I wagered on God in a kind stranger

[anthophilia]

[ There had been a while when he’d been terrified. Worried that maybe making a baby would drain Vash the way healing the Plants does, that it would take something from him. But he’s trying to be better about that kind of thing; Vash was willing to give everything to make the world safer for humans, and now that he has room to live for himself, Wolfwood needs to let him do that the way he wants.

He’s pretty sure he was worried for nothing. He’s never seen Vash happier, brighter, or more alive than he is with the baby.

The world isn’t perfect, but he’s come to terms with the fact that it doesn’t need to be. It’ll never be so safe that there’s no threat at all, nothing that could possibly harm them. But they’re closer than he ever thought they could have been. Knives – or Nai, as he’s going to have to get used to calling him – is out there, somewhere, no longer hellbent on the destruction of everything that isn’t a plant. He checks in with Vash from time to time – something made possible by a lot of hard work by Vash, Luida and Brad. They’ve tried to explain it to him a number of times, using examples ranging from radio waves to a network of tubes, and he still doesn’t get it. It doesn’t really matter if he doesn’t understand it – the important part is that is works. The Plants can communicate with each other now even over great distances, and it turns out that happy Plants are way more productive. The goal is still a world where they’re not reliant on Plants for everything but the girls are happy to help out, and most of them are now housed where they can look out over the settlements and towns they support, watching over the people they care for as the world slowly becomes one where flora takes root and transforms the soil into something nourishing rather than dry and barren. Vash goes out and visits them, letting people know if something needs changing to keep the Plant happy and comfortable, sometimes just to chat with them – it’s different face-to-face than over their little network, he says. It’s kind of a steady job for him now: Plant Advocate and Counsellor. Sometimes he’ll laugh out of nowhere, and Wolfwood has long since learned not to ask why because he doesn’t get Plant Humour. He did get it when the baby arrived, though – Vash had been holding the kid when he’d suddenly closed his eyes, tipped his head to the side, and started to cry gently, and the baby went silent and still. Wolfwood had freaked, predictably, and Vash had taken his hand, placed it on a patch of feathers that had appeared with all the emotion, and his mind had filled with a sound like nothing he’d ever heard; inhuman, like a wet finger on a crystal glass or the sound you’d think a star would make. Haunting, but somehow beautiful, joyful. Vash had opened his eyes, still wet with tears, smiled wide, and told him: My sisters are singing.

It's all quiet now, though. Vash is tucked up on the sofa, drowsy from a nap with the baby still conked out on his chest. Wolfwood had taken the opportunity to make an easy dinner – pasta for them, a bottle ready to go for the kid – and wolfed his down just watching them as they slept. Seeing Vash stir, he’d gone to get a bowlful, holds it out to trade for their tiny little miracle. ]

Sleep well?

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[spiculatus]

[ it finally feels like vash might be seeing the kind of world rem always wanted.

plants and people working together to build a better home; the unforgiving desert slowly giving way to creeping patches of green. luida even told him that nai’s been helping propagate the new plants — he still keeps himself at a distance from humans, but there are stories around the settlements of the strangely dressed man who appears and makes the plants bloom. their sisters are happier, too; they don’t speak to one another in a language that consists of words, but the spill of information that comes over the plant network is always wrapped in happiness, impressions of the towns they’re finally allowed to see and the people who finally know enough to pay them visits. initial efforts at farming are finally beginning to yield crops, lost technology has been useful in efforts to seek out water deep beneath the planet’s surface and dig out wells, and there’s even been talk of harnessing more lost tech to build a rail system to connect the settlements and make travel and the sharing of resources faster and safer.

but, selfishly? the thing that makes vash happiest of all is what he has right here.

he and wolfwood had settled back at the homeland orphanage, livio in tow. at first, they’d been crowded right in along with the kids and the other caretakers, but wolfwood had thrown himself at the challenge of building them a little cottage on the grounds. (and whenever vash had tried to give him credit for what a sweet gesture it was, wolfwood usually just went pink and grumped out something about being sick of having an audience whenever he wanted to play grab-ass with vash.) sure, the place is a little ramshackle; there isn’t a single wall in it that’s perfectly straight, the building materials are a mix of whatever they had on hand, and it has just enough of a lean from the outside for the kids at the orphanage to refer to it as “the crooked house”, but vash loves it.

and for a few years, that had been enough. they still brought up the idea of kids of their own as an idle sort of fantasy, but nothing ever panned out and none of the ship’s records had anything helpful on the topic. (although brad did admit, gruffly, that he’d destroyed a batch of records on the subject years back — but he’d sworn up and down that there wasn’t anything useful in them, and insisted it was nothing vash would have wanted to see.) besides! they had all the kids they could ever want at the orphanage, so it was impossible to feel any real heartache about having to keep that little bit of their dream on the shelf.

then another one of those heats had rolled around, and now? here they are.

as far as babies go, vash is convinced theirs is the most perfect one that’s ever existed. a head of downy blonde hair, a body full of fat little baby rolls, and lungs strong enough to bring down the house whenever he’s got a complaint to register with management. (vash likes to say — at 3AM bottle feeds, when wolfwood is at max cranky — that rem always said he was a perfect baby who almost never cried, but that miss melanie swore that wolfwood could wail loud enough to break glass when he was this age. wolfwood never thinks that the see? he takes after you! jokes are very funny.) it’s hard to tell how many plant characteristics he might have inherited; he’s aging at the rate of any normal human baby, no glowing or feathers spotted so far, and there’s a part of vash that hopes he’ll be lucky enough to end up as a perfectly ordinary human. but either way, vash couldn’t possibly love him more. ]

Think we both did. [ keeping his voice low, because their little one is still drowsing. but he reaches up to grab at one of wolfwood’s arms and tug him down on the couch with them before he trades him — baby for pasta. the baby fusses a little right as he’s handed off, but he always seems to settle as soon as he’s tucked into wolfwood’s arms; it makes vash’s heart ache to see how good wolfwood is with him, all the love and pride and wonder written all over his face when he looks down at what they made together. ]