#phytonomy

@phytonomy​

Days bled into weeks, his hours spent in precise control over his prisoner. He barely slept, even when he found himself resting however briefly, it was fitful. The effort began to tax his already twisted and broken body, forced to consume greater quantities of food to maintain the strength it took to hold the most ungrateful twin.

Day and night and day again, his thoughts were consumed by him. He became obsessed, though perhaps the word is not quite strong enough. Aside from his everlasting love for His Grace and Light, there may as well have been nothing left at all, save his boundless hatred for Vash.

He should be happy. Humanity is wiping itself out- Settlements reduced to chaos and destroyed. Only the worst ones are left now... And they soon would join the others. He had wanted to join in the slaughter, take as many lives as he could- The ones who deserved mercy, the others that he would torture slowly. His preoccupation with Vash kept him trapped on the Ark.

A balmy evening finds him in front of the cramped box of steel that houses the betrayer: A Judas of unspeakable magnitude. A wan smile cuts through the air of condescension, his disgust still palpable even as he grins like the skulls impaled on his shoulders.

"Can you hear them? It's beautiful, the screaming... Even now the Sinners rock on their knees in an attempt to repent for their transgressions, but there will be no forgiveness- That opportunity has long since passed. They will cry and pray, beg and cajole, but they will die. All of them."

Legato kicks the cage and grinds his heel against the metal until it groans, leaning an arm against his crooked knee.

Light rain drizzled and danced off fat leaves, rolling down and catching on branches and roots that snaked their way down to the earth. The canopy spares him from the elements, though whatever raindrops that managed to sneak through the foliage above probably felt refreshing on his face. The weather is pleasant; humid, but not unbearable. Warm, but not searing. The shade is cool and calm. Augurflies slowly glide through the air, and pteryx hop from tree to tree, watching the vagrant newcomer with curiosity.

Then, he'd reach a muddy clearing. The ground would squelch under his boots and leave prints behind. Ferns lined the treeline thick; obscuring fallen logs and branches that hung low. Its quiet here. Placid, at first, and then . . . slowly twisting to an eerie silence.

12. A kiss along the collar bone

The roadhouse has grown rowdier in the hours since dusk, tradesmen and wanderers and rustlers piling in to the dusty little town's watering hole to drink and piss away the money they've earned during the day.

Nicholas is not his best around crowds. Too many variables to track, even if the eclectic decor is curiously absent of any wanted posters. Two points of standard entry, six windows on the bottom floor, stairwell up to the matchbox rooms, two windows in each, easy enough to climb. Route to the kitchen behind the bar. Side exit. Basement. Hall to the restrooms to the left, around back, steady (unsteady) foot traffic.

None of the eyes glitter with avaricious recognition of the Typhoon in their midst. They are more keen on the sputtering jukebox and on the bartender slinging watered-down beers, taking bets on when her bustier will give up.

Just as Nicholas reaches for his whiskey, a lanky shape interposes. Vash straddles his thighs, the grace of a seasoned Tomas jockey belying the flush on fair skin and the dewy, hazy look behind round amber spectacles. It's a mystery where he acquired the orange and green tie wrapped around his brow. It does nothing to constrain the cascade of spikes.

The shot glass appears in bottle-blue fingers, and its contents disappear with a bob of Adam's apple right at eye level.

Maybe it's sheer ire for having his drink stolen. Maybe it's impulse buoyed up with the slow burn of half a bottle down. Maybe it's something else. Something honest. In vino veritas, something like that.

Bold and shameless, Nicholas cranes forward, a bracing hand pressed to the small of Vash's back. Adroit, his tongue darts out to nudge the omnipresent mock-turtleneck collar down, enough to expose just the peek of cybernetic-strewn skin. With the point he chases, tastes a trail from pulse to clavicle, a forceless press of lips and stubble that rises from its descent, making space for a thrum teasing Vash's earring.

💢 an angry letter (Knives)

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Vash slouches heavily against the side of his cramped prison cell, every bone, every muscle, ever fiber in his body aching in a way he can't recall experiencing in over a century. When he realizes he's been permitted this small relief he immediately begins pouring all his energy and attention into his good arm and soon finds himself cut off from the flow and forced back into the same rigid position in which he'd spent the last several hours- days? Weeks? He can't say now. Time feels as though it passes in great swathes and goes nowhere- or like it isn't passing at all. After a point the constant pain and fatigue began to blend into a new normal, yet it starts afresh every time he feels a lapse in Legato's attention and makes a new grasp for freedom. It's never enough. The man's determination at maintaining Vash's confinement is as relentless as his devotion to Knives. Even after everything that had been done to him... Vash could almost feel sorry for him, were it not for his current circumstances.

He tried talking to him in the beginning. Not to convince Legato to let him go-- an endeavor he knew would be fruitless-- but just to understand. What made him turn his back on his own people, what fueled his rage, his hatred so fervently that he had become what he is now. That quest had been just as unsuccessful and eventually Vash had to abandon it for his own good. Maybe Legato's as well...

Craning his neck upward he can make out the sparse layout of the room above him through the corrugated metal grate. Familiar vestiges of as ship not unlike the one they'd been raised on. Faintly he marvels at how much of it had survived- how his brother had managed to make this much of it functional again. He wishes he could be impressed. How had they come to this? His mind travels back for what feels like the hundredth time, traveling through memories both fond and painful. They are a welcome distraction in some ways, and in others more agonizing that the torment his body has been put through. Inescapable even in sleep.