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In the aftermath of what should have been the end of the world, an angel digs his nails into the bruised flesh over his most devoted servant’s heart.
Sharp feather-like tendrils peel from his skin in thin glowing curves. They sink into the cooling body beneath him, sliding through abused muscle and broken bone, latching on to the countless metal threads already woven throughout. They slip past the brain stem, flutter in the mess of gray and white matter, coil around a crumpled unwelcome thing. They push it out with a revulsive squelch.
And the angel says, “I don’t recall giving you permission to die, Bluesummers.”
With a great shudder, Legato’s eyes snap open. Blood tints and blurs the sacred face above him. Wan, pinched features. Hair the deep black of decay. His master. Alive.
He can’t speak. He can’t move. But Legato forces his lungs to heave one gasping wet breath, then another. It's difficult. Even with his abilities, even with Knives’ scalding assistance. Feelers. Inside him. Why…?
His thoughts aren’t quick enough. And he doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to breathe. He’s so tired and his head feels hot and awful, and his mouth tastes like gunmetal.
But his devotion does not rest when his body yearns to. It is a greater beast than can be felled by the limitations of his flesh. There is nothing he will not do if his master bids it.
“There you go.” Knives clutches the back of Legato’s neck, fingers tangling in the sweat-soaked hair at his nape. “Keep that up. There’s a frontier doctor who’s willing to treat you. He’s half a day’s ride. You will bear it. Dying on the way is unacceptable.”
He hefts Legato into his arms. Not gently. He’s holding far too tight.
“When your death comes”—his lips brush Legato’s temple as he speaks—“it will be at my hands and mine alone. It is only when you are no longer useful that I will put you out of your misery. Not a moment sooner. There is no peace for the wicked, Bluesummers.”
A sickening mix of disappointment and relief floods Legato’s system like adrenaline. He can’t think about it now. He can’t, he can’t. He needs to focus. His heart won’t beat by itself. He’s lost too much blood. There’s an emptiness inside him, expanding and contracting; like grief, like pain. Nothing and then everything and then nothing again.
Legato must make a sound or twitch his unresponsive limbs, because as a quiet, almost comforting afterthought, Knives says, “I will find a use for you.”
It should be simple to disappear when one no longer has a purpose. When it is just Knives—singular, empty, alone—and his broken blade.
Legato lies barely conscious in one of the cool backrooms of Mesa Probe Church. Aside from occasional bouts of lucidity, he’s been stuck wandering through the maze his feverish mind has seen fit to trap him in. His chest rises and falls steadily but it’s quicker than it should be, breath shaking on the way out. He looks damp and rumpled and too big for the cot he occupies. Hair sticks to his face in matted blue clumps.
Like flicking a speck of dust, Knives brushes the greasy strands away from what remains of the wound in the middle of his forehead. It’s been bandaged and the energy Knives expended—energy he can’t afford to waste; energy he quietly, viciously hopes he wastes enough of to be done with all of this—has closed the aggressive breach to the best of his ability. Still. They’re trying to keep the area clean.
Legato will heal. He has survived Knives’ own wrath and lived. This is not so different.
“It’s a miracle this guy’s still kickin’,” Dr. Bond says. “Then again”—he rubs his chin—“your other friend seemed in rough shape and he’s up and about.”
Knives bites the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. He’s been trying not to think about Vash. They haven’t spoken since their fight. Belatedly, he says, “I keep resilient company.”
“You sure do.” Dr. Bond is examining Legato’s left hip. He frowns, glancing up to observe his patient’s blank expression. “He on any medications?”
“Probably. Why?”
“The pain’s gotta be bad. Can’t think of much else to do ‘cept make him comfortable.”
“Whatever he’s on has to be out of his system by now,” Knives says, watching the doctor’s hands press into inflamed flesh.
Regardless of his disoriented mental state, Legato has stayed relatively still and allowed the doctor to poke and prod. This has had Knives on high alert. His servant is not a shaking, fearful creature. Much like the six-legged reptiles that scuttle through the sands, Legato freezes instead of flinching. He’d nearly broken both of Conrad’s arms with a mere crook of his fingers when Knives first brought him to the lab for an examination. And that was before he’d grown into his powers.
So Knives assumes this docility is less him suddenly being all right with a stranger touching him, and more to do with reduced sensation below his waist.
Knives is right, as usual. At the first clinical touch to the bare skin over his ribs, Legato’s fingers curl.
“Stop.” Knives grabs his wrist and squeezes. Hard enough to feel bones grind together.
Legato doesn’t recoil or wince. He blinks once, slowly. Then slides his fever-bright gaze towards Knives.
“You will not use your abilities,” Knives says. “The doctor is just trying to do his job.” He leans close so they are nearly cheek to cheek and lowers his voice. “Nothing more, Bluesummers. I wouldn’t allow it.”
Legato’s breath hitches. His arm goes limp in Knives’ crushing grip.
