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No one could begrudge him his fury, not after a fiasco like that. His driver was a dim but pleasant man, with a wife and daughter at home. Conrad had just started exchanging Christmas cards with them, which was a bit of a laugh here on No Man’s Land, a planet that had clearly never seen snow, soon to be populated entirely by people who never had, either. He made the mistake of raising his hand in greeting and attempting to say "welcome back" when Knives approached the car. His guts made the sound of a running faucet after the boy had sliced them out, his throat a stuttered gurgle of surprise. Conrad shuddered, but kept his head.
Speaking was off limits. Understood.
He gingerly retrieved the keys from the man’s twitching fingers, said a prayer for him silently, and opened the truck's cab himself. Knives rode stormy and silent in the back seat, his hood covering most of his face, for the entire six hour drive back to the patch of civilization Conrad’s mansion belonged to. Conrad couldn’t help but notice how many more lights shone in the darkness, now that the Last Run they had witnessed was complete. How many more homes had running water tonight, that had gone without for months? How many dying of illness would now have a chance?
Pulling into the drive, he at first feared for his housekeeper, waving at them from the steps, but Knives’ interest in slaughtering random members of his staff seemed to have passed. Conrad followed him into the foyer and timidly asked if he wanted a bath, but Knives ignored him as if he were a stick of furniture, stormed up the stairs silently to the master bedroom he had claimed as his own, and slammed the door behind him precisely like the moody teenager he was.
Conrad let himself exhale. In the two years since Knives had shown up and abruptly demanded everything his life had become, everything he had managed to accumulate since leaving Earth all those cold sleep years ago, he had done his level best to be humble. To face the gravity of and fully repent for the sins he had committed - against Knives, against his sister, against his brother, who had that evening very nearly ended his life without even the intention that Knives would have used. But in reality, resentment crawled beneath his skin like the native worms of this planet. He did not truly believe that Knives had an inherent claim to his life’s work, his wealth, his home, his very bed. He wouldn’t have let him take it at all if the boy hadn’t become so lethal. If he hadn’t stolen Tesla before he had the chance to stop him. They both knew it was a tactical issue that had brought them to this arrangement, not a moral one. Knives could kill him at any moment, and therefore his life was now entirely about making sure the boy didn’t get sick of him. Every lesson he offered him, every bit of data he allowed Knives access to, every research project he brought to completion for him was one more card out of his hands and into the deck of his moody, pubescent captor. To stay alive he had to stay useful. To stay alive he had to remain meek.
But no one had said anything about liking it.
He rubbed both of his eyes, and instead of going to bed himself, like he desperately wanted to, he trudged down the hall to the computer lab. He had to take down data on Vash’s gate, on whatever could be recorded while it was still fresh in his mind. First hand observations were everything in situations where no samples could be preserved. The dull thought occurred to him that Vash’s blood might have been on Knives’ claws before he retracted them, but that didn’t matter anymore. That sample went to Knives, just like all of Tesla did. Anything Knives wanted, he took. His job was to make do with whatever was left over.
Knives collapsed onto his stomach without removing any of his blood-soaked clothes. He clutched at the royal blue duvet, his grip threatening to shred it if he gave into the impulse to pull, to destroy something , to scream until his lungs bled while he did it.
He was there.
He was right there.
Pointing a gun at his face.
A gun he had given him, moments before.
It didn’t make any sense.
It didn’t make any sense.
Why had he looked at him like that. Why had that woman been there? It didn’t make any sense. Why wasn't he allowed to kill someone who was already dead? Why did Vash even want to stop him?
You’re burning up, baby brother. You’re on fire. What did he do to you?
“Nothing,” Knives growled, irritated by Tesla’s teasing in the face of something so serious. Of course his body was hot. He was angry. He was maddeningly inconsolable. He had the sudden realization that if things had gone right, Vash would have been here, in this bed with him. The thought melted like wax into imagining what could happen if he were, how it might feel to have Vash’s bony chest pressed against his back right now, his hands on his shaking wrists, his hips tight on his–
He was gasping. There were tears in his eyes. If Tesla still had arms she would have been shaking him by the shoulders.
Snap out of it. You're scaring me. Take control, Knives. Do something.
“This is your fault,” Knives whimpered, furious through his tears, delirious as he pulled haphazardly at his clothes, peeling his jacket half-way off and unzipping the jumpsuit beneath it so he could thrust his hand inside. The culture wound on his forearm throbbed beneath its bandages. “Your parts are the ones acting up.”
I’m sorry. I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t feel anything, when I saw him. Not like you did. It was like a fucking soap opera, watching you swoon.
“Shut up,” Knives gasped. “Shut up. It isn’t me. This hurts. I hate it. Just let it be your fault.” He found his slit, and started rubbing. It was hot and wet down there, sticky beneath the peach-fuzz down of pubic hair he’d grown recently, as his body grew up a bit, as it adjusted to Tesla’s organs getting along with his own. His cock was absent at the moment, but that wasn’t really a concern. It always came back. His slit didn’t open, though, no matter how hot it got beneath his prying fingers. Every time he imagined Vash on top of him he felt it pulse tighter shut, as if mutinously punishing him for his twin’s absence. His rubbing got clumsier, and any pleasure it generated was rapidly eaten up by distress, by heat so feverish it seared his fingers. He hiccuped, his sloppy tears were soaking the sheets.
“I can’t…I can’t…”
It’s okay. It’s okay, Knives. I was too hard on you. It was my mistake.
