Sand and Dust - Trigun Stampede
Yeah... I don't have any words for this one really. Vash has been living rent-free in my head and I need to get all my ideas out before I forget them, so please enjoy this hiding/allergy scene that definitely should've happened but unfortunately didn't. Set between episode 4 and episode 5. I love this little family and Vash duh <3
Comments and tags and feedback are always loved and appreciated as well ☺️
After their escape from the worm, the band of journalists and outlaws stop at an desecrated shanty town to search for fuel and supplies. It's small, with only a few buildings standing as proof that people ever lived here. The place looks like something out of a horror movie.
Meryl is the only one who wants to keep going. Something about this place doesn't feel right to her. “The radar says there’s a populated outpost fifty miles from here. We shouldn’t stop here, it looks abandoned.”
“I’d like to stretch my legs,” Roberto says, one of the first to hop out of the vehicle. Wolfwood and Vash follow shortly after. “And it looks like it’s three to one, newbie.“
“We won’t be here for long,” Vash reconciles gently, opening Meryl’s door for her. “It’ll be better to search here first, in case the next outpost isn’t welcoming.”
Meryl grumbles something about wanting to go one day without getting shot at or eaten by something before she hops out of the car, following behind Roberto.
“Vash and I will search the shops for supplies. Roberto, you and the kid find some fuel for the car,” Wolfwood says as he lights another cigarette, his cross weighted across his back. “Meet back here in forty five minutes.”
The two groups split up and head in opposite directions. Roberto and Meryl walk towards what looks like a service station while Wolfwood and Vash search a dilapidated store for bullets and supplies.
“This place looks like it’s been abandoned for years,” Wolfwood says as they saunter inside. Golden flecks of dust dance through the air, like shimmery diamonds. Just the sight makes Vash’s nose itch.
Wolfwood kicks over a box and rummages through the contents. “Wonder what happened.”
“There’s no plant here… but it doesn’t seem like there ever was one to begin with. Maybe they just couldn’t keep supplying the town.” Vash looks around the store. The windows are shattered, the shelves toppled over in a heap. The place has been ransacked, either by bandits or something else.
He starts to investigate for any information or signs of life while Wolfwood kicks another box over. Vash's gaze lands on deep, long scratch marks on the floor that lead out the door. They’re about a meter long and are cut deep into the wood.
“Was someone dragged out of here…?” It doesn’t look like an animal made this. He looks closer at the walls. There’s smatterings of blood near the baseboards and pieces of the wallpaper have been ripped apart. More signs of struggle.
Suddenly, the earth begins to vibrate, deep and slow. Vash freezes as the walls begin to shake and the broken glass on the floor starts to chatter. Dust billows off the tops of the shelves in waves.
Vash slides quickly over to the broken door and presses against the wall, peering outside. Something is here.
“Wolfwood,” he hisses, searching for him in the store. The undertaker appears silently beside him, like a ghost, and Vash nearly yelps in fright at the surprise.
“We’re being hunted.” Wolfwood’s breath is low and quiet. “Another worm, or something of the same size. See the sand over there?” He points to the enormous, sharp ridges rising like waves at the edge of the town.
Vash gasps when he realises where it's crawling to. “It’s heading for Meryl and Roberto—“ He moves to lunge towards the door, but Wolfwood is quicker and shoves him roughly against the wall, his hand pressed tightly to Vash’s chest.
“Idiot! Do you want to get swallowed up again? If they hide and keep quiet, it won’t know they’re there. We just have to wait it out.”
Vash heaves an irritated sigh but relents. Wolfwood is right. The worm might know they’re here, but as long as they stay put, it should pass on. He tries not to imagine the poor human who made those scratch marks on the floor, a helpless victim for the worm’s appetite.
They wait, pressed against the wall as the sand starts to shift towards the store rather than the service station. Even though it's now headed for them, Vash feels hope blossom in his chest at the fact that the worm has changed course from Meryl and Roberto. He shuts his eyes and sniffles, eager to get out of this dusty store.
The earth rumbles again, sending sheets of dust and sand off the shelves again. The aftermath hangs suspended in the air directly around Wolfwood and Vash, surrounding them like a fog.
Vash rubs at his nose. The itch that blossomed in his nose when they walked into the store has become more persistent, rooted. His eyes are starting to water and he can feel his throat becoming tight as the dust enters his sinuses. This is not a good time for his allergies to act up. He tries not to breathe, but that just makes the itch worse and makes his nose start to run. The rumbling gets deeper as the worm approaches. It feels like there’s a tingling, burning fire in his sinuses. He presses his head back against the wall, breath catching in his chest as the itch becomes too much to hold back.