Dr. Bond straightens. “I’ll go see what I can scrounge up. This ain’t a hospital but, y’know. Bet there’s something. A nerve blocker for his back, at least. I’ve never seen a spinal brace implanted like that before. Yell for Carlito if he takes a turn. The kid’ll know where to find me.”
Knives gets the sense that raising his voice will do nothing more than frighten that curious child. But he nods as the doctor retreats. He’s distracted.
There is a familiar presence lingering in the hall, just past the doorway.
Knives has yet to release Legato’s wrist from captivity. He absentmindedly strokes his thumb along the jutting bone.
“Master Knives,” Legato mumbles. “I did it.”
More feverish nonsense. He’s been babbling on and off. At least he knows who he’s with this time. There was a period halfway through the journey here where he seemed very young and uncharacteristically soft in a way that churned Knives’ stomach. Perhaps this is why Knives indulges him.
“What did you do?”
“He broke. You...didn’t think I could…” Legato trails off, chest heaving. “I promised to join her. It was going to be…to be over.”
“It is over.” Knives hears the faintest step. Those boots with the jagged soles. He doesn’t turn to look. “We lost.”
“Not me.” Legato laughs, a choked breathy thing. There’s blood in his teeth. Tears slip down his cheeks, wet his long azure eyelashes. “I won.”
“Then what the hell do you have to cry about?” It comes out with less bite than Knives intended, despite him already knowing the answer. Legato only ever cries over him. Idiot. “Go to sleep. You’re being a pest.”
“You’re angry with me.”
“I’m annoyed. You of all people should know the difference.”
Legato closes his eyes. He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Are you going to leave?”
He doesn’t ask it like he’s anxious for the answer. It’s just a question.
“Not yet,” Knives says. He’s only partially talking to Legato.
If Vash asks him to stay, he will. He shouldn’t. He can’t. They both know he can’t.
Ask me to stay.
Vash silently turns and walks back down the hall.
It’s hot when Legato awakes. The pillow and sheets are damp with sweat. It itches, making him want to shift to find relief.
He doesn’t. Instead he stares at the ceiling. It’s a smooth dark gray, speckled black in places. He allows his vision to unfocus and takes a deep breath. He holds it for one, two, three seconds before releasing it in a slow stream. He holds that. Then breathes in again. It’s an old trick he learned to keep himself relaxed and quiet. He’ll follow the pattern until sleep returns or the pain ebbs.
His baseline discomfort is never zero. He’s usually better at ignoring it but he’s having trouble keeping his thoughts in line. Must be the fever. Or…
Oh. Right. Vash the Stampede shot him in the head.
Legato smiles, disrupting his breathing ritual. It’s coming back to him in pieces. The battle itself is a lost blur but the gun in his hand, jabbing the barrel into his forehead, that’s clear. Sense memory. Metal and blood and desperation. The anguish that blossomed in Stampede’s gaze; those hollow eyes so like his own.
He curls his fingers into fists. Tries to, at least. His left arm is numb.
There’s an angel sleeping on it.
Knives’ cheek is pillowed on his own arm which in turn has been cutting off circulation in Legato’s. His sharp features are slack, mouth slightly open. The veins in his delicate eyelids stand out, slender and jagged. He must be exhausted. Shadows pool under his eyes like bruises, like the dusty purple of a plum before its skin breaks to reveal firm sanguineous flesh.
Legato presses his tongue to the roof of his watering mouth. He likes stone fruit. Deceptively pliant, its hard pit well hidden.
A furrow appears between Knives’ dark eyebrows and Legato’s mind conjures the image of teeth scraping over the petrous center of a plum, the sweetness of the fruit already gone and swallowed.
Legato lifts his free hand, ignoring how it trembles and aches. He carefully runs the tip of his shaking index finger along Knives’ brow until the skin smooths.
His arm drops to lay across his empty stomach.
Eyes back on the ceiling. Breathe in, out. In, out, in…
When it is time to leave, Knives does not say goodbye to Vash or the humans. It’s better this way. The apple tree will get his feelings across with a soft alacrity impossible for his bladed tongue to accomplish.
They’ve stuck around only as long as it’s taken for Legato to gain a semblance of health. Just enough to trust that he will not convulse and choke on his own fluids if bundled into the backseat of a limping car that has left its days of make and model behind.
Knives found it half buried in the sand. He can’t tell if the vehicle was abandoned because it’s terrible or if the owner was a nameless casualty of his rage. Could be either. Damage from the suns has lightened the roof and hood in uneven splotches. It smells like burning rubber regardless of whether the engine is running, the radio is missing, and the glove compartment refuses to shut no matter what Knives does.
Whatever. Finders keepers.
There are no seatbelts but Legato has those threads of his if/when the jostling agitates his…everything. He can handle a bumpy ride. Knives doesn’t keep brittle blades.
