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To maintain a gun, you must disassemble it completely, clean every part, and put it back together. For a sword, it must be honed, cleaned, oiled regularly, and polished. Every weapon needs its maintenance.
When maintaining a weapon or tool, the process is never exciting or new. It's only reaffirming the relationship between tool and master that already exists. Still, Kafka can't help but feel a little excitement when it comes to a certain Blade.
"Time to spar, Bladie," Kafka calls leisurely, nails click-click-clicking at the doorframe of their safehouse as she saunters past it to the area she's carefully marked out for their fights.
Behind her, Blade- who's been restlessly oiling, cleaning, and re-oiling his sword for the past hour in anticipation- springs to his feet, nearly vibrating with energy as he follows her.
He's like this every day. At first, he doesn't say a word, only walks out of his room and kneels on the floor, running his fingers over the flat of his blade. Then starts honing it, then cleaning it, and if she waits long enough- the scent of blood will fill the air as he watches her hungrily, his hands curling over the sword to grip its edges and push in cuts that heal the instant he lets go.
Elio doesn't like it when she lets it get that bad. She doesn't, usually.
Kafka takes her position in the far end of the courtyard and lets her katana come to her hand. "On the mark of three."
Blade, head bowed and face obscured across from her, has already relaxed, the violin-string tension of his body forcibly pulled and pushed into a sloping line, a spring that you can't tell is coiled. His sword is in his hand, too. The cracks flash red-gold in the evening light.
"Three…" Kafka grips her sword tighter, twirls it easily, lets its tip tap against the ground.
"Two…" Blade tilts his face up a little, a smile hovering on the edges of his face. The wind stills, then picks up, as if willed by him.
One, she thinks, and flashsteps forward, brings her katana up to slice surely into his torso. But he's already reacting, and their swords clash wildly with sparks.
"Still can't catch you off guard, huh," she muses, tone lazy as she parries a blow and hops back, pulling out a grenade instead. "Guess I'll have to try a little harder."
It's a brutal fight. Kafka can't match him in pure bladework and she doesn't try to- her specialty lies in her versatility. Grenades, submachine guns, her katana- anything and everything, if she can use it then she will. Blade, however, only wants for one weapon. It's a strength and a weakness all in one.
He comes alive in a fight, more than anything. The distance with which he regards the world is discarded entirely, no room for it with all that adrenaline, mouth curving into a grin sharper than his sword. She loves watching that spark in his eyes, the glint of his teeth, the way his body sings like an instrument, dedicated to one purpose and unwavering in it. He's beautiful.
Like this, seen through the gap between their clashing swords, Kafka can see why Elio feels so conflicted over him. She knows he can't die, but there's some transient quality to him, like the fragility of the sword he always pieces back together. Maybe he'd be safer, cleaner, if she never touched him. Like a toy nobody ever played with.
Then again… she thinks of how he was at their first meeting, and discards the thought to focus on the man in front of her.
She twirls her katana and falls into the rhythm of a good, drawn-out fight between equals- a pleasure she's only started getting regularly since Elio came to her with his proposal.
Blade moves entirely unlike the element he's been given. Where Wind is meant to be light, ethereal, barely-there and then gone, Blade throws his entire body into every motion, immovable and confident in every step. His center of balance twists and moves like a tide, flowing through him in a way she's never seen anyone else do.
She's so absorbed in the fight she doesn't realize something's wrong until her phone's timer goes off but he doesn't stop fighting.
That is- she can only exert herself so much in spars, or she'd be too tired for actual missions. While Blade needs a spar to work off his excess energy, Kafka has no such issue, and in drawing out a fight too long risks reaching her limits, which are vast, but entirely human. So she sets a timer, every time, and once it rings the spar is over for the day.
Theoretically, anyway. She parries another blow, one handed, and digs her other hand into her jacket to mute her phone, taking the time to really look at Blade.
A wide smile is on his face. Too wide. His eyes are stretched open, and his sword is trembling, and Kafka takes exactly one nanosecond to feel exasperated that she hadn't paid enough attention before he's at her again, moving too fluidly. Mara, she thinks, and rolls out of a brutal blow that dents the concrete beneath them.
