"I can't believe you did that yesterday!" Vash exclaimed as he wheeled Knives down the street.
"Did what?" Knives asked.
"When Milly made you that sandwich! You didn't even eat it!"
"I will not soil my mouth with any food that a human has touched. Besides, we Plants are superior. We do not require food to survive, as you know. You just eat it to fit in with the humans."
"But still! Why did you ask her for it if you knew before hand that you weren't going to eat it?"
"It slipped my mind." Knives shrugged.
Vash glared at his brother, "You know damn well that you have a perfect memory, as do I. Nothing can slip our minds."
"Maybe my age is getting to me then."
"I should leave you in the middle of the street."
"We both know you are incapable of any such action, Vash."
"I know…" Vash sighed as he opened the door to the daycare and pushed his brother inside. Knives knew him all too well. It annoyed him to no end some days.
"Knives-sama!" came a happy call as a black-haired blur crashed into Knives' lap. She looked up at Knives with her shining, chocolate brown, puppy eyes, "I've been waiting for you all day long!"
"Remove yourself from my person this instant!" Knives growled.
"But… but Knives-sama… I was waiting for forever…" she whimpered, her eyes beginning to become very wet. She burst into tears and began wailing on his lap as if her very soul had been ripped from her body.
Knives stared with dismay at the girl before him. She was too emotional and spontaneous for his comfort. At that moment, he would have given his right arm to make her leave him alone and stop crying, annoying him, and trying to be his friend. "Shut up, you damn brat and just leave me the hell alone!" Knives snarled, trying without success to dislodge the little arms that had once again attached themselves around his neck.
"Knives-sama hates me!" Yume wailed, tears flooding down her face, "He never wants to see me ever again! He wants me to go die! He doesn't care!"
"That's damn true!" Knives growled.
Knives, you are aware that you aren't helping the situation, right, Vash thought to his brother.
You try to get the brat off me, Knives mentally yelled back.
I can't. Only you can.
How?
Be nice.
You've got to be joking.
Nope. You need to say something nice to her.
I will make you suffer for this someday, Vash.
Yes, yes. So you've said before.
"Uh… I… uh… was looking forward to seeing you also…" Knives mumbled and stopped his efforts to get the child off of him.
"Really?" the tears suddenly stopped and the girl grinned widely, "I love you so much, Knives-sama!" She hugged him close, while at the same time wiping her tears and snot all over his chest. Knives gagged silently when he saw the sticky trails she left over his plug suit.
She began talking rapidly. "I drew all kinds of pictures yesterday after you went and today when I was waiting for you! I want to show all of them to you! Do you like to draw pictures?"
"I-" Knives began.
"I do!" she cut him off, not to be stopped in her wild, oral rampage, "It's one of my favorite things in the world! I like picture books too! But we don't have a lot of them here… But I've read all of the ones we do have! Do you like picture books, Knives-sama?"
"No, not-" he began again.
"Well, I'm going to read all of them to you anyway!" she grinned broadly.
Knives stared down at the happy child and blinked. She was talking too fast for him to follow her completely. "Slow down, damn it! Don't talk so fast!"
"C'mon, Knives-sama! Yah! There's lotsa stuff to see and only today to see it in!" she bounced off his lap and rushed over to her table. Covering it were all kinds of picture and she gestured furiously for Knives to come over.
"Stupid brat…" Knives growled to himself. He turned around to see why Vash was not pushing him over to the table. His brother seemed to want this 'friendship' to develop so Knives thought he would be bringing him over to the table as fast as he could. His eyes were met with the sight of his brother collapsed on the ground, unable to stop laughing. "What is so funny, brother?" Knives snapped.
"She walked all over you!" Vash gasped out and burst into a fresh fit, "You! Of all people!"
"Stand up and get a hold of yourself!" Knives growled.
"H-hai!" Vash stood up and, still laughing but much quieter now, pushed his brother over to the table covered by the girl's artwork.
Yume pulled a chair over close to Knives and picked up the first picture. "See! This is you," she pointed to a blob, "and this is me," she pointed to another blob that was close to the other one, "and we're sitting up on a hill looking at the stars!"
Knives peered at the scribbles on the paper. "I don't see any of this… It's just a paper full of scribbles. You call this a picture?"
"But… Knives-sama…" the girl started sniffling again.
"Oh wait! I see it!" Knives quickly lied. He did not want any more snot and tears smeared on another part of his anatomy.
"Really? Sugoi, sugoi!" Yume jumped up on the table and began dancing around. She jumped in Knives' lap again and gave him another hug. "You're so wonderful, Knives-sama!"
"Yes, I know."
"All right! This is the next picture! See the pretty butterfly on the branch?" She held up the picture. Knives stared hard at the mad scribbling, trying to see what she saw. Then, as if he could suddenly see through another set of eyes, there it was, drawn crudely but still a butterfly.
"Yes, there it is." Knives pointed it out.
"You can see it, Knives-sama! Wow! I'm so happy!" she grinned and then picked up the next picture. "Here's the spider, and here's me stabbing it with a stick. I hate spiders! They're so nasty and hairy and bleh!" Yume shuddered.
Knives looked at the picture and saw that once again, he could see what she described to him. "Spiders are disgusting creatures," Knives agreed. It amazed him that a human child such as her could share his views without knowing it.
"And here's Knives-sama smiling!" she held up another picture.