“Where are we going?” Legato asks. Because that’s what he does. Voice questions that Knives does not want to hear or answer. “If the Ark is still—”
“It’s not.” Knives tightens his grip on the steering wheel. The material it’s made of leaves a residue on his skin. He wants to wash his hands. He wants a different car. He wants his sisters. He wants Vash. He wants…
He wants to go home.
Knives doesn’t have a home anymore. He hasn’t had a home for more than a hundred and fifty years. Which is fine. It’s all fine.
“I don’t want to hear another word out of you until we reach our destination,” Knives says.
Legato leans his head against the tinted window. “We barely have a quarter tank. There should be a refill station if we head west.”
“What did I just say.”
“I’m trying to be useful, Master Knives.”
Knives glares into the rearview mirror. Their gazes meet. Legato’s mouth does something that isn’t quite a smile, but it’s fond. Openly so. Knives’ ire cools with an immediacy that startles and confuses him. He breaks eye contact.
“I haven’t driven a car in years.” A hundred, give or take. “The most useful thing you can do is stay quiet.”
Legato doesn’t say another word. Even when Knives veers west.
There are more abandoned residences than there are humans left on this planet. Knives can have his pick. He finds a small house that fits his needs. It’s a good ten iles from the nearest ghost town and it doesn’t have a second floor. Legato should be able to get around by himself.
“Is this our destination or should I keep holding my tongue?” Legato has maneuvered his wheelchair next to the open rear door with his threads. It’s low-tech and aesthetically incongruent compared to his previous mobility aids but it’s all they could find on short notice. He transfers into it with relative ease. Though he does freeze for a moment afterwards, face ashen, lips pressed tightly together.
Knives sticks his hands in his jacket pockets. He rubs the pad of his thumb along his fingers, focusing on the greasy texture the wheel left behind.
“This is it,” he says. And heads inside.
A cloth doll greets him on the floor in the entranceway. Misshapen limbs akimbo, its square patchwork dress picked over by worms.
Knives looks at it for a long time.
He leaves it where it lies.
The days shunt by as if bolstered by a sustained stream of gunfire. Inelegant. Agonizing.
Legato had no intention of living through his fateful confrontation with Vash the Stampede. He’d pushed his body past every limit, held the disgusting meat of himself together with thread and fury and devotion. And he went out exactly as he wanted to—with a glorious bang.
There is no peace for the wicked, Bluesummers.
Legato curls his hand around the opposite bicep. His nails press deep into the skin. He’s on the floor of his new room, back flat against a dusty rug. Sweat beads at his temples as he folds one leg up towards his chest with the aid of his threads, keeping the other straight. It’s a variation on one of many old exercises Conrad put him through after Fifth Moon.
Muscle atrophy was the main concern back then, neuroplasticity to a lesser degree. But it’s all irrelevant with his special ability. He can stimulate the neurons below his level of injury with a mere thought. He can reconnect nerves and puppet his flesh. It’s easy.
It used to be easy.
His concentration wavers. He releases his threads with a harsh breath through clenched teeth, halfway to a laugh. His head is a white-hot mass of pain.
He forces his forearm to take his weight, half-turning onto his side in a desperate need to press his face to the cool floor. The pain lances down his neck and up into his eyes, pulsing and pounding in furious revolt.
It’s worse than the migraine he’d gotten after trying to control too many of those repulsive bastards who’d used him as a boy. He feels just like that wretched child now—weak and incapable, biting off more than he can chew.
What good is a weapon if it never sees blood; if it sits, broken and unused, gathering dust all day? Legato needs to make himself useful or else there is no point to his continued existence. He has to retrain his mind to be able to bear the strain. He’s the only servant Knives has left, and the only one his master has ever needed. He can do it. He will.
It’s just going to take time. Unfortunately, he now has plenty.
He pushes up like the thin green sprouts of Knives’ burgeoning garden, slow and steady. Legato has spent a good portion of the week they’ve been here watching Knives tend to it from the kitchen window. Coaxing soil into existence and talking quietly to the tiny buds of yet unknown flora, wiping sweat off his brow and squinting into the suns, peeling his shirt off and sticking his hands into the damp ground up to his wrists.
He has spurned all of Legato’s offers of assistance, but he will check the window periodically. This is logical to Legato. His master has one knife. It’s best to know where it is.
Legato clutches the metal frame of his bed and drags himself up to collapse onto the worn mattress. The house’s previous occupants didn’t quite leave their entire lives behind but they did neglect to bring their bedding and a good number of pillows. Legato has gathered a multitude of them without compunction. He needs the support.
He has curled on his side with a pillow between his back and the wall, another between his knees and one over his head to block the umber light seeping through faded curtains, when Knives enters his room.
“Master—”
“Not here for conversation,” Knives says. He grabs a chair from the edge of the room and places it next to the window. There’s a book under his arm. One of the crumbling paperbacks left on a shelf in the narrow hall between their rooms. “I’m just borrowing your light.”
