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Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun, the characters from it, the Great American Smokeout, alarm clocks, pacifiers, or anything else presented aside from my own characters or ideas. Suing isn't nice. Please don't do it, OK? *gives big puppy eyes*
The metallic, piercing sound wails through the room, bursting through every corner of his pounding skull. Within a moment, Wolfwood, who had been sleeping rather fitfully to say the least, can take no more, almost jumping out of bed, clenching the alarm clock in his fists before throwing it out the window. "Nicholas! Calm down! What is wrong with you-you woke up the baby with your screaming and breaking our nice new alarm clock-"
"Don't you have any idea how I feel? My head hurts like you wouldn't believe, and you expect me to just listen to that. . .that. . ." Wolfwood paces the floor, patting the sides of his jeans, riffling through his shirt on the coatrack, hoping to find anything that can possibly be smoked, as Milly walks back from Selphie's room.
"What are you looking for, darling?"
"Ah. . .it doesn't matter. Thanks for gettin' Selphie back to sleep-that crying was drivin' me mad."
"That reminds me, the store's open now. They said something on the satellite radio, about a mad rush to all stores and pharmacies. I wondered what that meant."
"It means I have a wife who I don't believe has as much as one active brain cell." Wolfwood sighs as he walks into the kitchen, attempting to pour a cup of black coffee for himself despite feeling both miserable and at the same time shaky. Within a minute, more coffee is on the floor, on the table, and on his clothes than in his body. Milly pours another cup, holding it as he drinks from it.
"You look almost. . .I don't know. Almost like you looked that day back in the city where-"
"Don't
even talk to me."
An hour later. . .
Wolfwood feels as miserable as he has ever felt in his life, possibly with the exemption of the day he was almost killed in Tonim. "Milly, I can't. . .I can't go through with this! Just let me have one cigarette-"
"I threw them all out this morning. Both Sempai and my big sister said that is the first step to stopping for good!" Milly smiles brightly, then looks down at Selphie's baby carriage. "And remember, it's for her as well as you and I." At that, Wolfwood sighs, feeling odd not only because of the withdrawal but because the weapon he normally carried every day was safely in the closet at home. Milly had hidden all of his guns, except for the side arm even she didn't know about, for obvious reasons, the day before then.
"Man, what is this line? All of these people standing here lookin' as miserable as I'm feelin-"
Milly looks at the two-ile long line. "Darling, I think they're part of the smokeout too." She looks at the man with greenish-black hair standing in front of them before tapping him on the shoulder. "Sir, is this the line for the general store?"
"So what if it is? Look, I hate this worthless place. I come here looking for $$60 billion double dollars, and what do I get? A city having a no-smoking week for the Sandy Planet Smokeout or some sadistic event like that. If my ship hadn't crashed, I'd be out of here." The man sighs a pronounced sigh and slumps against a post. "What're you doing here, bokushi?"
"The name's actually Wolfwood. I'm here. . .here for the same reason you are, I stopped smokin' yesterday because of Miss Pudding Head here-"
A certain black cat with huge yellowgreen eyes walks past. "Nyaoooooo"
The man in front of them and Wolfwood both jump as if someone had just shot at them, screaming, then settling back onto the ground, Wolfwood twisting his fist into the hard-packed dirt, the other man rocking back and forth on his knees as if that will somehow help.
Milly sighs to herself. "Men are such babies."
The line moves at a crawl. An hour later, they are a half-ile closer to the store, as the man in front is now grinding his teeth and punching a nearby wall, and Wolfwood is holding his head in his hands, moaning as if he has been badly wounded. By now, the real baby of the group, Selphie, is wailing her discontent with being in the carriage, which only seems to drive the men closer to frenzy.
"Isn't it wonderful! That line wasn't too long after all now was it-" Milly notices that by now, Wolfwood is attempting to roll scraps on the ground into a discarded paper. The man in front, the bounty hunter, ignores the blonde spiky hair and red coat collar visible above the shelf on the other side of the store and literally jumps the counter, robbing the clerk of her own box of patches, running out of the store.
The priest groans as he stands and begins walking to the counter. Milly laughs. "Well, this smokeout has already saved one life! That bounty hunter looking for Mr. Vash ran away after robbing the place!"
"Don't tell me. Tongari is the last thing I need around me right now-"
"Meryl's with him over there! I'm going to go over and talk! Sempai!"
Wolfwood finally reaches the counter a minute later. "Come on! You have to have somethin' left!"
"Sorry, we don't have a thing left in this store. It seems a lot of people signed up for the Great Sandy Planet Smokeout just yesterday. That strange guy who robbed me even took my last box of nicotine patches."
"When is the new order coming in? Look at me! I can't take any more of this!"
"No new orders for a week. The trucks won't be here for at least that long, and the sand steamer's down again. Sorry, preacher-man. Maybe you should have taken better care of yourself in the first place."
The reminder of Wolfwood's all-too-apparent occupation is in sharp contrast to the thoughts running through his mind, most of which involve some form of death and destruction, or at the least a "sermon" unlike any ever heard from a priest on the sandy planet to that day. He suppresses the urge to scream and at least punch this clerk. "You're goin' to be just as miserable once that last patch runs out! Look, I don't know who came up with this idea-"
"Cold turkey isn't too bad-I've done it a hundred times."
"Oh, now that's a consolation!"
"There is no need for your sarcasm, sir."
At that moment, Milly taps him on the shoulder. "They don't have anything, Nicholas. Let's just go home."
Wolfwood accosts a man walking out of the store. "Sir, can't you donate that box of gum to the clergy-"
"Sorry, buddy, but this is mine!"
"$100 double dollars! You'll make money on the deal!"
"No dice. Leave me alone!"
"$1000 double dollars! Sir, I beg you, have mercy-"
"I said no and I mean no!"
"All right then, I will take it by force!"
Milly knocks the weapon from Wolfwood's hand, sending the priest and herself into a sprawling lump as the man runs away, yelling something about calling the diocese for the city. "Nicholas! What has gotten into you?"
He stands unsteadily, brushing the dust from the floor off of himself. "Sorry, honey."
"You need to go catch up to that poor man and apologize! You attempted armed robbery! Now is that any way for a priest to act?"
Wolfwood leans against the wall. "It's all your idea! I'm goin' to forget this and get-"
"Now you forget, there are no cigarettes being sold until Smokeout Week is over."
He gives Milly a rather impassive glare. "Then what ideas do you have?"
"Well, darling, you're all jumpy and anxious and you want to cry. I know what helps Selphie when she's like this!"
Milly reaches into her bag and takes out one of the new pacifiers she has bought, quickly popping it into Wolfwood's mouth.
"Milly, honey, this has to be one of the most brainless ideas-"
"Trust me, darling. You just slurp on it like you would a straw or something."
Wolfwood resignedly pops the pacifier back into his mouth.
At that very same second, Meryl and Vash walk out of the other door carrying grocery bags, talking, until Milly yells. "Sempai! Mr. Vash! Over here!"
"Milly, you idiot!"
"Well hi there!"
Quizzical looks between the four are exchanged for a few minutes before Vash finally breaks the silence by gasping in laughter and pointing at Wolfwood. "A. . .a pacifier?"
"What does it look like, Tongari? My gun? Of course it's a pacifier!"
The gales of laughter coming from everyone other than one very annoyed priest are heard for several iles around.