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ladybug_archiveWell, I decided I want to post what I have done so far of this one-shot/songfic and see what's thought. Opinions are loved!
~I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel~
Gin was never certain exactly how it happened. He had returned to his suite after completing his latest assignment, feeling apathetic, as he almost always did now. The thrill, the excitement of the hunt had long ago dissolved into a cold, hard sense of fulfilling a duty to those to whom he was bound. He did not feel much of anything any more, and had not for some time. It was similar to how he had felt when he had first begun his training as an assassin, only it was different in the respect that now he had seen and experienced---and had lost---so much.
As he opened the door of the darkened room and flicked on the light, he took in the emptiness with a dull numbness, as he had done every day for a time period the length of which he had lost track. Everything was the same. The furniture was arranged as it always had been---the two chairs across from each other, the coffee table between them, the stands to the sides of the chairs bearing ashtrays, the lamp. . . . The bedroom doors, one closed, the other partially open. . . . All the same. And yet it was not the same as it had once been.
Hearing a soft crackling underfoot, he looked down and saw that he had stepped on an envelope that had been pushed under his door. Muttering, he picked it up and reached for the knife he had been using as a letter opener.
He still did not know how it managed to slip. But as he sliced the top of the envelope, a sharp, pronounced pain suddenly stabbed into his right wrist. Looking down, he saw that the blade had cut into his flesh. Blood was starting to drip from the wound, onto the knife, and onto the envelope and the floor. Cursing, he dropped both weapon and parcel onto the nearest stand and clutched at the injury with his left hand. More crimson sneaked through his fingers.
~I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real~
He was surprised at how much such a seemingly simple wound could hurt. He had been injured far worse than this over the years he had worked as an assassin for the Black Organization---among other things he had been repeatedly shot, poisoned, involved in car accidents. . . . But this small stab wound from an ordinary pocketknife seemed to throb much worse than any of those other times. Perhaps it was because he had not felt anything for so long. He had been living on auto-pilot. And suddenly this injury had jarred him fully into reality. Or was it the only thing that was real?
Instead of going to take care of it, as he should have, he sank down into the nearest chair, still gripping his wrist. Everything over the past few months seemed like a bizarre dream, a chain of events that logically should not have come to pass and yet did anyway. He was alone in the suite, and had been since that one assignment had gone wrong, resulting in him and Vodka both being badly injured---and for Vodka, it had been fatal. That had been half a year ago.
He had finally encountered Sherry again, two months previous. She was dead now, his longtime mission finally completed. But instead of feeling any sort of satisfaction over sending her on to Akemi, he had felt a strange emptiness as he had watched her collapse into the snow, bleeding from the fatal wounds. They had grown up together, they had loved each other deeply, and they had come to feel betrayed and had hated each other. Gin had made it his goal to find and eliminate her, but now that she was indeed gone, he felt, in some strange way, alone. There was nothing left. All of the people he had ever been close to in some way were gone.
~The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting~
He had completely closed himself off to everyone, even more so after Sherry's demise. The bitterness he felt had been mounting---bitterness toward Vodka, Sherry, and Akemi, the Organization in general, and himself. All of them had been mercilessly used and manipulated by the Black Organization's leader. Their lives had all been for naught. After their worth was gone, they were picked off, one by one. His own time would come eventually. But perhaps death would not be such a bad thing. It had been the only release for the others. And in the meantime, he would continue to do what was expected of him, as he had done for years.
Slowly he became aware of a knocking on the partially open door. He had forgotten to close it, and when he looked up, he found to his annoyance that Vermouth was there. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. "What do you want?" he growled.
She pushed the door open further and stepped inside, the quiet smirk he despised so much gracing her features. "I just decided to drop by when I heard that you'd got back," she answered, and surveyed the blood on the table, the knife and the envelope, and oozing from between Gin's fingers. Her reaction surprised both herself and Gin.
Her blue eyes widened and the smirk left her face. "You idiot! What did you do?" she cried, seizing Gin's left arm in an attempt to pull his hand free from the wound.
Not having expected this at all, Gin's grip was loosened. "What is your problem?" he snapped, glowering as she began examining the wound.
She looked up at him. "How did this happen?" she demanded, still with that same concerned tone of voice.
~Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything~
He regarded her with irritation. "I had an accident with the knife," he answered flatly.
She blinked, and then seemed to relax. The smirk returned. "I didn't know you were so careless, Gin," she remarked. "And you should be taking care of this so it doesn't get infected."
Gin gave her the gaze of emerald ice that had scared away many a fool who had spoken to him out of turn. "You're not my nursemaid," he snapped. "I was going to take care of it."
"Ouch," she purred. "Well, you should do it then." She watched him get up from the chair and head for his room. "You're lucky it didn't slice the vein," she commented now.