“I need him…”
No. You’re okay. You’re going to be all right, Knives. You just need to breathe. Can you do that? Breathe.
“I am,” Knives answered, and he was, all of his attention was in his lungs, now, after the horribly failed attempt to focus on his inflamed sex. He pulled his suit shut again, curled up on his side, wrapped his blood-stained cloak around himself, and closed his eyes. “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t go.”
I won’t. I’m here. I’m right here, you big baby.
Knives was quiet for a few long moments, and then his shaky breaths gave way to the deep exhaustion adrenaline had just barely been separating him from. Tesla tried, like always, to stay lucid while her brother slipped off, but there was no point. She didn’t have that type of control, the body they shared was really his, and each part that was distinctly her own became less so with each passing day. When Knives slipped into oblivion, Tesla followed.
Knives didn’t come out of his bedroom for weeks. Conrad printed a daily report for him each morning, and they accumulated in a well-mannered stack on a lacquer table outside his door.
Late one night Knives stepped out through the mansion’s back garden, picked a direction, and began to walk. He walked until the buildings thinned and the sand became loose beneath his bare feet. He walked until the suns were up, and the heat outside of his body matched the heat boiling it from inside. He walked until the suns went back down again, and the twinkling light of a campfire beckoned him towards a flicker of isolated human activity out here in the wilderness.
It was a crude job. The cuts were ragged, far from the clean, geometrically perfect ones he could see so clearly in his head. He had been experimenting, growing blades out of the blades on his knuckles, manipulating them all at once so they cracked like a whip, like a lethal lasso. But the family of pilgrims felt pain when he sawed through their heads, sent wails out into the night he didn’t have any interest in hearing. The smallest one had a mess of straw-blonde hair, now matted with blood, and he almost felt his chest tighten before remembering not to care.
Lovely. All better now?
Knives ignored his sister’s droll sarcasm. He did feel better. If he met any others on his way back, he’d do it again, and feel even more settled. He stepped over the mother’s body, walked the length of their tiny camp, and unhooked their toma from a small wagon of supplies. The bird grunted as he mounted it, and started to trot without a backwards glance when he gave it a few gentle clicks. He rode the beast back into town, slunk back into the mansion, and scattered gritty footprints all across Conrad’s sparkling glass tile. It was the middle of the night, so he went right to the music room, and played loud enough that he was sure everyone in the house would wake.
The next morning, he was stuck to the sheets with sweat, hot, and heaving. He ached down to his bones. He could barely stand.
This isn’t funny anymore. You’re out of options. I don’t like it any more than you do.
“It’s supposed to go away on its own,” he groaned, trying to pretend his vision wasn’t blurry with fever, that his belly and cunt weren’t each pounding in alternating throbs, as if his body hadn’t become a sick joke. TANK EMPTY. Fill me. Fill me. Fill me. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
Boo. Hoo. Your ‘time of the month’ theory is dead, Knives. Seeing Vash did something to you, and you need that fucking doctor to help.
He managed to stall a little longer. He writhed in bed until after midnight, and then, dragging his silk sheets and intricately patterned duvet with him into the hallway, let himself into the data lab to review Conrad’s files on plant biology. He wanted, on an almost cellular level, to destroy these computer banks, to slash through them all and erase human knowledge of him, of his kind, of his sister’s intricate torture porn. But he couldn’t piece it together on his own. He could not, even, dulled by illness, by this incessant throbbing, hack into Conrad’s most basic restricted data. His monitor buzzed red with each new file he failed to open. His breath hitched. A fat drop of sweat fell from his chin onto the glass keypad, and fizzed with sparks in the dark room. Conrad made his approach obvious, made his footfalls as audible as possible. Knives glared at him with all the contempt his body could contain.
“What do you need, Knives?” Conrad’s voice was half gentle, half terrified. “If you’re having trouble sleeping, I can-”
“I need full access to your research, doctor,” Knives spat, as if he had made this clear a thousand times, which he had not. “I need to be able to diagnose myself. I need-”
Conrad’s hand was on his forehead, and it was so. Cool. It was so blissfully cool. Knives shivered, and was unable to suppress the whimper of relief his throat chose to huff out. He had not once considered making physical contact with a human could feel good in a situation like this. Could feel...soothing.
“Oh no,” Conrad whispered, the fear in his voice melding into something else. Not fear for himself. Concern. “Let me carry you. Please. You should be in bed.”
Knives said nothing, but he slowly rubbed against Conrad’s palm, his forehead feeling the worried wrinkles of his fingers, the lines etched into him. Conrad lifted the boy up to his chest with a heave, and let him rest on his shoulder, dragging the blankets with him like a magnificent cape.
“I need…” Knives whispered, his arms a weak circle around Conrad’s neck, his breath shallow. “Tesla says I need a baby.”
“She said that?” Conrad asked, conversationally. He never challenged the breaks in Knives’ reality. He hadn’t missed the way he had mistaken Luida for Rem, even though there was ample evidence Knives had well murdered Rem, personally. The fact that he was allowing himself to be held and tended to was all that mattered right now.
“She did…she’s the one that said it, but…”
Knives groaned as Conrad put him back in bed. He shuffled in one of his lab coat pockets for some pills to offer him, but he pushed his hand away, his voice tremulous.
“I do need one, doctor. Give me a child. I can’t stand it anymore.”
