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“N-Nai…”
“Shh, it’s okay, Vash,” Knives says back in a hushed voice. They have to stay quiet, always so quiet. No idea what kind of predators could be near them.
“I’m scared,” Vash confesses in a small voice. Knives can’t bring himself to look at Vash’s face. He knows that whatever expression his brother is making will just make what he has to do so much harder.
People used to call Vash a crybaby, but Knives knew his brother better than that. Vash rarely ever genuinely cried, but his voice is too thick and wet now for it to be an act.
Knives can’t blame him. He’s sure that Vash is in a lot of pain right now, and Knives hasn’t even gotten started.
“I’ve got you,” he reassures. “You’ll be alright, I’ve got you.”
The grip he has on Vash’s left wrist, pinning it down, tightens.
“I just have to–” He swallows. Chokes. His mouth is dry. “cut this off.”
The sharp point of his blade hangs suspended over the bite on Vash’s arm. It’s swollen and bright red at this point, and the entire limb is already beginning to look diseased. Knives can see every individual puncture where teeth sunk into his brother’s flesh and clamped down without mercy. The ring of the bite seems to glow menacingly, and its shape is burning into his retinas, imprinting itself on his mind.
There’s something angry about the bite. Something malicious. It’s mocking him, Knives can tell.
But Knives won’t let it take his brother from him.
If only Vash hadn’t gone back when he heard a scream as they walked away from the settlement they had stayed the night with. If only Vash hadn’t felt the need to save that woman. He heard Vash call her name in panic before he had rushed in, already raising his gun. Luida. Knives will remember that name.
“Nai,” Vash’s whimper draws Knives back to himself. He takes a shuddering breath and refocuses.
Knives stares at the meat of his brother’s arm. Visualizes the muscle and bone he’ll need to carve through. He wishes his blade was bigger. Wishes he had something sharper. Something that would make it quick, instead of the horrible gorey hacking and sawing that Knives knows this will become.
The tourniquet wrapped tight around Vash’s upper arm can only cut off the infection for so long before there’s no hope left. He just has to act fast with what he has. Faster than this.
Their meager first aid supplies are already spread out and ready off to the side. Hopefully far enough away they won’t get covered in blood, but close enough to reach out and grab when Knives is done.
“It’ll be over soon,” he lies, as he puts one of the leather straps from their bags into Vash’s mouth, between his teeth. Vash will need something to bite down on.
He settles the sharp edge of the blade against Vash’s arm, and Vash tenses under him.
“Try to hold still.”
Then, gritting his teeth, Knives bears down.
Vash groans low in the back of his throat as his skin splits under the blade’s weight, and the way his other arm jerks and spasms has Knives grateful that they had the forethought to tie it down. He keeps going, leaning into the blade, pushing it as deep as it will go before–
It catches on something.
Vash can’t hold his screams in when Knives starts sawing. They’re muffled through the leather but no less shattering to hear. The serrated portion of Knives’ hunting knife pushes and pulls as it cuts through thick sinew and begins to bite into the bone. Knives has to lean to the side, pinning Vash’s shoulder and side down with his full weight when Vash’s body starts to thrash and tremble despite how much he’s clearly trying to endure it.
There’s blood on Knives’ face now. He’s had blood sprayed on his face before, has had to kill to survive in this world the same as anyone else (except Vash, who could never bring himself to aim for the head. Who aimed for legs and took out knees, crippling the monsters that mindlessly lunged for him. The monsters that were already dead.)
But there’s something different this time. The blood is hot.
Vash kicks out, the heels of his boots scraping against the dirt underneath him. His teeth are clenched so tightly on the strap between them they seem to creak. He tries to be quiet again, but screeches still escape from between the thin gaps.
“I’m almost done,” Knives says, feeling a cold calmness come over him. He’s just doing what needs to be done. There’s no going back now, not when he’s halfway through Vash’s arm and has already spilled so much of his brother’s blood. “It’s almost over.”
He tunes out Vash’s screams from that point onwards. They become muffled to Knives’ ears, distant background noises he can’t afford to pay attention to.
It’s a relief when his blade finally hits the earth. It’s a relief when he can pull on the wrist he holds and watch the entire limb follow. Knives sets it aside, still calm, not looking at the now slack hand that Vash was able to clench in a pain and tension-held fist not even an hour ago.
Vash is still awake, but silent, his skin clammy with sweat and eyes half-open. Knives checks the remaining part of his arm while his brother is still in shock, making sure none of the infection managed to reach past the tourniquet while he was working on cutting off the part already too far gone. The stump is an ugly thing, all the flesh and meat is torn and ragged from how aggressively Knives had been sawing through it all. It looks like a ravenous beast mauled it.
Knives knew better than to think he’d be able to make a clean cut, but the state of Vash’s arm still makes something in his stomach drop. It was necessary, and Knives doesn’t regret it, but he still did this to his little brother.
“Vash,” Knives begins. You’re alright, he wants to say. You’re clean, he wants to say. You won’t become one of those things because I saved you, he wants to say.
He says none of those things. Just reaches for the first aid kit, and works with a detached efficiency to sanitize the wound as much as he can, staunch the blood flow, and then tightly wrap the stump of his brother’s arm.
