the root of themselves. The problem is that he has no real reassurances to give — at most they are platitudes that will be seen right through — and this Vash is too skittish for anything more than a fleeting touch. He fears that if he tries to push past the barriers they've erected, if he shows he truly perceives him beyond the masks they so carefully hide behind and juggle, he'll send the other Vash fleeing. He knows he himself probably would at that stage in his life. So, as much as the desire occasionally strikes Vash to hold him close and tell him it'll be alright whenever he looks at this more inexperienced version of himself, he refrains.

(And maybe part of him believes they don't deserve it, as it always does.)

It's probably enough of a struggle for his double to be around him and Knives, brimming with unasked questions as he is. There's a fine thread to balance on of trying to make sure he knows he's welcome, his presence wanted in the church they've made their home, and not giving him reason to start running, flighty as they both are. He wants to keep him close, if he can. There isn't much else he can do, but try and provide a semblance of a home — a roof over their heads, food on the table, a place to return to at the end of the day — in this overly hostile foreign world. He's powerless to do anything else but this — be there and provide what little he can.

His pretense at ignorance continues even as his other self smiles and protests. It only makes him more adorable, really. At least in this Vash feels like he can poke and prod a little in a safe, harmless way that ultimately doesn't mean much of anything. ]

Why not? You are cute, mon frérot! I'd know best, wouldn't I?