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Knives pushed open the saloon door and immediately drew eyes from a few of the regulars on account of his height. From one of them, an amused snort - from another, a twitch in the man’s legs, as if he meant to get to his feet. Knives quietly suppressed it, sealing the man to his chair with a pained sound of surprise. Then he made brisk strides to the man behind the bar, sliding him a note he had written earlier that demanded water, medical supplies, and healthy portions of whatever their best food items might be. Meat, probably. There wasn’t much here on planet so-called Gunsmoke, but at least there was game.
“And a room for the night,” he said politely, letting go of the man who was still struggling to stand, enjoying the angry squawk as he fell off his chair instead. “A quiet one.”
The bartender regarded him with a tilted head. The man was already well on in years with crow's feet and a gray beard. From the wary look in his tired eyes it was clear this wasn’t his first time encountering something…not quite right. Just a little outside his realm of understanding. He sighed, and picked up the list to read it.
“You wouldn’t, by any chance, be planning on paying for any of this, would you, kid?”
Knives graced the wise bartender with a pleasant smile.
“You’ll still be alive in the morning. Maybe your customers, too. Will that satisfy?”
The barroom had gone eerily silent. The air was too heavy. A teenaged boy waltzing into a den of armed men and gently promising not to kill them should have been funny, but no one seemed to want to laugh. The bartender fetched a key from one of his hooks, and slowly filled up a flagon of water from his much-rationed tap.
“I’ll send the food up when you’re settled. Consider it a bonus, we don’t usually do room service.”
Knives took the key and the water, impressed despite himself by the man’s cool head. Perhaps not every human had a death wish. He made a note to himself to continue seeking out the ones that had made it to an advanced age. Without further pleasantries he turned to carry his prizes up the rickety stairs, just barely hammered together, the entire building still smelling of paint.
“Don’t wake me if I’m sleeping.”
And with that, the strange youth was out of sight, and the gaggle of workers and drunks trying to enjoy their evening collectively breathed out. They murmured amongst themselves as to what had suddenly come over them, why they still had goosebumps despite the scorching heat. The bartender resigned himself to the cliché of polishing a glass as he listened for light footsteps on the floor above. He had not the slightest idea of knowing what he had just let into his house, and, in truth, he didn’t want to find out. He just hoped it would still be standing by the time it left.
Vash scuffed his feet on the sandy floor, sniffling as he tried to strain them free of the straps binding his ankles together. They ached. His arms ached from trying to pull them free from where they were tied behind his back. His wrists were bruised, not quite bloody because the sleeves of his dirty plugsuit were thick enough that the black cord could only scrape him instead of cut, but it hurt. It all hurt.
It had still been dark when he woke up like this, Knives crouched above him, a finger pressed to his lips. A joke. Some kind of sick joke, surely. Maybe even a game they were about to play. Then Knives started to back away.
“No!” Vash had shouted, struggled to sit up, managed to scoot himself several feet across the shack’s floor before Knives held a hand out to stop him, his face stern.
“It’s just for a little while, Vash. I’ll be back soon. I can’t have you running off and getting lost like last time. You have to learn to wait for me.”
“I don’t want to,” Vash tried to reason. The ropes were tight, struggle as he might he couldn’t get free, couldn’t even stand up. “I shouldn’t have to. Knives, don’t leave! Don’t!”
But Knives was already through the door, and shutting it behind him. With a drop in his stomach Vash even heard him throw the bolt from outside. Heart erratic, breath escalating, he pressed himself to one of the cracks in the scrap-metal shelter, trying to catch sight of which direction his brother was headed, but it wasn’t any good. This abandoned shelter had been thrown together at the foot of a hill, and Knives’ steady footsteps had already led him up and out of sight.
And now, the suns were beginning to set.