"The timer rung, Bladie," she calls out, half-breathless, because he's beautiful like this, too, lost in whatever trance of blood and rage she can't begin to know. "I'll give you ten seconds to come back before I make you."
He spits something incoherent about prices, and she grits her teeth before jumping far back, giving her maybe a single breath of time. It'll have to be enough, anyway. She calls up her lightsilk, the glowing pink strands winding around her free hand, and whips her hand out, forcing them to obey her will and wrapping round his sword arm, his waist and neck.
She twists her hand and pulls down, until he's forced to his knees, still snarling at her.
"Stand down." Her voice rings out, clear and commanding and shot through with Spirit Whisper, and all the fight leaves his body in a rush, until her silk is holding him up more than holding him down.
His face is shining with sweat, and he's breathing heavily. Not from the exertion itself- he's had workouts an order of magnitude harder without flinching- but from something else.
Kafka can't claim to really care about what he's haunted by, other than in the ways that it affects her. All she knows is that it was terrible, and it went on for far too long, and here he is, a barely-functional shattered mess of a man, who she has to piece back together as often as he pieces together that sword of his. Inconvenient, at times, but such is the work allotted to her by Elio.
She loves seeing him in a fight, all bloody sharp smiles and fangs, but it's always the aftermath that's the worst part, when the tide of memory subsides and he has to remember how to be shaped like a person again. Elio called it mara, said she would have to bind him down with her voice and hands and mind. She hadn't imagined it would be quite so literal at the time.
It felt strange, at first, using Spirit Whisper to protect and care for someone. Even now it still feels strange. But it's Blade, who is Elio's blade, Blade who is her blade, and she knows the saying a falling knife has no handle, but she'll catch him anyway.
Kafka strides over and pushes her hand into the sweat-damp bangs of his hair, looks him in both eyes. "Blade. Stand down."
She doesn't speak further, and minutes pass slowly as he relaxes, the feverish light of mara in his eyes fading to a subdued expression.
Finally, he presses into her hand, eyelashes fluttering. "...I'm sorry," he says quietly.
"What happened?" she asks, businesslike, brushing aside his self flagellation like dust off the cover of an old book. Same old story, same old song. She's never indulged his self destruction and she won't start now.
"You didn't wait until three. It… instinct," he murmurs, gaze dropping. "I reacted, and it put me on edge, and I lost control. I'm sorry," he repeats, his breath fast and stuttering, waiting for something, anything. His hands are tight around the edge of his sword, and red is beginning to drip into the ground. His fingers press tighter, and then loosen involuntarily- he's sliced through his tendons again, she guesses.
She snorts and curls her hand tight, pulling his hair well past the point of pain. "Listen: Let go of your sword. You're going to relax now. We were testing your limits and found them. You did not misbehave; you will not be discarded. You're safe here, and you will not hurt me, nor will you betray yourself. Do you understand?"
"Yes," he breathes out as his sword clatters to the ground and disappears back into the ether along with her katana, eyes sliding shut with pure relief. "Thank you."
He'd argue, she thinks, except for the fact that Spirit Whisper doesn't allow for such a thing, and while he could resist it, or even try to reject it entirely- he doesn't, never has, always chooses to curl into her power like a cat to a radiator instead.
"Good boy, Bladie. Stand up," she orders, sliding her hand out of his hair. He stumbles to his feet clumsily, eyes unfocused and hazy, and follows after her as she leads them inside.
Kafka studies him for a moment. His eyes are still far away, his breath fast and unsteady and his pulse- when she presses a thumb to the inside of his wrist- is rabbit-fast, What he really needs, she thinks, is something to remind him of his own body, the simple fact that he doesn't own it, that he's being taken care of. So, she decides, a bath. He stinks, anyway. Another benefit of timing their spars is that usually neither of them actually get sweaty from it.
