[ h a l c y o n . ] ₍ ₁₈₊ ₎

For Aurelius, it's part-Klaus, part-memory of the other Vash, that keeps him so persistent. He's sure his partner would praise him for a job well done, while Desert Vash was so fond of plants it only made sense to pay his due respects to this one. Garden Host Vash could do what he had to to keep himself happy in between them. Human hobbies were supposed to be messy, he assumes, so the furniture was a necessary casualty. Besides, it's not like he's creating chaos on purpose. He's just never gardened before.

"I can clean up after myself," Aurelius says simply as he continues filling in dirt. It's obvious his movements are unpracticed since even this simple action spills excess earth around the rim of the point. Moreover, the angel trumpet plant is starting to lilt to one side despite his re-potting efforts, causing the angel to frown and pause in his work.

"It doesn't look right."

"I think I have to do it again."

Lesson in patience at least partially failed, there's no stopping the instinctual lurch forward, free hand extended fully outwards as if it could reach far enough from his perch-- though he does go flying off of that too, even if only by aa single, forceful step forward.

There's no taking it back though, especially not after the little outburst that had come with the motion, and for a moment Vash is stuck there, frozen in place as the realization of it washes over him. He's stuck there, blinking awkwardly, as if that would do anything to erase it.

The moment stretches itself too thin, silence broken only by the ambient noises of the garden and the more distant sounds from the street, though they both feel impossibly far away. The tension visibly snaps as both Vash's hand and head fall limp, chin tilted down towards his chest and eyes slipping closed with a loud sigh, though his arm remains outstretched.

"Look," he says. The beer gets set next to him along the railing, freeing up his hands. "Just-- stick your hands in there." His own follow his directions, albeit in the empty air. "You can move stuff around. Gently . Nothin's packed too tightly just yet."

But, then again, with his luck and their current track record, things will probably continue to go sideways if he doesn't take the reigns a bit more. It grates to do so, goes against almost all of what he'd steeled himself for and is a blow to pride that usually pays no mind to punches, but Vash pulls himself up from his spot. "Like this."

The glove that usually protects his prosthetic had been discarded at some point, so it's held out of the dirt, but he has little car ( most of the time ) for soil beneath his fingernails. His organic hand softly disturbs the soil and nudges the plant at the roots. It's not entirely straightened, even as he further disturbs the dirt to make it do what he wants.

He's being embraced.

The last person to offer a move of comfort like this was Jessica, after he'd been made to take Hoppered's life. Live and suffer. Yet that point-blank curse hadn't dissuaded her from that quiet move of consolation, either.

It's not what I meant, he wants to say. Of course, he wasn't alone any longer. But being friends with him, with this alternate self who'd visibly overcome tough and tender days yet to arrive for this one...

He's still quiet, even through the attempted jab at lightheartedness. He's unsure if it sticks the landing in the slightest; the loss of visibility is both a blessing and a curse.

"I told you, what you want is important, too," Vash goes on , unmoving from where he's placed himself. "What you think. If you don't believe there's any point in it, that matters just as much. You can do whatever you want with that thought, and it wouldn't be my right to take that from you." Even if that would hurt, too. Even if the words coming out of his mouth make him that much more of a hypocrite, with how he's acted. There's no escaping the ache, once it makes itself possible-- slowly approaching, but always doing do, always lurking, regardless.

"Maybe I'm just a masochist, or an idiot. Been called both plenty a' times," he murmurs, staring off into nothing. "But even if he did hurt me, I hurt him too. Offered me the same sort of out, and I didn't take it then, either." At least, not verbally-- there was plenty of evidence to argue the contrary, that all the older Stampede had ever done was put more distance between the two of them, whether intentionally or not.

"If you were me," he asks, "if our positions were swapped, would you give up so easily?" Though, really, he can't blame his successor. How many times had the same sort of spiral left him frozen, trapped in his own thoughts?

If there is one thing he can be certain of, it's that the joy he felt watching the spaceships collide and crash on the desolate planet, filling the air with black smoke and ash, is a feeling he never experienced again. A part of him chased after it for decades, but tearing cities down and staining the blades with the blood of countless humans failed to spark it. He recalls specific details from the moments before the fall with unsettling detail - the smell of the fresh sheets when he pulled himself up from the bed, casting one final look behind before walking out. The weight of the buttons beneath his fingertips, responding to each shaky press with a steady beep, and the warm flow of blood trailing along his hand, turning dark and sticky as it set.

Some of the mental images reach further back, etching themselves in vivid lines. They are there to keep his mind occupied by things that were - somehow - less sore and bothersome than this unexpected reunion with Vash. 'You're such a quick learner!' he hears the excitable voice of the woman sitting beside him in front of the monitor, the woman who taught him the very thing that led her to her grave.

