Octovern, since that's where all the cool kids are.

[teamblue]

Rated R for violence.

1.

It's a good thing all those wanted posters show a black haired angry twin of Vash the Stampede, because the one with hair so pale it might as well be white hasn't been noticed yet by anyone of the Federal sort. Just one more dust covered caravan cockroach in a city full of them.

It has taken Knives the better part of three months to get here.

On foot for almost all of it.

Being picked up a few iles out was nice but almost pointless by then, still, he'd hitched a ride, gotten dropped off and promptly relocated to the nearest restaraunt, bar or otherwise useful source of water and food, neither of which he actually needs.

Pretend to eat and drink, even if you don't have to

He also has no need for human clothing, but he's at least bothered with that, and is dressed in depressingly ordinary bluejeans and boots, black turtleneck shirt and sky blue crop top jacket, fingerless gloves on his hands and dark sunglasses more often than not hiding his both eyes and a twisting pale scar. It hides every single glowing line he struggled to easily obscure or that could catch an unexpected reflection of the light. He could be anyone, if 'anyone' paid for every single transaction in coins instead of paper bills, but nothing flags to humanity as obviously NOT human, which is the point. He doesn't think to hide from his own kind. Why would he?

And so he sits, a careworn bag sitting at his feet, working very slowly through a blueberry muffin and a tall glass of water with a lone icecube in it. Nothing to see here, move along.

2.

Knives, pack once more over his shoulder and map in hand, is losing the fight with navigation. The map's several years out of date and does not at all have all the modifications and camp outs and construction that's happened since the worlds merged. Which leaves him standing on the side of the road at a crossroads that simply doesn't exist on the map, scowling at the grid-marked map in his hands.

This is absolutely Ann Street. Ann Street should run right to North Street, but it does not. Not anymore.

Now there's an entire gun shop in the way and several shanty-town level buildings, and he's not entirely sure North Street even exists anymore. A trio of armed Federal troops march past; they ignore him and he only gives them a cursory look until they stop to update the wanted posters nailed to the gun shop's wall. While they might be on the lookout for a certain pair of notorious outlaws, he just doesn't fit the profile.

The names on some of those posters, though..

He crosses the street, dodging a tomas-pulled wagon, and stops in front of the dozens of posters to study them with a furrowed brow. Whoever's coming up with these things clearly is a terrible artist, while that's his name it looks nothing like him except for the beauty mark. "...Really? Not even a price tag?"

Aren't these supposed to come with a bounty, instead of 'Reward Upon Capture'?

Comments

[teamblue]

Knives reaches for the twin posters and pulls them down with a frown; he'd think if they were really so wanted there'd at least be a bounty involved. For all 'the humanoid typhoon' was feared, clearly he wasn't that much of a terror if he didn't even qualify for a bounty as much as the petty criminals posted here! Thinking about it that way, in disconnected other-ness, made it easier to accept that somewhere out there, in some reality or other, his brother lived. Lived, and even thrived, a nightmare to humanity alongside his own twin as The Stampede. It's ironic that as soon as he turns his thoughts to what he'd do if he ever came across his brother's living echo from another universe, that a voice shouts. He doesn't recognize the voice, childhood tones do not match adult ones, and Vash never grew up; except they're plants, and they didn't always need voices, and he turns, map and posters still clenched in his hands. Hypotheticals and what ifs fade away against reality, and he finds himself unable to do anything at all except gape like a stranded fish, any thoughts of how calm and in control he'd be, how cooly, confidently unaffected by facing someone he'd only ever been able to see in half-nightmare dreams. He was strong, he'd always been strong, and against the impossible that strength cracks, as does his voice, the map and posters crumpling in his grip, forgotten. A century and a half of buried pain and grief threatens to split open.

"Vash?" His question is faint.

[procreation]

"Nai-!" His voice cracks and Vash rushes towards his brother and throws his arms around him, tears in his eyes. Something tells him that it's not quite his Nai - he would never deign to wear human clothes or even be in a human city like this - but it's the one that is the closest to what he knows.

"I missed you... it's so hard without you. I never know what you would have wanted me to do." The hollowed-out shell of a man that used to be Vash the Stampede looks almost manic in his joy, tears finally spilling down his cheeks. It's a loving reunion - or would be if it wasn't for the vines that snake up behind him like Knives own blades.

Pretty purple-blue blossom along them.