She leads him to the bathroom, watching him closely for any reaction, but he seems hollowed out, empty and unreactive. Like he's not even seeing the world around him. It's better than 'angry and self-flagellating,' so she'll take it.
Really, her work as a handler is never done.
She sets the bathtub to fill with cool water- as much as she'd love to spoil him, anything warmer than room temperature risks aggravating his injuries, and that's not the kind of pain that's under her control, so that's not the kind of pain she wants to inflict.
"Stay still," she whispers, and he doesn't need her Spirit Whisper to follow her orders, but she knows- when he's like this, he'll never ask for what he wants. And he does want it, wants it in a way she can't even begin to understand.
First she undoes the bandages on his hand- the cuts he made have already healed, but the other one- the older wound, that he didn't make himself- is red and throbbing, agitated by his actions. It's probably incredibly painful, she muses, turning his palm over and pressing a kiss right above the raw skin, lips curling at the tiny shiver it produces from him.
He's perfectly still as she reaches around his waist to his back and unlaces his shirt, slides it off his shoulders and sets it on the sink. When she begins to unwrap his compression bandages, he shivers a little more, his breasts sliding free and chest expanding with a deeper inhale. He half-coughs on the exhale, adjusting to a lung capacity suddenly free when it hasn't been in hours. When she flicks her gaze up, though, his face is still impassive, eyes closed and lips slightly parted.
She continues undoing his bandages, revealing expanses of skin that's still scarlet and unmade from injuries that refuse to heal. Caught between life and death, and neither of them want him, she muses, before unlacing his pants.
More for her, she supposes. Hasn't that always been the way of things with him? A Blade too strong, too wild for anyone to wield properly. She can't direct him like Elio does, but Elio can't take care of him the way she does. Between the two of them, though… they can manage.
"Shoes," she murmurs, and he toes them off a little clumsily, before doing the same with his socks. "Good boy."
She pulls off his pants and underwear efficiently, and sets to undoing the bandages on his thighs. Half-turns to shut off the water- it's enough, now- and then nods at him.
It takes an embarrassing few seconds before she remembers his eyes are closed and he can't see her.
"Eyes open, I wouldn't want you to slip," she orders, hand on the small of his back as she guides him to step into the bath.
"Thank you, sir," he half-sighs once he's sunk into the cool water, a little more of the tension in his body dissipating. The instant he's settled, his eyes drift closed once more, shutting out the sight of his own body.
"No talking," she orders, biting her gloves off and pushing up her sleeves.
He stays loyally quiet as she kneels by the side of the tub, picking up a cup and using it to pour water over his shoulders, his chest. She taps at an arm with two fingers and he lifts it, lets her rub at the indents the bandages make in his skin.
The bathroom's light is dim, and it's quiet, interrupted only by their breathing and the muted splashing of water as she washes his body. His hands are trembling, have been for a while.
"Tell me what you're thinking," she finally says, rubbing soap over the slope of his back.
Blade seems to be shaken out of a trance- he startles at the sound of her voice, and then relaxes once more. "A sword should not cut its masters."
"Every weapon needs maintenance," she returns. "If a swordsman cuts himself sharpening his blade, is that the blade's fault or his own?"
He falls silent again at that, letting her take his face in his hands and rub soap into his cheeks, his jaw, the bridge of his nose. He doesn't flinch when she pours water over his face, letting it carry the soap away. Doesn't flinch when she runs her thumbs over his closed eyelids, feeling how they flutter and move under her careful fingers.
"I should control myself better," he murmurs, so still under her hands.
"I'm your handler, Bladie. That's not your job. It's mine." Kafka moves her hands up, into his hair, and cards through it for a moment, then reaches for the cup again to wet it properly.
He looks a little silly with his hair damp, all pushed away from his face- half the reason he can pull off the 'silent but brooding look' so well is the haircut, really. Without it, he just looks like a wet cat.
She glances between his legs and supposes that's not an entirely inaccurate description. She huffs out a laugh and returns to washing his hair, pouring shampoo into her hands and rubbing circles into his scalp, smiling as he leans into her movements carefully.