“It’s not fair,” Vash whimpered, even though his own voice grated his ears. It was better than hearing nothing at all. “It isn’t fair. He shouldn’t get to do things like this. Him, of all people!” His tears were hot and angry for a few moments, and then a chill evening breeze made him shudder. He was hungry. He’d missed all of his daily meals and it was time for bed. Normally by now he and Knives would have unpacked their sleeping rolls and laid together side by side, two spots of warmth in the cold desert. It was the only thing Vash could look forward to sometimes, to stay sane he had to obsessively think about sleep, of quiet oblivion with his brother nestled against him. In sleep, Vash had decided, he wasn’t a murderer. He had to make sense of things somehow. In sleep he was just himself, neutral. Just Knives. But it was fully dark now, and Knives was nowhere to be seen. What was he supposed to do, sleep on his own? Like this? Could he even do it?
“Knives,” Vash hiccuped, this time to no one, not even to himself. “Knives. Knives. Don’t do this. Anything but this. Come back.”
Vash cried himself into a shivering stupor, and eventually lost half the night to a state of not quite waking. With his eyes a little open, he imagined he saw his brother’s boots approaching in the dark, then his bare feet slipping out of them, one by one. As he breathed shallowly, the line of Knives’ suit came undone, and his sun-browned body strode confidently closer, fabric falling away from each of his thighs like red and white flower petals. He was almost on top of him, almost close enough for Vash to kiss the soft curve of his abdomen. And then…
With a quiet cry he was awake again, his back twinging sharply as he suddenly straightened from his slump. His gloved hands curled into fists, clutching nothing but sand, and his trembling knees were forced to spread uncomfortably now to make way for his freshly throbbing erection, the raw consequence of his brief sensual fantasy. With a wounded sound of pure frustration, he threw himself onto his side, scraping his jaw in the grit to try to feel something other than this sudden ache, to relieve himself of this torture, at least.
Knives, he thought, shivering with chill, damp with sweat, steaming mad and about to cry yet again, hoping Knives could hear him if he thought the words hard enough. You fucking bastard.
Tucked into the warm safety of his inn bed, Knives stared unblinkingly at the ceiling, and tried not to tremble. It was difficult, after all, spending the night away. It was hard to settle. His feet itched to move, to hasten back across the sand to that little bunker hidden in the cliff side. What if someone else found Vash there, after he was asleep? What if wild animals did? No. He was sure he would be safe there, as long as he stayed put, which he had to. That’s why he left him there. It was essential education for them both, a lengthening of the distance they could tolerate. They couldn’t expect to share a bed every night for the rest of their lives, not with what Knives hoped to accomplish. He shut his eyes, and yawned purposefully, telling his body that sleep would come as long as he signaled for it. Then he heard it, a whisper in his mind. His own name, in Vash’s croaky voice.
His eyes were wide open again, shocked to shivering as his body went from peaceful to taut in what felt like less than a second. His thighs ached. His stomach tightened. His cock hardened so suddenly he felt dizzy, a rush of need only Vash could make him feel. Breath stuttering, he lowered a hand to himself under the blankets, let his vision go soft, and squeezed experimentally. Pleasure bloomed under his palm, but it was so frustratingly…simple. He didn’t want this. He wanted Vash’s hand, Vash’s voice, Vash inside of him. Clearly his twin was thinking the same thing in his little prison, but he didn’t manage to deliver a second whisper. Nor should he. They were supposed to be apart for the night.
There was a knock on Knives’ door, and the boy sat bolt upright in surprise, the sheets he had been rubbing himself beneath tumbling off of his naked body to get scrunched into his lap to hide the evidence. The bartender, clearly also the inn’s owner, cracked the door open, and nudged a neat parcel of packaged goods inside, more generously heavy than he expected it to be. An offering. Knives’ gaze lingered on the man’s burly arm for a moment, his bearded jaw, his look wild, but saying nothing. The innkeeper took only a glance at the boy’s exposed skin before turning away in deference.
Odd. He was so…normal, now that he was in bed. Like he might have been one of his grandsons pulling a prank. Maybe he had given up a free room and some of his best cuts for nothing.
“Breakfast is at seven,” was all he said. Knives swallowed. His limbs gave an unbidden throb, his mind an unwanted thought. The man smelled like bourbon and charcoal. Another moment passed, and the door clicked shut.
