Everything…is so bright.

                Ah! That tickles…

Wake up, Vash.

                He groaned and blinked.

                The sky was so very blue. White sunlight broke through the wide-reaching branches of a giant, green-leafed oak with a heat that was almost touchable. The air tasted sweet and clean, lying in the grass at the foot of the oak.

                He wrinkled his nose into cloth, pressing his cheek against the taught muscle beneath it, closing his eyes.

                Wake up, Vash, that voice, laughing, proud and distinct, masculine.

                "Oh, Knives," murmured Vash into cloth, his own voice still slow and yawning with sleep. He couldn't keep his eyes open. "I had the worst nightmare…"

                "It's a good thing you woke up, then," said Knives from above him—in a strange voice that Vash couldn't remember ever hearing before.

                A hand settled on Vash's head and stroked the skin right over his left ear. He sighed contentedly and, wriggling around until he was on his back, blinked up at his brother, head still cradled comfortably on one thigh.

                Knives looked down at him, a small smile curving his lips.

                Vash stared, mouth open. "Knives," he said helplessly, impulsively reaching up with both hands, "your—your hair! It's all gone!"

                His fingers found short, downy hair, only just paler than his own, and ran through it as if all that was missing had to be hiding in there somewhere. The prickly sensation against his palms made Vash, for some inexplicable reason, really nervous.

                Knives leaned into Vash's hands, eyes half-lidded. The small smile grew just a hint, just an arch of the corner of his mouth. "We cut our hair, Vash. Remember?"

                Vash's hands immediately flew to his own head, propped against his brother's hip. His fingers groped empty air and the long white shirt Knives was wearing before scraping across terribly short, feathery hair that tickled his wrists as he examined his scalp.

                "I don't," he said, eyebrows wrinkling. "I…I don't remember."

                For just a heartbeat, such intense satisfaction breathed across his mind that Vash couldn't help but squeak. But then it was gone, so quick he was sure he'd just imagined it, and Knives was smiling.

                "That's all right," he said, "it's not important."

                Vash, however, was still uneasy. "All of it?" he asked plaintively.

                "All of it," confirmed Knives, running his fingertips through Vash's hair.

                "But why?" whimpered Vash, just a bit.

                "Because we felt like it," said Knives, and laughed a laugh of such rare joy that Vash completely forgot about his missing hair.

                Vash leaned back against Knives. He grinned sheepishly up at him, a little bothered that he was so confused, and deliberately turned so that his nose poked Knives in the sensitive spot just above his hipbone. "I must not be all the way awake yet." He reached up and traced his index finger over a nose that seemed longer and sharper than he remembered, cheekbones that were finer cut, and a mouth that was thinner, somehow bleak…

                The look on Knives's face was…odd. "Come on," he said abruptly, and pulled Vash by the outstretched hand into a sitting position. "I'll show you Eden."

                Knives stood up. Vash scrambled to his feet as well, on legs that were too long, stumbling with a breathless laugh when he became dizzy and having to grab onto Knives for support, Knives, who was suddenly so tall…

                Knives put a hand over Vash's eyes and an arm around his shoulders.

                "Walk with me, Vash," and Knives's voice had a teasing note to it that Vash hadn't heard since…since?

                "Don't let me fall," warned Vash.

                "I won't," said Knives, and Vash followed as sure-footed as a goat when Knives stepped forward.

                They went uphill. A thousand strange new noises overwhelmed Vash's ears, and wild, natural smells almost hurt. He stumbled several times on strange, slippery ground that rustled beneath his feet, and Knives had to catch him again and again and didn't complain a single time.

                They stopped. Without a word, Knives's hand dropped from Vash's face, and there was a whole new something spread out before him.

                "Oh…the trees…"

                Knives laughed again.

                "Knives," said Vash, voice small and hushed, "I don't know where I am." It was so beautiful—there was a pain in his chest. He couldn't take his eyes off of this new thing that stretched out before him unto the very horizon.

                Knives stood next to him, so close their shoulders touched. "In the Garden," he said gently, pleased, "our Garden."

                "Our Garden?"

                "Yes," said Knives, "ours, everything you see." Knives smiled, and it was a real smile, soft and warm and full of everything good. "I've made you your Eden."

                Vash turned back to his twin, curious. "What's that?"

                Knives's smile stiffened.

                "What's an Eden?"

                Blue eyes grew dark and cold, the smile disappearing. "Never mind," he said, in a sharp, much harder voice than Vash had ever heard before, a stranger with his brother's face. A noise like glass breaking exploded in Vash's ears and he gasped, flinched, stepped back, a hand raised against the…against what?

                Instantly, his brother was there, steadying Vash with a hand on the back of his neck. "Never mind," he repeated, but in a crooning, soft voice that Vash recognized from the aftermath of nightmares, and leaned his forehead against his brother's, took Vash's hand. "I don't care what we name it. I made this for you."

                Vash was distracted watching a large, yellowish bird fly awkwardly by. "Me?"

                "Yes," said Knives, touching Vash's cheek to get his attention again. "I made this so you could have the Garden you always should have had."

                "But it's yours, too, right?" protested Vash, alarmed.

                Knives smiled that real smile again. Without warning, he threw his arms around Vash, pulling him so close that Vash half-collapsed against him. Warm lips pressed an affectionate, simple kiss to his cheek.

                Vash had to swallow the lump in his throat. Knives hadn't done that since…since they'd both been babies.

                "I missed you, brother," hissed Knives, fiercely, hoarsely. His hands had become fists, handfuls of the white shirt Vash himself was wearing.

                Vash laughed into his brother's hair. "But I haven't gone anywhere, Knives!"

                He raised both his perfect, flawless, bare arms and hugged Knives close, ignoring the fingers that were digging cruelly into his back and hip.

                Overhead, a clumsy yellow bird wheeled away into the perfect blue sky.