Finally, she pulls his hair, directing him to tilt his head back as she pours water over his scalp, washing the shampoo away. It's all special blends, gentle formulas she commissioned specifically not to aggravate his wounds. Even then, she can only imagine it still stings terribly.
When Elio had first described Blade to Kafka, she had imagined that being his handler would mean managing how he hurts other people.
It turns out that mostly, she needs to keep him from hurting himself.
She still remembers the first time she'd realized that he literally hadn't bathed since she and Sam had gotten him cleaned up, how she'd ordered him to go bathe, and after an hour of silence, walked in to check on him and found him sitting in a bathtub full of pink water with shaking red hands, digging into the hole on his chest.
Self-destruction, she has found, is, like fear, yet another thing she can't understand. But Blade- though strange- is predictable, and she doesn't need to understand every last detail about a violin's creation in order to play it well, in order to rub rosin along its strings, keep it maintained and in working order.
She pulls at his shoulder, makes him turn awkwardly in the tub to face her, then slowly starts cleaning around his chest. She has to move carefully here- after all, front and center is the evidence of life's rejection of him.
In the middle of Blade's chest is a twisted red wound, brimming with scarlet that doesn't spill, but doesn't dry either. For all that he can heal himself to an impressive degree, this remains out of his grasp, somehow.
She runs a washcloth over his breasts, under his arms, and across his stomach, as carefully as she can. Still, his breath stutters and catches in his chest, half-pain half-memory forced into him. A noise escapes him, an animalistic whine of pain, and his hands begin to move up to his chest, slowly as if trapped in amber.
Kafka reacts quickly. "Relax," she whispers, forcing more power into it than she would usually. "Listen: You have a name, and it is Blade. You are a Stellaron Hunter, and Elio's Blade. You're here with me, your handler, Kafka. You're in the bathtub, and I'm cleaning you, and you're safe." He slumps into her waiting hands, and she props him against the edge of the tub opposite to her, head against the tiled wall. His face is slack, his body limp, and if she didn't know better she'd say he had fallen asleep.
She softens her voice. "I still have to wash your legs and feet. We're almost done here, and then I'll dry you off and we'll be out of here."
Blade's eyelids flutter a bit, a slight acknowledgement, but he stays still, breath and heart rate slowing. "I should help…" he says quietly, his voice slurring a little.
"No, you shouldn't." she corrects him. It's longer with just her working alone, sure- on the best days now, he doesn't need her help anymore to not succumb to the idea of tearing himself apart- but he's not anywhere near his best now, and aggravating his wounds means weeks of extra work and misery for both of them.
He doesn't offer again.
She works as efficiently as she can, over his thighs and ankles and dipping her fingers between his legs momentarily, feeling the texture change from thin water to something else, a little thicker. Not now, she thinks- in a moment, yes, but not now.
Her Bladie needs a lot of maintenance. It's a good thing she's so patient, and he's so sweet to take care of. With anyone else, she needs to use Spirit Whisper like a blunt force instrument. With Blade, even the tiniest suggestion of candy-pink power makes him fold, readily trust-falling into her arms. Kafka finishes her work quickly, half her mind on Blade's reactions, making sure he's still calm.
Unplugging the drain, she stands up, rubbing water-wrinkled palms over her sore knees for a moment before turning to pick up a towel. "Up," she directs him idly, bundling him in the towel and sitting him on the edge of the tub.
She washes her face in the sink as quickly as she can- relieved that she didn't wear makeup today- and, through the reflection of the mirror, watches Blade watch her. He still looks drowsy, but less that he's asleep and more that her Spirit Whisper is working overtime to keep him under, in a quieter and more easily-managed space.
Then she tugs him to his feet and leads him away. He has to lean on her- the lack of bandages aggravating the scratches on his thighs- and it's slow going, but go they do.
Their safehouse here is a more luxurious thing than they usually get. It's not for a lack of resources- not by a long shot. Rather, even the smallest spider, in eating a butterfly, changes the course of fate forever. Elio's ideal future means a lot of shady motels and roughing it in strange locations, sometimes.
