Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Gossamer Wings and Sweet Tasting Things ❯ Heaven ( Chapter 1 )

-----Gossamer Wings and Sweet Tasting Things-----
---A Trigun Fanfiction---

-----DISCLAIMER-----

Oh, hell yeah.
I'm mugged for autographs for my work on a manga series called
'Trigun'

... Riiiiiight...

-----AUTHOR'S NOTES-----

Lynda: For those that want to know, singular quotation marks are a habit I've picked up and I can't break. They aren't wrong, I passed exams with 'em, so it doesn't reeeally matter, ne? ^^;;
I think it's pretty obvious now what happened to derail the story from the real Trigun world and schwing it the "Alternate Reality" way. -_-;; And as you will find out in the next couple of chapters, there is a logical reason why this is. Sigh.
Onwards?

Kuroneko: Mya...

-----*+*-----

It was very... White here. And fluffy. Excessively so. Vash would've normally wondered about the over use of fluff for interior decorating, but his mind seemed to be gloriously blank, not a single confusing thought staining the euphoria. It was very pleasant.

There was also a large box of donuts in his hands. He didn't know how they had gotten there, or even what brand they were, as the box was blank. He was not losing sleep over it, however, as he crammed 5 into his mouth in one go. They were very good; all warm, sugary and perfect.

Looking back with childish curiosity, the tall gunman blinked at the line behind him. People were queuing, each with that dazed, contented expression on their faces. Strange. He felt good, but he didn't feel that good...

Chewing contemplatively and turning his pale, aqua eyes to the line in front of him, Vash endeavored to ram yet another donut in his mouth. He must've eaten... 7 by now... Yet the box was full. Very Strange...

'Next!' a deep and reverberating voice boomed somewhere ahead. The line inched further forward.

Steadily growing bored, Vash began shifting on his feet, squirming, deep within the horrible land of the Doldrums. No one else appeared to be, however, which seemed a little unfair.

'Hey, big line.' he noted cheerily, nudging the man in front of him in the ribs. The man turned and smiled.

'Yes, indeed!' he replied congenially, before turning back. Vash contemplated offering him a donut to start up a conversation. He didn't seem to be running out anyway. And everyone was so... Nice.

'Wanna donut?' he offered through a full mouth, holding out the box. The man turned and again, smiled.

'Oh, I would simply love a slice of cheesecake!' he replied, reaching into the box and withdrawing some cheesecake. Vash blinked twice and turned his confused gaze down to his box. It was filled with donuts. Scrabbling through the contents of the blank package which he held acquisitively to his face, the gunman failed to unveil any secret stores of cheesecake. He was pondering this when again the voice shouted,

'Next!'

Scratching his head, Vash carefully placed the box at his feet in case it was dangerous. NO pack of donuts should contain cheesecake. It was sacrilegious. Someone prodded him in the small of his back.

'That's you! Go on!' someone prompted in a friendly manner. Panicking the blonde snapped his attention upwards and noticed that, yes, he was next in line. Where did the time go?! This was just too strange...

Stumbling forward in slight embarrassment, Vash gazed up at an elderly man sitting at what looked like a judicial podium, quill at the ready. The spiky haired blonde swallowed nervously, wiping the crumbs hurriedly from his mouth. This man looked vexed.

'Name?' the old man asked snappishly, not even glancing up from his book. The once usually careful 60 billion double dollar man felt that there was no need to be careful.

'Vash the Stampede.' he stated light-heartedly before asking, 'And you are?' This got the man's attention. The wrinkled old face regarded his stoically.

'I am St. Peter.' he replied coldly. 'But if you are Vash the Stampede, I'm Brilliant Dynamites Neon.'

'I've met him and you really don't look anything alike.' Vash declared after a good moment of thought.

'Then you are not Vash.' St. Peter noted, eyebrow raised, quill poised over the papyrus. The gunman thought about this.

'Nooo... I'm sure that I am.' he replied stubbornly, getting a cramped neck from looking up at the bushy eyebrowed geriatric. St. Peter sighed and set down his quill.

'Listen, young man. This is Heaven. Vash the Stampede is a notorious criminal responsible for some of the most horrendous acts imaginable throughout all of history. I doubt he could get a few feet off the ground in regards to coming to Heaven.' he said firmly, eyeing the gunman below him warily.

'No, really, you can take my fingerprints or something! But I AM Vash the Stampede!' Vash insisted, holding his hands out in an offering. Sighing, St. Peter leant forward.

'I'll know your true identity soon enough.' he said in a bored tone, eyes piercing. He leant further forward and frowned.

'Come into the light... Further... Further... No, left... No, your other left... Forward... That's it... That's- OH!' The old man nearly fell from his altitudinous perch.

