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Knives sat in front of the monitor in control room 4, tapping a single key in time with the thrum of the enormous engine propelling their ship forward. The key input exactly nothing, but the steady click of it helped him listen to the rest of the ship, helped him sense its inhabitants, their moods, their positions, their heartbeats. A few weeks ago the thought had occurred to him that he might be the most powerful thing on this ship. Since then he’d been testing the theory, unfurling his new abilities by mapping every inch of this humming air bubble in space. Tap. Breathe in. Tap. Breathe out. His scope of sense increased each time he exhaled. Rowan was a crackling ball of anxiety in control room 7, focused on defeating an error in the freezer’s fail-safe code. Rem was reading in her room. Pulse normal. Nothing to remark. Mary was drunk, and the heat in her room was on high. Steve’s door opened. Knives pulled his hand away from the keyboard, and stepped outside.
The hall was softly lit by the white ceiling panels. One wall was all glass, nothing but stars, the other a titanium patchwork of panels and doors. As Knives drew his fingertips softly along a metal seam, he toyed with the edges of Steve’s presence. He wasn’t coming from this direction. Not close enough to run into, yet. He arrived at the door to Mary's room and tapped it open with the code he'd picked out of her pocket one afternoon in the rec room. He braced himself, but the air that poured from her bedroom still hit him like tar, like lung disease.
"Who..." Mary started to ask, and then scoffed, her disappointment obvious. "Knives. I'm not in the mood to play with kids right now."
"Clearly," Knives replied, not moving from her threshold. She had a candle burning. Sickly-sweet smoke was pouring from between her fingers. Her glasses were fogged, and her nipples were dark under the camisole that clung precariously to her freckled chest. Knives did feel a hint of desire throb in his throat, in the palm of his hand - but it was desire that did not belong to him, displaced, adult, alien. How far off was Steve, now? Not far. He took a deep breath in, sweet and sticky as it was. Let it out. Focus.
Put it out, he commanded. Mary’s brows furrowed, and she leaned forward as if to say something, but her mouth stopped mid-syllable, her lip an irritated curve. Confused, she looked instead at her joint, and then back at the boy.
Put it out, I said. He repeated himself. This time she pinched it out at once, and sat up straight, facing him with a far more vacant expression.
Clean this place up. Your man is on his way.
Mary got silently to her feet and fumbled for a rubbish bag to shove empty bottles and cigarette cartons into. Knives took a lingering look at the curves of her, bending and crouching as she mutely worked in her camisole and panties. Then he hit the button to slide her door shut again, the hallway air becoming cooler and cleaner with the barrier in place. He took a breath. On his exhale, he let go of his grip on her, and heard a few bottles topple to the ground.
And next?
Here he comes.
Each footstep a heartbeat. Look him in the eye. Express nothing. Listen.
Not Knives. Not him. This fucking kid. Swaying. Teeth grinding in his large skull. Animal musk. An image of his own face, seen through eyes squinted with ire. Why'd he have do that to his hair? Chop it off like that. It was so damn pretty.
Knives snorted in derision, and his access to the man’s thoughts broke. He and Steve were face to face now, in front of Mary's door. A stony moment passed between them.
"The hell are you lurking here for, freak?"
Knives did shake, head to foot, but his smile was mild.
"I'm curious about the behavior of adult mammals in heat. I figured you two would be an ideal pair of specimens to observe."
"You little -" a swinging fist came towards him, but Knives, suddenly razor-sharp, stopped it in mid-air, stopped his voice mid-breath.
No, Knives dictated, simply. Not that. Never that, again. Steve's fist shook, frozen. His face was turning red. In quieting him, he had closed his windpipe. Knives realized he would die from this, if he held on a bit longer. A bit tighter. The silence had a piercing ring. Steve’s eyes widened in terror.
Mary's door opened, and Knives let go. Steve sputtered, the hand he had raised to strike flying to cradle his throat instead as he heaved in air. Mary moaned in annoyance.
"Not again, Steve...you can't let them get to you like this. They're just kids."
“The hell they are,” Steve choked, and tried to lunge again, though this time Knives simply stepped back to avoid him, his hands innocently folded behind him.
“Steve.” Mary glowered, hands on her hips. “You’re making it very hard to like you, right now. You want me to like you, right?”
Steve struggled with that, his jaw twitching. Though he kept a straight face, Knives was disturbed to realize that he was getting snatches of thought he didn’t ask for, as if the link he’d made to eavesdrop on Steve’s mind hadn’t been properly severed. Fear, Lust. Fury. Something about cocksucking little tease in there. It wasn’t clear which of them he meant.