It isn’t nearly enough, but they can’t stay here. Vash needs somewhere safe to recover, and this spot is no longer safe in any sense of the word. Not after all the screaming Vash did, and not with the smell of fresh blood soaked into the dirt. Those monsters will be on them any minute now, Knives knows. Drawn like sharks to their next meal.
But Knives… doesn’t move. He stays frozen in place, kneeling beside his brother, watching faint breaths wheeze in and out of Vash’s chest. The absence where Vash’s arm used to be feels so loud, and a ringing builds in Knives’ ears as he becomes more and more aware of the amputated arm laying just beside him. He doesn’t want to turn to look at it. He won’t.
They need to get going. They need to move. His little brother is bleeding out in front of him and he still isn’t moving.
Slowly, he pushes himself into action, moving mechanically as he gathers their things. His hand hesitates over Vash’s gun holster, but he takes it and straps it to his own hip. He’s aware that he doesn’t know his way around a gun quite as well as his brother does, but he’d rather have a weapon he could use quickly from a distance than have to rely on his own knives right now. Hauling Vash across the wasteland that their world has become will leave him vulnerable in a way he isn’t comfortable with.
… as well as his brother did, Knives reminds himself as an afterthought. Who knows how Vash’s gunmanship will change without both arms.
Knives always needled Vash about not being able to do anything without him, but now, Vash really will need his help for most things, probably for a while.
If only Vash hadn’t thrown his arm in front of Luida when one of those dead creatures had lunged for her throat. If only Vash hadn’t played the hero. If only he had let her die like she should have.
If only.
“We have to go, Vash,” Knives says, as he unties Vash’s other wrist and helps his brother sit up. Vash is still disoriented and barely conscious, and Knives wouldn’t be moving him if he didn’t have to. “C’mon, get up.”
“M-My… arm…?” Vash rasps after Knives gets him standing, his voice hoarse from screaming.
Knives finally allows himself to look at the limb he left on the ground. It’s white and bloodless now, and the dark bite stands out even more.
“What about it? We can’t bring it with us.” Lugging around a hunk of meat like that would be suicide.
Vash breathes heavily through his nose for a moment, his eyes screwed shut. After a beat, he slowly nods. “Y-Yeah, right.”
Knives is glad that Vash accepted that so easily. In a silent apology he helps his brother back into his ridiculous huge coat, but then the soft moment passes as he continues to try and spur Vash into motion. Vash can barely walk, only able to take a few staggering steps before he’s groaning and slumping heavily against Knives.
“I’ll carry you,” Knives says quickly, with no room for argument. He shifts their packs until the bulky things are on either side of him, then crouches in front of Vash and gestures for him to get on his back.
Vash swallows heavily, looking like he might be sick. He tries to climb onto Knives’ back, but really just ends up clumsily falling against him. Knives helps as much as he can, reaching back to hold Vash up by his thighs and encourage him to hold onto his hoodie with his remaining hand.
He’s frighteningly light. An arm weighs a lot it seems.
Knives looks up, towards the town he and his brother had just left the day before. There are buildings still standing. Houses. Shops. Pharmacies. It had shelter that he and Vash had only left behind because Vash had wanted to keep up his ridiculous search for Rem.
(He didn’t believe Knives when he told Vash he saw her be torn limb from limb. Vash thought he was just being cruel, because he had never liked her. So he indulges Vash’s search, until Vash has explored enough of this world to understand that she is gone.)
“We’re going back to the town,” he says, making the decision regardless of if Vash wants to go back or not.
Vash doesn’t respond, but Knives can still feel his breath against the back of his neck, and that’s good enough for him.
So, with the heat of the sun and his brother heavy on his back, he starts to walk.
They travel in silence for a while. Knives not willing or wanting to speak, and Vash unable to.
Until Vash–who Knives thought was unconscious–makes a soft sound that cuts off and turns into a worrisome gurgle of pain. “M’ arm hurts,” he hisses.
Knives doesn’t need to ask which one.
“I’m looking for shelter for us,” he reassures, and picks up the pace.
They’re on the main road when Knives hears something impossible. The distant rumble of a car engine.
He turns, eyes wide, to look back down the road that he has been trudging along. There’s a beat up Jeep rattling his way that, as it gets closer, Knives can see seems to be more patchwork fixes than actual car frame.
But he understands. Working cars are coveted by almost everyone. If you have a car, you’ve either killed to keep it, or killed to get it. So you want to keep it running as long as possible.
Knives’ gaze hardens. He stops where he is, and waits for the car to catch up.
Just as he thought, the car begins to slow when the people inside see him. It rolls up beside him, revealing the group of men who all leer at him.
There are five, Knives notes. He looks at each of them in a split-second, taking in the space between them, the angles they’re sitting at.
“Hey,” says the one in the driver’s seat. The leader, Knives assumes. “Looks like you’ve got more than you can carry there, friend. Want us to take some off your hands?”
Everyone they meet, everyone, is always so damn greedy.
And Knives isn't without self-awareness. He knows he can be rather greedy too. But he has a purpose to his greed. A cause.
Knives feels Vash’s grip on his hoodie tighten.
“No,” he says.
Before anyone can react. Before anyone can stop him. He raises Vash’s gun, and fires off five shots.