𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘳

Chapter 27. Parallels that Run The Same Course

[ Gambler ]

I swing around my case playfully until I hear a grunt, and a thump, and then the sound of a body hitting sand and sliding. I whip around, might I add, with the case at an alarming speed to hear the same sequence of sounds again.

First I see Wolfwood nearly ready to bite my head off and a big middle finger. His punisher barely saved him, but I clipped his gut for sure.

"Revy... watch your aim... or else I can't have a family..." Vash says, holding his... yup.

"... You're a pedophile if you find anyone at your age," I remark. I offer a hand to him, and kick sand in Wolfwood's face.

He spits it out as a rocketing noise makes it back to us. "Gunshots..." Wolfwood says, and I hear them too. We follow him quickly into town.

"You dirty scoundrels!" a crowd is hollering at two men. They're both tied, one large enough to stand on and the other hung around the arms from a bar. The entire mob is holding guns, ready to blast their heads off.

Vash pulls out his gun and immediately shoots the rope holding one man dangling.

"The hell—"

"Leave him. That's Vash the Stampede," a man announces, noticing Vash step forward. "I saw him in Conegral. He stopped a bullet." He turns with a cold look at Vash. "You just leave here, and never come back."

It's no fight this time, we just roll out with our newly freed friends. One, the shorter, is scruffy with unkempt hair and a long beard, and his taller, rounder friend is scarred but looks friendly enough.

So they take us to a bar. It's too early to get drunk, but I haven't had the luxury in so long I can't resist buying an entire bottle of whiskey.

"Jesus christ blueberry, is that all for you?" the stupid priest asks.

"Yes," I reply. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, we have to drink cheap bourbon and you have Jack Daniel's?"

I hide the bottle behind my arms. "I'm not sharing! Make your own money. I'll buy you food but never drinks. You—" I whip around to point a finger at Vash, "both of you got blackout drunk and I had to take care of you! You and your puke and my... tears." Also known as the night when you micro-analyzed Vash's hair and then proceeded to forgive him for all he's done.

"These kind men here are paying for us, we won't buy anything expensive," Vash points out.

Right, because everyone but me is too often dirt shit broke. You're not a priest if you don't actually work, and an outlaw can't get his own money. Get some real fucking occupations.

I pour four shots. The rest is mine, no arguments there. And once the bottle is empty, I find myself wandering over to the drinking game between Vash and the scruffy man.

"Revy holds her liquor a little too well, for her own good," Wolfwood remarks from behind me as I instinctively pull up a chair. "That's why we don't tell her when we go to bars. She'll die because she's rich enough for the good shit."

I turn and glare. "You've been..." I pause. What a lie, I can feel the tipsy effects already descending into stuttering drunkness. "Going to bars without me?" I finish with a pout, a completely different mood from before. Somewhere close to tears than before, when I just wanted to fight him.

The scruffy man grabs my shoulder, to my discomfort. "We shouldn't fight, just join our game," he says.

"I have," I point to the empty cups, up to three to match them. "You guys into gambling? I feel like betting."