Work Text:
Once every handful of decades, a devil met with an angel in order to discuss very important matters to do with the celestial and demonic realms. The place and time was always different for the meeting, but the participants were the same.
These meetings were never scheduled — never written in any diary nor noted on a calendar — no, the two were drawn together utterly naturally. Well, supernaturally as it were.
Around a small tea table, in a conspicuously empty rooftop greenhouse, in the middle of a very important city, sat once identical twins. Condensation gathered on the glass protecting them from the light morning mist that drifted outside, making the light that shone in diffused and dreamy. Around them, flowers were flushed with color and the plants were as lush as if they had shot out of the ground mere moments before. The greenery seemed to lean in close to the pair, as if basking in the warmth of the sun. Strangely enough, they didn’t just lean toward the angel either; both angel and devil received the adoration of the flora surrounding them.
The two were an interesting pair. One sat perfectly straight, his white suit and pristine as his slick backed hair and the shine on the small halo that hovered above his head. Even without the halo, which humans couldn’t see anyway, there was a celestial superiority, otherworldliness to his entire being.
By contrast, the other’s appearance was far more casual. Dressed in a black turtleneck and loose red jacket and with a shiny teal prosthetic arm, one might mistake him for human if not for the little pair of horns peeking out from a mess of blond hair and the thin, rope-like tail that twitched back and forth behind him in seemingly endless amusement.
“I truly don’t understand why something like this would be worth falling for,” Knives said, gesturing at the donut that was currently dripping strawberry-flavored jelly onto Vash’s hand. “It’s nothing more than a confection — a disgustingly messy one at that.”
“You obviously just haven’t tried something good enough yet.” Vash — a devil by name and trade, if not by spirit — grinned before licking the spilled jelly off his hand, Knives grimacing at his brother’s distinct lack of manners. “Besides, it’s not like it was the donut’s fault I fell. The donut is completely innocent and I won’t stand for such slander against it.”
Knives rolled his eyes at his brother’s sudden, over the top display of protectiveness of the baked good before he stuffed the rest in his mouth, getting even more jelly all over his face.
“Perhaps,” he allowed, “though your attachment to all these human frivolities has certainly kept you down here.”
Vash only shrugged and grabbed a napkin from the table that was overflowing from a truly excessive amount of sweets. Really, the table was so heavily laden with baked goods and puddings and what seemed to be every dessert under the sun, that it was a miracle that it hadn’t collapsed under the sheer weight of sugar.
It was an old argument — one who’s script had been written long ago, giving the pair centuries to memorize their lines.
Officially, this assembly of two was little more than a business trip for the both of them. Vash was sent up from hell to try to tempt the Archangel Knives to their side while Knives tried to purify and return the holiness of one of their own.
The first couple hundred years, they were completely professional, or at least Knives was, and Vash was as professional as he was capable of being. The pair met, they debated the finer points of morality and theology, and then after neither side gave in, they went their separate ways. These meetings were something that was important to them, a task neither took lightly.
Though the paths they had walked and the decisions they had made were different as could be, neither twin had ever been able to quite give up on the other. They cared, pure and simple.
After a while though… Well, having the exact same conversation over and over again just got a bit boring, didn’t it? So, decorum began to loosen slightly and after a few centuries, the conversations might have drifted away from moral arguments and slightly toward whatever recent interest had consumed the attention of one of them. Today, it appeared to be sweets.
“When was the last time you had cake?” Vash asked. “Really good cake, not just the bland stuff they have in heaven.”
“Heaven’s food isn’t bland.” Knives bristled. “It’s balanced.”
“If balanced is code for boring, sure.” Vash sighed, as if he was dealing with a particularly stubborn child. “It took you 500 years to even try salt .”
“Food should be enjoyed as nature has gifted it to us,” Knives insisted, picking up his teacup and taking a sip of bitter herbal tea before quickly putting it down again. Bitter had never been a flavor he was fond of. “The idea that humans can improve upon the grand design is foolish.”
“I don’t know,” Vash said, cutting into a pie, the fresh steam pouring out and carrying the scent of freshly-cooked cherries and butter across the table to Knives, “I’ve found a lot of their improvements pretty nifty.”