Conrad paused, his glasses opaque in the soft yellow light of what was recently his own bedroom, aware in each of his sinful human cells just how easily he could turn this conversation into the worst decision he’d ever made in a lifetime of horrible decisions.
He’ll find you out. Sense, in his middle years, had the occasional habit of making its presence known. He’s not your subject, he’s your master. Lie and he’ll kill you, for certain. That’s your life, forfeit.
“I…personally, cannot. One of the restricted files you were trying to open would have been my own medical records.” He made a vague gesture to his lower half with an apologetic grimace. Knives’ expression twisted from pained disgust into an even deeper revulsion.
He shoots blanks. Tesla hissed. And he knew the whole time. Oh I’ll kill him.
Conrad adjusted his glasses and measured his words. “My fertility aside, you’re still growing. Trying to carry a child would likely be dangerous at this stage in your development. My data on the reproduction of independent plants is obviously incomplete, but you may only need-”
“You can take my word on what an independent needs, doctor.” Knives threw himself back into the nest of pillows still damp from his own sweat, fully gripped by the agony of his vacant belly, by his sister’s barely contained rage. “Figure it out. And quickly. I’ll slice you to ribbons if you delay.”
There was so much Conrad wanted to say, so many contradicting paths criss-crossing through his mind - terror, desire, concern, fascination, all coming together in this one awful, practically storybook moment. The suffering angel demands of him, with fairy tale innocence, with imperious arrogance, a child. This boy, who both despised him with every fiber of his being and trusted him with his very life. He held the pills still cupped in his palm out again, and Knives opened his mouth this time, let Conrad place them on his tongue, and swallowed.
“I’ll have something prepared for you by morning. Please try to rest until then.”
Knives couldn’t say he felt any better, not really. But the promise of a solution was having a placebo effect on his mind just like the pills were having a phantom effect on his fever. He watched the doctor putter about the room, re-arranging personal items and stepping into the washroom to fill a bowl with water, dipping a towel into it. He was already half asleep when he returned to dab his face with it, and let his eyes slide shut with a quiet sound as a cool trickle of relief ran down his unhappy spine. Conrad kept watch over him until he slipped into unconsciousness, watching his steady breath rise and fall, patting cool water across his forehead and down his throat, trying to leech more of the patchy flush out of his fevered skin.
There was no denying it. He was even more beautiful than his sister. Even more delicate, somehow. Conrad’s hand trembled lightly above his chest, where his neckline opened just enough to show a soft swell, his youthful figure still developing. A droplet of water fell from the towel he was squeezing into the curve he’d nearly lost himself gazing at. He drew his hand away, set the bowl down on his bedside table, got to his feet, and led himself, one step after the other, out the bedroom door.
He had a whole night of work ahead of him, after all.
Knives dreamed he was flat on his back, just like he was in his bed, but instead of Conrad’s lush blue mansion surrounding him the room was small and sterile, like his bedroom back on the ship. The mattress was stiff. The walls were gray. There was a photograph framed on a tiny table nearby, but it was blurry - he couldn’t make out the faces. And then, suddenly, there he was, standing above him, looking down at him. He was speaking, but Knives could only hear ringing silence. He gestured to himself, to the dripping stump of his left arm. Knives’ tongue felt thick, his body forcibly immobile aside from a slight turn of his neck, the roll of his eyes.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way, he tried to say. I had to. You would have died.
Vash was shouting. There was no sound, but there were furious tears in his eyes. One-handed, he made a strangling gesture at his own throat, and then pointed to Knives. He couldn’t hear anything. But he could see the question. Why.
I don’t know either, he couldn’t say. I don’t know why she’s still alive. I don’t know why you still want her. Why did you come to me, just to run away again?
Sound finally filtered in.
They’re alive, Knives. That’s what you just don’t understand. As alive as you or me. They’re all alive.
Knives closed his eyes, listened to the sound of Vash saying his name. He didn’t want to hear the rest. None of it made sense. But Vash’s voice was saying his name, and he could hear that. Not the name Rem gave him. His name.
Metallic wheels thumped over his threshold, then rolled soft tracks into the carpet. His door was clicked shut, then locked. Quiet digital feedback sounded, and the blue light from Conrad’s monitor brought him the rest of the way out of his dream, back into his own bed, into the unpleasant reality of his heat. Conrad was concentrating intently on the screen, making notes and printing labels for a number of vials he was setting into a sample holder, all too familiar a sight. Always scheming something. Always out for more than he deserved. It was reassuring, in a sick way, that Conrad could barely go a minute without exposing the fathomless greed of his human nature. His inquisitive genius was an eyesore as much as it was an asset. A repulsive but necessary crutch to lean on until he could stand upright, above them all, under his own power.
“Is it morning?”
Conrad startled, placed his last vial, then glanced at his watch to check.
“It’s a little past one. The courier I trust doesn’t take orders until eleven.”
“Dutiful enough to stay in one piece, I suppose.” He was eyeing the cart, the shimmering tools set in the sterile tray just behind the lightly frosted glass. Tesla was silent, but he could feel her stress. He shivered as he sat up. “Well?”
Conrad bit his lip. “I still don’t think this is safe, Knives. As your physician I have to protest. With another day or two I could produce a drug that will ease your symptoms without having to-”
“I have no interest in your filthy chemicals, doctor,” Knives spat, hot to the point of seeing red that he would dare to contradict him at this point. “If you have everything I need, stop dallying already.”