As suddenly as the heat had rushed him, it now rushed back out. He lay back down, slightly nauseated, and thought about Vash. Thought about the way his eyes sparkled the other day when they met a new animal, gave it a new name. How his fair cheeks seemed to have roses in them when he laughed, when he tried a new food he found delicious. He thought about holding him while he slept, warm and limp and guileless as the day he was born.
The nausea passed, and Knives wrapped his empty arms around himself. Then he was able, after a few deep breaths, to drift off.
It was late morning, and Vash was exhausted. He was thirsty. He was. Also. Still. Completely rock hard. He’d been scooting back and forth against the rough metal of the shack’s walls trying to find a snag somewhere that might saw through the ropes binding his wrists, but nothing would catch. And every ten minutes or so he’d get distracted again, his vision would go spotty. Instead of food or sleep or water, though, he saw Knives, thought of his bare thighs spreading for him, thought of his mouth on his, his sure hand on his cock.
Come back. Come back and take care of me. He almost whimpered it aloud, then slammed his head into the wall with a resounding thump. No! Don’t do that! Don’t ask for him! He’s the one that did this to you, he left you here! If you die it’ll be all his stupid fault!
That put a shudder in him, the gut-curdling kind. What if something went wrong, wherever Knives was? What if he was in trouble, and couldn’t get back? It had already been two days - shouldn’t he have been back by now? He couldn’t take much more of this. He had to find a way out. He had to find him somehow. He at least had to wrestle his hands free so he could shove one of them into his suit and force this impossible throbbing heat to die down. He was about to make yet another attempt to stand up against the wall, to maybe throw his weight hard enough into the door to crash it open, when he finally heard movement outside the shack.
Footsteps?
No…a quiet rumbling. Something was outside, in the sand. Something…big. There was a slithering, the sound of silt and dust sliding off of an enormous carapace, a clicking of many legs finding purchase on the bedrock Vash’s shabby little prison was perched on. Shuddering all over with sudden terror, Vash managed to fit an eye to one of the tears in the scrap metal, to catch a glimpse of what was going on outside. A giant worm was seeking the scent of the heap of scrap metal he was just inside, what must have been its head turning this way and that slowly as it examined the wall. It looked man-sized, but it was hard to tell, with however much of its body might still be buried in sand. It shone in the sunlight, iridescent green and brown gleaming off of its centipede-like undulations. Vash whimpered softly, and the thing outside reacted to the sound, rushed to discover the source. Its many legs were suddenly crawling up the side of the shack, its body rushing past Vash’s peephole, startling him away from it with another pathetic cry, sending him crashing into the sand again, curled up on his side and shivering. The structure shook under the giant’s weight, metal began creaking as it reached the flimsy roof, the sound of its legs like nails rapidly hammering the tin.
“Knives,” Vash cried, in panic, not a thought, a need. “Knives!”
Slicing. Squealing. A sudden frantic skittering of those legs. Thumping and splattering on the shaking roof of the shack, in the sand outside. Then, for a few heart-stopping seconds, silence. The bolt on the door groaned as it was pulled open, and Vash raised himself as much as he could onto his shoulder, turning his flushed and tear-stained face to peer up at the shadow standing in the open doorway. Knives’ fingers were still retracting into their ordinary shape, bits of viscera dripping into the sand by his feet as they became smooth and blunt again. He then raised the hand to push back the hood of his new cloak, and smiled with pure delight down at his handiwork.
Vash was an absolute wreck. How lovely.
“Knives,” Vash choked out, a third time, beginning to sob in earnest, from relief, from fury. “How could you…get me out of here, y-you…”
“Shh…” Knives breathed, shutting the door behind him and rushing smoothly to his brother’s side. He set his heavy pack down, lay his cloak in the sand like a blanket and pulled Vash onto it, helping him to sit up. Vash couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t even throw his arms around Knives like he desperately, instinctively wanted to, his bound wrists searing pain all down his back when he helplessly tried. “It’s all right,” Knives murmured soothingly, wiping Vash’s tears with his sleeve, kissing his hot face, stroking his hair and his back until his shuddering subsided. “It’s all right. It’s all right now, Vash. I’m here.”