Illustrating his point, Vash held up his prosthetic hand and wiggled the fingers at his brother.
“I did offer to bless you with a new one,” Knives reminded him.
“I remember,” Vash said with a simple shrug, as if he had turned down an after dinner mint, not an celestially-blessed arm, “but we don’t know what would happen if an angel blessed a devil, especially considering I lost it when I fell. For all we know, I might explode or something.”
“Or you could come back to our side and leave this little rebellion behind.”
“Nah, I like the hand.” Grinning, Vash grabbed a spoon with the hand in question and used it to stuff his face with a bite of cherry pie. “It’s neat, don’t you think? A fascinating bit of human ingenuity.”
“Ridiculous.”
The topic of Vash’s fall had been a sore one in those early years, but as time went on, the tension subsided. Like the tide weathering the jagged edges of a stone, the sting of raised voices and hot tears had smoothed.
Now, centuries later, Vash’s fall felt like a ridiculous punishment inflicted upon the young angel for simply being too curious about the world and asking too many questions. These days, no angel would ever be punished so harshly for such a thing, but the twins had been some of the first, and back then things were different. Really, there was no reason Vash should still be locked out of the gates of heaven other than his simple refusal to return.
Time had opened Knives’ eyes to that fact. Hurt feelings and resentment had gradually ebbed away, able to return to the fondness that had been at the root of the personal strife between the pair.
“Eat this,” Vash said, shoving a plate in Knives’s direction, “it’s called angel food, you’ll like it.”
“I highly doubt this confection or the bakery it came from has anything to do with angels.” Still, Knives picked up the ornate fork that had come with his tea set and took a small bite, curious.
“What do you think?”
Chewing slowly, Knives considered his answer. It was soft and fluffy, like one would imagine eating a cloud to be. It wasn’t sickly sweet either, but light and with a slight hint of vanilla. No frosting or embellishments, just simple sponge cake.
It was considerably better than his tea had been.
“It’s… pleasant,” Knives eventually allowed.
“Ugh,” Vash groaned, throwing up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of exasperation. “Why are you always so difficult?”
“I’m not difficult. It's called having standards.”
“Sure,” Vash rolled his eyes, “I guess that’s what they’re calling being closed-minded nowadays.”
Knives bristled a little at the comment. He wasn’t closed-minded . After all, he was here, wasn’t he?
Absent-mindedly, Knives picked up his tea cup, taking another sip before blanching and putting it down once again. Even if his celestial powers had kept the beverage warm, the taste hadn’t improved. Knives wondered if his tea would be better if it was sweetened. Perhaps with sugar or even some honey? He’d have to try at some other point though, not in front of his brother.
“What’s that?” Knives asked, pointing to one plate Vash hadn’t touched yet.
“Candied apple,” Vash said, picking up a knife and cutting into the unnaturally bright red apple, the shiny shell encasing it cracking in a perfect line along with the knife. He moved one half to another plate before cutting each half further into three perfectly divided slices — six in total. “Do you want some?”
“Of course not,” Knives refused, but didn’t push away the plate when Vash set it in front of him.
“Just try it. You’ll like it, I promise!”
“Really Vash? An apple?” Knives asked, not sure if his brother realized the irony of his actions or not. He never could quite tell with Vash. “You’re trying to tempt me to your side with an apple ?”
“They’re good!” Vash insisted, picking up and taking a bite of his own slices and biting it in two. “I’m telling you, humans have this stuff figured out!”
“I doubt they could improve upon that which nature has cultivated for millions of years.” Despite his misgivings though Knives speared one of the slices with his fork and took a small, tentative bite.
The apple, which should have been sweet all on its own with nature’s sugar, had a sharp tartness when compared to the sugar coating the outside. It was… curious. Knives took another bite, this one where the sugar coating was a little thicker, the taste even sweeter. Though the apple on its own had a crunch to it, the crackle of the candied shell made biting into it all the more satisfying.
“Your verdict?” Vash asked after a little while, smiling mischievously.
“It’s… interesting I suppose,” Knives allowed.
“Is that so? That’s why you ate the entire thing?”