This excuse doesn’t make much sense considering Knives’ bedroom gets significantly more natural light. Also he prefers to read outside. But Legato’s head hurts and he decides this is not the time to prod his master about such an insignificant matter.
He rearranges himself as he settles back into bed so that he has a better view. The light worsens his already terrible migraine but it falls across Knives’ face with such radiance that Legato doesn’t care.
He must doze off because the next thing he knows, it’s much darker and Knives is leaning over him. The pillow has been lifted from his cheek.
There’s an odd look on Knives’ face. Serene and uncomfortable at the same time.
“Thought you might suffocate,” he says. He taps the edge of his book on Legato’s head. It’s almost playful. He does it a little too hard. “Night, Bluesummers.”
Knives doesn’t sleep much. He never has. His mind is too active.
The presence of his sisters used to help. Their gentle concern enveloping him, warm and protective. Now he can barely manage two hours on a good night before he’s thrown awake. Alone. Legs tangled in sheets that once belonged to a human.
Maybe a young human, one who never got to grow old. The owner of that ugly little doll. Maybe she lived here with her mother and brother and—
Knives lurches violently to his feet.
His heartbeat is fast and loud. His lungs won’t take in enough air. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes.
What’s done is done. There’s no point thinking about it.
You did what you had to do. The space behind his eyes grows hot. Nothing worse than what humans have done since time immemorial. You had to. You had to. You had to.
No matter how much he tells himself this, he still can’t catch his breath.
A strange clatter hits his ears. Not from outside. Elsewhere in the house.
Legato.
It’s not uncommon to hear him wandering at odd hours. Knives doesn’t care what he does, as long as he stays sharp and in reach. There’s another sound. Like something has fallen or been knocked into.
“You better not be dead,” Knives says under his breath, yanking the door open. He’s gone to some trouble to keep this living weapon of his. It would be frustrating to lose it.
He slowly walks down the hall and past the small living room, keeping his steps silent. There are no lights on but the moons shine through the windows with enough enthusiasm to put artificial illumination to shame.
Legato is hunched over the kitchen sink. His wheelchair is right behind him, the footplates bracketing one of his calves. He’s not wearing a shirt and light from the moons glints off the metal along his spine. A sheen of sweat makes his skin glisten.
The knife block is on its side and one of its worthless blades has been requisitioned. Legato’s hands are steady around the handle. He must be using his threads. Locks of his hair fall into the sink with each swift, aggressive slice. Some of the blue strands stick to his damp shoulders.
The image transports Knives to another time, another place. Bright sand and blue hair soaked in blood, chopped unceremoniously by Knives’ own blade.
Legato had been horrifically skinny back then. Malnourished and abused by his fellow humans. Barely a teenager and already done with life; his dull eyes had spilled tears like an open vein.
He’s not crying now. But there’s a shakiness to him. He must have had a nightmare. Elendira used to complain about him ruining her beauty sleep whenever they shared a room during travel, but she couldn’t have been too annoyed. They’d had the means for three rooms and she always stuck with Legato.
Knives watches him hack away at his hair until the longest piece rests at a curved scar on his neck. When he turns to look over his shoulder, the knife still clutched in his fist, Knives says, “Cut mine next.”
Legato’s eyes light up. “Yes, Master Knives.”
He’s more considerate with Knives than he was with himself, taking his time. Aside from the soft snick of hair being severed they sit at the table in silence.
Legato’s fingers touch the shell of Knives’ ear, slide briefly along his neck to gather dark curls. It’s nice. Knives can’t remember the last time someone touched him casually like this. Vash, probably. When they were kids. Or…Rem.
He squeezes his eyes shut.
Legato runs a hand through his hair, brushing the back of his neck free of downy black clumps. “Do you want to check the mirror and see if it’s short enough?”
“It’s fine,” Knives says.
He gets up without another word and goes outside to sit in his garden.
There is a hunger inside Legato that he cannot name. It’s not new, but it’s been dormant. Simmering. It has teeth. It scrapes up the walls of his ribs and sits, furious and wanting, in the lower chambers of his heart. Nothing can satisfy it.
But he is, by nature, an unsatisfied thing. An empty thing.
A thing to be used.
First, against his will. Then in the service of his master with the worthy goal of ending all human life on this miserable planet.
But Knives no longer wishes to end all human life on this miserable planet.
Legato tries not to think about this. When he does, it makes him ill. His jaw locks and his muscles tense and he has to go lie down or risk losing his stomach contents.
On bad days like this, Legato can’t get out of bed. Knives will inevitably barge into his room and read, or simply sit by the window and watch the suns’ passage through the sky. Better days are when he can sit at the kitchen table while Knives tends the garden. An angel in the suns. No humans in sight. There are good days too, but really they’re just better days in a different light. Those are typically when he uses his wheelchair to give his aching head a break. He misses Guernica.