But not here. Here, the towels are soft, the water runs hot and plenty, and each of them have their own room.
She pauses by a cupboard to gather another armful of towels- she has the feeling they're both going to get a little wetter by the end of the night, with how Blade usually is- and once they're in his sparsely decorated room, she pushes him down onto the end of the bed gently.
One towel goes under his shoulders, soaking up his dripping-wet hair. She pauses for a moment to squeeze his hair between the towel, wringing out most of the moisture so it doesn't drip and get into the bandages. Another two towels are spread over the bed itself to cover it- just in case.
"How are you doing?" she asks, rifling through his bags.
Blade is quiet for a long moment, though she knows he heard her. "...Distant," he manages finally, his voice definitely sounding the part.
She lifts up the roll of bandages and tub of medication with a triumphant smirk, then turns to him. "Good, yes or no?"
"Yes," he says readily, watching her pull on a pair of nitrile gloves and unscrew the tub.
"Memories, yes or no?" The cream is thick and greasy, and as she begins to apply it to his chest wound, his stomach muscles jump and tense underneath her steady hands.
His eyes close again. "No." An improvement- she didn't need to ask in the bath to know that he was deep in a sea of half-digested memory, even with her Whisper holding the mara back.
"Lie down, or stay up?"
"Lie down," he agrees, and leans back, relaxing against the give of the mattress. She sits next to him on the bed, leaning over as she continues to smear it on thinly.
"You'll have to get back up for the bandages," she warns, finishing with his chest wound and moving on to the miscellaneous other ones- on his thigh, on his arm, on his hand. He hums in response, so deep under that the pain doesn't even begin to register to him.
The wound on his upper arm is the most encouraging one- it's only a strange evergreen bruise, sickly and pulsing with inflamed heat, and it's easy to start with, to pretend that if she gives it special attention it really will heal and she'll wake up to smooth, clear skin, untouched by whatever he's gone through.
On his hand, it looks the same as ever- a mockery of a dead religion's stigmata, twin wounds on the front and back of his palm. Pierced clean through. When she was sent to retrieve him, she could actually see straight through it, infection dripping thickly from the wound. It's recovered as much as it can, now, only clean blood held in place by whatever magic also renders it unable to heal. She smears on the medication, careful to not touch the puncture itself, and moves on.
The one on his thigh is the second worst one, deep claw marks from his hip to nearly his knee, and she knows if she doesn't bandage it tight enough the flesh will shift and scrape against itself, leaving him nearly unable to think with the pain. Even then, on bad days he has a near everpresent limp, which only fades- like so many things about Blade- with the thrill of a fight.
There are a few other cuts, scattered about- but they barely require attention, compared to the largest four wounds.
She considers him for a moment, then pulls out the roll of bandages. He can stay lying down a moment longer if she leaves the chest wound for last.
When Kafka first found Blade, first became his handler, she had no idea how to bandage wounds. As a young child, she'd gotten minor scrapes, cuts, and bruises, sure, but the older she grew, the less those happened, until they didn't happen at all. And she wasn't in the business of taking care of people.
Her first attempts at bandaging his wounds were laughable, now. She'd pulled too tight and forced him into pain that she had to subdue with her Spirit Whisper, and then the next time was too loose and they fell off of him mid-spar, prompting an early end that he wasn't too pleased about. But she'd gotten better quickly- if there's one thing Kafka depends on in this world, it's the skill of her hands and the sharpness of her mind.
She finishes bandaging his hand, and examines her work. The only thing that's left is his chest, now.
"Lean up," she orders, waiting until he's fully upright to begin wrapping his chest. She doesn't bind his breasts, though it does mean she has to loop some of the bandages across his sternum and over his shoulder to press the absorbent cotton padding that keeps his medication in place properly. He does have to sleep in this, after all.
She snips off the end of the bandage and tucks it in. "Back down," she pushes at Blade's shoulder with the heel of her palm, where her gloves aren't covered in cream. He goes down with a thump, face entirely hazy. She almost feels bad for what she has to do next.
