Subterranean Homesick Blues

"Think it was 'round midnight." He's not sure what time it is now, but he moon was bright in the sky and the desert was cool. Closing his eyes, he takes ten seconds to lean against the cool brick, trying not to consider what the fact that so many of them are on their way means for Till and Hanabi.

He had to trust them to do with they can, and he wouldn't be able to get those bastards out of this city until he dealt with what had brought them here himself, that he understood at least.

Three minutes. He'd been able to cover a lot of ground. Standing up shakily, he leans against the wall, looking up at Midvalley. He had figured as much - Hornfreak was never as terrible as the others - but...

Wolfwood knows he can't share the extent of what's going on, even if it's clear enough by his freely bleeding wounds that he's not able to heal himself, nor does he have any vials on him.

But still, if there's one person from the Eye of Michael he could even slightly trust with this kind of thing...

He snatches the nearly-done cigarette out of his former coworker's hand, taking a drag from it before tossing it on the ground, stomping it out.

Others hauled big ass guns around on their backs.

He cranked his head upwards towards the fire escape on the building.

" There's a way to the rail station from here, straight shoot on the street, but, you'll never make it in time if you go by foot on the road. . .

--How good can you jump? "

Getting up on one of the trash cans on the side of the building, Midvalley pointed up at the small stairs of the fire escape.

" Follow me, you could cut your time if you're able to go roof to roof towards the station-- we gotta move quickly, " he urged, pulled himself upwards and climbing towards the rooftop. The rumbling of the Eye's vehicles and their gunfire was gaining upon them-- his keen ear could pick up on it with more accuracy than anybody else.

He has always been a grievance. He would have run if given a single chance for it. A chance Legato made sure he never got to have, until it was time to dispose of him.

What makes you so special that Master Knives went out of his way to choose you?

The response hits him with more teeth than he had expected, a realization that makes the corner of his mouth twitch upward. He turns abruptly, an elbow propped against the backrest of the couch as he leans into the man's personal space, his incessant stare devoid of signs of life.

" I never wanted a part of any of this bullshit in the first place! " Midvalley's voice grew louder once the vice grip around his neck was released. He gasped, slouched forward, and grabbed his throat with both shaking hands. The scleras of his eyes were lighting up red due to the restricted blood flow-- it'll be days before that heals.

He doesn't like the idea of that self-proclaimed God watching him. It made Midvalley feel like a beaten hound. Knives had effortlessly slaughtered his entire band, the only people he had been able to rely on for a decade.

" If I didn't-- if I didn't accept his offer-- "

Then the saxophonist would had been shred to pieces on the floor with the rest of them.

Midvalley doesn't finish that thought out loud. Instead, he grits his teeth and shoots a glare at Legato.

His wound had reopened, bleeding again. His fingers started to go numb, and so he followed the doctor's orders, taking some pills with a shaky hand. Slumped against a wall, it's hard not to recognize a voice parting with the people in the building he's slumped against.

"Got a smoke?"

It's all he can think to ask, grey shirt tattered and bloody, bandages blooming red on his shoulder. His glasses are gone, his eyes exhausted. "Maybe better not, or else..." he taps his own shoulder, "You know."

And of course Midvalley would know. And of course Midvalley may not be able to help him, but...

"Can you hear them comin' yet, or do I have another minute?" He doesn't have to elaborate on them. The noise would be clear, crawling from the alleyways and over the rooftops. Footfalls, gunshots. Screams.

(Don't think about that.)

"You should prob'ly figure out quick if yer gonna be helpin' them or me. Or turnin' right back 'round into that club and pretendin' ya didn't see shit."

Midvalley was in the back alley of the jazz club on his smoke break when he heard the first pop of a gun. A one off could be ignored, but another follows it, and then another-- they were several miles away still, from what he could pick up with his hearing.

But, it was the hammering heartbeat of an old ally that caught his attention. He heard Wolfwood before he saw him. The smell of iron hit his nose, blood spilling here and there as the lousy undertaker shuffled over.

"You look worse for wear," Midvalley grunted, pinching the cigarette butt between his fingers. He furrowed his brows into a scowl.

Can you hear them coming?

It sent a chill down the musician's spine.

"Yeah," he took a breathe.

This is the type of shit Wolfwood had warned him. No matter where they went, the ghosts of their past followed.

"You have three minutes at best," he dragged on his cigarette and pulled the carton out from his pocket.

"Shit, I'm not helping them. Did you know? Didn't even get my last paycheck," it was a terrible joke, but it was the only way Midvalley knew how to dial down the tension.

"You look bad," he turned his head, closed his eyes and focused on the soundwaves.

Wait, that was stupid. The Stampede visibly cringes the instant the words leave his mouth, head briefly sinking as though an invisible anvil had struck him for speaking without thinking. Vash carries on without acknowledging it any further, though a faint blush of embarrassment's settled on his face.

"Look, if you're not in trouble again, then there's no need for me to do anything. Figured you're off t'Golden 'cause you've well proven how much you liked to, ah, play." Vash frowns, eyes glancing off to the side in guilty memory.

He… did personally shatter Midvalley's means of playing music, even if it was to protect everyone, and to put an end to his brother's control over this man. Had the weight of that destruction truly bled into this completely different world?

It felt like an appropriate comparison.

Nobody was allowed in unless the powers that be allowed them to settle into Spirale.

The gunslinger brings up his passion for music, and Midvalley swallows back something that tastes bruised. Maybe it's his pride. No. Couldn't be. All of that got swept away when he willingly went with the Devil after he cut down his bandmates.

Maybe he's just aching for the taste of a reed on his tongue and a lively tune that only someone authentic could enjoy. But that wasn't happening any time soon. He didn't even have the fragments of his shattered baritone saxophone with him anymore.

