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Brad’s hands wouldn’t stop trembling. He couldn’t get a firm grip on the razor. If only he had done this a week earlier. Dad would have stood beside him at the sink and showed him what to do. Or, if Doc had insisted on keeping him in the outside world a bit longer, he would have helped Brad.
But Dad was dead. Doc, too.
After the attack, it had quickly become obvious that something had happened to Doc. He would have had a plan to get things under control, directing everyone to clean up the wreckage, search for those who had gone missing, and tend to the wounded. Instead, Luida had taken charge. She had been working alongside him for as long as Brad could remember, so it was not a surprise that she was leading the efforts, but it still came as a shock.
Mom, alongside three other engineers, had rushed to help stabilize the gravity plant, so she hadn’t gotten the chance to sift through the wreckage. Brad, though, had. He and Mom had been separated from Dad in the chaos, and when he’d finally learned what was going on, he’d started to fear the worst. He’d seen the dead girl in her coffin and the bloody human remains, broken into a cold sweat, and thrown up. Still sweating and shaking all over, he’d picked through the remains of broken puppets with a broom afterward but found nothing.
A few days later, Vash had handed him Dad’s watch and said, I’m sorry. Brad had mumbled, Leave me alone, and Vash had looked at him with sad eyes, turned around, and walked away.
Brad squeezed the handle of the razor, and cold metal sliced his skin. He swore under his breath and dropped the razor in the sink, the blades leaving behind a watery pink streak in the basin. Half his face was still covered in shaving cream, but he saw Dad’s eyes in his reflection, started feeling queasy again, and decided he was done. He washed his face and the razor and bandaged his cut. Shoulders slumping, he shoved his hands in his pockets and decided to head for the nearest common room to find a couch to lie on.
Why couldn’t he stop his hands from shaking? Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the mangled corpses, saw the puppets Knives’ monster had made from the other colony residents. But so many had survived. Mom, Luida. Jessica. He rubbed the unshaven half of his face, grumbling. Why couldn’t he make himself useful and help out, like Dad and Doc would have done? Why couldn’t he be brave and strong instead of terrified?
Brad had always been tall and broad-shouldered like his dad, but he felt like a faker with his half-shaved face, half-filled-in muscles, and lingering tendency to cry when he got overwhelmed. Everyone knew about his transition, and everyone supported him, calling him “Brad” and referring to him as a man. But he knew that when they looked at him, they saw the “tomboy” he’d lived as for most of his life until he finally felt ready to come out. If only he’d done it earlier. Why did he have to be so shy and awkward?
When he stepped into the common room, he saw someone was already there, and one of the last people he wanted to see next to Vash. It was his friend from the outside world, Wolfwood. Humiliated, Brad turned around and walked out the door.
“Hey,” Wolfwood called. “Get back here, kid.”
Brad pouted, indignant at being called a kid at seventeen, but turned around nonetheless. “What?” he asked, casually sticking his trembling hands into his pockets. A lump had lodged itself in his throat, but he didn’t swallow it. He couldn’t let this tough outsider, who’d helped save the ship and the lives of so many of its residents, see how nervous he was.
Wolfwood furrowed his brow. “Jeez, you’re jumpy. What’s the—” He looked at Brad’s face and sighed. “What a mess.”
“I know you are, but what am I?” Vash had taught Brad that one. It sounded a lot lamer when Brad said it, though, since his changing voice decided to crack on the word “are.” His cheeks mottled with heat, and he longed to sink into the tile floor of the common room and disappear.
Wolfwood scoffed. “Where do you get your comebacks, the double dollar store?” Before Brad could come up with something better than that, he said, “Show me where your razor is and let’s fix this.”
Brad led the way, trying to appear as stoic as possible though his heart was running a marathon and he hadn’t stopped sweating like crazy. Since starting T, he sweated so much more now, and deodorant did little to stop the stench. Dad had told him, as he had about many of the effects of being on T, that it was what all boys went through, just that Brad had started a little later than most.
“All right,” Wolfwood said once they’d reached the bathroom. “Lather up and I’ll teach you how it’s done.”
Brad splashed some water on the unshaven side of his face and rubbed shaving cream into it. Wolfwood took the razor in hand and started giving directions while demonstrating.