In the bathroom adjoining his room, Gin turned on the faucet and held his wrist under the hot water. He glared at his reflection in the mirror, pondering over Vermouth's odd initial reaction to him having been wounded. And then there was her most recent comment.
He was not surprised when he noticed her own reflection in the mirror as she came and leaned in the doorway, though he was definitely irritated. "What are you saying?" he growled. "Did you think I'd done it myself, on purpose?" He turned off the water and reached for a towel, patting the wound and the surrounding area dry before getting out the first aid kit and setting it on the counter. He cursed when he could not get it open with one hand.
Vermouth reached over to give him some unwanted assistance, and the case snapped open. Gin began to search through it until he found the bandages. Vermouth simply stood back and observed him, her expression sobering again. "Gin, let's not kid ourselves," she said then. "You've never been the same since Vodka was killed. . . ." And since you killed Sherry, she added silently. "I know you're not a suicidal person, but when I came in and saw the knife and the blood . . . I don't know. I wasn't thinking."
Gin looked up at her, his eyes burning. "Why should his death mean anything to me?" he retorted. "I was trained to not care about anyone." He fumbled with the bandage, but at last unwound it and wrapped it around the injury. She did not have any right to come in here and speak of things that she did not understand.
~What have I become,
My sweetest friend?~
"You refused to take another partner," Vermouth said after allowing him a moment of silence to work out the frustrations of the bandage. "Instead you've done your work alone. And you've continued to stay here, in this suite, while you're on the base. . . ."
"Because there wouldn't be a reason to leave," Gin answered harshly. "I don't have any connection to Vodka or to this place. He lived here once. Now he doesn't. And I don't want another partner because I can get things done better on my own. Someone else wouldn't know me well enough to work with me without screwing up." He glared at her coldly as he slammed the box shut and replaced it in the cupboard. "I'm not the only person to refuse a partner after a previous one was lost."
"Yes, I know," Vermouth nodded, and then paused. "But you admit that Vodka knew you, then." She smiled. "Someone else could learn how to work with you . . . but they wouldn't be able to take his place. And . . . I doubt that you would ever have the same sort of rapport with someone else."
Gin stormed out of the bathroom, through his room, and back into the living room. "Vodka and I worked well together, it's true," he admitted. He opened a drawer in the stand and took out a cigarette pack. Removing one of the objects inside, he placed it in his mouth and lighted up. After a moment he looked over at Vermouth, who had followed him in. "But if you think I'm some kind of sentimental sap, you couldn't be further from the truth."
Vermouth regarded him with mock horror. "Oh, of course not!" she said, and then sobered again. She came and stood in front of him, looking firmly into what she could see of his green eyes. "I know you're not like that. You're a hardened assassin, one of the man's favorites. But to care about someone is only human, Gin. And underneath it all . . . you're still human. You cared about Vodka, in some way."
~Everyone I know
Goes away in the end~
Gin snorted. Still human. . . . It sounded preposterous, for anyone to say that to him, and especially in the context in which Vermouth meant it. "It's also human nature to mindlessly fight amongst ourselves and destroy each other like animals," he pointed out flatly, ignoring her other comments.
Vermouth smirked. "True," she acknowledged calmly.
She paused. "The man was pleased with you for finally getting rid of Sherry," she remarked.
Gin looked at her searchingly. "So what?" he retorted.
"Nothing," she said calmly, "except that you haven't seemed as gratified as I thought you would be. You'd been looking for her for so long, with the intention of killing her for being a traitor."
"And I did." Gin was irritated. "If all you want to do is try to pick apart my brain, you're going to be disappointed. You should just leave now." None of this was Vermouth's business. How dare she show up here, acting as though she knew everything about him and what was going on in whatever was left of his heart? How could she, when Gin did not know himself?
Gin had loved Sherry, but he had killed her out of hate. Or had there still been some of the old feelings there when he had pulled the trigger? Had he wanted to send her on to Akemi, knowing that it was the only way for her to be free of the Organization's grip? Perhaps Vermouth's concerns over Gin killing himself were not entirely unfounded. Both of them knew very well that to die was the only real way out. But no, that was not the way he would choose.
~And you could have it all,
My empire of dirt~
The blonde woman continued to regard him as if she knew him. Her eyes had narrowed slightly now, as if she was growing vexed. "You're such a stubborn jackass, Gin," she said now. "You could never admit to caring about anyone, whether it was Akemi, Vodka, or Sherry." Then she paused, as if something else had just occured to her. "You could never even say it to yourself," she declared. "As far as you're concerned, you really don't care about anyone, do you?"
"That's right," Gin snapped.
Ah, if only FF.net hadn't outlawed songfics.... **sniffle.** Removing the song would eliminate the whole point of and the inspiration for the story! I left all my old songfics up there, after taking out the songs, and it really does lessen the effect.