Knives grimaced. "I don't like that picture," he stated simply.
"Oh, right…" Yume's face fell and she put it back down. She showed him one by one the rest of her pictures and then brought over some picture books. Slowly, but surely, she read out loud to him some of her favorite books, which included The Ugly Duckling, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Where the Wild Things Are, and Goodnight Moon.
"'And it was still hot.' … Know what, Knives-sama?" Yume said, putting down Where the Wild Things Are, "You remind me of Max, except you never would have stopped being the King of all Wild Things and left the place."
"Unless it was to take my wild things to the human world for a hostile takeover," Knives pointed out, "And I never would have went to my room in the first place either. A superior being such as I does not do as told."
"Yup. Knives-sama is above all that," Yume nodded solemnly.
Vash watched his brother and the child interact. Vash leaned back in his chair and sighed. He did not want to admit it but he was jealous of the girl. Knives had seemed to loosen up a little as he and Yume talked and he was a little more tolerant of her emotional outbursts and once even seemed to nearly smile once at her antics. She had something Vash lacked and that something allowed her to draw out Knives from his carefully dug anti-social hole.
Vash smiled sadly to himself. She was breaking through his hard outer shell, something Vash had never been able to do since Knives had created it when they were children.
"Well… maybe he'll change…" he looked back at the girl who had brought over some games and was trying to get the stubborn Knives to play them with her, "If anyone could make him change, it would be her…"
Vash stood, taking his eyes off the girl and the stranger he once knew. There was a playground outside and some of the children had headed out there. He followed them, wanting to play an outdoors game to take his mind off his brother. Also, there was that cute, young daycare employee who was outside watching them…
"Hang on, Knives-sama! I need to go get something!" Yume dashed off, leaving Knives at the table. Knives growled and rubbed his temples. The child was giving him the worst headache he had ever had. It was at times like this that he wished Legato was still alive. Yes, the human had died because he failed and Knives had no intention of keeping around useless subjects… but that spider could give massages that were better then sex, or at least that was the way Dominique the Cyclops put it.
Knives thought back over the Gung-Ho Guns. Monev the Gale, Zazie the Beast, Midvalley the Hornfreak, Caine the Longshot and the others… they were all so useless when they finally met with Vash. Each said they could destroy him and each failed miserably. What was that human saying? 'If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself' or something to that affect. It was so true…
As Knives contemplated the lost Gung-Ho Guns, Yume returned. Knives looked at the girl, she was acting different. The spring in her step was gone along with her nearly permanent smile. "What happened?" Knives asked as she sat down in a chair beside him. It was not that he was concerned, he was merely curious as to what had ruined the girl's mood.
She sniffed, "Jack and Kole won't let me open the toy closet! And there's something in there I need to show you!"
"Can't it wait till they will allow you access to this toy closet?"
"No! I have to show it to you now! And besides, those jerks are going to stay there for the rest of forever… They say I have to pay them to get in."
"Pay them?"
"Yeah, with cookies… and I don't have any cookies right now and Lady-san won't give me any."
"Lady-san?"
"The lady over there." Yume pointed at the older daycare employee who was currently chasing a young boy who needed a diaper change.
"Oh…"
Yume's eyes started to tear up. "And I wanted to show it to you so bad…" She began to cry.
"Don't cry, brat. We'll deal with this problem together. Now where are these scumbags?" Yume pointed across the room where the two five-year-olds stood in front of a door, trying to look tough. "Shall we go teach them a lesson?" Knives asked with a mischievous grin.
Yume's eyes widened and her customary grin popped back into being. She squealed in delight and jumped into Knives' lap. While she hugged him close and exclaimed about how he was the best person she had ever met, Yume managed to wipe her tears and snot all over his plug suit once more. Knives felt his stomach rebel but as he did not eat, he had nothing to throw up.
"C'mon! Let's go!" Yume joyously cried out, hopping down from his lap. She cocked her head to one side as she looked at him. "I'm gonna have to push you, right?"
"Yes, my brother is not present to do that."
Yume scrunched up her nose as she walked behind Knives' wheelchair and began pushing him toward the two trouble-making boys. "Wow, Knives-sama! You don't weigh much, huh?"
"I don't eat."
"Then how do you live?"
Knives smiled, "That's a secret. Though maybe, someday, I will tell you."
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Woohoo! ^_^ I love all of you people! You rule! *huggles everyone* Everyone has had such enthusiastic responses to Yume that it just makes me feel so wonderful! ^_^ I didn't think I'd have this many reviews by the third chapter! Wow! O.O;; This chap was longer then normal because I felt you people deserved it. ^_^
Yume: *appears out of nowhere* They love me! ^_^ And I love them!
Jeril: Yume? What are you doing here? Get back in the fic!
Yume: Meep! Noooo! I want to stay here with you! *clings to Jeril's leg* Don't make me leave, Author-sama!
Jeril: O.o;; The name's Jeril.
Yume: ^_^ Okay, Author-sama!
Jeril: *sigh* Go bug the reviewers.
Yume: Okay, Author-sama! *runs off to find a reviewer to glomp*
Jeril: She's an odd little basket of fruit all right… o.o;;;
Anyway, as you might have guessed, Knives is going to be a little OOC in this fic because of this friendship that's developing with Yume. *cries* I dun like OOC chars… but then this fic idea wouldn't work out… Gomen!