Vash blinked in confusion, half way through shuffling to his left again.

'It's! Yes it IS him! Oh, it's him alright!' St. Peter exclaimed in shock, before turning and scurrying to a small service door by the pearly gates. He opened it, dived through and slammed the door shut after him.

Vash blinked again in surprise, his vague, pleasant smile frozen on his face in mild bewilderment. The people behind began murmuring amongst themselves. Shuffling his feet in embarrassment, Vash wondered what would happen to him next... Come to think of it, why was he here? And where was here?

...St. Peter... Why did that ring a bell?

... Didn't he say... Heaven?!

After what felt like forever, the small service door opened and St. Peter emerged. The old man walked over and proceeded to glare up at Vash, the change in altitudes causing the old man to step back in order to do so. Vash stared back down quizzically. St. Peter took a breath.

'As much as I hate to admit it,' he all but snarled. 'you are indeed V- Va-...' He took a breath and tried again, 'V- Vash the Stampede. AND,' he added ruefully, 'you have every right to be here.'

Vash blinked.

'Where am I?' he asked innocently.

'HEAVEN you idiot!' St. Peter snapped, his temper reaching its end.

'Now, now.' a feminine voice said gently, mirth dancing across the tones. They looked up.

Rem Saverem smiled angelically as she stepped up to the pair. Vash near choked.

'REM!'

'Hello, Vash.' she giggled, giving him a hug. 'I've been waiting a long time!' St. Peter snorted in disgust as Vash the Stampede began blubbering like a baby, the sobbing quickly morphing into all out wailing. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around Rem's waist, burbling sentences that probably wouldn't have made sense even if you had've heard them properly. Rem stroked his hair lovingly.

'Funny that no one believed you were Vash.' she said, laughing. 'There is only one Vash, after all.' He snorted something incoherent into her stomach.

'So, Ms. Rem, he is welcome in heaven?' St. Peter asked slowly, glaring at his log book suspiciously. She smiled.

'Oh yes. He belongs here with us.'

Vash could only nod.

-----*+*-----

Vash, dozing in a hammock under a cloud-tree, was going over the last couple of days in his head.

Well...

Not really, because there didn't seem to be any time in Heaven. Just a whole lot of people walking around with dazed smiles on their faces. Vash concluded after some thought that he liked it here. No one tried to kill him, there was no END to donuts and Rem visited him all the time. Whenever she wasn't working that is.

Oh yes, Rem was a very important person in Heaven. Somehow, probably through her extreme pacifist ways, she'd secured herself a high ranking job. Actually, you couldn't get any more high ranking than what she was at the moment. Rem, in His illustrious wisdom, was promoted to the Boss of Heaven. Oh yeah, she ran the place under His careful hand.

She excels at it of course... Vash thought proudly, grinning into the clouds like a doof.

Not doing much except eating donuts and waiting for Rem to visit him again was a slightly dull existence, however. This puzzled him. Everyone else could stare at the sky and be content for years, but no, Vash got fidgety after 2 days.

It was a mystery he'd have to ask Rem about.

And another thing! People seemed to stroll around Heaven without a single obstacle in their way. Vash tripped on 6 things on his way here. And he had caused a barbecue to explode.

Were explosions allowed in Heaven?

Another thing to ask Rem...

And the scenery was getting... Annoying. Vash could only stare at gold, glowing lights and white for so long before wanting a change. Was that wrong?

Yet another question...

And... There were a lot of 'cuties' in Heaven. Some of those choir girls were something else... But every time Vash tried to ask them out on a date, they would smile blankly at him until he went away. It was just a suspicion, but Vash didn't think that... y'know... was allowed in Heaven at all. The residents didn't even know what flirting was. It probably didn't exist!

He doubted that he'd ask Rem about that one...

It wasn't that he was unhappy. It was just little things that confused or worried him seemed to make everyone else smile deliriously.

Like the fact that Vash was scared of the cooking. No matter what he had in his hands, if he felt like Salmon sandwiches, all of a sudden, his donut box contained Salmon sandwiches. It was disturbing. And they never ran out.

The constant stream of donuts into his mouth was causing another terrible thing to happen. They, he dared to think, were beginning to get... Monotonous...

Vash shook his head resolutely. No way! Don't even THINK it!!

But that man from the line hasn't gotten sick of cheesecake yet... And he had been eating them since he arrived...

Why was everything different for Vash?!

And the annoying thing was, that no matter how much he thought of... Say... Spaghetti, donuts would always appear in the box. He must've been so used to wanting donuts that it was built into his brain. He couldn't let donuts become mundane... He couldn't let donuts become-

'Hello, Vash.' a familiar voice addressed him. Vash twisted in his hammock to return the greeting but got tangled in it and spun to the ground, landing heavily. It hurt.

