This fic was born fully-grown from my head, kind of like Athena.   I was on a walk, and I had just read something online about how Rem was the most important character of Trigun.  It got me thinking about Rem's influence on Vash, and Knives's influence as well.  I had also just seen the 'Project SEEDS' tape, so I was dwelling on the nature of Vash and Knives's creation, blah blah blah.

Long story short, I got this question in my head: What if the Project SEEDS ships had never been needed?  What if Rem had never needed to leave Earth on the ships?  Suppose that Vash and Knives just drifted through the cosmos, until they were pulled into the Earth's orbit... and Knives dies in planetfall, as an infant, before he develops his poisoned philosophy?  And what if Rem found Vash anyhow, but his depression over his brother's death led him to become cynical and unaffected by her beliefs, even after her death?

In short, what would the cast of Trigun be like if the two most influential characters had no power at all?

I couldn't work on this for the longest time, because I didn't have enough knowledge of the Gung-ho Guns, and I didn't want to spoil myself just for the sake of a fic.  I hope that my patience is well-founded.

***

One

(Vash.)

I've always been frightened of the stars.  They seem to be representations of all that's wrong with the universe--cold, unfeeling, harsh.  How could anything look down on this twisted, wasted earth and manage to twinkle so beautifully?

The only answer is because they don't care.

I remember being among the stars--once.  That was over a hundred years ago.  I was an infant, birthed into a universe I couldn't possibly start to comprehend.  And I was alone--so alone.   Few people can understand the power of that word unless they have floated in the darkness of space, unless they have had nothing to look at but the pale, pearly mesh spheres that speckle the void, unless they have not a soul to communicate with.

Well, all right; I did have somebody to talk to.  My brother.  He never had a name--didn't live long enough to get one.  He and I drifted together in the cruel nothingness that was the cosmos.   We had nothing but each other... nothing in the world.  We could not speak, as we had no language, but it didn't matter.  Our conversations took place in our minds.   They moved in silences and emotions, in a way that people limited to words would have difficulty believing.

And even so, it didn't matter.  He died.  We were pulled into orbit around this planet, unable to resist the inevitability of gravity, unable to realize what was happening to us.  He burned like a falling star.  I escaped with only a collection of scars that make people cringe to this day.  I used to consider myself lucky.  Now I wonder if he was the lucky one, to escape this Hell masquerading as a planet.

I remember coldness, and crying, and misery for three days after landing.  Then, there was her.  Rem.   Rem Saverem--I always thought her last name was funny.  She was the one who saved me.  She took me up, a bleeding, screaming infant, and took me in.  She taught me things in the year I was given with her--language, for instance.  Religion.   She always loved God, and always told me that I was an angel.  Alex had gone to live with the angels, she said.  But I had never seen him, so I privately thought that if I was an angel, then Alex must have gone to Hell.  I could never tell her that, though.  She taught me about spiders and butterflies, something I still don't think I understand.  She taught me about love and peace, and the preservation of life, and the morality of death, and the responsibility of murder.  Many things.

And yet, her God didn't seem to want her on His earth, preaching His gospel, for too long.  He took her in a car accident--some drunk just ran her right over, like a dog.  Like something lower than a dog.  Like a monster.  And I was left with nothing.  Rem had no relatives, and I ran away from the orphanage inside three months.  I couldn't take it there anymore.  Other boys beat me up, called me a sissy.  They taught me things, too--cussing and fighting, and the hopelessness of life.

And after that?  The streets.  The streets taught me things as well.  I learned that rich men have many uses for young boys with no homes, and I was used for all of them.  I learned to die or let die.  I learned all about the things that kids my age shouldn't know--all the sex, the drugs, the pleasure and pain.  I learned to steal or starve.

I have had over a hundred years to consider all that's become of me, and I always reach the same conclusion.   Rem had her heart in the right place, but she was naive to think for one second that her philosophy of "love and peace" could ever be achieved.  Words about saving both the spiders and the butterflies ring hallow when you're forced to choose between knifing someone in the back and getting a meal that isn't crawling with larvae.

I have killed many spiders in my time.

Quite a few butterflies, too, if memory serves.

Do you expect me to shed any tears?  Why?

It's not as if it matters.

(Milly.)

"Thanks again!" I said, waving one arm wildly about, as the grocer door swung shut.  Mr. Perry, the man who runs the store, lifted up a hand in farewell, then returned to dithering with another customer about the price of pepperoni.  I shouldered my satchel filled with the food I'd bought--Legato and Midvalley's beer, Meryl's Kraft Macaroni, enough popcorn and soda for all, and my Pocky--and hurried over to where Marks had parked the limousine.

It's not easy being Milly Thompson--although, by all reports, there are teenage girls all over the United States who would kill to be in my place.  How many women my age get a tenth of the wealth generated by my parent's company, which made over a trillion dollars in the last year?   But I'm also sure that many women wouldn't want to share what Time calls my "eccentricities".

How many millionaire women also run boarding houses, after all?

