Happiness

By Ann V

Disclaimer: I don’t know what the hell is wrong with

me, but I stole Nightow’s characters once more for a

sick adventure in R-ratings. I probably deserve to be

sued.

Warnings: This is just wrong. It's not for fans of

Knives (or, maybe it is...), not for people who like

keeping their fragile illusions about any sort of

"nice" relationship between Knives and Legato (or for

that matter Knives and anyone) alive in their head.

Also, if you don’t like the exploitation, abuse, and

killing of people under the age of 18, you probably

shouldn’t read this. In fact, I don’t think anyone

should read this. Anyone at all.

On nights when complicated locks can be seduced into

opening like uppity whores’ legs and the world can

achieve such a peace that it sleeps soundly – at

least, those who deserve to sleep soundly – he

breathes free air and wanders the streets with all the

grace people like him are given. These sorts of nights

are few and far between, like the delicate alignment

of the planets, and of bodies that should always be

buried deep, so no one ever learns something that

unsettles them into locking him up so tightly that he

finally can’t get out. 

The darkness that the two suns and his brother are

always trying to keep away swallows up the streets of

even the most innocent town. The darkness is always

there, periodically spitting up the bones of its old

prey. And even the warriors of good must rest

sometime.

Darkness is so great that it has no need for rest.

This fact is once more proved by the hissing neon

light that beckons to him and his sweaty dollars, well

palmed in all senses of the word. It’s not the dying

sputters of the neon, nor the sour smell of alcohol

that might actually not be colored with piss, water,

and bile for once, but the throaty voice and highly

restrained sounds of scratchy bass music that makes

him duck into that anonymous alley door. 

There’s hardly any light, but that’s just infinitely

more appropriate. The crowd is dark and smells like

fear and barely restrained desire. It’s people like

this that he has really learned to appreciate. People

like this lay down their lives for hardly any reason

at all, perhaps because this planet cannot and will

not give them what they really need. 

The air smells like their cigarettes. He can honestly

say that he hates that smell. Tobacco actually smells

halfway natural coming off someone’s breath, but those

delicately wrapped black tubes stink like a saint’s

flowery death to him.

The music that made him wander in here is coming from

the stage, where a lone little creature seems to be

trying to sing through strangled vocal cords. Still,

the voice is deep and pretty for someone so young. 

The creature must be male, because his frilly shirt is

on the stage floor, and there are no sorts of breasts

on him at all. He’s standing out of the stage’s grimy

light as he pulls his gloves off very slowly, still

singing his nonsense lyrics. Eventually, though, he

steps into the edge of the light, letting his voice

first tear apart a halfway-loud note, slipping his

hands down his own chest in some sort of attempt at

erotic movement. The light is just barely bright

enough to color the boy in anything but shades of

black and flesh, but it does. The man, who has chosen

to be the almost singular audience to this show, grips

the edge of his chair until the knuckles underneath

his white gloves have gone completely bloodless. The

boy slinks across the stage, still singing hopefully,

slipping buttons free until his fly hangs open and

shows the vague and obscene stubble between jutting

peaks of hipbones, like dying grass in a desert

valley. He throws his legs over the edge of the stage

and perches there as he unties his tall black boots. 

The man, who by now is the only intended audience, is

still puzzling over the boy’s hair color, which cannot

be and is not natural. But who would dye their hair

blue? Who would choose to do something like that?

Obviously this kid - who is maybe a little more than a

tenth of his own age – is happy to dye his hair bright

blue, until it’s dead-dry and thin.  There’s the

clatter of cheap rubber on fake wood and the man looks

up to see the boy’s boots have dropped, his sleek

black pants on top of them.

There is all the wisdom and jade of fifty years in

that boy’s eyes, even if they are dark, like some

empty-headed rodent's. They don’t hold a single spark

of innocence or happiness, just a calm apathy. He

likes that sort of look and its anachronistic quality

on a mere boy’s face – because even though his

shoulders are broad and his body is longer than it is

skinny, this creature is still a boy. The boy finishes

his pretty song with all its, though it’s taken the

private audience a very long time to realize this,

insidiously murderous innuendo. 

Something inside of him feels like it’s come home, but

he couldn't have explained it until the boy stopped

singing, the music stops, and underneath it all is a

murmur. Or maybe just a will and not even a sound: Pay

me no mind. Do not look at me, for I am nothing to

give any attention to. 