Knives looked down, half surprised to find that save a single slice, his plate was indeed empty.
“That’s neither here nor there,” Knives said, clearing his throat and pushing the plate away. A part of him he’d never admit to felt a little sad that he wouldn’t get to finish that final bite.
“I won’t judge you if you want to finish it,” Vash said. “I’ll even close my eyes so that you can say that you threw it in the bushes or something.” To demonstrate his point, Vash covered both eyes with his hands, as if they were playing a game of hide and seek.
“Don’t be ridiculous — we’re not children, Vash,” Knives said, spearing the last slice with his fork and holding it out across the table. “Here, you eat it.”
“As much as I hate saying no to sweets,” Vash said, taking his hands off of his eyes and picking up his own fork, “I have my own half. Don’t you know, sharing is caring?”
Knives looked down at his plate, at that last little bit of apple. He had tasted it like he agreed; there was no real reason for him to finish it. Though, if Vash refused to eat it, it would mean it went to waste and it wasn’t good to waste things. So really, maybe it would be best to eat it, if only to be economical.
“It’s not going to eat itself,” Vash said, interrupting Knives’ thoughts as he picked up one of his own slices with his fingers and popped it into his mouth.
“Fine.” Giving in, Knives brought the apple slice to his lips, finishing it off. “It’s still not better than apples naturally are.”
“That’s fine,” Vash said with a shrug, biting another slice in half. “Not everything has to be ‘better’ for them to be good. Sometimes it’s enough to just be different. Change can be nice when we let it happen.”
“Change, hm?” It was not a terrible point, Knives supposed. It wasn’t one generally embraced by the rigid institution of Heaven, but it wasn’t one he could entirely disagree with. “I suppose it’s not always bad.”
“Careful there,” Vash warned with a grin, “You almost sound like you’re conceding that I have a point.”
Picking up a little bottle of honey shaped like a teddy bear, Knives squeezed a generous amount into his tea. He’d already eaten the apple; he might as well enjoy his tea.
“I would never,” Knives replied as he finished off his now perfectly sweetened tea. There wasn’t much left, only a few sips, but the improvement had Knives wishing he had added the honey sooner. If he had relented sooner, there would have been so much less bitterness that he had to swallow.
Placing the now empty tea cup back on its saucer, Knives stood, brushing away any stray crumbles or wrinkles from his white suit.
“If there’s anything else you’d like to say, I suggest you do so now.”
“This is goodbye, then?” Vash asked as he watched his brother stand.
“I believe any progress that might have been made, would have already.”
“You know,” Vash said, chewing on his lip, “we don’t have to just meet up when we’re told to. I mean, we don’t have to always wait. There are no rules against us occasionally saying hi just to say hi.”
“I’m an Archangel,” Knives reminded him. “Unlike some, I do not have time to slack off on my duties to spend time with a devil.”
“Of course.” Vash nodded, as if that was the response he’d been expecting to get. After all, that was the way it always was — they met, they argued, then they went on their own separate ways for the next few decades until they were sent by their respective parties to meet again.
That’s the way it had always been.
Maybe it didn’t have to be though. Perhaps, like the tea which had been served bitter, sweetness could be added.
“However,” Knives started, unsure if he should be saying this, but unable to stop himself, “if you happen to be in Paris around Christmas this year, I am scheduled to perform several miracles. Obviously I am very busy and my time will be limited, but I suppose I could spare a day or two for… personal matters.”
“Christmas, huh?” Vash asked. “I think I can manage to take a break from my usual mayhem for a few days.”
“It will be nice to have a holiday.”
“I’ll see you at Christmas then,” Vash said, smiling wider than Knives had seen all day.
Without warning, Vash jumped up from his seat and threw himself at his brother, nearly knocking him over as he squeezed Knives around the middle. Surprised, Knives stood stock still, allowing the hug to happen before finally coughing once and patting Vash lightly on the back. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him. It had probably been Vash before he had fallen.
On occasion, Knives supposed, a little change might not be so bad.
“I’ll see you at Christmas,” Knives confirmed. “At least try to stay out of trouble.”
Vash pulled back, grinning, well, a little devilishly.
“I never do.”