“Hih… hh… hihhh…!” His eyes slip shut as he hitches, eyebrows pinching together in sneezy irritation. He’s going to—!
“H’NDKT!” Suddenly, there’s a warm hand pressed against his nose, pinching his nostrils shut and forcing him to stifle. He releases a shaky breath and opens his teary eyes to see Wolfwood staring daggers at him.
Don’t. You. Dare. He seems to say with his gaze. Wolfwood's hand is still clasped around Vash’s nose.
The worm rumbles past them, the vibrations growing lighter as it moves on.
Now that the imminent danger is out of the way, Wolfwood releases Vash and grabs him by the collar of his jacket, pulling him up so that Vash is just dangling in the air by Wolfwood's fists. He chokes in surprise and grips his wrists.
“You dumbass! You’re going to get us killed!“ He hisses, pushing Vash back against the wall.
“S-sorryhh… ihht’s the duhh.. duhhst…- heh! H’IGKT’uh! Hih’IGKTsh!
Wolfwood has dropped his grip on Vash’s collar to press his hand around the blonde’s nose again and catch the two sneezes. They both freeze as the rumbling of the earth comes to a sudden halt. They've been heard.
They’re chest to chest now, silent. The only sounds Vash can hear are their heartbeats pounding rhythmically in their chests, waiting for the inevitable.
In an instant, the worm races back in their direction again and the earthquakes resume in greater intensity.
Wolfgang presses him so tight against the wall that Vash can barely breathe. They need to stay silent. He can only drink in small sips of air around his hand, which is probably for the best because every breath just ignites the itch deeper in his sinuses. He rubs his nose against Wolfgang’s hand, desperate for relief. He’s so itchy. He has to… he’s going to—
“Vash—” Wolfgang stutters as he watches Vash’s features twist again. This is a battle that Vash is going to lose.
“H’ihTSSHHhiew!” Vash sneezes loudly against Wolfgang’s hand, unable to hold the sneeze back despite the support. Wolfgang curses under his breath as the spray coats his hand and pulls his hand back, readying his cross. The rumbling of the earth intensifies.
The itch has multiplied in his nose, flecks of dust and sand pressing themselves deeper into his sensitive nostrils. He sneezes again, and again, and again.
“H’TSCHhh! H’ITSCHh’tssh! Hh-ih… H’aHTSSCHhh’ue!”
“You absolute dipshit!” Wolfwood shouts and punches him in the chest. Vash grunts against the blow and leans against the wall. Any remaining glass on the window shatters as the worm screams beneath the sand.
Wolfwood grabs his machine gun cross and rips off the fabric, twisting the cross across his shoulders. He takes aim as the worm peaks above the sand with a roar. The building shakes and the ground starts to give way beneath them.
“Run!” Wolfwood kicks Vash in the ass out the door, sending him falling on his face and into the sand. He sneezes again but scrambles to his feet as the worm rams its enormous neck into the store.
Wolfwood fires off a round at the giant beast’s head, leaping towards solid ground before racing after Vash. His bullets make direct contact and penetrate the beast's hide. The worm roars and sinks back into the sand, bloodied and angry. The earth shakes again.
“If we survive, I’m going to kill you!” Wolfwood smacks the back of Vash’s head as they near the vehicle. Roberto and Meryl are already in the front seat, searching for them.
“Drive!” They both shout as they tumble into the backseat. Without missing a beat, Meryl shoots the car forward and they take off.
Vash is in the middle of a sneezing fit as they drive away from the town, holding his head in his hands. "H'idTSHh! Heh... H'ipTSHhhiew! Hih-hih-hh..! H'ITSSHhhh'ue! Snfff..."
He takes a deep breath and slumps against the seat, exhausted, but not before one final, "Huh.. hahktschh..." It's no more than a release of air and is a testament to how tired he is. He snuffles again and scrunches up his nose as the itch subsides.
"Enough! Will you shut up already!" Wolfwood snaps, pressing his body tight against the car door. He looks like a sibling who wants to do nothing more than to get away from his younger, annoying brother. Anger rolls off of him in fiery, unrelenting waves.
In the rearview mirror, Meryl watches as the general store sinks into the sand and the worm rises above again, its cries splitting the sky. It decides not to follow them, luckily.
“Jeez. No wonder that town is abandoned,” she says, turning on the radio. “I told you guys we shouldn’t have stopped there. We could’ve been swallowed up again!”
“Blame needle-noggin over here,” Wolfwood mutters, pressing a cigarette to his lips. He casts a glare at Vash out of the corner of his eye, who is pawing at his irritated nose.