The boy looks at him through his dark eyelashes. 

“Want to go someplace more private?” It’s so whorish,

and the very idea of that tan skin marked by human

imperfection and coated in a thin varnish of sweat

makes something cold creep in his stomach. And yet…

This is something that has already happened. He

realizes it and it sets him free. The boy leads him

off through the smoke. It’s so perfect; this moment is

like God coming to walk with his followers in the

years before they yet know His will In fact, it is

exactly that. The grime of the alley’s wall and the

cold darkness is turning the boy into shivers and

bumps. The puckered lips with the bloody split in them

are pressing themselves intently to white leather

gloves and upturned cuffs. This calls him back into

the desert and the possibilities therein. Something

electric burns in the night, and it’s calling to the

both of them. The idea of the plan, once impromptu,

becoming perfection through repetition... But then,

thoughts that hadn’t occurred when the plan was

thought to be complete perfection come sneaking into

his less-than-perfect head. His brother might be more

than whole, the world might be a little less scarred,

and his head might be in more than a million pieces.

Everything could work this time, at least as he sees

it in his head at this moment in the darkness. So he

draws his gloved hands to the boy's face and the boy

doesn’t even look at him directly; it’s so pleasant to

have another empty vessel.

The situation of their bodies changes and he whispers

into this boy’s ear:

“What do you think about butterflies?” 

But it’s honestly too late then, because the boy has

betrayed himself with that little murmur that comes

directly from some painfully all-too-human whorl of

his brain and calls to him to say exactly the right

thing.

“Do it. God. Do it. Just. Please. Do it. Please.

Please. Please. Please. Please. Please...”

He turns the boys head and he whimpers. This is just

to get the angle right; after all, things should be

perfect tonight. Then he just keeps twisting and it’s

so easy like that, and so slow. And so completely

without resistance, exactly how he likes it. The

nerves twist themselves to pieces inside his spinal

column, and his muscles are feathering apart at the

points where they are stretched the farthest. The

bones of his spine shift off one another, and the

discs between them are ground helplessly in the

inexorable movement. With one complete turn the veins

and arteries inside, even the jugular and carotid,

have pulled themselves away from their sources and

destinations.

The brain cradled inside his juvenile skull, the brain

that might have held some shadow of a dead hope at

being better than the rest of these fleshy vessels, is

almost completely dead. Still, he keeps twisting until

the skin there is bruised like rotten fruit, wrinkled

and pulled, twisting until it starts to tear in a

completely unnatural kind of way. Blood pours from out

all the ruined cables inside this once-powerful

creature. It’s brutal but completely beautiful to see

the whole head so alone, and completely unharmed

except for the little bit of blood dripping off the

lip. The trachea and bronchial tubes are still there,

twisted around one another like a pair of star-crossed

lovers. A few more turns and they snap apart like worn

and tired rope. 

He looks at the face and is almost kind of amused. He

careful lays his own lips across its lips, sucks the

dying heat out of them, and wonders what any creature

sees in kissing at all. Then he just lets it drop,

forgotten. He inspects the body out of curiosity; such

a halcyon response to such a violent death. It still

stands, caught between the wall and his own body. It

seems to have reached a moment of human happiness

sometime before or during death, which is a strange

thing to think about when he looks at the bright red

blood pouring down the chest. He fingers the two dark

holes that stand out against the ruin that was once a

neck. Since he’s been reminded by this body against

his, he wonders idly about carnal pleasures. If the

back of a human throat is so soft a fuck, what would

the entirety of one be like? But nothing moves within

him except the muscles that pull his thin mouth into a

self-satisfied smirk. He thinks for a second about

burying the body, but it’s such a perfect scene that,

even if it is poured all over his clothes and his

face, and quite possibly even in his hair, he might as

well just leave it.

He does, and as he walks back home with the coppery

smell of fresh blood on him, he wonders idly if he

shouldn’t have done that the first time.  

[Authoress’ note: If you just read that,

congratulations! I paced about in a bloody lust after

writing it. I hate Millions Knives, I really do, but

then there are nights when I completely understand him

as I see him. He might have been out of character, but

to make me say that as a fact you’d have to prove it

to me. Also, if I was wrong about the anatomy of

twisting a human head off, I’d have to say that I’m a

fair virgin to it, and feel free to correct me, those

of you who actually have. That was fun. Feel free to

flame, I’ll be frightened if you don’t.]