Was pain allowed in Heaven?!

Vash leapt to his feet and clutched Rem's hands.

'Rem, what's wrong with me?! Why is Heaven different for me and not anyone else?!' he wailed, pointing to the bump on his head. Best to start with the pain factor... She sighed and sat him down, taking a seat in the soft clouds beside him.

'Vash, do you remember how you died?' she asked softly. He thought about it.

'Um... I vaguely remember... Being in a plant-bulb. Oh yeah! That's it! Some guy was after my bounty! Oh, man, how embarrassing... Decades of bounty-hunter dodging only to be taken out by an old man with a twitch and a bald patch. I'll never live this down... Um... Die this down... No... I mean... Undead this down- Hell no! ... ACK!! I said Hell in Heaven!!!' Rem patted his hand to silence his rambling.

'Well, that counts out that theory. I thought that maybe you weren't entirely dead. An out of body experience if you know what I mean? But means of death and the records cross that out.' she sighed, staring contemplatively at the clouds. There was nothing else to stare at, anyway.

'Rem?' Vash asked quietly. She turned her gaze to him. 'Did you mean it when you said that I belong here with you?'

'Of course!' she exclaimed, laughing, then began fidgeting nervously. 'It's just that... Your species might have some problems being here, that's all.' Vash caught her tone.

'Rem?' he asked slowly, growing wary at her anxiety. She stopped and appeared to be listening to something.

'No. ... But that isn't fair! ... No? ... Oh? ... I suppose. ... No, you're right. ... I see. ... Of course. ... If you say so...' Rem spoke clearly, obviously to Him. She cleared her throat and turned to Vash, smiling.

'I have some good news and some bad news Vash!' she declared cheerily, pulling out a slip of paper. 'Which would you like to hear first?'

'Good?'

'The good news is, He says your species is responsible for your alienation here. And also that you were not, in fact, meant to die that day.'

'That's good news?!'

She then waved to the paper in her hand. He stared at it as if it were a bomb. But that was ok, because bombs weren't allowed in Heaven-

'The bad news is that everyone signed a petition. The Smiths really didn't like their barbecue being blown up and He doesn't like you staining Heaven's image by falling all over it. We haven't had a stumble in all our years of service, and you've managed 6 in one day. So, you've officially been kicked out of Heaven.' She handed him the signed petition. There were a lot of names. And St. Peter's name. In bold. Underlined several times. With three exclamation marks.

'I... What?!' Vash managed, turning back to Rem and staring at her owlishly. She smiled ruefully.

'Terrible, I know. But the populace have spoken. And you give the elderly the chills. Something about being a Stampede.'

'Wh- Where will I go?'

'Oh, don't worry about that!' she giggled. 'We've found another place that is willing to have you! And it will be much more interesting for you there!' Vash felt the small snake called suspicion slither into his consciousness.

'Oh?'

'Oh yes, there is always room in Hell for people. In fact, you could say that is their specialty!'

'WHAT?!'

'Don't worry, Vash!' Rem exclaimed, patting his hand hurriedly. 'It's not like that! You're not going to suffer! I know the Boss of Hell personally and he has agreed to let you do as you wish. No fire and brimstone unless you want it.'

'But- But- HELL!!'

'It only stands to reason, right? If you can't feel happy in Heaven, then you most certainly won't feel miserable in Hell, will you?'

'But Rem! HELL!! H. E. L. L!!! You're sending me to HELL!!' She thought about this.

'Yes.' Rem replied, smiling sweetly. Vash sighed and thought about it.

'Can I take my box of donuts?' he asked finally.

'If you wish.' she replied.

'Do I get holidays?'

'Everyday is a holiday in Pandemonium!'

'Are you sure no suffering?'

'Not entirely sure, no, but I'm pretty certain!'

'WHAT?!?!' Rem smiled apologetically.

'Sorry about this Vash.' she sighed, reaching into the clouds and pulling a lever. The bottom dropped out of the fluffy columbus that Vash was sprawled on and he plummeted, screaming all the way. Rem sighed again.

'Oh dear. At least he won't be bored.'

-----*+*-----

-----AUTHOR'S NOTES-----

Lynda: I've cleaned up, I've been just as silly, I've dropped a few hints. I have no excuse for the silliness. And I apologise for Rem. I know she would NEVER **sniggers** send Vash to Hell willingly... AHAHAHAHAHAH!!! But I had to! Its all part of the plot!! AND YES THERE IS A PLOT. T_T

Kuroneko: Mya. =^-_-^=;

Lynda: Just forgive the first coupla chapters right? They are building blocks. I intend to improve style, content and quantity as soon as I start up the actual story. Gomene... ^_^;; **goes off to do something constructive**