“Start here, about at your cheekbone. Now drag the razor down toward your chin. Do it in a small stripe, like you’re paintin’ a little tiny house.” Wolfwood dragged the razor lightly down Brad’s cheek.
“There’s no way you pressed hard enough,” Brad said. His voice didn’t crack, though it only reminded him of how high-pitched it still was. When he tried to speak in a lower register, it was barely an improvement. If only he had Dad to practice with.
“You don’t wanna press hard, kid. Too much pressure, and you’ll cut yourself. But too little pressure, and you won’t get a close shave.” Wolfwood rinsed the razor and handed it to Brad. “Now you try.”
Steadying his hand, Brad copied what Wolfwood had demonstrated.
“Yeah, like that. Now rinse it off and do it again.”
Brad rinsed the razor and tried another stroke. Then he rinsed it off and shaved another patch. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat—
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Wolfwood said. “It ain’t a race. Be careful, all right? Else you’ll cut yourself again.”
Furrowing his brow in concentration, Brad slowly shaved the rest of his face. His heart started to calm down, and by the time he washed off his cheeks and chin, he no longer felt like he was about to throw up. He was also sweating a lot less.
“See?” Wolfwood said. He patted Brad on the shoulder. “Not that hard. Don’t be afraid of the razor, and you’ll be fine.”
“Thanks,” Brad mumbled. “I guess you probably had a dad to teach you.” His voice cracked on the word “dad.”
“Figured it out myself. Had to learn pretty fast.” He was quiet for a moment; his reflection showed the slightest break in his stony façade. “I knew someone like you a long time ago who didn’t have a dad to help him.”
Brad’s heart leapt into his throat. “Huh?” he breathed.
He’d known there had to be outsiders like him—he wasn’t the only trans person on the ship, and not the only trans man, either—but he’d never had the opportunity to meet any. Internally, he cursed Vash for not telling him. Vash knew everything about everyone on the ship, so he should have known that Brad would have liked to know.
“Forget it.” Wolfwood put on his stoic frown again, like slapping a bandage over a crack in a plant bulb. “That scatterbrained girl. Jessica.” Brad’s stomach turned over. “She wants you to come eat. She’s worried about you.”
Brad gripped the sink counter with his hands. “I know.” He hadn’t finished his dinner the past few evenings because he hadn’t stopped feeling nauseous.
“If we can get her away from Spikey, I bet she’ll warm right up to you. She likes you, y’know.”
“Why are you so worried about this?” Brad muttered. “You’ll probably never come back here again.”
“’Cause I think you’re a good kid,” Wolfwood said, smacking his shoulder again. “And the way you’re feelin’ isn’t unique to you. You’re not alone, okay? C’mon, follow me.”
Brad breathed in and turned around. He wasn’t into facing Vash right now, and still nervous about Jessica seeing him with a bandage on his cheek. But Wolfwood had helped him, and the idea of him being there, too, gave him enough of a confidence boost that he decided to go for it.
—
During the seven months Vash had been imprisoned on the Ark, Brad had spent his time making himself useful. Luida had said they needed all hands on deck to devise a plan to help the outsiders as Knives captured the plants sustaining their lifestyle. Since Mom was busy in the underbelly of the ship as a plant engineer, Brad got to work above deck as a mechanical engineer.
He liked being up to his elbows in grease and handling tools, helping construct the mini-ships, each outfitted with four missiles and a laser cannon. Though they had left combating Knives to Vash in the past, Luida had proposed a host of complex plans, employing various methods and supplemented by contingencies and alternatives, for accomplishing their goal, and she had clarified more than once that she wasn’t afraid to use firepower if necessary. Since his muscles were growing more and more defined by the month, Brad had no trouble lifting heavy loads that he would have asked his father to help with before. Some of his fellow engineers commented on his new bulk. Big, hulking men, several of them bigger than he was, called him “big guy” and joked about having what he was having. It made his chest tingle and brought a goofy smile to his face and further motivated him to give his all.
Everyone was worried about Vash, Brad included, and everyone felt the loss of Doc every day. On top of all that, it was still hard for Brad to accept that his dad was gone. It was hard for Mom, too. She’d always been cheerful and silly, sort of like Vash still was when Brad was a kid, but she was much more somber now. Before the attack, she’d painted Brad and Dad’s days in pink and yellow, but now she felt like soft gray and heather, a more muted presence. She also hadn’t ever been the type of person to get angry, but after Dad’s death, she’d snapped at Brad more than once for his “teenage attitude.”
