#“you've heard of mummy and daddy issues but no one ever prepares you for brother issues” - someone most likely vash

[littleogreboii]

my dreams provide the gateway to the nightmares i forgot

AO3

Even without his memories, nightmares about what could have been continue to plague Eriks. Sleep becomes his own personal hell. (Post Season 1 Trigun Stampede)

Warnings: Body Horror, Independent Plant Experimentation, Nightmares.

Characters: Vash the Stampede (Centric), Tesla (Unnamed but Present), Millions Knives (Mentioned)

Author Notes: just a short little fic about eriks sleeping :) what a cute nap he has :))))

She’s pulling him along again, her nails digging holes into the flesh of his hand. Flesh hand. His brain stutters. Both hands are flesh. Why wouldn’t they be flesh? It settles deep inside a pit in his stomach. It’s all wrong.

They tear down winding hallways, twisting and turning yet never seeming to reach an end. The walls darken, paint peeling as they run further and further. A scream resonates within him and bounces off the walls, overlapping with another layer to create a harmonious cacophony.

He wants to stop running.

His brain creaks trying to recall why there’s a harrowing feeling threatening to drown him, but he can’t. All he knows is he needs her to let him go. He needs to get away. Her grip tightens, mocking him.

“Please.” He begs. “Please stop.”

Her pace is relentless, only seeming to grow faster the further they travel. He tries to pull away, but the nails dig in further, leaving trails of blood trickling down his wrist.

“Please.” He tries again, trying to dig his heels in. It only results in him stumbling and almost greeting the ground.

“Please, I can still save you.” He’s not sure where the words come from, but they drag out of him raw and desperate. They form a lie sitting heavy on his tongue.

Inevitable.

The words rotate in his mind. The end starts to appear ahead. A door grows to loom over them. The dread clutches his stomach in a vice grip. They can’t go in there. They can’t. If they go in there, they’ll-

They can’t go in there.

He reignites his fight against her, reaching for the walls in the hopes of dragging himself away from her. Chills wrack his spine as he’s pulled closer and closer to the door.

She comes to a stop at the doorway, hand not relenting on his in the slightest. She starts to turn and he pleads and begs for her to look away. It’s useless. Their eyes meet, the smile on her face is a reflection of the agony he imposes on others.

“I’ve seen too many smiles from people who were hollow inside.”

Her smile melts away as her organs spill out crashing onto the floor with a sickening squelch. He falls to his hands and knees, trying desperately to replace them. The ground is wet with blood and fluid, dying the white of his pants an ugly shade of pink.

“Please.” He begs again. “Let me save you.”

An ice cold hand brushes against his cheek, in what should be comfort, but her eyes are empty as they stare past him. There would never be light in them again.

“Vash.”

He rises, leaving her to the ground. She disintegrates in a flourish of geraniums, and with her his memories too. 

His body is cold as he steps into the room. A container sits broken in the centre as the screams reach a climax. A small part of his brain corrects it to ‘her container’, but for the life of him, he can’t recall who she would be.

It’s been him screaming all along, as though it were a heartbeat. A second voice echoes the scream back to him and this too he recognises. He was never to be alone in his agony.

His hand reaches across the glass of the container. Her prison. A smear of a blood handprint is left on the glass as he lowers his hand.

“Sorry.” He gasps out, as his brows furrow in confusion. The guilt eats at his stomach, but he can’t find the cause. His throat is raw, but the screams continue to leave him, dragged out by some unforgiving cosmic force.

A sharp note snaps his attention up. Across the room, sitting mockingly where the console should be is a large organ. The face of one of his fallen sisters looms over him, gaze contorted into permanent agony. He thinks that if he could see his reflection now, that would be all that greets him.

Before he can even think of approaching the organ, another note rings out and the floor beneath him disappears. His left hand reaches out, grasping for something he isn’t sure of, but then there’s laughter echoing all around him as his arm explodes in a shower of geraniums and blood.

Water splashes all around him as his body moves on its own accord, trying to find a break in the all consuming. There’s glass all around him and faces peer at him from all around. He can’t make out the details, but he knows deep in his gut what this means. 

The humans have found him and now they are going to tear him to pieces.

His body is unrecognisable in the reflection he catches in the glass. His intestines float, unravelled around him. There is no skull for which his eyes sit in, only the brain they remain attached to. There’s no mouth left for him to scream out of, yet the sound continues to tear itself out of him.

One of the figures moves closer to the glass, and if he still had the nerves to, he’d flinch. As it is, he stares unmoving at the figure, as the shadows fade away and he’s left to stare at his personal hell.

“Isn’t this what you wanted, Vash?” His name is dragged out in a familiar taunt, as he can do nothing more than gaze upon his brother.

Erik’s jolts upright in bed. His lungs crash against his ribs as the last of his scream peters out. He gasps, terror rippling through him in waves as tears tear down his cheeks. He sits in the dark, lost in his own fear.

But for the life of him, he can’t quite recall why he’s so scared in the first place.