Title: screaming in tune
Fandom: Trigun
Rating: Mature
Length: 450 words
Content notes: (highlight to read) perceived assault, incest, mindrape, and implied csa. ymmv on what "actually" happens w.r.t. all of the above.
Author notes: been wanting to write this one for a while.
Summary: you know what you saw.



you’re sixteen, the second time.

(you don’t remember and don’t want to remember how old you were the first time.)

but the second time, you can’t forget. it’s burned into your brain.

you’re perched on top of jeneora rock, bracing yourself on the punisher, watching vash.

you would barely be able to see him if it weren’t for the way the eye of michael heightened your senses, and as it is you miss some of the details, but the shape of him is unmistakable — lithe limbs usually hidden under his coat, the missing arm, the blond spikes of hair, the tension on his face, the fear.

he doesn’t see you. you would know, if he’d seen you — he would react. he would care. it would matter to him, that you’re not his friend, you’re his personal judas.

but he doesn’t see you. he keeps walking, all leather and scarred skin and that pinched, determined-upset expression, until he gets to his brother.

kill him! legato yowls, and then knives is there, pale and shining, rivulets of blond hair across his shoulders, and legato crumples like an aluminum can, crushed to the ground with no apparent effort.

vash draws his gun.

and then —

and then —

it happens so quickly that you doubt, for a long time, what it is you saw. but in the moment it settles into the pit of your stomach, and you know — you know what’s happening. the understanding pushes into you like a knife, buried to the hilt in your stomach.

it isn’t the first time you’ve seen —

(you remember the first time very distantly, watching from somewhere to the left of your body. you don’t remember how old you were.)

knives’ hand on vash’s face, pushing him down, pinning him. the curve of his body, like the curve of a blade.

that laugh, that leer. the delight of him, of harm.

and vash screaming. screaming and screaming and screaming, louder and with more strength to his voice than any human being, tears streaming from eyes gone white and shining, burning from within.

someone — midvalley — jostles you, shouts in your ear. run. run run run.

you turn, you run.

you know what happened to july.

you know what happened the first time vash was raped.

so you run.

you run until you’re safe, past ground zero and out of the blast radius, as jeneora rock crumbles and augusta goes up in bitter smoke and one of the fucking moons splits and scars with vash’s terror —

— and when you’re safe you fumble in your pockets and smoke through the rest of your cigarettes until your mouth is dry and you’re too nauseous to open your mouth, staring up at the cratered moon.

and you never fucking forget.