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Chapter Three: Humans & Monsters

Millie stood stirring the soup while singing a childhood tune, Meryl constantly checking on her, making sure she wouldn't cause a fire or something worse. Vash waited impatiently at a table, spoon in hand and eyes screaming 'Hurry up'. He had paid the innkeeper for the girls so that they could stay for another four days. It was time to get repaid with as much soup that he could muster into his stomach.

Meryl sat down across from him, her pale face not really showing emotion, but her eyes sparkled with joy. She was very pleased to see Vash, it took everything she had to control herself from getting up from her chair and running to him, pouncing on top of him with a tight embrace.

"How much longer? I'm weathering away here." Vash hungrily said, looking down at his empty bowl.

"They're probability contemplating on how to kill you. Why else would it take two hours to cook a simple soup." Knives commented finally.

"They're not like that Knives."

"So they want you to believe, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole cursed town didn't come after you. Didn't you see it brother, behind those fake smiles, they weren't greeting you, you can tell behind those smiles all they saw as they looked at you was the bounty."

"You're misunderstanding everything Knives. You look through a shattered glass, only seeing small pieces and not the whole picture. Have you've watched, I mean really watch? I've spent my whole life watching them, their pain, their happiness, feeling these emotions with them."

"And killing them." Knives added.

"What?"

"You know what I'm talking about. Everyone you hold dear dies, Rem, and now that sad priest Wolfwood. Wolfwood would still be alive if he hadn't met you. He listened to you, and he died for it."

"Stop."

"You know I speak the truth. That poor maggot Wolfwood, abused as a child to only die by the same man that abused him, he could have taken him you know, but he didn't, because he listened to you."

"I SAID STOP!!" Vash slammed his closed fists on the table, knocking the empty bowl to the floor, it broke as it hit. Vash started shaking uncontrollably from his anger.

Meryl sat back in her chair, her expression full of terror. She had watched him the whole time, for the longest time he looked calm, thinking to himself as he had always done, to now, becoming angry and telling something to stop. "Vash?"

Vash didn't seem to hear her. He set his head down into his arms to hide his tears. Knives laughed at him. "You're such a cry baby. Sometimes I'm embarrassed to call you my brother."

Meryl pushed herself from her chair, slowly walking to Vash, her expression changing from terror to concern. She placed a hand on his shoulder, noticing he was trembling. "Oh Vash..."

She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly.

"Now isn't this a precious moment." Knives starting up again. "Better not let her get to close brother. She just may fall to the same fate as Rem and Wolfwood. Her and that annoying big girl."

"Just stop Knives, please, just stop."

"You're cursed, just as I am. We don't belong with humans, why do you think I tried to wipe them out? We're monsters, and that is all we will ever be. I accepted that, why can't you?"

"Just because we're monsters' Knives, don't mean we have to live like them. We can live peacefully with humans, why can't you understand that?"

"Your missing my whole point, just like that black haired girl called you, you're an idiot!"

Millie came bursting in through the door, a huge pot of steaming soup in her hands. Her smile turning upside down at what, she saw before her. Meryl lifted her head from Vash's shoulder to look at Millie, her dark eyes close to tears. Vash remained as he was, his face still buried in his arms.

"Gee, if I had known that he would get really upset on not having his soup right away, I would have made it faster." Millie said setting the pot on the table.

"I don't think it's that Millie." Meryl replied with a shaky voice.

Vash let out a painful sigh as he got up. Meryl and Millie stood quietly as he left them. Meryl wanted to run after him, but knew he just wanted to be left alone.

"What's wrong with him Meryl?"

"I don't know, he just all of a sudden freaked out."

The two girls sat back down. Millie reached over to slide the pot of soup closer to her. "We shouldn't let the soup go to waste." She calmly said scooping soup into her bowl.

Meryl handed her bowl to Millie, who filled it. She wasn't hungry, but Millie spent a lot of time on it, it would be wrong to not have any.

- - - - -

Vash wandered the town with no destination in mind, he walked the half empty streets till he stumbled across the very bench that Meryl sat when waiting for his return. He laid down on his back, putting an arm over his eyes, with one leg stretched out and the other in a up side down V position. Knives would taunt him from time to time, with laughter. Vash was a monster, he knew this, but he wasn't the same monster he brother is, but Knives had a point, no matter how hard he tried, he never really fit in. Wolfwood, how Vash could really use him right now. The only person who truly understood him.

-You know I speak the truth. That poor maggot Wolfwood, abused as a child to only die by the same man that abused him. He could have taken him you know, but he didn't, because he listened to you.-

Could this really be true? That Vash's ways and his look on life had rubbed off on Wolfwood, putting his body beneath the sand? Vash crossed his arms and turned to his side, facing the back of the bench. He laid there crying like a lost child, while Knives enjoyed every minute of it.

-Everyone you hold dear dies, Rem, and now that sad priest Wolfwood. Wolfwood would still be alive if he hadn't met you. He listened to you, and he died for it.-