#that was the fastest ive written 60k in a while and covid puppy was written fast

[yellowocaballero]

You don't know how excited I am for whatever your Trigun fic turns out to be. Are you going for the coffee shop idea you mentioned or something else? (Either is good, I'm just curious)

Something very different! And something!! Super!!! Super fucking!! Super fucking predictable!!!!!!!! Super predictable!!!!!!!

I'm also an idiot who is a) obsessing over it and b) very happy with it. It's a joy to write, it's a big writing challenge for me, and it's funny as hell. It's like 60k but will probably look closer to 70k by the time it's done. I have so much other shit I need to do but I'm just writing it instead lmfao. Y'all want a teaser? You're getting it. I'm vibrating.

Teaser teaser teaser under the cut.

The town was empty.

Not abandoned, as more and more towns were, but empty. The town - ‘Temperance’, cute - was as small as they got, little more than a circle of buildings huddling in safety from the sandstorms and scattered specks of Thomas ranches and worm farms. Solitary homes usually ended up buried under sand dunes, so very few people on Gunsmoke lived outside of closely knit settlements. Heartwarming display of human communalism, but it rarely left them friendly towards outsiders. This was convenient and inconvenient. People had that habit.

No children played in the square. All windows were closed, and no old men with leathery skin sat on their porches and baked in the sun. It was later in the afternoon, a time when most people were scurrying underneath the calming sun running their errands or leaning against adobe walls in the shade and chatting, but the dirt-packed streets were empty. It was almost worrying. Ghost towns loomed on every horizon, frozen memorials to hundreds dead, and life was never a guarantee on Gunsmoke. But the air was fresh and fragrant, and there were no more dead than usual.

The saloon was empty. That cinched it: the town could be burning down and there would still be a drunk in the saloon. Somewhere, something more interesting than alcohol was happening. Excellent time to liberate some spare water, but he wasn’t that kind of man.

The mystery solved itself eventually, as mysteries usually did. As he approached the outskirts of the town - so, as he reached the end of the long Main Street - distant sound began to hit his ears. It was a crowd, rumbling with excitement and the characteristic tinny cry of somebody taking bets. It didn’t sound like a very large crowd, but it wasn’t a very large town.

All fifty townies, more or less, were crowded in a circle outside of the stone town walls. Men, women, and children all. They huddled together, gawking with wide eyes and uselessly flapping mouths as they watched their own private spectacle unfold. The loudest voice was, as always, the bookie, waving his small notepad above the heads of his neighbors as jangling silver coins fell into his outstretched hand. Children hovered around the edges of the crowd, straining on their tiptoes to get a better look of the proceedings.

“Just walk away,” the proceedings said. “Walk away! I don’t want to hurt you!”

Thankfully, six feet and solid bulk got you pretty far. He peered over the heads of the assembly, finally picking out the two figures in the center of the ring of townies. Two men, both young and wiry with rancher muscle. One was clearly a herder - a young man who spent his days bumming around in the sand with his friends lassoing Thomases until he married and settled down as a ranchhand or worm farmer. The other was far shabbier and wilder, with tattered denim jeans and shaggy hair. The unkempt man didn’t want to hurt anybody; the herder was far less cautious. Their bodies were angled towards the guns on their hips, ready to draw at a moment’s jump. Of course. 

Next to him, a very short woman with close-cropped dark blue hair was almost hopping up and down in rage. “I can’t see anything! Darn it, I can’t see! Quick, what are they doing?”

The giant of a woman standing next to her shaded her eyes against the setting sun, watching the proceedings easily. “They’re just standin’ there, ma’am. Jeez, you think they’re gonna make a move soon? I’m gettin’ kinda hungry.”

“If they kill each other I’m losing every inch of my appetite, that’s for sure.” The short woman withdrew a notebook and started scribbling furiously. Literate. Uncommon in towns like this - but the woman clearly wasn’t from a town like this. “Bounty Hunter Showdown! No, that makes it sound as if they’re both bounty hunters. Bounty Hunter Catches Crook! Double Death Shootout In - where are we?”

“Gee, I really don’t know!”

“Double Death Shootout In God Knows Where! So…average Wednesday.” The short woman tapped her pencil obnoxiously against the paper. “I’m not sure this is newsworthy.”

“If death isn’t newsworthy,” the tall woman asked, “then what is?”

“I’m certain it’ll be newsworthy if this guy did something interesting.” The short woman cupped her hands around her mouth, and without a single ounce of shame yelled, “Hey! Sir! What crime did you commit!”

“All I did was take a Thomas!” The criminal yelled back. Wow. That worked. “I didn’t do nothing wrong, it was just a Thomas -”

“Theft is something wrong,” the short woman said severely. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything more newsworthy?”

“Are you some kind of reporter?” The herder asked, delighted. “You gonna put my name in the paper for killing this guy, Miss? I can buy three Thomases with that bounty -”

“Just let me go,” the criminal pleaded, “I didn’t do nothing, swear!”

The short woman snapped her notebook shut. “Never mind. Nothing’s happening here that Gunsmoke would be interested in. Make note of that, Milly: life is about what’s interesting.”