Conrad made a choke that almost sounded like the man was crying, for a moment, then he collected himself. He reached into one of the lower shelves of the cart and pulled out a plain white gown, laid it on Knives’ blanketed lap, and avoided eye contact.
“I’ll take a moment to wash up, then. Please excuse me.” He removed himself to the washroom, and left Knives to deal with the untangling of his fabrics. He pushed the blankets aside, stripped out of his rank, sweat-soaked suit, shucking off his outdated bandages as he did so, the wounds they had been protecting now smoothly healed over.
I hate those things, Tesla said as Knives pulled the flimsy bit of sterile cloth over himself. I hate him so much. Why are you putting me through this?
“This was your idea,” Knives snarled, clutching his stomach as it throbbed more angrily than ever. “This is your fault. You’re putting me through this mess.”
It’s going to be a human, Tesla whimpered, her terror turning her stupid, insufferable. It’s going to hate us, just like the rest of them .
“You’re not the one who has to worry about that!”
Conrad stepped back into the room, now wearing gloves, a mask, and an expression far calmer than Knives would have given him credit for just a few minutes ago. He didn’t bother him with more patronizing concern. He was suddenly all business.
“Lay down, please. I’ll examine you manually before we proceed.”
Knives did as he was told, still clinging to his overheated abdomen protectively. Conrad raised his eyebrow at him, and Knives removed his hands from himself, managing to school his face away from Tesla’s panic into his own furrowed spite. Conrad put his hands on him, then, his gentle fingertips disturbingly large as they stroked purposeful lines across his narrow belly. The thin sheet of the hospital gown did not feel like enough protection from what was happening.
“No notable swelling. That’s good. Your temperature is still high, which we’ve already made note of.” He quickly tapped something into the screen the cart was holding, then ran a strip of metal across his forehead, prompting a beep from the machine. Knives made a stiff sound, his knees trembling where he had instinctively pressed them together. Conrad was stacking extra pillows on either side of his shivering legs.
“Put your legs up,” he said, without inflection. Knives looked at the two miniature towers of cloth, and felt his head swim. Conrad was looking away again, typing more notes into his monitor. Knives managed to separate his thighs, and put each of his knees over the makeshift stirrups.
Conrad reached between the boy’s legs, thinking he might go in blind, try to do this by feel, to spare him the humiliation of exposure. Then he realized how ridiculous that notion was, and hitched the thin gown Knives was draped with up to his stomach, completely revealing his pale legs, his flushed thighs, and the glistening map of needy wetness that had clearly been tormenting him for weeks. Knives’ cunt itself was primly innocuous, visually no different from a human’s, but quite...tense, given its hyper-aroused state. Even with his thighs spread like this, Conrad could see nothing but a closed slit, petal-pink at the center of his softly rounded mound.
“Have you been able to…stimulate yourself, at all? Perhaps that’s all your body is asking for.”
“Don’t…” Knives face was red hot, barely able to respond. The doctor’s gaze alone was heavy enough humiliation that he felt he might pass out. To be questioned about stimulation on top of it was making him feel insane. “Don’t you dare second guess me, Conrad.”
“It’s more of a first guess.” Conrad pressed two gloved fingers alongside the boy’s stubborn closure, repeating the firm but gentle caress he’d given his throbbing stomach. Knives was instantly taken back to that first night, to his clumsy and ineffectual attempts at satisfying himself, to no avail. This didn’t feel right. It did not feel…medical, that was for sure. He balled both of his fists into the pillow that was supporting his head, trying and failing to control his harried breathing. Conrad was patiently rubbing the outside of his cunt in an attempt to coax it open, even a little bit. The sensation should have been ghastly. It should make him want to shrivel up and die. He let out a shuddering whimper when he felt it - felt the edge of Conrad’s gloved finger catch a bit against his opening - his opening. His body had locked itself up like stone against his own touch for weeks and now a few gentle pets from this Sinner among Sinners had him panting like a whore. Conrad made an approving sound, and something metal caught the light of the monitor, something that was dipping between his thighs like the beak of an artificial bird.
“All right. There. There, not too bad. The rest will be over quickly.”
“The rest…” Knives nearly squeaked. The metal was ice-cold against his fevered sex. He tensed, but the spout was in him already, holding him open. He could feel it slide hard and smooth all along his cunt, and his eyes pricked with wet heat. The sensation was so distracting that he was oblivious to Conrad’s intense observation of his insides, his rapid note-taking yet again. The doctor was in prime condition, the data on offer for only these few precious moments all his for the taking. Without explaining himself, he quickly swabbed multiple cultures from inside Knives’ grudgingly exposed organ, prompting little whimpers from the boy that only enhanced his scientifically driven frenzy. Once the swabs were bottled and sealed, he took swabs of his sweat, of the liquid plentiful on his thighs. Then, finally, with one last throb of perilous reluctance, he brought out the meticulously selected donor sample that his courier had delivered earlier that day. It was already doled into a specially designed syringe with a nozzle just long, thin and stiff enough to penetrate his patient’s cervix and deliver its contents directly into his aching womb.
“Take a deep breath in, Knives.” Conrad said, calm and clinical through all the excitement. “This shouldn’t hurt, so if it does, tell me to stop at once.”
