Work Text:
Brad can admit that he and the kid got off to a rocky start, but he was young. They both were. Plus his ship had just crashed and this freaky bulbless plant kid shows up and it turns out his brother is a genocidal maniac and yanno, it was a whole thing. They moved past it.
In fact, he'd even go so far to say that he's been a pretty good father figure to the kiddo – not that he had much competition. Luida had to fight the memory of a ghost and whatever plant sprouted him, but the dad lane had been wide open, no pressure or anything.
So yeah, he taught him how to ride toma, how to hold a spanner the right way, how the can opener and the microwave work when he gets hungry... basically everything a man needs to know.
He's just glad the kid could read and wipe himself when he showed up, pretty nifty perk for a one year old.
Anyway, he's basically earned his galaxy's best dad mug, which is why he feels qualified to have an opinion on today's character building lesson.
Which, by the way, he needs to clarify is not a lesson because there’s anything wrong with Vash. It’s not that he disagrees with the kid's whole choice of species or gender or whatever. If he wants to bud like his sisters or... whatever his brother has going on there, or live his whole life as a plant-monk, or go have a whole bunch of kiddos (Can he even do that? Did they ever give him the talk? Luida should get on that...) that's his prerogative. But at some point you see your kid walkin' right into something stupid and you want to save him the trouble, because he supposes he can get liking men and all, but...
“You're quite the cook huh? Smells good.”
That guy?
It's not even that he's a food-stealing, scruffy, chain-smoker that walked Vash right to his lunatic brother (but he sure did do that), and it's not even that he did his best to give him a shiner the first time they met trying to keep Vash from getting 'kidnapped' (because he can appreciate the loyalty), but he's just so... eugh.
He doesn't want to be that guy, and he realizes there's no accounting for taste, but there are two perfectly clean and well adjusted women serving as a nice contrast to whatever that punk has going on, like the universe itself is trying to show anyone around that the guy is bad news.
It's too bad his kid has always been a little slow to learn a lesson. But it's fine, by the time this whole nightmare is over he's sure Vash'll come to his senses and stop giving his best puppy eyes to whatever the cat dragged in – after all, he used to bring home every stray as a kid, but he never really kept any for his own pet, it'll be fine.
Well, turns out after the not quite end of the world didn’t happen, it sure ain't fine.
Now they've got a whole pack of reforming mercenaries and psychopaths, a small army to feed and house, and the kid is still making those damn soggy puppy eyes at the luckiest sonofabitch Brad has ever met in his life.
Like, really? Hit by a car twice, drinks poison to live with super liver talent or whatever, drinks his own brother's blood to not bleed out after getting lasered and lit on fire and blown up with a damn rocket launcher, eaten by a worm, and attempted to go toe to toe with the juiced up omnicidal brother? They must've spliced him with roach DNA. The only bright side is that the punk has put his talents at not dying to the purpose of keeping Vash alive, so he gets one (one!) point in his favor.
Maybe that's what Vash likes in a partner – the ability to not get splattered in front of him. He can see why that would have been a priority in the past, what with the crazy brother and the bounty and the getting shot at, but things are pretty peaceful around here these days, he can settle down with somebody who owns nail clippers, or real shoes even. Literally anyone else.
Anyone. Someone who doesn't have their pinkie jammed up their nostril.
“Disgusting.”
Someone who doesn't make him agree with the worst of their reforming strays – the semi-domesticated and wholly-irritating Knife (singular, now that he doesn't have all those sisters rattling around up there).
Not that he's going to agree verbally, but he will certainly grunt his paternalistic disapproval, something the evil twin probably won't understand 'cause he never had a father figure... probably where he went wrong and all.
“You made him.”
The look Knife sends him is about the sharpest thing he can muster these days, and even that is only about as withering as he is.
“I am not responsible for this embarrassing display.” He sneers as he gestures toward the field that he is responsible for with one bony hand. “Vash's lack of decorum didn't come from our side of the family.”
“He was that goofy when we got him,” Brad scoffs, rolling his eyes as they watch the awful attempts at a mating display carrying on in front of them. “And you're the one that genetically engineered a kid so soggy and pathetic and feral that the poor idiot couldn't resist scooping him from the gutter.”
“How could I know that he would stoop so low! He's a higher being, he should have standards!”
They cringe in unison as the punk belches loudly, and Vash laughs. Laughs.
“I should have finished my last run,” Knife mutters, dragging a hand down his face. “It would be less ignoble to be trod on by your filthy feet than to witness my kind brought so low.”
“No arguments here.”