“You like me, baby,” he eventually grunted out, letting go of his throat, and instead offering a big, friendly arm to Mary instead. “You like me a whole lot.”
“I like you only a little bit.” Mary rolled her eyes, but she took the man’s arm, and let him sweep her back into her own bedroom, calling to Knives as they went. “You get to bed. Stop sticking your nose in grown-up’s business.”
Steve glared over his shoulder at the boy, and Knives waved goodbye with a gentle smile. With the door closed, their energy pulsed quieter behind it. Quiet, yet heavier at the same time. Tar and steel. Syrup, rigid spine. Knives blinked, shook his head, and tried again to sever the connection. It wouldn't cut.
Step away. Breathe. Don't panic.
He walked, ironically following Mary’s patronizing order to return to his room. At this hour it should be completely dark, there. Separate. Private. Out here in the hallway, perhaps, in the vein of the ship, this errant thread could linger, but behind that door, surely, it would snap, and leave him to himself again. Thick, melted wax. Smooth and unyielding stone. One dripping over the other. It was in his throat again, in both his palms this time. He started to understand what drunk was. He’d never been drunk, but this was it, he could tell. They were both drunk, and now he was, too. His own door, at last. He pressed his forehead to it. He listened closely to each quiet pip of the code as he keyed it in. The door hissed open, revealing hushed darkness, and he envisioned pulling the sticky tar thread in with him, but that it would be cut, neat and tidy, as soon as the door shut behind him.
Snip.
A moment went by. Another. Knives was suddenly very, very cold. Shivering from head to toe, he stumbled a few steps, clutching himself, before his misery was finally interrupted.
"Knives? Are you sick?"
Vash was sitting up in bed, fumbling with the blue glow-light on the wall. His straw-like hair was mussed with sleep, his wide green eyes and trembling mouth furrowed with worry. Knives blinked, and for a moment he was looking at Steve's picture of his own face, stony and blue-eyed below his cropped platinum haircut the man apparently despised.
We really look nothing alike, he thought with a swirling mix of pride and grief. Not anymore. Not right now.
"I'm all right, Vash. Just tired." It was true, he felt steadier already. The chill had passed, but he was still hearing whispered snippets of Mary and Steve's words for each other, feeling odd brushes of their bodies fitting together. You’re the worst. You disgust me. I want you so bad tonight, baby.
Ignoring his own bed, he walked straight over to Vash in his. Vash threw back his covers and held his arms out for him. Knives looked his spindly twin up and down, observing the properties of his body with new intensity. His narrow chest inflated and compressed gently under the white tank top he wore to bed. A slight twitch showed in his pale thigh, a shadow in the muscle that disappeared into his shorts. His arms shook slightly as he waited for his brother to enter his embrace, to melt his worry with reassurance. All of this was his. His safe haven. His brother. His own body's extension, his equal. He climbed up and slung one knee across Vash's waist, his sudden weight in his lap causing him to gasp and giggle as he finally wrapped those loving arms around him.
"You're getting heavy, Knives."
Knives thought about Vash crashing into him in the rec room. How hard his fists had been. How he smelled different when he was that angry, like electric current. Like wood burning. He set his chin on his brother's shoulder, and soaked in all of his warmth.
"You're one to talk."
Vash began rubbing his back, and Knives let his eyes slide half-shut, thought about how good sleeping like this might feel. If he rested his mind here, there would be so much less he'd have to think about. Steve's face reddening as he held his windpipe shut. The freckles on Mary's breasts. Tar and shell, syrup and bone. Vash was humming something, his sleepy voice perfectly in tune. Rem's song. His brother was singing him Rem's song. Knives sat up, and put both his hands on Vash's shoulders. The song stopped.
"Hey, Vash...want me to show you something?"
Vash blinked up at him, curious. Knives ran his fingers through the mess of Vash’s hair, brushing it out of his face. Vash smiled.
"Something nice this time?"
Knives thought of Rem's brown eyes, her strong arms. How she looked at him. How she looked at Vash. It wasn't that she was like the others, not exactly. She wasn't harboring some desire she pretended not to have. But the desires she did have...she wanted too much. Too much of what was his.
"Something very nice. Just for the two of us." Knives nuzzled his forehead softly against Vash's, like he had innumerable times since they were babies. Vash hummed, and closed his eyes. Knives let one breath go by, then pressed their mouths carefully together.