Knives eyes were wild, fixed on the white liquid he could clearly see inside the syringe. He pulsed over the metal holding him open. Almost there. Almost there. Then it disappeared between his legs, and he wasn’t sure…what he was feeling, other than…strange. Strange. Strange. There was a thread somewhere, hard and persistent. A prick, not too painful. A pause and then…he began shuddering, his hips gave an uncontrollable shake, one of his bare feet kicked the stacked pillows away as his entire body responded to the liquid being poured into him, squirming wretchedly like a crumpled shred of paper met suddenly with a single drop of water. Conrad was forced to pin his thigh down, hold him steady through his shaking as he depressed the rest of the syringe, let Knives’ hungry womb drink up the rest of the purified dose he was giving it.
“Easy,” Conrad gasped, shocked out of his professional competence by the unexpected reaction, by how obscenely well he took what should have been a rote, sensation-less treatment. He couldn't confirm if the tremor Knives was experiencing was orgasm, but it certainly seemed to be, hot and fuming and causing him to pulse around the lubricated speculum keeping him open. As Conrad withdrew the drained syringe he was treated to a momentary view of his pearl-pink insides rapidly throbbing, an utterly beautiful display imperceptible from female ecstasy. “All right. All right. We’re through. Can you hear me, Knives? It’s over.”
“T…take it out…hh…doctor, take it…”
Conrad slid the speculum free of Knives’ still shuddering cunt, and returned his tools to the cart with a clatter, sitting on the bed with his young charge now that the procedure was complete. He gathered his legs back together for him, smoothed the gown back over his thighs reverently. Knives grabbed hold of the doctor’s arm, his eyes still hotly shut, and his body continued processing sensation, shakes and over-pleasured pulses and relief, relief, relief. His belly still throbbed, but the burning ache that had been eating him up had instantly vanished, like smoldering coals after water was finally thrown on the flame. The fact that it had also made him come barely registered. It did, and it didn’t, there was simply too much in his body to notice one pleasure over another. Conrad tried to pull his arm free, and Knives re-doubled his grip on it, snarling.
“Don’t you dare go,” Knives spat, not looking Conrad in the face, but staring instead at his chest, at the doctor’s heavy breaths, which were still steadier than his own. “You’ll go when I tell you to.”
“Of course,” Conrad replied, allowing himself to be held in place. He pulled his mask down, breathed deeper. After a pause, he reached his free hand carefully up to the boy’s head, and began to slowly pet his hair, smoothing sweat-soaked strands of platinum away from his pink face, away from his tear-stained eyes. Knives made a quiet sound, almost approving, and gradually, one silent, mutually tense moment at a time, his unnaturally blue eyes began to slide shut, first unsteadily, then completely. A few minutes more saw the boy deeply asleep, exhausted from his month long ordeal, his fever, his intense climax of a resolution.
Conrad sat a long moment, just looking, his over-active mind pared down for the moment to just the vision of his child’s loveliness. He still clung to him tightly, despite losing consciousness. Conrad removed his fingers gently, and carefully arranged him onto his back, covered his body with a fresh sheet, smoothed his hair once again. He paused another long moment, and then pressed his lips to the boy’s forehead, already able to tell that his fever was dropping. Hopefully after another day’s rest it would be gone.
The next morning was the calmest Knives had woken in months. Not only had his fever lifted, his aching emptiness cured, but he felt as if he’d been relieved of a nagging, burdensome tension he’d been carrying for half a year, maybe more.
Maybe five years.
Conrad was standing at his bedside, asking how he was feeling and babbling something about tests he needed to do, regular exams they should schedule. Knives stretched, ripped the flimsy hospital gown off of his otherwise naked body, and casually slunk out of bed, walking away while Conrad was mid-sentence to go and shower, to wash the whole thing off as if it had all been a bad dream.
That is, of course. Not how any of this works, little brother.
The first change he noticed was an appetite. Rem had told him that when he was a baby he had eaten food, drank the same formula that Vash did, and it wasn’t until he developed language that he also started turning away her offers of human sustenance. But a month after Conrad’s redundant test came back positive, Knives noticed…cravings. He ignored them for a few days, and his mood plummeted from the relieved lightness he had been enjoying to surly and dark, almost bad enough to start doing violence to Conrad’s staff again. So he woke up early one morning and sat himself down at Conrad’s kitchen table shortly before he knew he would arrive for coffee.
“Uh…good morning, Knives.”
Knives glanced up, but said nothing, engaging himself with reading the paper Conrad’s housekeeper had set out for him. Conrad poured water in the coffee pot, set it to brew, and paused as he consulted his refrigerator.
“Would you like me to make you something?”
Knives head was tilted in the direction of the coffee. It smelled good. It had never smelled good before.
“Whatever you’re having.”
They ate breakfast together every day, after that.
Tesla stopped talking to him. He guessed it had something to do with the eating.
“Pregnant humans usually experience nausea, light-headedness, and shortness of breath when they’re about two months along,” Conrad remarked a few weeks later.
“Do they?” Knives asked, without looking up from adding four cubes of sweetener his coffee. There was a bakery in town that Conrad got weekly deliveries from. Knives found their fried confections particularly satisfying.
“I must insist,” Conrad was blocking his way to the verandah, his arms outstretched, and he inched in front of him each time Knives tried to step around. “Please. It’s been nearly five months, Knives. Your situation is unprecedented. I can’t take proper care of you without regular exams.”
