Chapter Text
Legato doesn’t offer, and the angel doesn’t take.
He only thinks about this later. When the suns no longer beat mercilessly over his bare skin, and the holy wound on his neck has ceased its leaking, and his inner thighs are clean and dry. The angel has given him gifts—a name, a place to stay, mercy. It seems logical, now that his racing heart has finally reached a semblance of calm, to offer his body in return.
It’s nothing he hasn’t been forced to do hundreds, thousands of times before. And this will be different. He’s willing. But when he once again kneels before his savior, his angel, his God—
Millions Knives stares, a slight furrow between his pale eyebrows. Then he turns his face away. He rests his chin in the palm of his hand, long fingers curling against his jaw. The radiance of his apathy sears through Legato; the cleansing flame of an untamable fire.
“I am above the base desires that plague humans,” he says.
Relief pierces Legato like a blade. Like a knife. Sharp and agonizing and euphoric. His blunt nails dig into his palms as he bows his head low. He’s shaking. And hidden behind uneven locks of deep blue, cracked lips tug upwards into a manic, irrepressible smile.
“Ugh, creepy.” Elendira leans back in exaggerated disgust but there's no real heat beneath her words. “Put that thing away. No one needs to know how many teeth you have.”
Legato takes this as an invitation to widen his smile, relishing in the shivery rush that comes with being seen as disconcerting. Unnerving is good. Ugly is better. Undesirable is best. But he’ll settle for creepy. It has its place.
As does he.
Right now his place is on the dusty floor of a motel halfway between July and the middle of nowhere. The room is small, uncomfortably warm even with the window cracked, and Elendira won’t shut up about the impromptu haircut he’d given himself the night prior—honestly, Bluesummers, it’s disastrous—but these are minor irritants. All will be washed away when his angel returns.
Legato’s eyes dart towards the door, catching on the peeling paint near the hinges. He imagines it opening. How Knives will walk through, chin held high, the setting suns finding the perfect canvas in his hair, his eyes, his skin. Soft feathery strokes of orange and pink. He’ll glance down at his most devoted follower, and say—
“Stop curling your fingers. It’s ruining all of my hard work.” Elendira taps Legato’s knuckles until he obliges. “Oh, you horrible freak. I’ll have to redo half of these.”
She’s painting his nails. He didn’t ask her to. She was bored and he’d wanted the neglected remains of the sandwich she’d had for lunch—rye, tomato, lettuce, mayonnaise, no meat (she’d picked it out and eaten it). Thus, a deal was struck.
It’s not an uncommon occurrence. With how often they travel together in Knives’ glorious shadow, reluctant cohabitation has become the norm.
Legato cannot say whether he likes Elendira or not. She is the only other adolescent human he has interacted with at length. She’s opinionated, always vying for Knives’ attention as if it’s a finite resource, and her tongue is as sharp as any of those vibrant projectiles she loves to shoot. And on nights when Legato shudders awake, sticky with sweat, phantom hands at his neck and hips and thighs, the sight of her curled up in the thin bed across from him is enough to bind him to the rough motel sheets of reality.
She also tends to push her unfinished dessert his way. So. She has her uses.
“I hate to rush you,” Legato says, ignoring how she scoffs in disbelief, “but if this doesn’t dry before Master Knives graces us with his presence—”
“It will be no one’s fault but your own.” Elendira dips the tiny brush into its container, coating it once again in deep black. Her focus returns to the hands Legato has splayed before her. “And it’s bold of you to assume he’ll notice anything other than the uneven mess you’ve made of your hair. You should have asked me to cut it.”
The thought of anyone else’s hands in his hair makes him want to vomit. Then it makes him feel nothing at all. His gaze is back on the door.
“Ah, yes. Allow Elendira the Crimsonnail near my neck with a blade...” Legato’s voice loses what little inflection it had. “Please. My self-preservation instincts aren't that dull.”
“Yet you left the window open,” Knives says.
In the half-second between Legato twisting his neck up and back, like the dehydrated stem of some desperate flora reaching toward the suns, an insouciant hand settles atop his head.
Knives does not make a habit of initiating touch with humans. Neither does Legato. But every so often the backs of his fingers will press against Legato’s shoulder in passing, a wordless signal to follow. And once, memorably, Knives used two thin blades protruding from between his knuckles to tilt Legato’s blood-flecked chin away from a floor decorated with the crumpled proof of his new servant’s boundless faith.
This is different. Prolonged. Casual.
If it were anyone else, Legato would have tangled them in a web of his threads before they could dare to touch him. He’s gotten much better at controlling his abilities in the year and a half since his rebirth. But this isn’t just anyone. This is Millions Knives. And it isn’t just any touch.
It is a blessing.
“Master Knives.” And oh, Legato is breathless with adoration. Elendira, repulsed as ever by the blatant fervor of his devotion, sticks her tongue out in his peripheral vision. He doesn’t care. “Welcome back.”
The fingers in his hair curl slightly, and Knives graces him with a brief smile. Hardly more than a faint uptick at the corners of his lips. It’s similar to the one Knives let slip the day they met, as blood-soaked strands of blue hair fell to the arid sand. There’s a precious scar on Legato’s neck that holds on to the memory in the same way sponge cake absorbs syrup.
The cut had been blunt, the angle harsh, and it hadn’t been easy to match with borrowed scissors and unsteady hands. To Legato, it was perfect.
If Knives were to cut his hair again, he would cherish the honor.
But he won’t ask, and his angel will not offer.