“Yes, ma’am! You’re so smart!”

“Just shoot each other!” An old man yelled. The crowd cheered. 

“This planet is full of psychopaths,” Knives said. 

The short woman gasped in affront. He could have been talking about the old man. It was her own fault if he thought he was talking about her. “Excuse you? Pardon me? What did you say? Psychopath?”

Knives ignored her. The shit talking had just ramped up the tension between the two men, and their hands were drifting closer to their guns. The bounty was sweating hard, chest almost heaving with anxiety. The bounty hunter of the day - the herder with delusions of grandeur - was more confident, almost cocky. He was the virtuous one. The aggressor. That meant he would win the day. The good guy always won. He didn’t understand that he was in just as much danger as his opponent. 

Nobody won fights like these. 

Their hands drifted closer. Knives pushed through the crowd, not bothering to mutter apologies to the women in aprons and old men he pushed aside. The crowd fell silent, sensing the approaching moment of truth. Fingers twitched…

“Excuse me. Hold, please. Thanks.” 

The crowd sucked in a breath.

Knives stood between the two men, raising his free hand demonstratively in the air. Best to set an example. The two men gawked at him, hands frozen above their guns. Close enough.

“Back off!” the herder snapped. “This is my bounty! You tryin’a steal it out, stranger?”

“I don’t even carry a gun,” Knives said plainly. He carefully opened up his coat a little, showing off his empty belt. He shook his bag in his other hand. “See? Unarmed. Couldn’t hurt you if I tried. I’m just a doctor.”

“I don’t care if you’re a worm, you better get the fuck out of my way -”

“To do what? Shoot this man?” Knives slouched, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a thumb. “Do you have any idea how many shootouts end with both parties injured? Eighty percent. Twenty percent of the time it’s a double death draw. Are three Thomases worth your life?”

“That’s a bet I’m willing to take.” Of course he was. The herder was twenty at best. Twenty year olds thought they wouldn’t die if a Chief Wyrm ate them. “I can eat an injury. Now if you don’t move and stop trying to steal my bounty I’ll shoot ya too!”

But Knives just raised an eyebrow. Distantly, he saw the short woman push through the crowd and burst into the front line, scribbling furiously on her notebook. At least somebody was getting something interesting out of this. “In ancient wars, death by an infected wound was far deadlier than the battlefield. I’ve seen even the slightest bullet scratches turn gangrenous. Once had to chop off a man’s leg with a penknife.” Knives flicked his metal arm, letting the sound ring through the silent valley. “What do you think happened to my arm? One. Little. Duel.”

“I’m a good aim,” the bounty said furiously, as if he was possibly helping. “I’ll give as good as I get, asshole! You’re dead, you hear me!”

“You can stop talking.”

The herder was anxious now. Good. He tried to cover up his anxiety with a grin, flexing his hand near his gun. Poky little thing. Good shot for dive bombing predatory bugs. High accuracy, with a penetrative caliber. He could really hurt someone with it. Knives wondered if he knew that. “Then you’ll just patch me up, Doc. Right?”

 “Sure,” Knives said blandly. “Cost you about…oh, the price of three Thomases. That a price you’re willing to pay?”

The herder was silent. His eyes flickered towards the crowd - to the only person in the crowd who looked so stressed that she was about to be sick. A young, slight woman standing at the very forefront of the crowd, with a slightly rounded stomach.

“Need the money,” Knives said softly, “Don’t you?”

The herder drew. A half-second later, the bounty drew too.

The herder squeezed the trigger, and…

Nothing happened. The herder hadn’t squeezed the trigger at all: his finger had pressed through empty air, the herder watching in shock as the trigger fell off his gun. 

Behind Knives, a gun clicked. He looked backwards to see the bounty squeeze his trigger again and again to no avail. The hammer of his gun was stuck in place, jammed outwards and refusing to click back and fire the gun.

“Of course,” Knives said, “about twenty percent of duels end in weapon dysfunction. You two should take better care of your guns.”

The bounty made a break for it. He pushed through the crowd and disappeared back into the city, running as if the fires of hell itself were on his heels, and Knives knew that he was fetching his things and making a hasty run out of town. No townsperson followed to try and push their own luck. Maybe they all had the Christmas spirit. They couldn’t be afraid of any divine retribution. Guns misfired all the time. Triggers collapsed. Young men like that didn’t take very good care of their guns. Too busy acting immortal. 

Half the crowd watched Knives warily, clearly trying to discern if he had done anything. Knives glowered at them back, offended at the sheer implication that he had done the impossible and somehow sabotaged two guns at a distance. Invisibly. With one hand occupied and the other in the air. More of the crowd sighed in relief, glad that there would be no blood on the sand today. The children and teenagers were crushed with disappointment. How difficult to be them. The short woman was practically hopping with excitement as she scribbled on her notepad. The tall woman was clapping enthusiastically, as if Knives had done something.

“Bravo!” the tall woman yelled. “Happy ending for everyone!”

“Yeah, whatever.” Knives turned to the pregnant woman. “Want a check-up, ma’am?”

“Woo-hoo!”

The woman accepted the check-up. She wasn’t an idiot. Unlike her boyfriend.