“I told you I’m.. I-hh.. h’ITSHHiew!” He sneezes again, the spray catching Wolfwood’s thigh. “Sndff! I told you I’mb sorry!”
“I don’t care! And would it kill you to cover your mouth?!” Wolfwood punches Vash’s arm and turns to glare out the window, mumbling something about how disgusting Vash is and how he wishes he’d left him with the worm. Vash just smiles and rubs at his arm, chuckling sheepishly.
“Hey, boys, no fighting. Be nice,” Meryl chides, angling the rearview mirror to look at both of them.
Vash gives her a shy smile and waves, his nose a bright rosey pink. Wolfwood glares at her reflection and flips her off before turning his attention out the window again. She laughs, and turns up the radio as they race across the dunes of sand.
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i only remember the day i made grimm and yarrow bc it was 4/20 and i thought it was funny anyways happy one year to these two fuckers eating away at my brain and here's to them continuing to do that for...the foreseeable future
since i have created So much about them in this year, i wanna recap what the fuck i've done bc i have never had this happen before. it's definitely new to hyperfixate on some ocs so intensely but i'm having a good time with everything so! i can't say i'm upset that these two kicked my ass into gear with drawing so much !!
starting off with the first sketches of them i scribbled down before i had to get back to work on other stuff bc i don't think i posted these
they've evolved a bit but....not by much really. esp in regards to yarrow i had what is more or less his current design nailed down within a day. not to mention that these two both had names within 24 hours? that usually does NOT happen for me
in terms of all the other art, th galleries aren't the absolute best metric to measure how much i've drawn my ocs bc it doesn't account for all the sketches and wips i have lying around and i upload gift art so it's not all mine in there NONETHELESS it's wild comparing their th gallery stats to the main trio of ttw bc those three literally have a decade of existence on them
(also grimm has five more standalone pieces of fanart than yarrow, so the gap between how much i've drawn the two of them is even smaller)
within a year, these two have, give or take, half the amount of stuff as i've managed to make for my other mains that have been around over a decade. ofc with ttw being around so long there are a lot of unfinished things, paper drawings i have stashed away, things that're retconned, and so many more sketchbook doodles of them that just never got posted so it's not as comparable to honeybee bc it's a more constant slowburn in my brain. but still. still
that's also not to mention the 16 or so full comic pages i've drawn for them?? (most of those are under toyhouse's literature bc it's easier to post them that way) which doesn't sound like a lot, but bc i've never done that before with any of my ocs it's. wild to me. i'm still figuring out a method that makes making comics as painless as possible bc i have ideas! but it still feels like i'm like pulling teeth sometimes! i can say it feels a bit easier to make comics now but i still have a lot to figure out :,,D
also i've been writing. i don't consider myself a writer. i said "fuck it we ball" and started writing. i guess i am on technicality, and it's not as if i haven't written anything at all (hi ttw and the old peartree draft), but definitely haven't written extensive prose before this. anyways i've got a 10k-word outline and am approximately 35k words into the first draft so it's not nothing! in fact that's a lot for me, esp bc i'm constantly battling the urge to edit things over and over and also the awareness of the skill gap between me and all of the writers i am constantly reading so it's overall just a...really slow process OTL
because i'm deranged and refuse to make things easy on myself, i envision honeybee as an illustrated novel, but not necessarily illustrated like fantasy novels are i'm talking like....a novel with comic panels in it. i have a vision. (also i had a dream where i read a book like this i can See it in my mind). it's fine. i'm normal. <if this comes to be for realsies i will have to learn how to do so much typesetting bullshit
i don't have any special art to commemorate my Year of Brainrot, but i guess i'll post some writing below the cut. heads up this is First Draft Shit, even though these are the parts i'm currently more fond of i am...not confident in my skills as a writer yet so please offer me some lenience hgfklhgld
anything in [these brackets] is going to be drawn either as a standalone illustration or a small series of comic panels so just hold my hand and imagine with me.
ordered chronologically but missing a Lot of context partially bc i'm not writing any of this in order. i try to keep grimm (they/it) and yarrow's (he/they) pronouns consistent, but excuse any flips bc again, this hasn't been through any external editing, in fact y'all are the first to see any of these words.
part 1 (years 0 to ~1)- least written-for part atm but i re-outlined it semi-recently so i know where to take it
*grimm is misgendered here intentionally, yarrow doesn't know The Pronouns yet
part 2 (years ~6 to ~8)- currently the most-written
part 3 (years ~9 to ~10)
does a little dance and makes jazz hands before faceplanting. thank you if you read any of that hkgdslfhlfk
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