~I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel~
Gin was never certain exactly how it happened. He had returned to his suite after completing his latest assignment, feeling apathetic, as he almost always did now. The thrill, the excitement of the hunt had long ago dissolved into a cold, hard sense of fulfilling a duty to those to whom he was bound. He did not feel much of anything any more, and had not for some time. It was similar to how he had felt when he had first begun his training as an assassin, only it was different in the respect that now he had seen and experienced---and had lost---so much.
As he opened the door of the darkened room and flicked on the light, he took in the emptiness with a dull numbness, as he had done every day for a time period the length of which he had lost track. Everything was the same. The furniture was arranged as it always had been---the two chairs across from each other, the coffee table between them, the stands to the sides of the chairs bearing ashtrays, the lamp. . . . The bedroom doors, one closed, the other partially open. . . . All the same. And yet it was not the same as it had once been.
Hearing a soft crackling underfoot, he looked down and saw that he had stepped on an envelope that had been pushed under his door. Muttering, he picked it up and reached for the knife he had been using as a letter opener.
He still did not know how it managed to slip. But as he sliced the top of the envelope, a sharp, pronounced pain suddenly stabbed into his right wrist. Looking down, he saw that the blade had cut into his flesh. Blood was starting to drip from the wound, onto the knife, and onto the envelope and the floor. Cursing, he dropped both weapon and parcel onto the nearest stand and clutched at the injury with his left hand. More crimson sneaked through his fingers.
~I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real~
He was surprised at how much such a seemingly simple wound could hurt. He had been injured far worse than this over the years he had worked as an assassin for the Black Organization---among other things he had been repeatedly shot, poisoned, involved in car accidents. . . . But this small stab wound from an ordinary pocketknife seemed to throb much worse than any of those other times. Perhaps it was because he had not felt anything for so long. He had been living on auto-pilot. And suddenly this injury had jarred him fully into reality. Or was it the only thing that was real?
Instead of going to take care of it, as he should have, he sank down into the nearest chair, still gripping his wrist. Everything over the past few months seemed like a bizarre dream, a chain of events that logically should not have come to pass and yet did anyway. He was alone in the suite, and had been since that one assignment had gone wrong, resulting in him and Vodka both being badly injured---and for Vodka, it had been fatal. That had been half a year ago.
He had finally encountered Sherry again, two months previous. She was dead now, his longtime mission finally completed. But instead of feeling any sort of satisfaction over sending her on to Akemi, he had felt a strange emptiness as he had watched her collapse into the snow, bleeding from the fatal wounds. They had grown up together, they had loved each other deeply, and they had come to feel betrayed and had hated each other. Gin had made it his goal to find and eliminate her, but now that she was indeed gone, he felt, in some strange way, alone. There was nothing left. All of the people he had ever been close to in some way were gone.
~The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting~
He had completely closed himself off to everyone, even more so after Sherry's demise. The bitterness he felt had been mounting---bitterness toward Vodka, Sherry, and Akemi, the Organization in general, and himself. All of them had been mercilessly used and manipulated by the Black Organization's leader. Their lives had all been for naught. After their worth was gone, they were picked off, one by one. His own time would come eventually. But perhaps death would not be such a bad thing. It had been the only release for the others. And in the meantime, he would continue to do what was expected of him, as he had done for years.
Slowly he became aware of a knocking on the partially open door. He had forgotten to close it, and when he looked up, he found to his annoyance that Vermouth was there. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. "What do you want?" he growled.
She pushed the door open further and stepped inside, the quiet smirk he despised so much gracing her features. "I just decided to drop by when I heard that you'd got back," she answered, and surveyed the blood on the table, the knife and the envelope, and oozing from between Gin's fingers. Her reaction surprised both herself and Gin.
Her blue eyes widened and the smirk left her face. "You idiot! What did you do?" she cried, seizing Gin's left arm in an attempt to pull his hand free from the wound.
Not having expected this at all, Gin's grip was loosened. "What is your problem?" he snapped, glowering as she began examining the wound.
She looked up at him. "How did this happen?" she demanded, still with that same concerned tone of voice.
~Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything~
He regarded her with irritation. "I had an accident with the knife," he answered flatly.
She blinked, and then seemed to relax. The smirk returned. "I didn't know you were so careless, Gin," she remarked. "And you should be taking care of this so it doesn't get infected."
Gin gave her the gaze of emerald ice that had scared away many a fool who had spoken to him out of turn. "You're not my nursemaid," he snapped. "I was going to take care of it."
"Ouch," she purred. "Well, you should do it then." She watched him get up from the chair and head for his room. "You're lucky it didn't slice the vein," she commented now.