“You’re…horrible…” Vash was able to choke out, through dry-throated gulps of air. “I h…I hate…”
“No. It’s okay now, Vash,” Knives interrupted, firm and sweet. “It was a huge success. Here.”
He unstrapped one of the canteens of water he had harvested from the inn, delighted to find that it was still cool despite the hot sun that singed his journey back here. He opened it, held it to Vash’s lips, waited for him to stop stammering and register the relief he was being offered. Vash’s blurry gaze cleared just a little, and he leaned towards the pure scent of water, but then stopped himself, his brows knitting, his throat constricting in pain.
“Cut me loose first.”
Knives blinked at him, then laughed, as if he had merely forgotten.
“Right, of course.” He set the canteen down, and pulled a switchblade out of his pocket. He could easily use his own body for this, but…Vash didn’t like it when he did, and he didn’t want to upset him more than he already was, not with so much evidence of his power littered directly outside of the shack in the form of evenly sliced centipede steaks. He sawed first at the straps binding his brother’s ankles, and then next cut his wrists free. It in no way escaped his notice that despite his dire condition, his shaking and sobbing, Vash’s suit was persistently tented between his thighs, the stiff fabric betraying him just enough for Knives to understand that desire had not abated for his suffering brother, not for the entire period of forced separation.
That was very good to know.
Vash gave a gasp of pain once his wrists were finally free. Bringing his arms to the front of his body made his muscles ache and his shoulders crack. As much as he wanted to yell at Knives for what he’d done, to scream at him, really, his throat was too dry, so he settled for glaring at him in mutinous fury while he picked up the canteen he had rejected earlier, taking a shaky sip to start before drinking more deeply, slowly draining the whole thing in one long gulp after another. Knives sat quietly, beatifically observing. What a kid his brother still was. How great it would be if he could keep him that way, permanently.
“Hey, Vash,” Knives said quietly, putting a non-innocent hand on his brother’s inner thigh, squeezing. “I got us plenty of food, too. Let me-”
He was thrown suddenly backwards, his head hitting the sand, the heavy impact darkening his vision a moment. Then that heat again, that instant transfer of Vash’s feelings to his own sparked all his nerves at once, and he arched in place with a gasp, acutely aware of Vash’s hands on his chest, his wiry frame now in shadow above him, blocking the sparse sunlight from the shack’s hole-studded roof. He laughed and adjusted to make his body easier for his brother to access, spread his thighs so that Vash’s trembling knees fit between them. When he reached for his neckline to unzip his suit Vash batted his hands away with a snarl.
“I’ll do it. I should tie you up, too, see how you like it.”
“I don’t,” Knives replied, his delighted grin only becoming that much more smug as Vash tore his suit open, pawing at his smooth skin as if he were starving for it, which he clearly was. He’d only managed to take one of his gloves off in his haste. “You’re the one that likes that kind of thing. Bondage. Pain. Discipline.”
“Shut up, Knives!”
“Yeah? Tell me I'm wrong.”
Vash growled in frustration, each of Knives’ words pounding in his head like a curse. Reason wasn’t going to win out, because there wasn’t anything resembling reason left in him. There was just the reality of his brother’s body beneath him, warm and beautiful and real and offering him the pleasured relief he knew he needed, would debase himself for if he had to. All of his limbs were shaking from how close he was to getting what he wanted. The suit’s zipper only pulled as far down as his navel, so he yanked on the fabric gracelessly to rip it the rest of the way off, and was treated to more of Knives’ teasing laughter for his effort. Knives fluidly shrugged out of his sleeves and pulled one of his tanned thighs out of the suit, all of him sinuously relaxed, at ease, other than his rock-hard cock that perfectly matched Vash's, trembling above his stomach lightly with their shared need. I want this as much as you do. Vash hastily peeled his own suit off of his sore arms and chest, getting his second glove off in the process and finally managing to wrap a sweaty hand around his neglected cock, whimpering into a spasm as just the pressure from his palm overwhelmed him. Oh god. He was close. Knives’ gave a sharp intake of breath, and grabbed his waist with both hands, in a sudden hurry to pull him closer.