What remained of her was left buried amid the flaming wreckage of what her darling son called divine punishment.

Knives hadn't visited this place in his mind in decades.

" Humans use the concept of afterlife to console themselves. Not surprising for a species with such measly lifespans. " Most strangers he had observed from afar had settled into their lives and routines despite the absurdity of the situation. The ghosts with empty stares walking among them were truly seen only by those who dragged the shackles and 'what ifs' of the past behind them, or those who wore their pain like a second skin.

What if. What if the door was still open to the place where their biggest fight was a shouting match about who hogged more of the blanket at night or who got to choose the film they'd watch next? A place where parts of them continued to live in blissful ignorance.

The physical reaction to the hand on his shoulder comes late, as if the slumbering nerves have to realign themselves to send the signal all the way through. It drags out a jolt so subtle Knives could mask it behind a well-timed shrug if given the chance. His eyes remain on the ground for a few more seconds, waiting for the earth to split open. But there is nothing. Not even a small quake. Instead, reassuring words break through the silence.

Where to even start? Vash doesn't know. The days in which they were quite nearly one in the same have been over for nearing on two centuries, now, at least to him. Though they know one another so fundamentally, there is no ignoring all the ways they don't anymore, either.

The most glaring being that, where they had once upon a time been able to have entire conversations held entirely within the briefest of glances, now it's hard to even know hot to begin tackling the simple act of speaking with his brother. Not without threats and violence looming over their heads like a spectre, so much worse than tiny hands and bruised knees ever possibly could have been.

Held gazes, now, only show how much- or how little- of them is left, tired in ways they once hadn't been, indescribable.

They can't start over, even if they wanted to. The only way is to go forward-- it's just that the caved in maze of what they've left behind had managed to black out almost any of the light that could show them how to do so.

Still, there is no exorcizing the selfish thought that had never entirely been killed, not really, not even all these decades later and regardless of the way it, too, had warped with time.

You could have stayed. Couldn't you?

" ... Let's get out of the rain." The silence has stretched on long enough, as it is. There's no use floundering for a solution to it out here, as clothes slowly cling more and more to both of their frames.

Once again, he abandons Aurelius to head inside, looking for who knows what.

Once again, Aurelius waits until he returns to pick up exactly where they've left off.

"Porches have plants too," he reasons first. "I've seen plenty of those. I suspect you're finding reasons to nitpick me on purpose."

"I'm committed to completing your little planting challenge, but it's rather petty on your part to criticize a beginner still learning the ropes."

At least he hasn't been idle. While Vash was gone, the hole (and three more piles of dirt) have been completed, giving Aurelius plenty of room to settle the angel trumpets into their brand-new home.

"At least it's not difficult so far."

It's just that Vash hadn't planned to be the equal and opposite recipient of the same damn lesson. At this point, it's almost close to losing its initial appeal. Almost.

The cap of the bottle gets pried off with Vash's metal thumb- a bad habit that he'd made a point to try and break , but desperate times call for desperate measure- as he steps back outside. The cold beer hitting his throat still does upsettingly little to quell the despair, however, at yet more dirt puled high on his porch table.

"I'm not trying to nitpick," he grouses. And he can't exactly deny Aurelius' point, either- several plants of his own dot the porch not even a few feet away, even more hanging from the hooks around the edge of the ceiling. The difference being-

"But most people would at least try not to make such a huge mess on someone else's furniture. At least outta' court--"

The screech of metal trowel scraping against glass tabletop, even vaguely muffled by the pile of dirt also unfortunately occupying the space, abruptly cuts Vash off as his entire body flinches at just how fucking grating it is against his ears.

"This is the most efficient way," he counters, and scoops a second trowel-full of soil to pile over the first. Another shower of specks scatter and land on the grapes and into Vash's poor glass. Of course, Aurelius's own glass is perfectly fine, having been floating near his head the entire time.

"I can't see what I'm doing with all the earth in the way," the angel explains as he grabs his angel trumpet plant and tries placing it in the pot. The roots are still a bit too long, so he sets the sapling on Vash's unused chair and picks up the trowel again.

"Naturally, I need to move it elsewhere."

"And it isn't as if all this dirt will hurt you. We're still outside."

If it were anyone else, he might find himself a bit more forgiving. But as Aurelius sits calmly and makes a mess of his happy place, the mercy that was already so hard to reach for in the case of this man steadily and surely drifts ever further out of arm's length, even outstretched.

"You could have at least dumped it out in the yard. Y'know. Where the dirt goes." Even when messing around with the indoor plants, he at least had the decency to do so in the sink or the shower floor. Sure he could clean it up later with the hose, and he himself has had his fair share of minor spills, but it's the principle of the thing, and now there's dirt in the char cushion...!