Knives growled. He felt fine. Mostly fine. No. He didn’t. He was heavy like lead, and at all times felt like he was being leeched from, that the human parasite growing in his belly was gobbling up every wasteful nutrient he ingested and then some. He was constantly hollow and constantly over-full at the same time. He was reminded, daily, just how repulsive humanity truly was, having a bit of it growing inside of him like this. If it had been Vash’s, like it was meant to be…
But that line of thought was the most agitating of all, which was precisely why he did not want his time in the garden interrupted. Conrad’s collection of rare flora was one of the few things that gave him something outside of himself to focus on, something beautiful. He made another dodge for the door behind Conrad’s ridiculous T-shaped pose, and felt something twinge, clutching his belly to quiet the sensation before he could stop himself.
What does it want. I’m giving it everything. I’m giving it more than everything. A glance at Conrad’s face revealed repulsive concern, all furrowed eyebrows and trembling lower lip. The man was shameless.
“Fine. But give me one of your…concoctions, this time. I won't suffer any more of your gaping.”
“You…want me to drug you?”
“The less I have to know about your exams, the better. Putting up with your eyes on me was barely tolerable once.”
“Well…as you wish.”
Conrad had been prepared to wrestle and argue with Knives every step of the way. He had a speech prepared, even, talking points about his health, the health of the child, about needing to monitor his hydration and exercise and countless other helpful “expecting” tips he’d been stocking up on ever since this situation became far more real than he was prepared for. Instead…
When he asked Knives to follow him to the lab, he followed. When he asked Knives to once again change from his usual clothes into one of his sterile hospital gowns he sullenly but silently acquiesced. It was the first time Conrad had managed to get a glimpse of his figure since his insemination - he had started wearing his cloak indoors and avoided human contact as much as possible. It was hard to get an idea of how he was coming along by spotting him slinking from his room to the garden or sneaking extra snacks out of the larder at midnight. As he peeled off his usual jumpsuit to swap for the open-backed gown, Conrad got his first good look at the pronounced rounding of his belly, and also what appeared to be an increase in his chest size, a distinct softening on his previously boyish torso.
I’ll have to check on that ran unfiltered through his head as he filled a needle with the clear liquid he had custom-made for deep, uninterrupted sleep. Knives held out his wrist when he approached, and Conrad noted how slender and pale the boy’s forearm looked nestled in his palm. The needle slipped in, the drug delivered.
“I’ll check your vitals, perform an ultrasound to image fetal development, and make note of any abnormalities. Should you have any questions after you wake-”
“I have been ahead of you on all of this, from the start, doctor. Do your damn job, and stop boring me with the details.”
Knives’ head was already getting heavy. He backed into the exam table without quite climbing onto it, just leaning, dizzy. Now that he thought of it, cramping and fits had been keeping him up most nights, without even his sister to talk to, and this hazy feeling was reminding him how much he missed sleep. He didn’t crave it the same way he’d started to crave food. Instead he craved it like an old friend, like a favorite place he’d been wanting to visit. Somewhere good, far away from all of this.
“Well,” Conrad said, as he lifted Knives up onto the seat, “I'll still print the report for you later, should you need it.”
Knives grunted softly in acknowledgement. Conrad gently pushed him onto his back, and adjusted the table to recline him. Knives shifted, twisting this way and that a moment as he tried to reconcile his sore lower back with the stiff excuse for a bed he’d been offered, but enough twilight was sinking in for it not to matter after a few annoyed shuffles. His eyes shut, his breathing deepened, and then Conrad was left alone in his locked laboratory. Alone with Millions Knives, limp and insensible, the most terrifying force of destruction he’d ever met, as well as, for the moment, the most vulnerable little thing he’d ever seen. He breathed, took that reality in for a few long moments, and then began his work.
Vitals first. Temperature was, thankfully, normal. Blood pressure was on the high side, at least for Knives’ average. When he placed his stethoscope in the center of Knives’ chest he felt that softness he’d noticed earlier, that subtle give that wasn’t there before. He swallowed, and continued his exam, lowering the stethoscope next to the boy’s rounded belly, feeling it with his palm, as well, for signs of movement. There wasn’t anything of note to listen to, but after a tense few moments, he did feel something. Perhaps not as distinct as a kick, but a fluttering. It was alive, the thing inside of Knives. He felt his pulse rise with an excitement far more intense than he was expecting. It was alive. He began preparations for the ultrasound at once, first by adjusting the table and carefully arranging Knives’ sleep-limp body so that his calves were properly cradled in stirrups, and then by switching the monitor on, unhooking the wand from its holster and pushing aside the gown so that he could place it to Knives’ bare skin. He slowed down once he had it in place and began to carefully map all angles of the child in progress, saving scan after scan to examine later. What was on the screen looked a bit larger, a bit more advanced than one might expect a five month old fetus to look like, but it seemed otherwise deceptively human. That…was only natural, as Knives himself was mistaken for human more often than not, despite his intense distaste for the resemblance.
He truly isn’t, though, Conrad thought to himself, in quiet awe. He’s so much more than that. When he was sure he had enough imaging to analyze later, he returned the wand to its holster, his exam now complete, and was confronted, once again, with this silently sleeping, perfectly formed mother-to-be. He reached up to pet a stray lock of hair from between Knives’ eyes. Blood pounded in his ears. He wouldn’t wake. It might be hours before he would wake. He let his hand float downwards, justifying himself with one last fleeting thought of examination, that the act of running his palm over the curve of Knives’ recently enlarged chest was a test of some kind, data harvesting, and not pure self-pleasure. He might have gotten away with just that, too, just that one naughty schoolboy sort of caress, practically a joke, but Knives…moaned.