Well, not just because of him. It also feels strange for her.
She peels off the nitrile gloves and tosses them away to be dealt with later, and moves the rest of the medical supplies next to his bags to be tucked away when they're not otherwise busy. Then she takes a breath for herself, watching his chest rise and fall, the way he looks.
Kafka isn't someone who is cut out for taking care of other people. Where other people can approach things like affection and care head-on, she's simply not capable of it, has to come at it sideways, at an angle. Where other people worry, or fear, or hate, she simply… acts, and is. She likes what she likes, sure, but there's a certain depth of emotion that's inaccessible to her that she's had to come to accept. Something she would never attain or understand.
Watching Blade rest on his bed, exhausted from a spar, freshly cleaned and bandaged, and so deep under her Spirit Whisper he can't form a complete sentence, though… That's an emotion that other people will never feel, and she tucks it away, deep inside her mind, because Kafka has never kept anything in her heart save for blood.
She slowly walks over and comes to stand next to the bed, giving herself a minute just to watch Blade, indulge in the feeling of someone who doesn't and has never shied away from her power. Then she pulls at Spirit Whisper. "Listen: You're safe now, and you're going to wake up. You're coming closer to the surface. Closer, closer, even closer now." She could do it with just a word, but he'd gone incredibly deep- and being rough now would mean ruining the work she's been putting in since he dropped into mara mid-spar. "You spent a long time under, and that's good, and it's time to wake up now. You're even closer. Good. Open your eyes."
Blade breathes in as she breathes out, and his eyes finally flutter open, looking in-focus for the first time in hours as the effects of Spirit Whisper lift from his mind and fade like ghosts in the snow. "Thank you," he says for the third time.
"You're welcome, dear Bladie," she hums distractedly, looking over his face. He seems content to just lie there, arms splayed out and looking up at her with a quiet happiness on his face. Something less than a smile, but more than the deadpan neutrality he usually goes for. "How are you feeling?"
He thinks for a moment, fingers flexing and shifting around, feeling that his body is still there- still obeying him. "Good," he finally says. "Tired. Calm. Quiet, mostly. I don't…" He shifts a little, uneasy. "I don't understand why you released me."
"The Mara binding is still there, isn't it?" she says mildly, tilting her head as she begins to undress, too.
"Is it enough?"
"Are you doubting me?" she asks, more curious than anything. It's not like Blade to doubt her, much less openly. He must feel very comfortable if he's doing it now.
He watches her hang her coat up in his closet neatly, then shed her top and drop it on the floor. "It's not safe." He's so terrible at communication, she thinks fondly.
She shimmies out of her tights and flings them away with her bra and shorts, and then collapses onto the bed, only in her underwear now. "I'm your handler, aren't I?"
Blade shuffles up on the bed to lie parallel to her, instead of with his legs hanging off the edge. "Yes."
"Then I'm in control of your limits, isn't that right?"
"...Yes," he says, quieter. He always gets a little shy about it, as much as she knows he likes it.
"If I think you don't need to be restrained that heavily, it's probably because I'm right. Of your many lovely qualities, knowing your limits isn't really one of them, Bladie," she smirks, rolling onto her side to smooth a hand over his collarbones, taking the time to admire him.
"You prefer dominating me more too," he points out, still only watching her as she touches him idly. There's a look in his eye that isn't quite hunger yet, still mostly soaking in the comfort that he usually can't bring himself to accept.
Kafka half-shrugs- an awkward motion in her position- and moves her hand down to his stomach, walking her fingers over his belly and letting out an amused huff when his muscles jump at her light, teasing touches. Sensitive. "I did that, once. Kept someone underneath for three months, just to know what would happen. I didn't use any major commands- only small things, things they would have done anyway. Fetch me some tea, fold my clothes, go take a walk, and so on…"
She moves her hand back up, cupping one of his breasts and circling his nipple with her thumb, watching as it stays soft at first, then hardens up. At his sides, Blade's fists clench and unclench in a stuttering pace. "Three months, and then I lifted them out of it," her voice grows quieter, thinking about something she rarely dwells on. "I'd turned them into a puppet. It had made them awfully boring… They couldn't do anything except for what people told them to. I killed them after that, of course."