“Calm down, Vash…come here, quickly.”
“Oh that…would make you mad, huh…if I…”
“Vash,” he hissed, and yanked until Vash’s body was flush to his, trying without preamble to get him to hit center. Vash squeezed himself, rubbed his leaking cock against Knives’ opening, but then he slid past it, pressing their dicks against each other, instead. He re-gripped himself, adding Knives’ cock to his hold this time, rubbing them together as tight as he could.
“You don’t like it when I come on you,” Vash growled, high on the unexpected chance to tease. “But I do. I like it. I think it looks good on you, Knives.”
“Vash, put it in, don’t - you’re being ridiculous.”
“You feel good,” Vash said, light-headed, stroking them both with stuttered breaths, happy to ignore his protests. “You feel good no matter which way I fuck you.”
“No, Vash, listen to me- ”
Vash put his other hand over his brother’s mouth to silence him, and watched his blue eyes widen in shocked offense at the audacity. Causing such an expression jolted through him, shook something in his very vertebrae, and after only a few more seconds of rutting into his slippery fist, hot and leaking against his brother’s equally needy cock, he felt his peak hit him, long and drawn out, pleasure sparking in the shudder of his hips, in the deep pit of his stomach, pumping out of him in a gushing flow that distinctly marked Knives’ skin. It splashed onto him bright white against his golden tan, an obscene amount that overflowed his navel, nearly covered his whole stomach, even nestled into that soft valley in the center of his chest. There was so much. It had been a while since he’d watched himself come, he had no idea he could make this much. He was deaf to the muffled growling, then shouting that Knives spat against his palm, but he came back to himself when the sharp pain of his teeth snapped him to attention like a viper, yanking his hand away with a startled yip.
“Ouch! Knives-”
“Animal,” Knives hissed, sitting up, visibly shaking with anger, practically spitting. “I told you to listen.” Vash couldn’t pretend to be sorry. His hand hurt, but watching his spend drip down Knives’ front and flow into his lap in so many white rivulets was the opposite of something he regretted. Even his flustered offense was not the deterrent it should have been.
Shouldn’t have left me here by myself, pounded in his head. Who are you to call me an animal. Who are you to say anything.
Knives’ head was swimming with a fury he couldn’t quite voice. It wasn’t right. It was wasteful. He couldn’t…absorb this properly through his skin, he’d be forced to wash it off later, darkly aware the whole time that he should have been allowed to keep it, that what Vash made belonged to him. Especially. This. Vash shuffled above him as if he were about to back away, and he lunged forward to drag him back down by the throat.
“Again, Vash,” he hissed, heedless of the tears springing to his eyes, his harried coughing as his shoulders shook. “Properly this time.”
Vash’s vision went out, sparked, then cleared again. His ears rang. He could see the two strong lines of Knives' arms, leading to his furiously hot face. He could breathe, just barely. It hurt. Everything hurt right now.
“Let go,” he choked out, clawing at Knives' wrists. He knew what this did to him. They both knew. His head was spinning with the knowing. “Let go, Knives.” Knives loosened his fingers, and Vash gasped a shuddering breath in. Blood flooded his sex, driving nearly all thought from his mind but freshly blooming want, need, more, more of this. He whimpered, and rubbed up hard against Knives’ sticky taint, where his first load had pooled and coated his inner thighs. Knives hissed his impatience, and wrapped his hand around Vash’s clumsy cock, guiding his ruddy tip so that it nested properly against his ready hole, so that all Vash had to do was mindlessly push forward on the next thrust to finally slip inside.
There, they both thought in unison.
Entering Knives felt like melting, like his brain was being erased. He shuddered, half of it fear, but his sense of foreboding couldn’t quite make a case for itself against all this heat, all this need. He determinedly buried his cock inside of his brother in hard, shaky thrusts until his entire length was fully sealed into him, and Knives’ legs wrapped decisively around his waist, his strong arms pulled him down until they were belly to belly, until his face was tucked over his shoulder.