“Bluesummers,” Knives calls from the kitchen, “get in here.”
Legato obliges, already halfway there. He has taken to moving around the small house with a hand braced against the wall, the other clenched around an old cane Knives found during one of his many solo trips. He never tells Legato when or where he’s going. Sometimes he doesn’t even bother with the car. He walks out into the dunes at dusk and returns the next day with crumpled brown drawstring bags of loose leaf tea, or eggs, or lean cuts of tomas meat.
And he cooks.
While his appetite is generally low, he does need to eat. A lot of it ends up on Legato’s plate. Knives is discerning when it comes to his infrequent meals. Many textures are unpalatable to him, or he’ll only eat one thing for days on end until suddenly becoming turned off by it. He doesn’t like gristle or fat or anything he has to chew for too long. He won’t eat fruit that’s slippery or that he has to peel with his fingers.
Legato will eat anything.
“I’m not finishing this,” Knives says, pushing up from the table. There’s a full bowl of fried rice. It doesn’t look like he’s eaten any of it.
“Master Knives, are you certain? You haven’t—”
“Don’t waste it.” Knives pats his shoulder casually in passing.
The secret hunger leaps to Legato’s throat. He worries he may choke on it. He should choke on it.
He scarfs down Knives’ leftovers instead.
Knives’ apple tree is flowering.
He lounges on the stairs leading up to the porch, a neglected novel hanging from an insouciant hand, and admires the pinkish-white blossoms. He is not alone.
Legato sits one stair down. His hair is effulgent beneath the unforgiving suns, a richer blue than Knives’ lovingly tended morning glories, and it looks soft where it falls in layered waves over his warm brown cheek. His cane rests between his leg and the railing, the handle hooked on one of the vertical balusters. Secure and in reach. There’s a paperback book—non-fiction about old Earth outlaws, Knives has read it already—propped open on his thighs and every so often the worn yellow pages flip without him lifting a finger.
His quiet presence is mundane. Expected. Where Knives goes, he follows.
It’s not the same as being with his sisters but it’s similar. There’s no mental connection. Legato does have the ability to speak directly into another person’s mind but he never infringes on Knives’ privacy like that. He doesn’t go out of his way to touch Knives either. He used to. Before July.
Knives presses his nail into the pad of his thumb. It takes a moment for blood to well up, tiny beads of it filling the crescent wound. The pain is negligible. He makes a small sound anyway, a short intake of breath through his nose to catch Legato’s attention.
It works as he knew it would.
Legato locks in on him with the hyper-awareness of a particularly well trained dog hearing a command. “Master Knives, you’re bleeding.”
In an instant, he has taken Knives’ hand in both of his. Legato’s hands aren’t warm. He’s had poor circulation for as long as Knives has known him. There are faint thin scars crisscrossing his fingers, thicker at the joints and between the elegant slopes of his knuckles. Grooves carved by the constant manipulation of near-invisible metal threads. His grip is familiar. Careful, but not hesitant.
“What happened?” he asks.
“Papercut,” Knives lies. He’s too rough when he pulls his hand away. He doesn’t mean to be. That’s just how he is.
Legato frowns but doesn’t speak. There’s a rust colored stain on the side of his index finger. Knives’ blood, already partially dry. As if Legato were the one hurt, he absentmindedly sticks his finger in his mouth and sucks it clean.
Legato’s hunger grows and grows. It disgusts him. He can’t linger on it. He needs to focus on someone else’s.
His master’s last three meals have gone uneaten, left entirely to Legato. Knives has been using so much energy taking care of the garden. He loses track of time easily. Perhaps he has been absorbed by something and doesn’t even realize he’s famished.
Legato is intimately familiar with what happens when you go too long without consuming food. At first it seems like one of the better punishments for disobedience. It’s not.
“Master Knives,” Legato says quietly, rapping his knuckles against the door to his master’s bedroom. “Is there anything I can—”
The door opens abruptly. Knives leans his forearm against the doorframe, sharp teeth bared in agitation. “For the last time, no.”
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
“I’m aware.” Knives grabs Legato’s upper arms and physically turns him around. “I’m not voracious like you. I’ll eat when I’m hungry.”
The door shuts between them.
Legato stands still for a very long moment, breathing slowly and replaying the interaction in his mind. It’s a good thing he trained himself out of flinching when he was younger. Knives hadn’t meant to cause pain, Legato is almost certain, but there are a number of places on his body that are sensitive now.
Had he tensed under Knives’ hands? No. Maybe. He hopes not.
There are only two people Legato is…was comfortable being touched by. Elendira and his angel. Even if it hurts, he will never shy from Knives’ touch.
Later that day, he finds an apple placed on the kitchen table where he tends to sit. It’s mostly pink, with some lighter sections where leaves have blocked its access to the suns.
He cuts it into slices and eats it piece by piece, relishing in each muted snap as tart pale flesh gives under his teeth. It’s delicious. He licks the juice off his fingers.
