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Knives awoke alone. He scrambled—no, floundered, immersed in viscous fluid, surrounded by a soft aqua glow. Hazy figures moved about, just beyond perception, and his hands came up against glass as he moved towards them.
Glass—a clear dome housing an ornamental flower, a macabre crystal tomb for a still-living being.
He tried to summon blades and choked on an involuntary, hoarse shout, the sharp ache of energy drain worsening. The solution around him glowed brighter, brilliant moonlight harnessed and held captive, adding a flared accent of pain in his weary eyes.
“Nai!”
He felt the cry more than heard it—felt it in his mind, and deep in his chest. One distinct figure pushed through the others, intimately familiar, and hurried towards him. Knives tried with more urgency to call forth blades, to activate his gate, and felt his back arch as pain like biologists’ scalpels tore up the length of his spine.
“Nai, don’t!” came the voice again, shaking with emotion, and the figure reached the other side of the glass—pressed long-fingered hands against the clouded surface. One of the other shapes, a malevolent shadow, made a wild grab for him, was held back by another; Vash stripped off his coat in a flurry of blurred crimson petals, then all-but vaulted up the side of the chamber and plunged inside.
“Nai, it’s alright!” Vash’s sense, vivid against Knives’ own being, belied the words; Knives felt his own despised fear heighten with his twin’s rising anxiety. As Vash came towards him he thrashed backwards, straining for his gate and groaning when it refused to activate, the pain now dull ripples through his useless body. “Nai!”
Chains…
“Nai, you’re going to hurt yourself!” Vash said, urgent. Knives raised his hands, warding him off as he tried to come in closer. “Calm down, please!”
It was worse, infinitely worse, that Vash had joined him in this prison, this human-made prison that Vash himself had undoubtedly had a hand in. Resentment, made sour and pungent by fear, rose in the back of his throat.
He couldn’t escape this trap, engineered by humans and abetted by his own brother. Worse, he couldn’t protect Vash from this cage of humanity’s vicious design.
“Vaaash!” he screamed, and lunged across the tank. Vash’s surprise spiked through the water like static. He got his hands up, the artificial left closing, cuff-like, around Knives’ wrist; the organic right moved rapidly between them, parrying Knives’ wild grabs for him.
“Nai, please!” Vash tried again, and Knives felt ill with the implore. Please what?! he wanted to snarl, but fright and fury constricted his throat. Please lie down, Brother, and let them destroy us?! Let them slice open these arbitrary bodies and fumble about in our viscera? Study us? Use us? Defile us? What, Brother—‘please’ what?!
He wrenched free of Vash’s grip, of the restraint that might bind him to a surgical table, and kicked out wildly. The solution around them glowed radiant with the useless outpouring of his energy, some half-conceived attempt to overload whatever mechanism they had set up. They couldn’t handle all the energy he commanded—not mere human technology, the fetters designed to exploit his Dependent brethren. Vash’s figure wavered amid brilliant cerulean as he grabbed again for his twin; they tussled, tumbling end over fit-and-scrabble end.
A hot ache, like bewildering, mortal muscle fatigue, seeped into Knives. The surging energy almost blinded him, now; he fought Vash off more by feel than anything, although his movements began to falter. Vash closed the distance between them and Knives thrashed, a noise that might’ve been his brother’s name wrung from him. The fluid shone alight, an azure strobe that flickered prismatic at the edges of perception, like Vash was being consumed by blue flame; or perhaps like Knives himself had been engulfed in an inferno of his own making.
Vash’s arms encircled Knives. At first they felt only entrapping—fetters to be snapped, bonds to be broken. Knives recoiled, arching away, screeching without sound. If the humans—if Vash—then Knives couldn’t protect either one of them. Vash’s right hand appeared in the tense spot between his neck and shoulder, gripped it hard; his left arm wrapped around Knives’ back, pulling his brother to him. Knives froze, blind and now faint, the last of his strength seeping away with the brilliant glow.
“It’s okay, Nai,” Vash murmured. “I’ve got you.”
Vash’s grip on him tightened, chains to bind, his warm right hand massaging the base of his neck. Knives’ vision began to clear, and he blinked to more rapidly disperse the blinding afterimages. No matter how comfortable, chains… chains are still chains…
“I’ve got you,” Vash repeated, and the glow returned to the water, softer. “Just hang onto me, okay?”
The glow—Vash's gate, easing open—enveloped Knives; he stared at the markings appearing inches from his face. Without meaning to, he leaned into Vash’s touch.
Chains…
No matter how comfortable, his brother’s embrace was binding. Nai felt Vash’s energy soaking into him, replacing just a bit of what he’d so uselessly expended. Glimpsing the shapes of humans, standing some way back from the tank, nearly triggered another spell of vain struggles.
Vash held on, the tightening of restraint straps around his chest, the compression itself strangely soothing and the beat of Vash’s heart doubly so. The solution glowed gently with his energy. While it wasn’t a total restoration of what the humans had stolen away, it was a balm—comforting, and grounding.
“I’m here,” Vash murmured, putting a bit of extra weight into his embrace. “Whatever happens now, I’m with you, Nai.”
His brother’s arms were chains, Knives knew. The humans still watched, from behind their frosted glass; they waited, their intentions dark and primitive. Vash’s embrace stood to trap them both, expose them to the dangers that Knives existed to protect against. The chill of Vash's prosthetic against the small of his back made the dangers impossible to discount, even for a moment. Vash's sense wavered, concern and caution disrupting his mind; he could undoubtedly feel the flex of Knives' muscles and emotions, stirrings of defensiveness and vitriol.
Still—his embrace didn't falter.
"You aren't afraid?" Knives murmured.
"I'm afraid," Vash said, knowing he couldn't conceal it entirely. He tightened his grip and Knives could tell, somehow, that his eyes were screwed shut. "Aren't you?"
The flat truth of it robbed Knives' of breath, and he repressed a mirthless chuckle. "Terrified, of course."
"Well, let's face it together, then."
Together: a sentiment Vash hadn't expressed in a century and a half. Knives' mind spun with it, the cloying hope making his throat feel sticky. It could well be a lie—his brother was a good liar, far better than suited his genial, self-righteous persona. But would that matter? Knives wondered, and knew it wouldn't. With the trickle of Vash's energy still flowing into him, the prospect of together was too much to resist.
His brother's arms were chains—the most comfortable of shackles, divine, woven from devotion and inescapable destiny. Knives relaxed into them, returning the hug, pulling Vash close against him.
It wasn't the end of things. Tomorrow, perhaps, or in two days' time, the threat would be more immediate, or the captivity would be less tolerable. But for the moment, he would rest here—they both would, bound together and beginning to heal.