[teamblue]

The people of this city are looking for a Vash. The Humanoid Typhoon, destroyer of July, the ruination of Augusta, the demon who sundered Jeneora Rock and put a hole in one of the moons. And as an afterthought, his brother. It's so hard for Knives to find a proper comparison of how Vash looks and behaves, there should be alarms ringing at such words, but it's been so long and maybe that's just how it is, how it's supposed to be. Maybe Vash is supposed to be smaller than him, maybe he's supposed to be desperately confused without him, the boldness of childhood buried under adult thoughts and behaviors. Knives doesn't let go of his posters or maps but does return the embrace, in the same movement pulling backwards as soon as there's a flicker of motion that doesn't come from a human shape but a root or vine. Alleys, doors, it'll do, any cover is fine and he's not interested in private conversations where just any vulgar eye might roam. There were posters. People might be looking. Vines and beautiful flowers' origin takes time to grind its way through his shock. "Stop, stop. Hold on. Let me.. .. let me look at you."

His brother was dead, dead, small and fragile and buried, and this is not his brother but he can put that away and for a little while pretend that miracles do happen and he's been given the impossible. Something is profoundly wrong here and he ignores it. There's still to his searching gaze enough similarities that he could imagine that small brother grown, they share a mark beneath one eye, his hair is the appropriate shade of burnished gold, and there's a vine with stars trapped in petals to go with it. Vash was a geoplant, the thought's a triumph and confirmation, of course Vash wasn't useless, of course he had powers like any plant should, of course it'd be flowers, beautiful and strange. Now that he knew it, it seemed impossible to ever have thought otherwise.

[procreation]

Vash has all those titles, and he sees those wanted posters sometimes when he moves in this mess of mixed worlds... but it's from a time that he was sick, caring more about humans than his own kin. Nai had fixed him, made him perfect. Almost as perfect as those arms enveloping him, and Vash looks like he's going to completely break down into sobbing. He lets his brother pull him back into the nearby alley without any question - it makes sense, Nai always makes perfect sense. This reunion isn't for human ilk to witness.

'Stop', Nai says and Vash immediately obeys, taking a step back, vines and flowers disappearing. He's a little shorter and a lot less bulky, even if his wide shoulders help. He has all of his limbs, but he does look haggard, thin and sporting dark bags under his eyes. He's working himself to the bone to care for their future.

...but those blue eyes are full of joy and he's smiling like a beam of sunshine, just as his childhood self did.

"I missed you so much," Vash says with a soft tremble in his voice, "It's been so long and I was so lonely."

He didn't have to think for himself any more. Nai always took care of everything.

[teamblue]

Vash looks unhealthy and sleepless, bordering on sick. Could they get sick? He doesn't have old habits to fall back into, one year in over a hundred not enough to burn patterns of behavior into place but he is immediately worried anyway, a frown tugging at his lips while he raises a hand to gently rub one calloused thumb over Vash's cheek. "It's been a hundred and fifty four years," he says, the guilt of that time span strangling and unhappy. "since I've seen you in anything but dreams. Imagining what you would have looked like grown, what you might have sounded like." Though nightmares would be more accurate, a decades long affair with knowing he killed the only close family he'd ever have, and this was guilty too, a twisted mess of painful joy and loss and how dare he even think about being happy when his brother was still dead? "Imagining who you might have grown to become."

It was a little bit odd how quick Vash was to obey, but he probably would do exactly the same if a request was made of him, so it passes by. There's so much that would be strange and unnerving if he'd spent even a moment after the Fall with his brother, Knives has so many easy excuses why that come to mind without ever thinking anything is wrong. "I .. I don't know what to say. You're .. alive." Alive is a whisper, afraid if it was said louder the moment would shatter and the cold reality of absence would set back in.

[procreation]

He leans into the touch on his cheek, cowl fully falling away to show off that golden hair. It's really not his brother, and that makes Vash's heart ache so badly - but even worse, it's a Nai who never had him by his side. "There's no apology that's good enough, but I... I'm sorry he hasn't been with you. I'm sure he wanted to be, more than anything." Unlike his own treacherous self until his brother fixed him.

"I might not be your Vash, but I love you so much, Nai. There are many versions of me here, realities beyond our imaginations created by our sisters, but... most of them are not on our side. You'll have to be careful." Vash doesn't want him to be hurt, emotionally or physically by all these sick, nasty versions of a brother who should love him, serve him, adore him.

Vash is fully Knives' puppet, twisted to be the perfect Independent to his cause.