And when that is done, he sits in the bathtub and imagines Knives killing him.
The brutal efficiency of it. Feathered blades carving through bone with blissful ease. His wretched existence over in an instant; purpose fulfilled.
It used to bring him comfort, especially when he was younger, to fantasize about it all coming to an end. He doesn’t know how it makes him feel now.
If he dies, Knives will be alone.
His head falls back to rest against cracked tile. The low pulse of an encroaching migraine has settled like silt in his skull. He has the lights off and the intermittent plink of water droplets is louder than it has any right to be.
He wants another apple.
Knives can’t breathe.
It’s too quiet at night. The silence cuts into his chest, carves it open with the same gelid apathy he utilizes when wielding his own blades. No. Utilized. He doesn’t, he can’t, he won’t do that anymore. He lost. His sisters left him and Vash left him and all of his Gung-Ho Guns and it’s his fault, he left, he was the one who broke away, but it’s fine because he doesn’t need them, he’s never needed anyone, and there’s something wrong with his lungs. There’s something wrong with his ears. How can a lack of sound hurt?
He curls into a ball on the floor, hands over his head. His breath shakes. Each heavy inhale and exhale is a battle he’s too tired to fight. He needs to move his hands. It’s not good when they’re idle. When they’re empty like he is.
It’s too late to cook. There’s nothing to do in the garden. He pushes his forehead into his knees and tries to think about anything, anything other than the silence.
Fingers brushing the back of his neck, the shell of his ear, drumming lightly on the kitchen windowsill, curving around the handle of a cane. A sharp blade takes shape in his mind. He clasps his hand around its sturdy handle, too tight—always too tight—but he holds no fear of snapping what lies within his unforgiving grip.
Perhaps he will sleep better with a weapon under his pillow.
Knives slowly straightens his spine. He gets to his feet, and stands still for a steadying moment. Then he slips into the hallway.
The floor is cool against his bare soles. He wears only a pair of loose sleep pants and the thin fabric brushes against his ankles with each deliberate step. He enters Legato’s room without knocking.
“Master Knives?” Legato’s voice is hazy with sleep. He’s half-hidden in his ridiculous pillow configuration. “Is everything okay?”
Nothing will ever be okay again. If it ever was.
Without preamble Knives pushes Legato onto his back and climbs on top of him. Legato’s eyes grow very wide, pinprick pupils nearly swallowed by those unusual goldenrod irises, but he makes no move to escape.
Knives settles them chest to chest, one leg between Legato’s and the other bent at the knee, curved slightly to the side. He sleeps best on his stomach with a pillow in his arms. This is basically the same.
And it reminds him a little bit of when he was young. He and Vash and…Rem. They would sleep in the same bed sometimes. He can’t remember sleeping better than he did with them close by.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Legato whispers. His breath ghosts across Knives’ forehead, tickling the skin.
“No.” Knives rests his palm against Legato’s neck. The pulse is quick. He strokes his thumb along the underside of Legato’s jaw in an attempt to keep that questioning mouth closed. “Be quiet.”
For the first time in a very long time, Knives sleeps well.
It would be better, Legato thinks, if he found it difficult to sleep in the same bed as Knives. With his master on top of him, hand curved around his neck, filling in lines left by all the human ghosts who have seen fit to drag Legato from his rest in favor of enhancing their own.
Legato presses his hand to the small of Knives’ back. Warm bare skin. The faint touch nauseates him. But not how he wants it to.
In the way of one whose stomach is empty.
His spine resents the placement Knives has chosen for him. His mind is wavering between past and present. His every breath pushes him closer to an angel at rest. It should be impossible for sleep to return to him. He should lie awake until morning, sick with hunger, unable to throw aside the phantom touch of men who have long since rotted.
Sleep returns to him with dreadful ease.
He dreams of fruit. Of short fingernails digging crescent marks into citrus rinds, parting the tender insides into sections. Rounded orange half-moons pressed between pliant lips, ripe and tenuous, bursting on his tongue.
He wakes alone. Sensitive, aching, starving. He sits at the kitchen table. Watching, consuming, waiting. He goes to bed. Knives joins him. This night, and every night that follows.
It’s been at least a decade since Legato last shared a bed with someone. He must have been fifteen or sixteen, back when he was prone to excessive nightmares. Elendira would push her sleep mask up and give the worldly put-upon sigh of a girl who simply could not be bothered with his issues, and she’d climb into his bed to put an end to it. They would sleep side by side. Arms touching, just a little.
It’s not like that with Knives.
Legato is not here to be comforted, and he is not here to warm his master’s bed in the colloquial sense. He has a use. A purpose.
He knows Knives has trouble sleeping. If his presence can change that…the gradual increase of his nameless hunger is a small price to pay. He can bear it. That’s what he does best. Anything for his angel.
Legato wraps his arms around Knives, looks at the ceiling, and breathes.