" I. . . -- Listen, " Midvalley sighs and wipes the sweat off of the back of his neck.

" I'm a no good swindler, a lying bastard, and I got no issue going low if I got to in order to keep my behind safe, but my I can't deny-- it's nice to hear someone's happy to see me. Can't say I hear that much. "

An announcement for his train plays overhead. Midvalley looks Vash in the eye. That apologetic glint in his face reminds him of a boy full of guilt, caught by his mama and confessing everything. The least Midvalley could do is hear him out, whatever he's got to say.

He thinks, anyway.

Exhaling smoke, he shrugs. "If it's any comfort,"

Smoking sure wasn't any better. But if the lung disease got him before the heat, or the wrath of God, Midvalley would consider that a good death.

" Then, we could deal with 'em. "

Not like he had the backbone to do it himself when Lord Knives was a pile of viscera in a tube of fluid.

Son of a bitch. Fuck is wrong with him?

" End it all while they're down on their luck, " the drag of warm tobacco hugs his insides like the love of an old mother.

Zazie stands there, arms crossed over their chest, as they watch Midvalley think. They knew he is right - after all he was just voicing the obvious to help his thoughts.

Midvalley winces.

" Yeah, of course I do. We actually moved in at the same exact time. "

And the saxophonist had not put on his best performance when coming face to face with the man he was supposed to live with. He definitely made the guy all kinds of confused with what he had to ask; nobody in that building knew about the Earth Fleet, or Noman's Land.

If they had crash landed on this planet, all of this would had made sense.

He sighs and presses a hand to the back of his head, shaking it.

" Not like I trust him, or anybody else. Neither should you, worm, " he purses his lips, thoughtful for a moment.

Midvalley The Hornfreak

"Midvalley?" There's no mistaking his distinct style, despite being without his signature instrument.

The Stampede figures he's only made it this close to the other man for blending into the modestly populated crowd of commuters well enough; they're all waiting around for an incoming train ride, soon to take them from Fibonacci to its polar quadrant of the Golden Ward.

"...Hello." The last he'd seen of the Hornfreak was his time in the brig of Home, where he had once been held himself for a years' time in his youth. Worried that his presence might scare the man off, Vash quickly tries to ask him something, thinking that a conversation could help steel the other's notably fraught nerves.

Double dollars and pocket change didn't exist in this world. Those musicians made due.

That's what Midvalley was working on as well: paying his dues, trying to make himself a part of this city that had swallowed him up like a sandworm. The train to Golden would take him to the jazz bar that he had been cleaning tables at in order to earn enough money to afford food for his hungry belly.

Dreams of spicy gyros filled his mind, so much that he nearly missed the voice calling out to him.

" Yeah? "

Wait.

Now, any time someone had known him by name, it was a devil coming to remind him of who he was before waking up in a beat up taxi cab. Naturally, that puts a stiffness in his shoulders, as if he could manifest armor to protect himself.

Midvalley takes a breathe, and exhales before turning around.

" --- You. "

Vash the Stampede?

You headed straight to Golden, or. . .?

He looked wary. Had devils come to play with the gunman as well?

For a moment, he's no longer standing in a train station. Twin suns are baking his skin, making sweat trickle down his neck as he waited for a sand steamer to sail him across the great deserts of Noman's Land.

But blues manage to sound louder than his memories, a sharp crescendo of trumpet music snapping Midvalley back into reality.

" That's where I'm heading. How did you. . . ? "

Ah man.

" I should have known they'd take pity on you. Have I told you that there's a- very specific kicked dog aura to you? " he has, many times. And Legato remembers each and every situation that called for him to point it out.

He moves again, taking a seat next to Midvalley and downing another mouthful of his sugar-coma-inducing drink. The taste of alcohol in it is mild and pleasant, and he leans against the backrest, crossing his legs. To an outsider, the scene plays as nothing more than two friends conversing and spending quality time together.

Turns out, the reaper wasn't coerced with an intimidating scowl or the threat of a punch.

His methods were more sophisticated, too sophisticated for a man like the Hornfreak to combat.

Legato's kicked dog comment makes Midvalley's eye twitch. Sure, he had gone through a shocking adjustment when those people on the Home ship took him in, but at least he was given fresh water, cool air, and shelter from the murder maniac who had been dictating his life for years now.

" I'm as much of a kicked dog as you are, " he makes the cutting remark.

For now, he grants Midvalley the grace of subtlety. He restrains him in a way that wouldn't draw attention from curious onlookers beyond a glance or two. Especially given the quietness of this particular corner of the club.

" That's my question. Last I remember, I sent you off to die. "

He speaks the words with his usual melodic cadence. It's a sharp contrast to the rapid movement with which he presses the heel of his boot into the plush edge of the seat the man is sitting on, just an inch or two away from his leg.

But like every single time before, when the azure reaper comes with his scythe, there is no running.

There really was no safe place for him to hide from his tormenter.

He followed him here, to this city, to this jazz club.

Every muscle in his body tensed, his fingers twitching against the couch, expression wide like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck.

" Go to hell, " he grunts through grit teeth.

But Professor Midvalley’s classes were the exception. After all, you can’t learn the piano without a piano, and a humble gardeners salary could never hope to afford one.

Chara stands next to the bench, watching Midvalley’s fingers as they glide across the keys. They feel the tug and pull of their own fingers, safely wrapped in the assistive device that keeps their wrist in place. They look at the open spot their professor has offered, and quietly slide into it, hands finally resting against the ivory.

Right now, the most important accomplishment as a teacher, was for him to help Chara fall in love with music.

Safe travels! Your semi-hiatuses have been noted!