"I'm not here to make you someone that's not a person, Bladie. I'm here to make sure you're still a person."
Blade stays quiet, eyes a little unfocused as he thinks about it. She thinks he might like the idea, strangely enough. Being someone who can't say no, can only carry out other people's orders. Yet another thing she can't understand about him.
She brings her hand up, then down hard on his thigh- the uninjured one, of course- relishing in his flinch and breathy gasp. "Ground control to Bladie. Stop thinking so much, you'll make a girl feel unappreciated."
He hisses out an exhale, watches her, still doesn't ask for what he wants. Such a strange man, and there's more affection packed in that phrase than she thought she was capable of before Elio came to her with his proposal.
She rubs circles into his thigh, thinks about plans and futures she doesn't really care about, and watches him watch her. "Ask, Bladie."
"Let me touch you," he says quietly, turning towards her like a magnet in a compass to face true north, like a distant fleet of ships towards an evermore distant destination. "Please. Let me touch you."
It was one of the first rules she set out, that nothing would happen without her explicitly allowing it. Her feelings about people touching her are- well, complicated at best. Control is easy, control is good, and he'll never push even when she doesn't enforce it with Spirit Whisper. She wonders what it means, sometimes, that she doesn't need to lead for him to follow. But now isn't the time for wondering such things-
Instead she says "Yes," lets him cover her body with hers, her mouth with his own. Her hands move to the backs of his thighs as he straddles her- she does so love his legs, long and muscular and just below his narrow hips, the line of his waist.
Blade's mouth opens into the kiss and she presses up, into it, swallows his little noises and smiles as his hips jump, reaching for something that's not there. He's already slick against her, hair damp both from the bath and from his arousal, and she slides two fingers down, along the length of his engorged clit, and rubs at its head with her thumb.
His hips stutter and push into her hand and she keeps it steady, lets him fuck into her hand as his breathing gets deeper, noisier, soft little whines into her mouth as his hands grip onto her shoulders to steady himself. He pulls away to suck in a breath and buries his face in the side of her neck, still making those tiny noises as he rides her hand.
"So perfect for me, Bladie," she coos, something in her chest twisting with arousal at watching him shamelessly seek his own pleasure. He's usually near silent- she must have really worked him up, she thinks, and feels more than a little pride at that. Her beautiful Blade.
Kafka runs her free hand up the length of his back, buries it into the back of his head. His hair- still mostly damp- slides off his shoulder, slightly cool where it falls onto her skin, a counterpoint to the hot breaths he's panting into her neck and the hot wet slide of his clit against her fingers.
He's speaking, she realizes, little whispers into her skin, and pulls on his hair, forcing him to make eye contact. His face is a mess- there's a flush high on his cheeks, his lips are shiny red and swollen, and his eyes are nearly black, pupils dilated with lust.
He looks beautiful, she thinks. "Ask," she encourages again. "I won't give you what you want unless you ask for it." It's a bit of a power trip, admittedly, getting him to talk when it's what he struggles with the most.
Blade makes a quiet high-pitched noise in response, his hips stuttering into a particularly violent thrust. "Please," he gasps, and one of his hands detaches from the death grip on her shoulders to guide her hand a little back, moving her fingers against his entrance. "Sir- sir, please," he whispers again, breathless, and who is Kafka to deny him when he sounds so sweet?
She pushes her middle and ring fingers into him slowly, watching his mouth fall open slightly in an inhale. He's tight- incredibly tight, she usually has to work her way up to two, but the way he's sighing and arching into her hands makes her want to push his limits. "I know you can take it, can't you, Bladie? Be good for me," she murmurs, and slams her fingers all the way in.