Confusion, at first. Quiet and uncertain. Then, at his insistence, Vash opened, at first just a little, then completely. Knives was truly kissing his brother then, both hands on him, tasting him - feeling his tongue try to taste him, too. The gentle hold on his back tightened, Vash’s warm hands tangling into his top as Knives kissed, pushed, kissed again, drunk for the second time that night. Suddenly Vash was flat on his back, and Knives was still kissing him like he couldn't stop, his eyes shut, his mouth full of his taste, his knees tight and shivering where they pressed into his brother's ribs.
"Knives-" Vash was interrupting, breathless, pushing. "Knives, it-" he was laughing, and Knives stopped, startled out of his reverie by the sound. Vash gasped, still giggling, his skin brightly flushed from his forehead to his neck, where he was tugging at Knives’ wrists.
"Sorry," Vash panted, "It's just. Getting hard to breathe."
Knives saw his own hands on Vash's throat, and removed them at once. White and red stripes faded into view in place of his fingers, and Vash gasped fully, then laughed again. Knives gaped, furious.
"I didn't do that on purpose, Vash. You should have stopped me."
"I...should have? Okay, I will, next time..." Vash was breathing normally now, but his pulse was still elevated, his body hot. "I thought that was part of it. It did feel kind of good."
Knives looked down at his brother, at his smile. He's completely blank right now, Knives realized. I get to write him. For him. He put a careful hand back on Vash's throat, and squeezed gently. Vash's eyes fluttered shut, and he put a hand to Knives' wrist, but clearly with no intention of pushing it away. Keeping his hand in place, Knives began kissing other parts of his brother's face - his brow, the tiny mole on his cheek, his ear, all while intermittently squeezing, punctuating the warm touch of his lips with those soft gasps, this easy quickening of Vash's pulse.
"So...that? That feels good, Vash?" Vash nodded, letting out a whine Knives could feel in his stomach. Heat. His knees tightened.
"It feels...warm," Vash said, echoing his thought. "It makes me shiver, but...it's warm."
"When humans...when they get close like this...they meld a little. They rub up tight, skin to skin, and sometimes, they put their bodies inside of each other. It's a mess."
"Skin to skin..." Vash echoed, his gaze on his brother’s face, on the lips he’d just been kissing him with. Knives watched him work on the meaning of his words, wandering without arriving. "Sounds nice...that sounds. Really, really nice."
Knives nodded, and then, with just the slightest apprehension, slid his hips back to meet his brother's, to find out whether he’d hardened between his legs or not. His held breath left him in relief when he felt him stiff against his backside, his shorts gone taut where he was now undeniably hot and aroused.
"Here," Knives said, keeping his voice steady with effort. "This is where they merge."
"Oh," Vash gasped, and then his eyes went childishly wide, and he half-sat up in excited realization, "Oh, mating!"
Knives' face collapsed into deep irritation. Vash's eyes were sparkling as if he'd just discovered a new planet, but all he had done was thoroughly ruin the mood.
"Not mating, Vash. Not when we do it. It's not called that."
"But...Rem told me-"
"Do not. Talk about Rem." Knives shoved Vash over again, his palms so heavy on his brother's chest they might bruise, causing him to wince, gasp, but also to twitch between his thighs. So. He really did like that. He liked it. Knives took a deep breath in, let it out. He took his hands off of Vash and used them to pull the top of his suit open, instead, baring his slender chest in the dim light, confusing and hypnotizing his bewildered brother. He slipped out of his shorts, next, proud to show Vash all of his aroused body, his duskier skin just as heated, his cock just as erect. He was really doing this. He'd thought about it, he wasn't even sure how many times, and tonight he really would. Tonight, he and Vash would have one body.
"Knives, you're..." Vash was trembling, somehow struck speechless by his twin's nakedness. He'd seen it so many times, and yet…something in the curve of his back, in the way his hips had a slight tilt to them, lit only by the blue and shimmering outline of the wall panel, his brother was so striking he could barely think. "You're...really beautiful."
Knives smiled, gentle and sharp all at the same time. He cupped Vash's cheeks in both his hands, stroked his hair again. Vash let his eyes flutter almost shut. Everything felt so good right now. Wherever Knives touched hummed with warmth, with sparks.
"We're the same, Vash. Calling me beautiful is sort of like complimenting yourself."
"No..." Vash shook his head as Knives started to peel his clothes off next, putting his arms up to help with his shirt, lifting his hips, with a shudder, to tug off his shorts. He felt shy, shaking with nerves like this, when Knives looked so confident and smooth. It didn't seem fair. "It's different. You're…different, tonight."