Sometimes, he couldn’t help having an attitude. He was angry more often lately, and his anger was far more intense. It burned him up inside, boiling hot like a whistling kettle. It was hard to tell whether he was mad that his dad wasn’t coming back or it was his hormones. He’d been cranky as a teenager even before beginning T, but now his anger had a sharp, flinty edge. He cried a lot less, which he didn’t exactly miss. Now and then, though, the old nausea would rear its head and he’d have to lie down for a while or power through until it passed, leading to him fainting at least one time while trying to lift something that was a little too heavy for one guy.
It was an endless cycle: he had to prove he wasn’t afraid or frail or shy, so he’d do something stupid, get hurt, and afterward feel so unbearably embarrassed that he’d end up pushing himself again. Doc would have laughed and said he was just like Vash. Brad would have brushed him off in the past—after all, Vash wasn’t like a normal human—but now, he was starting to see the similarities, and he didn’t like it.
But after Vash was liberated from his captivity on the Ark thanks to Wolfwood, he was far from only a little worse for wear. The bags under his eyes were deep and dark. His ribs showed prominently through his scarred chest. His pants, formerly a snug fit, kept slipping down his hips. He had trouble standing in place, and when he tried to walk, he tripped over nothing. Even after a nurse gave him a bath and a meal, as well as an IV drip he’d tried to refuse by claiming he didn’t need it, he looked like death warmed over. Brad decided to stop by in between engineering duties to check if he needed anything.
“Hello, Brad,” Vash said brightly, beaming at him with his eyes shut. “Good to see you again!”
His ribs were still clearly visible though he’d polished off every crumb of food on the tray on his wheeled table except for a chocolate pudding cup. Brad’s head spun with rage, and his throat tightened with nausea. He clenched his hands into fists, wishing he could still feel the urge to cry.
“Hey, hey, don’t worry about it. You came at just the right time! My spoon seems to keep escaping my grasp. I think the nurse greased it before she put it on my tray. I guess she thought I needed a bit of enrichment while I was stuck in bed!” He let out a strained, false laugh. “Would you mind helping me finish my dessert?”
Brad scowled and pulled up a chair. He scooped up some pudding with a spoon and offered it to Vash. As Vash swallowed each bite, Brad noticed the uneven blonde stubble covering his chin, cheeks, and the underside of his jaw. With his free hand, he scratched his own stubble, still too patchy to be called a beard. He was oddly relieved to have something in common with Vash.
“I think it looks good,” Vash said, smiling sincerely. “Reminds me of your dad.”
Brad’s heart swelled with happiness and sorrow. “It’s dumb and patchy and ugly,” he muttered. He scratched it again, then offered Vash another spoonful of pudding.
“It looks better on you than it does on me.”
“Is that all you grew in seven months?” Brad said, feeling a little less stupid about having trouble growing anything worth writing home about.
“Well…” Vash gave him another fake grin. “Let’s just say it takes me a while to grow enough to be worth keeping.”
“Tell me about it.”
“We’re not the only ones,” Vash said. “It’s different for everyone who grows facial hair. I didn’t start growing facial hair until …” He screwed up his features and hummed in thought. “Maybe about fifty?”
Brad rolled his eyes. “It’s different for you, all right.” He fed Vash the last two bites of pudding. “So you want me to shave that for you.”
“Ah, yes, if it’s not too much trouble! As you’ve seen, I can’t quite get a handle on things.” Another wide, fake grin.
Brad rolled his eyes again. “What pocket?”
“Not in a pocket. It’s in my toiletry bag. It’s red, has a zipper top, and it has my name monogrammed on it. Hard to miss.”
Brad riffled through Vash’s duffel bag until he found the zipper pouch with “Vash” embroidered on the front in ornate cursive lettering. Whoever had sewn the pouch for him had added a flower to the tail of the “h.” Since it looked relatively new compared to some of Vash’s other possessions, he suspected it was Jessica’s handiwork.
Brad filled up a basin with water, lathered Vash’s face, and tried to focus on shaving him. Unfortunately, Vash decided to keep running his mouth, which was not helpful.