His back arches and he lets out a low moan, his hips canting downwards as he tries to reach for more. She offers up her palm and he grinds against it, little circles that make him let out ah-ah-ah sounds she doesn't think he realizes he's making. Her hand is completely soaked with his arousal, webbing between her fingers and streaking her palm, and more gushes out as he rides her fingers in short, sharp little movements, like he can't bear to not have her buried in him. She curls her fingers, pressing in, and that makes him shudder and drop his head against her chest, speeding up as broken-off noises tear their way out of his mouth, syllables that might be please and more if they weren't incoherent with pleasure.
She fists her hand tighter in Blade's hair, feels the way his movements are getting faster and unsteadier and his legs are trembling around her waist. "I can feel you getting close, darling. You're doing so well, so nice and tight on my fingers," she praises him, letting her eyes drift closed to drown in the sounds he's making against her. "Go ahead," she whispers, and brings up the smallest thread of power she can manage, weaves it into her words. "Cum for me."
Blade jerks against her, letting out a half-bitten wail against her skin and losing all rhythm as he desperately ruts his clit against her palm, his cunt spasming around her fingers. She moves the hand she had in his hair to wrap around his back, pressing him close as he keeps making little noises, riding out the aftershocks in the palm of her hand.
Finally, she slides her hand out of him, smiling at the dazed look in his eyes as he slides down to lie on top of her, panting hard. She brings her hand up to her mouth and pops her fingers in idly, tasting him. It mostly tastes like nothing, really, just thick and maybe a little salty in her mouth, but it's worth it for the glazed look in his eyes as he watches her clean her hand off as best she can and then wipe it on the towel.
Blade opens his mouth, a little uncertain, and then closes it silently before trying again. "Can I get you off too?"
She thinks about it for a second. It was quite the show- one she'd been looking forward to since that morning. At the same time, though, it's her same old problem, one she's been picking over for years and still not found a solution to. Control, control, control. Can she control her reactions, control his every action, control herself?
Suddenly, the comforting weight of Blade's body lying on top of hers becomes stifling, repulsive and hateful, and it takes everything she has to only push gently at his shoulder- he instantly takes the hint and rolls off of her, creates distance. The crawling need for violence, the desire to hurt him and then disappear forever, fades at once.
Too used to running away, not used enough to being held down. Blade’s not like Elio, she reminds herself. He can’t predict exactly how she’s going to feel, how she is feeling, and he wasn't doing it on purpose.
"Not today," she sighs, a little regretfully. Now that really ruined the mood for her. Lovely would be the day that she could use Spirit Whisper on herself and excise all the parts that inconvenience her. It's just like him, in some aspects- some days are better, some days are worse, none are truly perfect. She wants him to touch her, and yet.
He nods, accepting it easily. "Do you want me to get you some clothes?"
”You’re sweet. I’ll be fine, thank you, Bladie." She flashes him a quick smile. "I'd rather we just sleep."
It's a bit of an awkward shuffle- Blade gets up to hunt down some underwear and clean himself off, and the blush goes all the way to his back when she wolf-whistles at him bending over, and then suddenly they're both in bed, facing each other in the dark.
Kafka watches him watch her. Sometimes she wonders why Elio denies himself this, and what happens in the future where he doesn't. After all- it's obvious what Blade feels for him, and what he feels for Blade. But it's not her job to dwell on such possibilities. Unlike Elio, she gains nothing from it.
She reaches out carefully and smooths a hand over Blade's cheekbone, drags her thumb across the bow of his lips. Moves it down to curl over his throat and feel his pulse, steady underneath her soft fingers.
"Good night, Kafka," he murmurs, throat rumbling against her fingertips.
She doesn't reply at first, lost in thought, and withdraws her hand.
Distant stars, long-lost pasts, stories that Elio told her long ago, knives in the dark and blades in the light. Kafka thinks about spiderwebs and spider lilies, comforted by the silent presence across from her, and feels the suffocating tide recede from her mind, sleep drawing nearer in its place. She's still free, she thinks to herself. She's been free this whole time, and she still is, is choosing to remain here.
"Good night, Bladie," she whispers back, still and quiet.