A deep breath in through his nose, out through his mouth as Vash's hands finally fall down into his lap with a quiet thump, face upturned to the porch ceiling. See? He could do this whole 'emotional regulation' thing. No therapy required.

She almost sights. Typical of Vash, really, but she gets it. Whatever happened after Dragon's Nest must have been worse.

Given the state of his hair.

Still, Meryl stays quiet. Now is not the time to push. "We moved on." She repeats - more of a statement than a question.

Meryl stands from her seat, aware that it seems the tables have turned on who may need to walk now, as she speaks.

"Vash, do you want to walk me back to my home? It's not far."

She's always offering him too much, too many get-out-of-jail-free cards. Even the Meryl he knows from back home, somehow even more terrifying and relentless than he knows even this version of his friend can be, is just as guilty - regardless of her endless pursuit of getting a good scoop out of him. He still takes them greedily, guiltily, even if his hands and pockets are overflowing with them.

"Not gonna fight you." His gut feels tight, like it's expecting a blow anyway. "He's gone. And I'm here. Losin' people... I know what that means for us."

It's why those scars ache; it's why, alongside the nightmares, he feels like he's still running and running in that endless field of geraniums, reaching up for her. She sounded happy, even as she was going on ahead. So this is how it's like.

"So, thank you, too. For choosing t'hold onto those memories of who I used to be. I've seen it in all of you who chose to love him." Smiling like this, tears rolling down like this, it feels a bit embarrassing in front of an alternate self. But he can't help being himself. "Bein' friends with me, what's—ah, what's... That l-look like, any...?"

So, gently, Vash's arms once again wrap around his successor. Quiet, at least for now. Hair that was once more of a fluffy mass now pokes a bit under the line of his jawbone as it sinks down.

"Silly," he finally says through wobbling silence, voice low. "You should know, 'least a little bit. You already have friends, whether they're here or not." Somewhere on that planet he had never once stepped foot on there were people that loved Vash the Stampede, regardless of any and all of the possible kicking and screaming. That, at least, he was sure of, with how hard it had been hammered into his own skull-- no matter how difficult a time he still had grappling with it, too.

Thank you didn't at all mean he accepted the sentiment in the slightest, clearly. But pushing that angle had only made the other Vash cling tighter to that denial.

"I'd thought by sending you what you asked for, you'd've had something t'say t'me." Anything to address the voice memos' contents, he means. "Whether you do after all, you should know..."

Hesitation. His hand moves from holding the inside of his elbow to clutch at his hip instead. His gaze darts to the side; an quick exhale, and he's ready to try to look the other in the eyes again. Orange lenses do little to hide the fear.

"I'm not sure what a friendship with me would do for you, exactly." (I'm scared of you.)

"'Cause you... Already know things about me that I don't know. Already experienced things with who I used to be that I can't access as my own. N'I don't know how to make myself ready for something like that." It feels like he's some kind of madman, now, giving these months-long rushing fears his voice—their voice?

"Fact is, you're not stealin' anything, 'least not the way I see it. You're right-- you've been right-- about the fact that you n' him aren't the same. What he knew and what you know draw that line." A vague hand wave. "Somethin' there about the ship a' Theseus, I guess, I guess, if you dig hard enough for it."

"His life woulda' been yours, eventually. Does that mean he'd be stealing, too?"

That same quiet sadness from their last meeting still permeates, inescapable in its silent persistence. It doesn't seem to matter whether or not its welcome, whether or not he tries to shoo it away. Probably it would have been there regardless of which of his successors he was talking to, in some way.

"You really should come and see for yourself."

Granted, it seems harder than pulling teeth to get some of the people he knows to actually step foot through Sanctus Clinic's doors. Was his presence too intimidating? It wasn't as if he did all the counseling there...

But his eyes trail down to the pot in time, as well as the task presented to him. Aurelius doesn't find it too difficult—anyone can work with tools, much less an angel like himself. He floats his glass of sweet tea over and takes a refreshing sip first—it's the perfect drink for summer.

Then the angel rises to his feet, takes off his suit jacket and vest, and strips his gloves. He's already tossing them back onto the chair as he walks down the steps and inspects the pot of soil.

"It's kind of you to supervise," Aurelius observes, before bending down and picking up the pot. He grabs a nearby trowel on the way and heads back up the steps, setting his burden on the porch table so he doesn't have to crouch. "But the task seems simple enough."

"I'll keep that in mind," he says flatly as the man rises to his feet, not at all planning to actually do so. Honestly, he's a little bit proud of himself for not rolling his eyes so hard they'd fall out of his head at the other not even bothering to exert himself to lift a damn glass- a bit of unimpressed affect won't do any harm.

