He knew he was coming across as rude. It was like someone—Wolfwood, perhaps, just for the sake of messing with him—had taken a gigantic swab of glue to his eyes, and practically fused them there.

"My eyes are up here, buddy."

Vash winced. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he corrected himself immediately (oh, sure, he hadn't been able to do that a second ago!), "You're... uh, assets, aren't what I was..."

The middle-aged woman snorted ungracefully, "Well, duh, I know that. I ain't got no 'assets.'" She waved a hand around her chest area, and then lower, "No ass, neither!"

A grin worked itself along his mouth at her sheer gall, "I'm sorry, anyway. It's not even a bit of my business, but please, let me ask: where did you get those?"

"My scars?" It was rhetorical. "You ever seen a lady use a gun?"

Fifty, actually. Guns, that was. "Yes."

Her teeth, a little cracked, yet a little perfect somehow, kind of like her crude smile and the wildness in her eye—the one that wasn't partially blind—came out to play in a big bare of teeth that was probably supposed to intimidate him. What a silly idea. Did she even know who he—oh, wait, she didn't. Oops.

The marks trailed her arms, he could recognize interrogation torture when he saw it. He wondered if she had any clue how much they resembled a basic map of eastern Gunsmoke. Morbid, he scolded himself.

"I got 'em defendin' this goddamn town. If it weren't for me, it wouldn't be standin'." Vash got the impression that perhaps she was taking a bit much of the credit than she was due, but she was obviously so proud. The lift in her chin, the glow in her face, he couldn't bear the thought of bursting her bubble. The priest, he pointed out how Vash treated people sometimes. Like they were little kids who didn't know any better.

It always ended with Wolf getting the strangest look, because... shit. They kind of were in comparison to a geezer like Vash the Stampede. The elders and small children, out of them all. They had routines and general ways of going about things. It was the teenagers, the young ones, who were unpredictable.

"That's quite an achievement. I bet you'd never give up those scars for the world, huh?" Hook.

"Hell, no! If those bastards ever step foot 'ere again, they'll be gettin' a load of it!"

Line. "Who?"

"Georgio the Goldengloves, or whatever-the-hell. Got a whole bunch of cronies followin' him everywhere. It was them who first dared to cross this place, and now the rumors are startin' up again!" Angry, calloused hands smacked against the bar table, Vash registered a flash of dark fabric and sunglasses flit through the crowd nearby.

Sink-errrrr.

"What? Why would they come back? You'd think they'd learn their lesson!" Absently, he mused that no one would get that joke. There were no oceans or lakes or even rivers and streams on this planet. Nothing to fish in. The portion of the human race in Gunsmoke had forgotten one of its traditional and biggest sources of agriculture, because it simply wasn't possible any longer. Depressing. He should set up a school someday, when all this was done and over with... (if he survived.)

"Yeah!" Bragging hardened to seriousness, and the fingers which had been so busy with gesticulation before were run through graying, thinning auburn hair, "Yeah."

"I can handle a weapon pretty well, myself," Vash began to offer, "I can help if—"

"That's nice of ya to say," she cut him off, hazel eyes growing sharper, "But what we need is experienced gunwork," she heaved a sigh that he knew wasn't meant to come out so tiredly, "You don't even got any stubble on your chin, yet. Don't get yourself killed."

He tilted his head at her.

She chuckled. "Cheeky little shit."

A while later, he had enough information to have the town safe and secure in less than a week. The woman (they still hadn't revealed any names, she was wiser than she let on) playfully ruffled his unruly hair in farewell ("Hey! I work hard to make it that way!" "Whatever, brat."), and he was out the door when Wolfwood sidled up next to him. "So?"

"We'll need Millie's stungun—aww, don't look at me at way! You know she's not helpless."

"I still don't like having her out there in the crossfire, when she should be sharing food with me and telling me not to smoke so much," Something in his face glazed over, and Vash learned better many years ago than to interrupt that kind of internal moment. Then Nicholas' thoughts visibly shifted. "Uh... back there."

"Hmm?"

"You..."

"I am kind of old."

"...It's creepy."

"You like me, anyway."

"I don't even notice half the time when you're playing me, do I?"

That gave the Stampede pause, "It's not as if I try when I'm around my friends." It wasn't like people didn't do stupid things, stupid, stupid things that made the deepest, darkest, most hidden chamber of Vash's heart start to ponder his mad brother's ideals. It wasn't like he didn't manipulate them to protect them from themselves.

Times like these Vash almost became suspicious Wolfwood was also less mortal than he seemed; those dark blue irises seared into his skull, it felt like.

"It happens anyway, doesn't it?"

Vash raised his gaze and observed the clear sky, the sky that never held any hint of precipitation, "I've tried raising kids before. Very briefly, I was forced to give up on the idea and hand them off to people they'd be better off with. I was a fool to try. I guess that's where it comes from." There was that old, old need rising in him, why wouldn't it ever rain? Moisture levels weren't high enough, that was why. Children of the pebble, what was the point if there was no water to skip them over? He'd have to raindance, then, by himself. Meryl would gape at him, "What in the world are you even doing? You look like an idiot!"

"Where what comes from?"

"It's like you're all my kids. I can't let my kids hurt themselves."

A/N: I just made up a random villain, smack me now. PS, Vash's perspective is addictive to write in.