#knifeinthenight

[goldendivinewrath]

@knifeinthenight liked for a thing!

"I'm not afraid of you." There was no venom in the words, no particular force, but there was no particular gentleness in them either.

It was truth. He did not fear his brother. He was not afraid of his twin, of this other half of a unique life, a unique experience. They were born together, had clung to one another quite often throughout childhood. They were close, once. Worlds and years ago.

What Vash feared was what his brother might do. What he was capable of, after what he'd demonstrated before. He had hope, regardless; unfailing optimism walking alongside guilt and pain and terror. He held on to the idea that if his brother could just see it from his point of view, he might understand. Not agree, maybe, but understand, and then--

I'm not afraid of you. He meant that, he did. It was just... complicated.

[agloryofuniicorns]

@knifeinthenight asked: "Okay. Okay. All right. This is fine." Famous last words? 'This is fine' usually meaning that things were absolutely positively not fine in the least. What was one to do but to keep moving forward regardless of the questionable challenges otherwise standing in the way? Wasn't like the world stopped spinning or something while everything else played catch up. "I've woken up in weird places before." Vash nodded, matter of factly. "Not usually with a scantily clad lady above me though." ( @knifeinthenight to your Velvet from my Vash from Trigun! I love LOVE Tales of Berseria. I cried so many times during that game lmao)

"Scantily clad?" Velvet's voice came out in a low, purring growl as she stared down at the man. Her left arm itched with a desire to feast, but she held herself back; there was use in the lost souls that she had found during her journey. Roukurou, Magilou, Eizen... Laphicet. Even Eleanor had proven to be move useful breathing than dead.

It didn't stop her from allowing the blade on her right arm to snap out, ending just inches above the man's face.

"Maybe you should be careful where you let your eyes wander. Or maybe I should just leave you here for dead and let the cold claim you."

It wasn't like the people of Hallawes would be eager to help him. Lady Teresa's influence, and the slow degradation of the Exorcists, had slowly made them turn far more distrustful of each other and of strangers. They'd probably be willing to allow the man to freeze to death before allowing him into the small town.

Velvet stared down at him before stepping back, sword receding into the brace on her arm. "Who are you?"

[angclwept]

 don't give me that look . @knifeinthenight

                            ❛      how  do  you  expect  me  to  look  at  you  now?      ❜            steely  voice  comes  from  the  gunman,      eyes  once  averted  now  narrowing  as  they  look  towards  the  brother  that  had  turned  int  a  graveyard  of  all  that  once  had  been  dreamed,      a  nightmare  that  had  taken  innocence  and  twisted  it  into  a  blackened  malady  across  the  remaining  gasps  of  humanity.      where  did  it  all  go  wrong,      he  at  times  finds  himself  wondering,      only  to  realize  exactly  what  it  was,      where  it  was,      that  everything  went  wrong.      fingers  carefully  wrap  around  the  gun  in  hand,      index  resting  alongside  the  trigger  with  features  set  in  grim  determination.      stoniness  slowly  overtakes  expression,      knowing  that  the  hardness  would  serve  to  only  further  ignite  brother's  rage.      but  there  was  little  more  than  he  could  give,      talk  with  him  always  brushed  off  and  perceived  as  worthless      (      for  pleas  had  continuously  fallen  on  deaf  ears      ).      a  show  of  force  had  become  their  only  form  of  endless  interaction,      a  violent  uroboros  that  resulted  only  in  more  pain  and  death  of  the  people  and  the  world  around  them.      

                             ❛      you've  never  wanted  to  talk  in  the  past,      why  should  i  expect  that  to  change  now?      ❜

[peacehunter]

"How's 'hunting' peace working out for you, brother? I see you have another scar to add to the list of others." [ @knifeinthenight ]

@knifeinthenight

Vash trudges through the windswept desert, his crimson coat fluttering like a wounded flag in the evening light. The sun is sinking below the horizon, casting long shadows that seem to stretch endlessly, matching the exhaustion he tries to conceal. The fight had been resolved—if one can call it that. He’d calmed the situation, talked them down, turned their guns away from each other, but not before someone’s desperation had grazed him.

The injury had stopped bleeding long ago but the ache remains, a sharp sting with every step. Vash is clutching his side lightly, gloved fingers sticky with dry blood. He can't bear the thought of anyone seeing him like this. So he is quickly looking for an isolated place where he could properly fix his appearance as though nothing had happened. But as he drags himself past a jagged outcrop of rock, his instincts scream just a second too late. The familiar voice catches him unprepared.

Vash freezes in his tracks, the hairs on his neck prickling.

He swallows hard, his throat dry. His first instinct is to turn away but that would just show he is trying to hide the obvious. He shifts uncomfortably, pulling his coat tighter around his frame.