In the bathroom adjoining his room, Gin turned on the faucet and held his wrist under the hot water. He glared at his reflection in the mirror, pondering over Vermouth's odd initial reaction to him having been wounded. And then there was her most recent comment.
He was not surprised when he noticed her own reflection in the mirror as she came and leaned in the doorway, though he was definitely irritated. "What are you saying?" he growled. "Did you think I'd done it myself, on purpose?" He turned off the water and reached for a towel, patting the wound and the surrounding area dry before getting out the first aid kit and setting it on the counter. He cursed when he could not get it open with one hand.
Vermouth reached over to give him some unwanted assistance, and the case snapped open. Gin began to search through it until he found the bandages. Vermouth simply stood back and observed him, her expression sobering again. "Gin, let's not kid ourselves," she said then. "You've never been the same since Vodka was killed. . . ." And since you killed Sherry, she added silently. "I know you're not a suicidal person, but when I came in and saw the knife and the blood . . . I don't know. I wasn't thinking."
Gin looked up at her, his eyes burning. "Why should his death mean anything to me?" he retorted. "I was trained to not care about anyone." He fumbled with the bandage, but at last unwound it and wrapped it around the injury. She did not have any right to come in here and speak of things that she did not understand.
~What have I become,
My sweetest friend?~
"You refused to take another partner," Vermouth said after allowing him a moment of silence to work out the frustrations of the bandage. "Instead you've done your work alone. And you've continued to stay here, in this suite, while you're on the base. . . ."
"Because there wouldn't be a reason to leave," Gin answered harshly. "I don't have any connection to Vodka or to this place. He lived here once. Now he doesn't. And I don't want another partner because I can get things done better on my own. Someone else wouldn't know me well enough to work with me without screwing up." He glared at her coldly as he slammed the box shut and replaced it in the cupboard. "I'm not the only person to refuse a partner after a previous one was lost."
"Yes, I know," Vermouth nodded, and then paused. "But you admit that Vodka knew you, then." She smiled. "Someone else could learn how to work with you . . . but they wouldn't be able to take his place. And . . . I doubt that you would ever have the same sort of rapport with someone else."
Gin stormed out of the bathroom, through his room, and back into the living room. "Vodka and I worked well together, it's true," he admitted. He opened a drawer in the stand and took out a cigarette pack. Removing one of the objects inside, he placed it in his mouth and lighted up. After a moment he looked over at Vermouth, who had followed him in. "But if you think I'm some kind of sentimental sap, you couldn't be further from the truth."
Vermouth regarded him with mock horror. "Oh, of course not!" she said, and then sobered again. She came and stood in front of him, looking firmly into what she could see of his green eyes. "I know you're not like that. You're a hardened assassin, one of the man's favorites. But to care about someone is only human, Gin. And underneath it all . . . you're still human. You cared about Vodka, in some way."
~Everyone I know
Goes away in the end~
Gin snorted. Still human. . . . It sounded preposterous, for anyone to say that to him, and especially in the context in which Vermouth meant it. "It's also human nature to mindlessly fight amongst ourselves and destroy each other like animals," he pointed out flatly, ignoring her other comments.
Vermouth smirked. "True," she acknowledged calmly.
She paused. "The man was pleased with you for finally getting rid of Sherry," she remarked.
Gin looked at her searchingly. "So what?" he retorted.
"Nothing," she said calmly, "except that you haven't seemed as gratified as I thought you would be. You'd been looking for her for so long, with the intention of killing her for being a traitor."
"And I did." Gin was irritated. "If all you want to do is try to pick apart my brain, you're going to be disappointed. You should just leave now." None of this was Vermouth's business. How dare she show up here, acting as though she knew everything about him and what was going on in whatever was left of his heart? How could she, when Gin did not know himself?
Gin had loved Sherry, but he had killed her out of hate. Or had there still been some of the old feelings there when he had pulled the trigger? Had he wanted to send her on to Akemi, knowing that it was the only way for her to be free of the Organization's grip? Perhaps Vermouth's concerns over Gin killing himself were not entirely unfounded. Both of them knew very well that to die was the only real way out. But no, that was not the way he would choose.
~And you could have it all,
My empire of dirt~
The blonde woman continued to regard him as if she knew him. Her eyes had narrowed slightly now, as if she was growing vexed. "You're such a stubborn jackass, Gin," she said now. "You could never admit to caring about anyone, whether it was Akemi, Vodka, or Sherry." Then she paused, as if something else had just occured to her. "You could never even say it to yourself," she declared. "As far as you're concerned, you really don't care about anyone, do you?"
"That's right," Gin snapped.
Ah, if only FF.net hadn't outlawed songfics.... **sniffle.** Removing the song would eliminate the whole point of and the inspiration for the story! I left all my old songfics up there, after taking out the songs, and it really does lessen the effect.