"I’m not. I’ve always been like this." Knives said, with such calm certainty that he surprised himself. He sat down again slowly, this time careful to settle his weight onto his brother’s thighs so that their cocks brushed against each other, so that he could admire his and Vash’s arousal next to each other properly. Vash had the same shape he did, smooth-skinned and slightly curved towards his belly, especially now that he was as hard as he was. He wrapped his hand around it, and Vash let out a ragged sound, his entire body bucking into the touch before settling back into his mattress, moaning. Knives marveled at a sticky thread of clear liquid that released from the tip, which pulled away easily with one of his fingertips. He slid the finger into his mouth to suck the juice off of it and was both surprised and not surprised at all to find it sweet and light, almost like tree sap, or honeysuckle.
The flowers his brother could give life to. The garden they could grow.
“Look. Like this, Vash. See?” His voice did tremble that time, but that was all right. It was all right, at a time like this. He pressed Vash’s cock against the inside of his thigh and got up on his knees again, spreading his legs so that he was sure it would press inside of him when he eased back down. He should have tried this before. It was so easy, now that he was doing it. So natural. “Ready?”
Vash nodded, his expression awed, distracted haze, his hands shakily tracing the movement of his brother’s thighs as they framed where his sex pointed upwards between them. It all seemed to fit, as if they were designed to do this. His head was spinning. He could still feel the pressure of fingers on his neck. And then Knives was lowering himself, the opening between his legs hot against his waiting cock, swallowing him first at the tip, then a little more, and then, with a quiet sound he'd never heard Knives make before, all at once, his weight heavy again on his hips, his hands heavy on his chest, and his face close, his breath now hot and harsh.
For how long he had been longing to merge with his brother, now that he was , now that he had him inside of his body, it was far too much - too hot, too wanting, too full. His skin felt like it was melting, sticky everywhere it touched Vash’s, like he might try to absorb him. His cock was leaking freely, already spasming despite being completely untouched. He could barely move. Vash’s feet kicked to find purchase on his messy sheets, and his hips, trapped as they were beneath his, began jerking pathetically as he whimpered, grabbed hold of Knives' thighs, all of him needing friction but gasping in shock each time he got some and it overwhelmed him, which was in no time at all.
"Knives," Vash whined, having some idea, harried as it was, of what his body was doing, even if it was the first time. "I can't...it's coming out, I..."
"Right...good..." Knives said, rough, holding on to his brother’s shoulders with a bruising grip, his abdomen visibly twitching each time Vash desperately rubbed and jerked inside of him. "Let it..."
Vash's clung to him, hiccuped, pushed, and strained his way to the strongest sensation his body had ever given him, rushing and heat and shuddering in his hips that grew almost painful, then he let out a soft cry, his peak breaking over him like a hot wave, and then release was flowing out of him, into his brother, with both of them shivering in unison, hot, stuck together in the middle, devoid of thought. Knives felt Vash’s pleasure as if it were his own body rushing with heat and fluid - and it was, but it was both, all at once, a merge more complete than he could have possibly expected, feeling for both of them, coming as hard as either of them, his spend pouring pearly and thick all over Vash's pale torso. The filthy evidence of their lovemaking sparkled oddly bright in the near-dark, making Vash's hot, bewildered face seem all the more pure.
He should see what he did, was his next thought, addled by this new drunkenness, the good kind, an intoxication of oneness, from how the cells of their bodies had mixed become during such a brief, intense coupling. I should show him.
"Open...your eyes, Vash. Look at me." Vash obeyed, and looked, first at his brother’s face, beautiful and dangerous in the dark, and then down to where his fingers were splayed between his thighs, to where their hips were still sealed tight. Knives slowly lifted himself back off of Vash's sticky cock and held himself open a long, trembling few seconds, to make sure he could see inside, could watch the slow drool of white liquid he’d filled him with glaze slowly down his thigh. "That was yours...but it's mine, now."
Vash nodded mutely, too overtaken to speak. Knives only managed to stand up on his knees for a moment more before he wobbled, then collapsed beside him. Vash curled all four of his shaky limbs around him at once, desperate to stay close. That was incredible. That was beyond anything. I could go in again. I want to, only I’m twitching all over, and can barely move.
"I want..." he whispered quietly, his eyes closing again as he cushioned himself on Knives' naked chest, as his words slurred with sleep. "I want to do that again, Knives. I want...that. again."
"Of course you do," Knives whispered back, barely conscious himself, but he stroked his brother's hair once again, to soothe him into unconsciousness, thoroughly soothed, himself. There were no extra thoughts in his mind, now. No syrup. No stone. Just his own pulse, just Vash's steady breathing. "You always have. And you always will."