“You look more muscular than last time,” he said. “Have you been working out?”
“It’s half that and half hormones.”
“Good! I’m happy it’s going so well for you.”
“Yeah.”
Vash was silent for a little, which Brad was grateful for, until he said, “Your shoulders look a little tense. Do you need to take a break from binding?”
“Not binding today,” Brad muttered, ungrateful for the reminder. He was wearing two shirts over a lightly padded undershirt. He paused to pull the topmost shirt away from his chest, hoping his coat was baggy enough to hide everything.
Vash, surprisingly tactful, changed the subject. “Luida said you’re becoming quite the engineer. Your mother must be so proud.”
Brad hated his cheeks for turning red and his stomach for filling up with happy butterflies. He wouldn’t dignify two incredibly embarrassing statements delivered back-to-back like that with a response.
Vash chuckled, his throat rumbling next to the side of Brad’s hand. “I see you’re as shy as ever!”
“Would you knock it off?” Brad snapped. “I’m trying to focus.”
“Does Jessica like your beard?”
Brad grumbled, blushing even harder. “Who told you about that?”
Vash’s gaze turned hollow for a moment, and Brad’s heart dropped into his stomach. “Who do you think?”
Silence fell. Brad continued carefully shaving Vash’s face. He thought about the hole Doc had left and how Luida, as strong as a leader as she was, could never fill that hole. She’d confessed to him and his mother in confidence that she often doubted herself and felt inadequate. He thought about the sprawling hundred-and-fifty-year-old tree in the greenhouse Dad had tended to, and recalled an early, fuzzy memory of sitting next to Vash under the tree as he read a picture book to him and Jessica and a couple other kids and wanting not to be a tomboy, but to be the kind of man Vash and his dad were. Brave, strong, kind, and most of all, not shy.
“I hate your brother,” Brad blurted, unsure why he’d chosen that moment to say it. Vash narrowed his eyes, and Brad instantly regretted voicing the thought that had been weighing on his mind for months.
For a few minutes, Vash said nothing, and Brad was afraid he’d messed up. Finally, though, he said, “You’re not alone.”
Dozens of thoughts ran through Brad’s head. Among them: Why do you let him do all this crap to you? Why did you fire the Angel Arm again? What the hell’s wrong with you? What the hell’s wrong with Knives?
What he ended up saying was, “You’re a reckless idiot.”
Vash smirked. “I’m a reckless idiot who survived. Which means I can still stop Knives.”
Brad shook his head as he washed Vash’s face. “Is that all that matters?”
“Of course not. But if I don’t stop him, we might not have much longer to enjoy all the other things that matter.”
Brad grabbed the mirror from Vash’s toiletry bag and offered it to him. Vash gave his face a quick once-over and nodded approvingly.
“You’re growing into a fine young man,” he said. “Your dad would be proud.”
When Brad closed his eyes, he saw Doc’s wry smile, and realized Luida wasn’t the only one trying to fill the hole he’d left. Once again, he was too embarrassed and overwhelmed to respond. He felt like he might cry for the first time in months.
“Sorry, was that too much? I’ll say it like Vash the Stampede would say it.” With a wink, Vash lifted his shaking right hand and placed it on Brad’s shoulder, furrowing his brow. “I need you to do me a favor, Brad. Be the strong leader your dad and Doc would want you to be. I believe in you, and Luida and your mother do, too. All that’s left is for you to believe in yourself and do your part to help us achieve that dream of love and peace. Understood?”
“Understood,” Brad said, more determined than ever to grow into a strong, brave, kind man.
—
Vash’s friend, Wolfwood, was dead because of Knives. Just like Dad had died because of Knives, and Doc, too. Brad knew that was what Vash would want him to believe, but Vash’s new friend Livio was an easy target for his anger.
He did so much for us! he’d practically spat at Vash and Livio, powerless to dam the rage rushing through his body and making his hands shake. Vash was too kind, too forgiving, and it made him half-sick. Hadn’t Wolfwood been his friend? He looked exhausted, like sleeping in the car had barely left him well-rested at all, which upset Brad even more. Yet he’d also felt selfishly happy when Vash had told him he’d done a good job finding them. Doing Vash or Luida proud felt like doing Doc proud. Kind of like how when Mom was proud, he was sure Dad would have been, too.