Though he doesn't bother to point out that, despite the feral one's terrible choice in footwear, at least he's wearing shoes, unlike some people.
But he can understand the sentiment... somebody has to put their (sensibly shod) foot down here, and as usual it's gotta be him.
He goes over what he's gonna say at least a dozen times, trying to get the best angle cause he knows Vash'll spook quicker than toma in a field of firecrackers if he doesn't go about this whole thing delicately. To make his odds even better he grabs some donuts from the mess hall before he corners him in his room – he even knocks once before palming the door open, because kids like their autonomy and all, and strolls in bag first.
“Hey kid, I got you some tooth rot.”
Vash looks up from his desk, which has an identical bag on it, and breaks into a giant dough-filled grin.
“Ooauww frbaah! Oo fpo-”
“Ay! Don't talk with your mouth full, who raised you?” Clicking his tongue, he drops his much better bag next to the other one and tugs out the other chair at the little table. “Guess you beat me to it.”
The kid swallows the whole mouthful down in one vaguely horrifying gulp, his cheeks going pink as he beams at his two bags with sheepish delight.
“Well, Wolfwood dropped these off this morning, but you know you can never have enough donuts!”
Eugh. Of course he did. Brad didn't even know that punk was capable of consciousness this early in the morning... he feels a little bit like he's losing at chess to a raccoon that's eating the pieces.
“Well good for him.” He tries not to roll his eyes, really he does, but at least it gives him the perfect opening to his carefully crafted plan. “By the way, you're out of his league.”
The donut that Vash had just stuffed into his mouth goes spewing onto the table in a hacking wheeze, which doesn't do him any favors, but Brad stands by his statement. His kid is too good for the food-stealing, chain-smoking, nose-picking hooligan that apparently gets up at the crack of dawn to make him happy or whatever. Gross.
“What?” Vash finally wheezes out, all watery and pathetic as he coughs up his lungs and wipes at his mouth. “Out of who's... what?”
“C'mon, don't play dumb, kid. I've seen nature documentaries. Maybe plants don't do the same weird mating displays but you both sure are doing some terrible human ones.”
Then again, maybe Vash hasn't seen those documentaries. Did Luida ever get around to giving him that birds and the bees talk? Maybe pollinating metaphors are a little too on the nose. Eugh.
“I- we... I don't-” Vash is still sputtering, now gone as red as the coat he's got flung haphazardly onto the bed, which he hasn't bothered to make, of course. “I mean I-”
“Look kiddo-” Brad raises his hands with the smile of patient dads everywhere, “-you know I accept you in all your plant-y ways. Whatever weird stuff you gotta get up to is a-okay with me. If you wanna get your budding on, you go right ahead, buddy.”
Vash is too busy gaping like a fish to share in his chuckle, but he's sure that he'll get it later.
“I don't understand-”
Okay, so maybe Luida hasn't given him that talk... well. No one can say he hasn't earned his mug now.
“Oh boy.” He sucks on his teeth for a minute, squinting around the room for appropriate visual aids. He wasn't quite prepared for this one on the fly. “Okay well, you know how sometimes the toma hens get a little uh... randy? And they fluff up their feathers and make that clicking gurgling noise in their throat to get the roosters - or uh, the other hens - to notice them? Well that's like you and the chain-smoking punk-”
“Please, please stop talking,” Vash whines, his face curdling as he slaps his hands over his ears – which just proves his point. If the boy can't handle a conversation about the toma and the other toma then he sure shouldn't be out there shaking his feathers at anyone.
“I'm just saying, you could do better!” Brad insists, loud enough to be heard over the childish display, which makes Vash whine louder and flail a hand at him in a shushing motion... kids these days. “What about that nice fella that's closer to your age, the one you played with as a kid?”
Vash quits his whining to squint at him, obviously confused, but that's pretty normal given how many good smacks to the head he's taken.
“Who?”
“The weirdo with the puppets-” Ah, damn. Bad move to remind him he's a weirdo... or that he tried to kill him with the puppets, time for fatherly damage control, “-didn't you like playing dolls with him when you were younger?”
Vash recoils from the table, nearly knocking the bag of donuts clean off it, which seems a bit dramatic.
“Emilio?”
“Yeah, that guy. He's really turned his life around, you two have both seen the world, and uh...” time to pull out the big guns “-your brother likes him!”
There's a moment of silence – not one where the kid looks like he's considering the paternal words of wisdom, more like he's trying to wrangle his face through the stages of grief, so maybe the puppet guy isn't his type.