“Can’t…” Vash panted, the light scratches on his throat still stinging, making a valiant attempt to tell Knives how much this was, that he was suffocating. “Can’t think…”
“Don’t think, Vash,” Knives breathed, his voice woven with golden heat, with self-satisfied pleasure. “Just move.”
Easy orders to follow, for once. Knives was holding him tight, had his arms and legs wrapped around him, was even holding his steaming, tear-wet face to his neck, so he didn’t have to see, didn’t have to know, only had to feel, and move, and feel some more. Knives’ insides gripped his tender cock like he could trap him right where he was, like he would never let go. He could feel and hear labored breathing, could feel his twin's heartbeat increasing alongside his own, but if Knives was overwhelmed he was twice as much so, lost to his silken flesh, the tangle of his limbs, his purring, encouraging voice, inside his head, outside of it, both.
That’s it, Vash. Deeper. Take what you need.
“Knives,” he hiccuped, feeling himself reach a telling dizziness, “Knives, I…”
“No…not yet, Vash,” Knives groaned, and stilled him, tightening his full-body grip so that he couldn’t pull out, couldn’t move. His fingertips went sharp in Vash’s pale back, and ten tiny pricks of blood peeked out from where they sunk in. “Not yet. Stay still.”
“I’ll...try,” he breathed, wrapping his own arms around Knives’ shivering shoulders, his gangly knees spread as wide as they could go, his waist locked securely in place by Knives’ crossed legs. Held. Commanded and held. “Feels good…”
“It does," Knives agreed, fiercely. “Better than anything…we’ve ever felt, or ever will.”
“Y…yeah…” Vash whimpered, not seeing the point in denying it. There was nothing like this in the world. There was nothing but this. “Knives…can I…”
“Shh,” Knives hushed, and re-tightened his grip, kissed his hot forehead. Vash could feel his trembling, even if he couldn’t see his face. He wanted to. He wanted to know what he looked like when he did this to him. He wanted to watch him unravel. He was getting even tighter.
"Knives," he tried again, at the point where he was melting, like his body had no shape of its own, "Please..."
“Okay,” Knives said, his voice quiet, breathless, his legs loosening so that Vash could move his waist again. “Okay. Go.”
Vash thrust, frantic, lacking all elegance, becoming pure mindless enthusiasm, humping his brother into a shivering wreck he himself was too far gone to witness. Knives whimpered, bit into his lip, let his ever-active mind slip just enough for his whole world to be Vash Vash Vash Vash Vash, every time he pressed tight against him he became all he could make room for. Vash choked out a sob, hot tears his telltale sign he was about to come, and then he was, just as much as the first time, properly flooding his insides, filling him up, making him spasm, squirm, and then come himself. The friction of their too-close bodies absorbed the shudders of his leaking cock between them, but that was a pleasure secondary to the way his cells eagerly drank Vash in, his body becoming a shuddering palace of gratitude, all his nerves reacting to the rushing liquid as if it were mythical ambrosia, ecstatic to have his brother right where he was meant to be.
They had the luxury to lay there, afterwards, listening to each other's panting breaths in the shade of their imperfect shelter. He wasn’t sure how long he lay in thoughtless bliss, but he didn’t much care, either. Eventually Knives felt his mind return to him, slowly, like his thoughts were emerging from a depth of water he couldn't fathom, an ocean he had never seen.
"Vash," he said, pleased with the gentle smoothness of his own voice, with how softly commanding he could be, even now. "Aren't you hungry? Like I said, I brought…"
Vash answered him with a soft snore, and Knives raised himself just enough to get a good look. All tension has left him, his cheek was comically smashed against his firm chest, oblivious to his own soft vulnerability, to the precious gem that was his untainted soul.
Mine. Mine. No one else will ever get to have this.
Knives lay back down, comfortable and relaxed even with Vash's weight holding him down, even with his cock still inside of him. The worst thing that could happen is that Vash would wake up wanting more sex. What a tragedy. Smirking to himself, he thought of where the two of them should travel to next, what lessons he should construct for his brother as they continued to grow. They wouldn't be kids for much longer. So it was good to have a plan.
But, for the moment, there was no need of one.