The fond feelings, though, were battling inside him with the rage and the sorrow and the general resentment for the crisis Knives had caused. As a child growing up on the ship, he hadn’t had to worry about the outside world. Guided by Doc’s leadership, the adults had ensured that everything had run smoothly, and he’d never thought anything could have fallen apart. Now that it had, he felt that much more determined to be the strong man he knew he could be.
So, when those girls asked about Wolfwood, Brad softened the blow, both for their sake and for the sake of Vash’s new friend. And he told Livio to believe in himself, though it felt kind of weird giving advice that Vash might give, and it would have sounded a lot cooler if Vash had said it.
While walking away from the bathroom where they’d had their chat, Brad realized he’d left something important there. He turned on his heel and rushed back to the bathroom. It would be humiliating if this new guy who didn’t know him very well found what he’d left on the counter.
It was sitting on the counter where he’d left it. Livio was still there, too, at the same sink he’d been standing in front of fifteen minutes ago. Next to the faucet lay a comb, and the basin was filled with clumps of white hair. Snip. Snip. More strands of unwashed hair fell into the sink.
Brad snuck in next to him and swiped the item he’d left on the counter, stowing it in his coat pocket. He was about to make a quick getaway when Livio called, “Wait.”
Brad swallowed his embarrassment and tried to sound cool when he said, “What.”
“Does this look okay?” Livio’s voice was wavering.
“There’s a bit behind your ear that you missed. And this chunk here needs to be shorter.”
Livio followed his directions, trimming the areas he’d indicated. “Better?”
Brad shrugged. “I guess. Why don’t you just buzz it?”
“Don’t have my electric razor, and besides, I don’t really want to.” He stroked his chin. “Um, what about my face?”
“Do you usually shave?”
“Usually, yeah. But, uh… you know how my nose stopped bleedin’ right after you punched me? To make a long story short, there’s not much point trying to grow a beard if your body’s constantly gettin’ blown to pieces. I don’t really grow that much hair anywhere except on my head.”
Impressed, Brad said, “That actually sounds badass. Sometimes I wish I could regrow my body.” He internally kicked himself for saying two stupid things in a row.
Livio looked amused rather than offended. “You really don’t, ’cause it hurts like hell. But I can see why you might be jealous.”
“Oh, and I can’t grow much of a beard either,” Brad added, and internally kicked himself again for saying another stupid thing.
Livio gave him a strange, almost wary look. Brad swore he almost looked hopeful for a moment. Then he said, “Um, this is gonna be an uncomfortable question, but I, uh, guess I need to ask it.”
Brad’s heart fell. Livio had seen it after all. “Go on,” he said, biting his dry bottom lip.
“Do you have a doctor on your ship who does…” Livio paused, frowning in thought. “Gender transition stuff?”
Brad’s heart leapt into his throat. “Yeah,” he practically exclaimed. He took a shallow breath, trying to gather his composure, before adding, “I know him pretty well.”
“That’s good.” Livio swallowed. “I left some stuff at the…” He frowned again. “The place where I was before, and I can’t go back to get it now. And then I saw you had that thing, uh, what’s it called—”
“An STP?”
“Yeah, that. I need one of those. And a few other things.”
Brad hesitated a moment before he asked, “Do you need a binder? I have a looser one that might fit you.”
“That I don’t need. There was a pill I was taking with testosterone and some, uh, other things mixed in. I guess I need somethin’ to replace that.”
“Tell the doctor about that, not me. He’ll know what to do.”
“I would, except I don’t know who he is or how to find him.” Livio scratched the back of his head. And Brad thought he was an awkward mess. “Would you take me to see him? Please?”
“Sure, let’s go.”
“Hey, uh, thanks.” The corners of Livio’s mouth turned up, the slightest smile. “This really means a lot, y’know?”
“It’s the least I can do. When the world’s falling apart, guys like us need to stick together.”
“You’ve done so much,” Livio muttered incredulously. “I don’t know how I’m ever gonna pay you and Vash back for this.”
“You know what to do.” Brad folded his arms and leaned against the counter, giving Livio his best impression of Vash’s confident glare. Vash would probably say he looked like his dad. Brad wouldn’t mind. In fact, hearing that might make him smile. “Make your friend, who gave his life for you, proud.”