“ Knives… I didn’t know you were— ”

—Here...

[driftingjazzbard]

"Is there a reason you're staring at me?" There was a calm efficacy behind Knives tone of voice, the way his cool blue eyes didn't even hold much in the way of emotion at all. Whether that be irritation, annoyance, or anything that happened to be caught in between. Which, it could be supposed, was where the true danger lay.

"Nope, nope!" Stranger or not, didn't matter. Vash hooked an arm around the one of hers closest to where he'd been standing, guiding her into a brisk walk exactly in the opposite direction.

"What a nice day for a stroll, eh?" He laughed, but it was sort of manic and sad.What a way to meet. He was sure to get a slap. It would be worth it to save her from his brother's wrath. ( @knifeinthenight i hope you don't mind a random ice breaker!!)

@knifeinthenight

The evening went from normal to deeply confusing within seconds. One moment she's trying to figure out what time it was and whether she should be trying to find a gig or somewhere to sleep, the next...

Well. Next several things, all rather in a row.

She'd been planning on responding to the man, and perhaps in a somewhat less than respectful tone, when she was whisked away by a different one. Tall, blonde, pleasant enough but what the...

"If I'm being kidnapped this is the strangest way to do it I've ever seen."

This was frankly on the very low end in terms of disrespectful grabbing she'd endured, having someone take her arm like he was about to escort her to a dance was less upsetting and more just weird. The whole thing was weird, too much so for her to be scared, at least as of yet. It was still on the street, after all.

[titlacahuans]

@knifeinthenight

❝ to abandon a poisonous path and walk another is no small challenge. ❞ (from @knifeinthenight to stupid little brother)

Ragnarok.

"...Which is the poisonous path though, Nai?" and who was he talking about? Vash, of himself? He didn't trust his brother like he once did, not anymore, but he does trust that the other does believe what he's saying. In his mind, it makes sense, just as it doesn't in Vash's own, "We... We have already done this before. There's nothing you can say to sway me, just as there's nothing I can say to sway you. Why do you... At this point you're just hurting us both, you know that, right?"

[trigshoot]

"Vash." A call of his name without containing even the slightest connotations of the inner workings of their past exploits against one another. It would seem to anyone else that a name uttered aloud could not possibly contain so much meaning behind it. They would be wrong. "Tell me what it is you really want." ( @knifeinthenight )

a feeling of numbness spreads from the tips of his fingers, creeping up his arms and bringing along the familiar yet frustratingly undecipherable barrage of emotions. the weight that sits stubbornly on top of his chest every waking hour makes itself known again.

the question awakens several answers in his mind, repeating through each with no end in sight.

a break. a single moment of inner peace that i do not deserve. for us to not look at each other with disdain. revenge. the old you. the old me. are you still there? i used to know you.

it's strange how the adrenaline coursing through his veins simultaneously makes vash aware of the complete exhaustion that seems to be embedded into his very being, the one he keeps at an arm's length to push himself forward.

he has to. he has to. this is his responsibility. he is his responsibility.

his hand quivers as it's balled into a fist, jaw tightening, teeth gritted together with anger and sorrow and frustration and every other emotion he can't name.

" for no one to have to suffer because of our existence. it doesn't have to be like this." / @knifeinthenight

[bulletblessed]

❛ I don’t understand why you won’t see what’s right in front of you. ❜ (from @knifeinthenight )

@knifeinthenight | yellowjackets

Tʜᴇʏ'ᴠᴇ ʜᴀᴅ this conversation over and over and over again. How much he wants to believe that this time will be different. How much he wants to believe that this time, finally, he finds that one angle that makes his brother reconsider what he's doing. How much he wants to believe that he can finally get through to him, convince him to at least think about a different approach if not change his ways outright.

Then again, if anyone ever doubted them being siblings, one just needs to look at how stubborn the both of them are, how unwilling to move from their position. It's not even a matter of an unstoppable force and an immovable object, they are both the object, absolutely adamant to stay right where they are, certain that they are right. He's not about to change his mind just to prove a point. He is somewhat considering shaking the other, if that would change anything, in the way most sibling fights eventually end in hair pulling or biting.

(Given, their 'hair pulling' and 'biting' is city wiping, strips of land annihilating, but the concept ends the same.)

"Funny. I could say the same."

It's nearly under his breath. Usually not a good idea to make him think he's making fun of him. (He's not. He's just very tired. How much he wants to find the right words to get into that stupid, thick headed brain of his. He would do almost anything if it meant he would see reason.)

"Are we going to go through the same beats as usual alphabetically, or by severity?"

Okay, maybe he's making a little bit fun of him.