“You have to tell me if you’re sick,” Knives says, leaning over the faded couch where Legato has stretched out with a book over his face. He’s such a lengthy creature. “I don’t want to test my immune system with one of your disgusting human ailments.”
“I’m just tired today, Master Knives.” Legato lifts the book and sets it on his thigh, still open to keep his place. He doesn’t sit up. “Not sick.”
He doesn’t look tired. He looks like he’s in pain. His spine, probably. Or else he wouldn’t be lying in the living room. He’d be at the kitchen table where he’s supposed to be.
Legato’s gaze falls to Knives’ hand, to what is held within. An apple. “Is that for me?”
“No,” Knives says, even though it is. He doesn’t know why he can’t admit it. “But I won’t finish it.”
He grips the apple with both hands, thumbs pressed near the stem. It splits cleanly in two. He holds one half out. Legato’s lips part as if he might speak but he merely swallows, and takes the offered fruit.
“What?” Knives bites into his half. “Had enough apples?”
Legato’s eyebrows pull together, rippling the scar that dips between them. “Never.”
He eats it in three bites, canine teeth flashing in the low light. They’re sharp. Like Knives’ are.
Knives rubs his fingers over the pad of his thumb. Sometimes he likes the soft, repetitive feeling. It’s not enough. He drags the nails of two fingers along the length of his thumb, scratching bloodlessly. Over and over again.
Then he says, “Scoot over, Bluesummers.”
“Yes, Master Knives.” Legato lifts his head from the cushioned arm, pushing up onto his elbows. His breathing is slow and even, movement the same.
His long legs bend at the knee in preparation to sit upright.
Knives slots into the barely vacant space. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Legato pauses, one hand grasping the back of the couch and the other trying to stop his book from falling to the floor. He turns his chin as if to look back but stops before fully twisting his neck.
“You said you were tired.” Knives tugs Legato’s shirt. “Lie back down.”
“But I—”
“And give me your book. I want to read it.”
Legato’s shoulders lift with another inhale. Then he gingerly lowers himself until his head rests on Knives’ lap.
Knives plucks the book from lax fingers and places it, still open, spine cracked over the couch’s arm. He can feel a familiar piercing gaze, and sighs.
He taps his knuckle on Legato’s forehead. “What are you staring at me for?”
“Your hair is getting long again.”
“So is yours.” It’s nearly to his shoulders. Knives slides his fingers through it, playing with the uneven blue locks. “You should cut it.”
Legato closes his eyes with a faint noise of agreement. “Tomorrow.”
“Mine, too.” Knives scratches lightly at Legato’s scalp. “Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
Legato doesn’t know what Knives wants from him. He thought he knew. But within each touch, the rising frequency of them, the lines between intimacy and possession blur. He’s starting to wonder if his master might want more, and just doesn’t know how to seek it out.
They’re in bed together now. And Knives smells so good. Clean and alive, like the green sprouts in the garden outside. He curls around Legato in the same way bright vines tangle together.
The thin layer of fabric between them does nothing. Legato can feel Knives through it. The soft curves of his chest, how his breath puffs—warm and faint—where he’s pressed his face to the sensitive join of neck and shoulder, the firm muscle of the arm he’s slung over Legato’s side.
He’s so close. He shifts in his sleep, closer, closer, and it would be easy to—
To what?
Legato pulls back. Not enough to separate them but so that he can see Knives’ sleeping face. The stern jut of his cheekbones, dark eyelashes, thin lips. He’s striking. Not beautiful. A shiver works its way up from deep in Legato’s belly to just below his throat. Knives is the only one who has ever pulled this hunger from him. This desire.
He can’t stop staring at Knives’ mouth.
Legato has been kissed countless times. Always in the midst of someone else’s passion, their greed for what does not belong to them, what they can take. He can’t remember a single time he’s enjoyed it. He barely understands the urge. He suddenly wants to understand.
And maybe this is what Knives wants too. Maybe he’ll like it. Everyone else has. Maybe it’ll feel good this time, with his master.
Legato leans in. Their lips touch for the briefest instant.
Knives catches him by the jaw, fingers digging in with bruising force. His other hand is splayed beside Legato’s head. He has pushed up onto his knees so that he straddles Legato’s waist.
“Bluesummers,” Knives says, and his voice is frigid. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Legato becomes very still. His shirt has ridden up and he can feel Knives’ thigh against his bare skin. The firm muscle. He flinches. A mistake. He’s not supposed to do that.
He wants to shy away but knows better than to move. He has to stay still. That’s what they taught him. A lesson that was burned, pushed, forced into him.
Lie still. Let them do what they want. It’s going to hurt. Relax so it hurts less. Breathe through it. You just have to breathe. It’ll be over soon. You have to, you have to—
“Legato?”
Knives hasn’t called him by first name in years. It shocks his disjointed thoughts into order.