It's strange, I suppose.   People have always fascinated me, and I have always been taught to help others in need.  It's just natural for me to spend some of my wealth on those who really need it.  A few years ago, I built a separate house on my property for the sole purpose of giving travelers and vagabonds shelter.  Milly and Nick moved in right away, naturally--they're my best friend and ex-boyfriend, after all.  A stream of others followed.  Eventually, Legato and his group of fellows blew in through my door, and have been here ever since.  They are a very... difficult... bunch to get along with.  But once they warm up to you, you're in for life.

I enjoy owning this place.   I love having people around me all the time, and being able to take care of them.   Most of them also love being taken care of, Nick being a notable exception.   And even he has his moments.

In fact, when I got in the limo that day to return home, I had no idea that the course of my life was about to be altered. 

And in retrospect, I'm still not sure whether or not this change has been a good thing.

(Vash.)

I felt the guy staring at me before I actually saw him.  He was one of those young men with mouths full of trash and hearts full of hate which seemed to crawl all over the city like a disease.  Kind of handsome, too, in that tough, angry sort of way.

"What do you want?" I hissed.   I pulled my coarse brown cloak tighter around my body.  Something about him gave me the chills.

"You're in my spot, asshole," he growled in reply.  "Been sleeping in this alley for the past three years.   Who the fuck gave you the right to move in?"

"Seems like this is public property."

"How the fuck would you know?  I ain't ever seen you before.  You from outta town, ain't you?  New, pretty boy, movin' in to hustle the rich old queers and breeze outta town in a week?  I ain't givin' up my spot to some pussy-boy like you.  Get the fuck outta here!"

I opened my mouth--probably I was formulating some witty retort--but I closed it again when he pulled out a gun.  It was one of those junk pistols which was more likely to explode when you pulled the trigger than to fire a bullet... but I didn't want to get hit by the shrapnel.  Carefully, I got to my feet, holding one hand up in a sign of submission.  The other was clenching my cloak around me.  I backed out of the alley, not looking to see where I was going, my eyes locked onto the barrel of that gun.

Despite it all, I still didn't want to die.

As if God heard me and decided that he wanted to shit all over my request, a sleek black limo came shooting out of the darkness like a bullet, and knocked me into blazing unconsciousness.

(Meryl.)

Out of all the many people Milly had brought home in her time, Vash had to be the most pathetic.  I remember sitting in the living room with Dominique, watching Chocolat on TV.  We were both laughing our asses off at the part in the beginning, when she tells the mayor to call her "mademoiselle", when the front door slammed open.  I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"What is it now--?" I muttered rhetorically as I got up to see what Milly had brought in.

"I'd rather not know," Dominique answered, glued to the TV.

"Wimp," I groused, and ducked out of the room before she could launch a pillow at me.  I started running down the hallway, but wound up colliding with Milly, Marks and their... odd... burden.  All four of us fell in a tangled, cussing, whining heap on the ground, with barely enough space in the narrow hall to get free of one another.

"MILLY, WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DRAG IN NOW?!" I shrieked.

"I DIDN'T DO IT!" she cried in denial, trying to get her foot unstuck from my belt.  "MARKS RAN HIM OVER!  I COULDN'T JUST LEAVE HIM THERE!"

"I'm SORRY already!" Marks put in as he squirmed out from underneath the unconscious blonde's body.

"Oh, no, of course not!" I snapped at Milly.   "You couldn't have just taken him to a hospital!  No!  You have to make my life difficult!"

Finally, the three of us who were awake disengaged from each other.  We all stood in silent contemplation of the blonde weirdo at our feet.   The first thing that struck me was how incredibly tall he was--almost as big as Wolfwood, and that's pretty damn big.  His hair was a long, tangled blonde mop past his shoulders; it might have been longer if it wasn't snarled, matted, and clotted together with filth.  His whole body--and the dark rags that served as his clothes--was dirtier than I thought anyone had a right to be.  His bare arms were covered with scars that made me wince to look at them.  I noticed the tiny mole he had right below his left eye, almost invisible under the grime on his face... and then, the smell hit me.  He absolutely reeked of years of dirt, blood, sweat, tears, and abuse.

What made it all worse was the look he had on his face as he slept.  He looked so... at peace. 

Almost angelic.

I sighed.  "What're we going to do with him now, genius?"

"Well, that should be obvious," Milly replied briskly.  "Marks, go get Legato and Midvalley, and get them to help you carry Mr. Hobo.  Take him to the big bathroom in my house.  I'll bathe him myself.   Meryl, you go borrow some of Caine's clothes, and ask..." she pursed her lips in thought "...Leonov and Rai-dai to make dinner for me tonight.  This is going to be a difficult job.  Tell them to stick with simple stuff, like sandwiches and salad, or they might give everyone food poisoning again.  And don't let anyone touch the beer in my grocery sack; Legato will kill me if Zazie gets into his Coors again!   'Bye!"  Having given her orders, Milly ran off, supposedly to her mansion to draw a bath for this mystery man.

I looked down at the bum, then up at Marks, who was already down the hall and banging on Legs's door.  I watched as Legato flung the door open and managed to hit the hapless chauffeur spang on the forehead with a Webster's Dictionary.  I put my head in my hands, and groaned inwardly.

"And right now," I muttered, "how bad does my life suck..."