“Emilio...” Vash repeats, shaking his head and looking a little queasy for it. Probably too many damn donuts, that punk really shouldn't be bringing him so many sweets, it'll give the kid a stomach ache. “I was like fourteen when he was a kid... he's like... and- no... what? No. Absolutely not. … what?”
“Sheesh. You don't gotta insult the guy.” The manners of kids these days... “Well if not him, what about the other one?”
“The other...” Vash is already shaking his head as he slides down into his chair, both hands covering his face and pulling his lower eyelids into a cartoonish grimace.
“It'll stay like that you know,” Brad teases him, leaning forward to fish a donut out of the bag that was already here. As he suspected, they are now cold. Figures the punk couldn't even bring fresh ones. “The other one is a real prettyboy, you'll have to keep up with him.”
Vash continues shaking his head, one boot kicking at the ground as he groans. “No. I don't even know who, but no.”
“The guy, you know-” he waves a hand around his head. “With the hair, and the face.”
“Oh gee, right, with the hair and the face, how could I forget-”
“The music man,” Brad grunts through a mouthful of subpar donut, “The ladies here seem to really like him.”
“Midvalley?” Vash peeks through his fingers, eyebrows raised incredulously before he huffs a laugh. “They can keep him, good for them.”
“Aw, don't be like that, don't you like music? You're always singing with your sisters and listening to whatever awful stuff you've got on your radio – and he's good with kids, don't you like kids?”
“I'm having a stroke,” Vash tells him, sliding even further in the chair, until his back is curled into an uncomfortable crimp and his triple chin is crushed firmly to his chest. “This is a nightmare and I hope I wake up soon.”
“What's really a nightmare is watching you moon over the feral raccoon that followed you from whatever dumpster you were rooting around in to find him,” Brad grumbles, casting him a baleful look. He goes out of his way to help the kid, and he doesn't appreciate a word of it... typical. “What do you even see in him?”
Vash finally pushes himself upright in the chair, scowl in full force and eyes glinting like he's ready for a fight.
“Don't talk about Wolfwood like that, he's a good guy.”
“Good my a-”
“He is!” Vash insists, leaning over the table as he jabs one finger into the middle of it. “Not only is he genuinely good, and literally risked his life to save me from a flying fortress on the back of a motorcycle like a storybook knight-”
“Seriously?” His starry-eyed blush is nauseating. “Like a knight?”
The kid bowls right over him.
“-but he's also good with kids, so good with them actually! And he knows what it's like to have a used-to-be-crazy brother-”
“-used to be is a stretch-”
“-and he's really sweet and brings me donuts and takes care of me and-”
“-he doesn't even have the sense to wear proper shoes, how he is gonna take care of anyone-”
“-and I love his ankles, okay? I love that I can see them all the time!”
“Eugh.” He's beginning to think this was a miscalculation. “Alright, still-”
“And I love his forehead! I don't even get to see it because his hair is always in the way... and I love his hair! I love that it's silver now because it means that he's alive, and I love that he's alive! And he matches his brother that way, like me and Nai match now, and he just.. he gets it! And he doesn't care that I'm a billion years old, he just teaches me the slang that the kids are using so I can be cool too!”
“He's not cool in the first place-”
“And you know what else!” Vash slaps both hands down on the table, cheeks puffed and eyebrows drawn down.
No, and he doesn't want to know either at this point...
“What else?” Brad asks with the heaviest sigh he can manage, waiting to hear about this guy's attractive earlobes or whatever. Clearly this was a lost cause, and his kid has irredeemable taste.
“I love him! That's what else!” He punctuates it with another thump to the table. “I love him and you can't stop me, cause I'm an adult.”
Brad does not bother to point out the irony of the massive pout on his kid's face as he makes his last stand.
“Well... alright then.” He shrugs, stands, and leans across the table to pat Vash's heaving shoulder in an awkward hug. “Go get him I guess... let me know when I need to shovel talk him.”
In the meantime he's gonna go find some of that good apple whiskey and see if Knife wants to drown their sorrows together on the observation deck... or maybe somewhere a little lower to the ground where he can't be pushed off anything.
Vash just gapes at him as he strolls to the door, apparently dumbstruck at his own tirade.
Not quite as dumbstruck as the feral punk on the other side of the door, who gapes at the both of them when it slides open, red to his perfectly average looking earlobes.
“Uuuh...”
Yeah, no.
“Have fun with that,” he grunts, slapping the kid on the back as he shoulders past him. “I'll kill you.”
There, job done. Mug earned. Time to go fill it with something strong enough to wipe any memory of this incident from his mind...
Kids.