“I don’t know,” bursts from Legato in a breathless, indistinct rush. “Master Knives, I—”
“Never do it again.”
Legato nods. Heat is building in his throat and behind his eyes. He’s faint, shaky. Muscle spasms are nothing new. Neither is weakness in his hands and wrists. This doesn’t feel like that. This is different. It’s like having low blood sugar.
“I have no interest in using you the same way humans have,” Knives says. His grip on Legato’s jaw lessens, just slightly. “I never will. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Legato can’t look at him. The hunger lingers, jagged and unwanted. Despite everything. It’s nauseating. “I’m sorry.”
A long pause.
Then Knives yawns. “It’s fine.” He pats Legato’s chest, settling back down for sleep. He tucks his head beneath Legato’s chin. “Night.”
Legato wills his unstable heart to calm. “Good night, Master Knives.”
As always, when Legato awakes, Knives is gone.
Knives doesn’t sleep. He treads barefoot into the garden long before the suns have risen. It’s cold. He doesn’t care. The soil welcomes him, damp and soft. He sits and slides a finger along the nearest patch of flowers.
It’s the simplest thing in the world to be gentle to his flora. He never worries about crushing their petals, or plucking their leaves with an uncaring flick.
His thumbnail slides between his teeth; he bites through it until he tastes blood. There’s a sick feeling in his chest. As if he has cut himself on his own blade.
He’s too rough with his possessions. Why did he grab Legato like that? It was just a kiss. Humans do it all the time. Rem used to kiss his forehead. It’s a normal display of affection and Legato has made no secret about how much he cares for Knives. As a good right-hand man should.
Knives can’t say he hated the feeling of it either. The kiss had surprised him, but he hadn’t disliked it. While he doesn’t necessarily want to do it again right now, in the future, if he’s in a certain mood, he wouldn’t be opposed to it.
But there’s something about the way Legato looked afterwards. Lost and wide-eyed and young. Like the boy Knives stumbled across all those years ago.
He knows Legato’s history, what humans have done to him. And he knows a kiss on the lips can be different from one on the forehead, he’s not that oblivious to the sexual proclivities of humans. He just doesn’t think about it much. It doesn’t tend to affect him.
He doesn’t think it affects Legato often either, but maybe—
Knives forces the mess of his thumb out of his mouth. Stupid. It takes time to heal now. He’s so impulsive. Always to his detriment.
His grip left marks on Legato’s face. He saw the little bruises when he left.
So what? He’s been through worse. He’ll live.
Knives refuses to feel remorse for how he reacted. He won’t apologize. And why should he have to? Humans have hurt him. Legato is human.
Legato is different.
And Knives doesn’t want to hurt humans anymore. He doesn’t want to do much of anything.
He sits with his tumultuous thoughts and touches his lips, waiting for the moons to set.
Legato sits in the shower and allows lukewarm water to run over him. He bends forward, clutching the edges of his chair.
Everything was fine and he just had to ruin it. He’d pressed his filthy human mouth to his angel’s. His master, his savior. What an idiot he is. Fool. Knives is above desires of the flesh. He always has been and Legato knows this and kissed him anyway.
Empty, useless thing. Complacent. Hungry.
The shower turns off.
Legato blinks up through wet hair.
“You’ve been running it for too long,” Knives says. “It’s a waste of water.”
The fog of Legato’s thoughts takes a moment to work through. “Right,” he says eventually. “Sorry.”
He doesn’t move. Neither does Knives. They just look at each other. Legato isn’t self-conscious about his nude state. He was naked when he first met Knives, after all.
Knives cups Legato’s neck, head tilting down to search his expression. His thumb ghosts over the thin scar his blade left a lifetime ago.
Legato lifts his head to better meet Knives’ gaze, neck curving like a flower striving towards the suns.
“Are you in love with me?” Knives asks. Clinical, curious. “Is that why you kissed me?”
“No,” Legato says.
“In answer to which question?”
“Both.” Legato can’t put the yawning ache of his desire into words. He doesn’t think it’s love. He doesn’t know what it is. “I can’t…I really don’t know.”
Knives stares, waiting for him to say more.
“Master Knives, I have never wanted to know another person as I want to know you.”
Knives takes this in. “You’ve been at my side for, what? A little more than a decade? You must know me well enough by now.”
“I do,” Legato says, and his quiet conviction has an undeniable edge to it. “Better than anyone.” He smiles. “And I know you’re not in love with me.”
It breathes like a question, though it isn’t one.
Knives observes him for a very long time, then says, “You’re my sharpest knife.”
Always at his side. Completely at his disposal. To handle as he wishes.
Legato slowly reaches up to hold Knives’ wrist, thumb and forefinger pressed to bone. He blinks. Water caught in his lashes drips down his cheeks in two thin lines.
“Dry off,” Knives says, “and meet me in the garden.”
“You’ve found a use for me?”
His hand slips off Legato’s neck, sliding over that precious scar. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”