Conrad snapped to full attention. Knives’ sleeping face was expressing furrowed discomfort, his mouth had fallen open slightly as he breathed. Conrad squeezed his chest again, and Knives let out the same sound, shivering in his sleep.
“I tried to tell you, this whole time,” Conrad said, close to his ear, so that if he was listening, actually listening, and about to wake, he would. “That I suspected you needed this more than anything else. You probably still do.” His intentions could no longer be described as scientific. He was fondling both sides of the boy’s softened chest through the barely-there hospital gown, purposefully seeking that quiet voice of his, those continued gasps of this unknown pleasure he denied himself, that if he were conscious he would surely refuse, on pain of death, to request. He took his time admiring the effect he was having, watching Knives’ pale face pinken thanks to the constant squeezes and light tugs, the way the small nubs of his nipples began to peak lewdly through the gown he didn’t remove, didn’t feel the need to.
I’ll only touch him, he told himself, allowing this reasoning, allowing this much. Without taking anything in return. His satisfaction has a purpose, after all. It did him so much good last time.
With that in mind, he let his hands stroke lower, reverent and loving over the swell of his stomach as he re-draped his gown, restoring Knives’ modesty as his intentions became more obscene. The massage of his swollen womb seemed to be as appreciated as the attention he’d given his chest. Knives shifted a little in slumber, his head tilting back as his breath changed yet again. Conrad moved his palms to Knives’ firm thighs next, marveling a moment at just how much of them he could wrap his hands around, how pretty they glowed against his duller skin. It was already etched in him, this particular bittersweet pleasure, a drug he had long since become addicted to. The chance to make love to a pure and god-like creature, to own it, for a moment, despite his sickening inferiority, how his touch marred such perfection. Placing one hand on the exam table, he slid his other beneath the gown, his warm palm making contact with the underside of Knives’ gravid belly as his fingers once again framed and gently rubbed his perfect cunt, feeling how wet and needy he was directly, this time, how warm.
“They’ll soon be writing a Third Testament about you, little one,” he murmured, as Knives’ sleep-sunk gasping became more animated, his shuddering reactions more pronounced. “They don’t even know it yet.” Every sound he pulled from him was pure, wordless. Every moan and writhe was something he couldn’t help, couldn’t even know about. When his dripping slit once again began to part for him, Conrad dipped his fingers in and out of it carefully, felt for the sensitive nerves that pulsed at his opening, for the bud that had been unsheathed at the top of his cunt.
“Hnnh…mmh…” his voice almost sounded like a plea, almost. His body was certainly begging - shaking, in rapture, in need, now, of him finishing what he had started. Conrad felt drugged as he slid just one fingertip deeper into Knives’ pussy, felt the soft walls of him close around it, suck on just that one digit, spill a little more liquid in encouragement. There was nothing human about this feeling, this intoxication. As he very carefully added a second finger, Knives cried out quietly, his mouth moving to form just one word.
“V…vash…”
Vash. Of course. A divine desire he could spiritually fulfill, at least for this moment. When he continued, tears formed under Knives’ lashes, spilled as he pushed his fingers deeper into him, finding and then relentlessly rubbing his sweet spot, feeling his whole body hitch in response. With just a little more pressure, an especially desperate whimper, he had him, he began twitching like mad over his fingers, his legs shaking from his thighs outward, and a thin, clear liquid began to spill, distinct from the viscous arousal he’d already milked from him, a helpless response to Conrad’s brutal insistence, to the way his knuckles curled inside the boy even as he continuously spasmed, extending his ecstasy by force, his pleasure drawn out in deeper and deeper moans as Conrad refused to end his devotional indulgence.
“I won’t,” Conrad was gasping, his other hand going white where it gripped the table, forcing all of his attention on Knives’ body, Knives’ heat, his tremors, his voice, and away from his own. “I won’t do it. I won’t sully you the way I…” His sentence ended in a half-sob, and he finally, shakily, drew his fingers out of the boy that was still shuddering beneath him, flushed and panting from the pleasure he had so crudely delivered, hopefully deep in a rosy dream where such things came from his intended, his brother, his other half.
He had had the foresight to operate in the lab adjacent to his own living space. Given the power of resistance from some unknown, perhaps even holy source, William Conrad stepped away from the sleeping angel on the hospital bed, left him to rest a moment, and retreated to his own bedroom to tend to himself, to perform an act of ritual sacrifice in the dark, away from Knives’ even fully insensible participation.
When he returned he was calm, and cool. Knives’ body had returned to a more neutral state, and he cleaned him up from the effects of the exam, undressed him, and re-wrapped him in a bathrobe several sizes too large for him without a stray thought, with his mind back on clinical responsibility, on his young patient’s comfort. He gathered the boy clad in white up in his arms, and was thankful to meet no one on his journey back to his bed, where he laid him reverently to sleep on, and enjoy the rest of his dreams.
In another few weeks, everything went wrong.
Knives stopped showing up at his breakfast table. Conrad let one day, then two pass, without questioning things deeper. All of his imaging had come back normal. All of the tests he had run seemed to paint Knives as the picture of maternal health, despite all of the ordinary discomfort that could be expected for such a state. But on the third morning of his absence, Conrad turned on his heel, and marched straight to Knives’ bedroom. He knocked, uncharacteristically violent, and waited for a response. Nothing.
“Knives!” he half-shouted, hitting the door again. “Are you even in there?”