It only makes his eyebrows raise, then, when Aurelius considering the difference in weight. Doesn't even complain when it gets set on the table, even when it would probably be a better idea to do this sort of thing down on the ground and sitting on a porch step.

And then there's dirt all over his table, and Vash audibly squawks.

The table's not the only victim- there's dirt on the grapes still left in the dish and even a few flecks in his own glass of tea. All that on top of the fact that now he'll have to clean it all, after being so careful to not make a mess of the furniture and the wood--!!

"What're you-?!"

He isn't alone. But he can't bring himself to panic, watching in silence as dozens of others rush out of their prison cells - if the structures can be called such, given how they seem to open on their own once everyone is back on their feet, shouting and running towards the first exit.

There's an uncomfortable stir in the pit of his stomach, a flare of terror that shoots up and grips his cranium - the only visible reaction is the slight stagger in his step as the familiar sensation thrums through his system.

Waking up is the second most unsettling part of it.

He hadn't slept or been unconscious since waking up on the edge of the spiral. Had he, and everyone else in here, died again? Seems like an odd thing to forget. The last memory he can recall is an evening stroll through Mistwood.

It's like he had blinked and suddenly found himself imprisoned.

The narrow hallway is empty by the time he exits the room, glad to leave the sight of the prison cells behind him. The walls surrounding him are white and sterile, the small buttons on the control panels blinking in and out as he passes by.

It's all a bit too familiar for comfort. Knives remembers sitting in front of similar screens for hours on end, studying each button and combination, refusing to budge. Not until his concentration was broken by-

His head snaps up towards the call of his name, half of it audible in his ears and the other half inside his head. The static electricity whirs through his mind, making him quicken his pace. A single turn around the corner puts him face to face with his brother - and his ex-employee.

" - what is all this? "

Legato frowns with frustration, remaining still on his feet like the steel columns that held the ceiling up.

" We're being toyed with. The sooner our captor is discovered, the sooner they can be terminated. I have no plan to stay in this miserable cage, " the puppeteer remarked with an unpleasant sneer on his face.

He had reasons to believe that the brothers would be ill-suited for teamwork.

As sirens continued to blare overhead, and the denizens of Spirale rushed past them like a herd of farm animals escaping their pen, Legato cracking his neck. Lifting his hand, he twitched his fingers to test the strength of his threads. To his dismay, the very same limitations he was cursed with upon arrival to this world had returned to him.

" Our abilities are dulled. Still. . . " His thought trails as the sound of metal-on-metal impact thunders down the hallway with a low groan.

" It is either claw your way out, or wait to be killed, " Legato cut a glare at Knives in particular. Words lingered on his tongue: pull your own weight.

But he dared not say it. Not right now.

It seemed as though the commotion had summoned an unpleasant guest to their torment.

Legato Bluesummers had done little and less to Vash and his own- as far as he knew- since that horrific day in the mists. Really, they had done a pretty stand-up job of avoiding one another completely, even after whatever all those memories had been flooded back to him, along with all the conflicting emotions they'd brought along with them. And he's been here long enough, too- it's safe to assume that, if he had wanted to, he could have very easily ripped Vash's world apart at the seams.

And yet he hadn't. If anything, one hearing the way he speaks, it sounds as though Bluesummers wanted nothing to do with either of them.

Huh. News to Vash.

There's no time to mull it over, though, nothing to allot to any possible spiral of his own thoughts. Frightened shouts rise up in a cacophony along with the horrible, loud clanking of something- and then their company has arrived, big and metal and mean, and the Colt is out of its holster in an instant.

He's lucky it's loaded- can tell by the weight of it- but the volley of bullets that comes traipsing up along the metal floor and towards them is decidedly not. Neither is the fact that, as he leaps out of the way ( "Watch out--!!" ), he's realizing that the only ammo he's got on him are the bullets in the cylinder, their number paling in comparison to the thing barreling towards them.

He's done more with less, he has to remind himself. This isn't any different, present company be damned.

Whatever stragglers had been at the rear of the pack blessedly dash past and away ( there's blood on the floor, part of him registers, and worry sits like a lump in his gut, but there's nothing he can do about it right now). Vash rolls to a stop in a crouch, armored shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, aims and fires all in one fluid motion. The sound of the bullet going off reverberates through their metal echo chamber. The shot lands, metal lodging itself into metal as it comes in contact with the leg joint of the machine; the large bolt there may as well have been a bullseye.

The thing staggers, a few sparks fly, the leg crumples-- but it does little to show any effect past that. Instead Vash's eyes widen as yet another gun seems to materialize in less than a blink out from its carapace, and there's no hesitation when it starts firing once again.