There was a groan that time, and Conrad wrestled with the knob. It was locked, but he had the key. The room was completely black inside, all the curtains drawn. There was an unnatural sharpness in the air, like spilled battery acid. Conrad switched the lights on, and hurried to Knives’ bedside. He was shivering beneath as many blankets as he could pile onto himself, soaked in sweat. There was an almost blue pallor to his skin, and he was cold to the touch despite his aggressive attempts to warm himself. Conrad checked his eyes, his too-pale tongue - nothing was normal, this was the weakest he’d ever seen him, and it had all happened so fast. When he pulled back the blankets he could clearly see distinct root-like veins, unnaturally dark, crawling along the boy’s skin to feed into his belly, as if the thing in him had started to take control, to demand more of its mother than he could give. He could begin testing, and he would, but his stomach sank out of him. He already knew the truth of what he was seeing.
He could not allow this thing to continue growing.
He would not allow this child to take Knives from this world.
“Knives,” he whispered softly, retrieving the robe he had wrapped him in before and sliding him into it once again, doing everything in his power to remain calm as he tried to explain the situation to his possibly delirious patient. “I’m taking you to the OR. I have to induce. Do you hear me? It’s over.”
“No,” Knives moaned, only coherent enough to know he didn’t want that, he wouldn’t allow it. It couldn’t all be for nothing. He wouldn’t let it be. He clawed at the suffocating man gathering him up without strength, struggled without any hope of getting free. “No, doctor. Don’t. Let it…let me…”
Conrad was paging assistance, and not even giving his protests a second thought. He was fading, too light in his arms, and nothing else mattered. Nothing could be more important than Knives’ survival.
“Don’t take it,” Knives sobbed, as the lights changed, flashed, as he was suddenly surrounded, held down, pricked and wired and, he knew, half a moment away from oblivion yet again. Conrad’s face appeared above him, and he tried to grab for it, feebly, but it was too far away, he was too dizzy, he was falling too fast. “Doctor…please…”
Knives woke in the most miserable state he could ever remember experiencing. He didn’t want to face this. This sickeningly sadistic new chapter of the nightmare. He kept his eyes shut, the cotton haze left over from Conrad's drugs a thin, barely effectual barrier against the pain, the deep nausea, the emptiness, the truth.
He’s gone. Tesla’s voice was as gentle as it was sad. Knives felt his heart freshly ache - he’d longed to hear her, all these months, and she returned with cruelty.
“He…?” he asked, his voice barely a croak, even though he knew the answer.
It was a boy, before it died.
The door opened. Conrad clearly had set a monitor this time, an alert that would tell him exactly when Knives woke, so that he could be at his side the next second. Knives still hadn’t opened his eyes, but he knew the man’s scent. He knew his gait, now. The staccato of his harried breaths. There were a few soft beeps on the monitor, a few keystrokes entered, and then the sound of Conrad exhaling in delirious relief. A chair was dragged up to his bedside, and Conrad sunk into it. Long moments passed, and Knives found himself listening to the doctor’s great, heaving sobs.
“Forgive me,” he begged piteously, after his grief had calmed, somewhat. “Forgive me for not doing more. For not knowing how.”
Knives opened his eyes, his face for once an impassive mask. He was in his own bedroom, again. He was clothed in white, the usual blue bedclothes replaced with white blankets, his bed a snow-capped hill against the dark decor. With slow deliberation, he turned towards Conrad, and raised one stiff hand, still sticky with residue from the IV that had been taped into it, and beckoned him closer. Conrad’s eyes widened, but he obeyed as bidden, and leaned towards the boy, first a little, and then until they were face to face, his hands a careful frame around where Knives sat. Knives took hold of Conrad by the neck, and turned his face this way and that, as if searching for an inch of flesh that was salvageable, that didn’t bear an sickening sheen of sin, of shame, of guilt on top of that, still quivering in the man’s pathetic jowls and glistening in his over-wet eyes. His eyes.
Knives released a single blade from his right knuckle, razor thin and perfect despite his pathetic state. He tilted Conrad’s face slightly, and fit the blade directly under his left eye, clinking lightly against the frame of his glasses as it pushed them out of the way. Breathing shallow in pained concentration, he split the skin of Conrad’s eyelid, peeling it in an artful arc, cutting it away just delicately enough that his quivering eyeball wasn’t damaged, but that red line began to spill blood down his cheek. He pulled the skin apart three more times, accenting his calligraphy of a wound with a set of lash-like cuts. When he was done he sat back, examined the doctor’s face, and found it more pleasant to look at, already. Yes, this would do. Until the day he was ready to kill him, living marked was a good compromise, a good start. When he let go of the man’s throat, Conrad placed his own hand to his cheek, amazed by how such a sharp pain somehow...didn’t hurt at all.
“Thank you, Knives.”
“This isn’t forgiveness, Conrad. I’ll never give you that. This is a brand, proof that you’re a Sinner, through and through, until the day I allow you to die.”
“I understand. Thank you. Thank you for this mark.”
Knives glared at him, suspicious of some underlying reluctance, or even sarcasm, but there was nothing. Conrad’s trembling had stopped, his tears had dried. He held his wounded face with gentle peace, as if it was the greatest gift he’d yet been given.
Knives retracted his blade, and when he did, a few drops of Conrad’s blood were absorbed into his body, and he felt each one as a momentary resonance that brought him, too, a bit of peace.