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It’s normal for Blade to return to the Stellaron Hunters’ main vessel covered in assorted types of gore. Scraps of rent flesh, smears of blood, bile, scales— tendons and sinew wrapped under his forearms, clinging from the pressure of impact light-years away. The smell of it clings to him, still fresh, just barely beginning to rot. He stews in it during his typical return in small, covert starships. He half-suffocates with the stench of death.
This is typical. Blade does not carry any opinion about it. If anything, he welcomes the potential of asphyxiation, though it never comes.
Most routinely, Kafka will greet him as he returns and take him to clean up. Occasionally, when she is indisposed, Silver Wolf will be forced to hose him down in the communal gym shower or Sam will dunk him in the bath by the scruff of his neck. Blade does not... particularly enjoy the latter two options. Though he isn"t sure entirely why, and he doesn"t tend to dwell on it either.
When Kafka collects him, it is easier, if nothing else. Less fuss, less grimacing over the smell of burgeoning rot and complaining that Blade should do this prior to arriving home. Blade doesn"t care about the other Stellaron Hunters’ complaints, not really, but it does make the ordeal longer than it needs to be.
(And maybe, maybe, he does not like being drenched in bone-chilling water and soaked clothing. He hates it.)
Kafka will lead Blade back to her own room, strip him, and give him a warm bath. Frequently, she’ll take off her own clothing and join him. She’ll hold him close, his back to her front. Kafka likes when she is able to cow him into resting against her front, cow him into resting his cheek against her breasts while she scrubs away the worst of the grime.
Never mind that they share the same, red-tinged bathwater.
(Occasionally, things escalate. Touch that volleys between innocent and clinical and sexual. Kafka will stroke down the planes of his body, reach for his cock, and bring him to release. It’s— it"s nice. He thinks. He can"t tell.)
It"s hard to tell anything in the steam of the bath. Though Kafka"s presence renders his mara mute, proximity makes it writhe regardless. It is not a soundless beast, though it loses its words. Muddy feelings, rather than anything clear cut. It"s a reprieve regardless.
This is why Blade prefers to be cleaned by Kafka.
...
This mission, however, Blade receives a text from Kafka during his return journey that she will be out. Along with Silver Wolf. And that Sam is charging and shouldn"t be disturbed.
However—
Kafka:
why don"t you see if our little stray is up for a bath, bladie?
There"s a thought. One Blade hadn"t considered.
(There"s a whisper of a refusal in the back of his mind. "No". Blade is not sure why. It is quiet but sure of itself.)
Blade:
When will you be back.
Kafka:
tomorrow. don"t wait up until then. listen , just ask.
Kafka"s mind weaving does not work over text. But it is, regardless, difficult to resist her command. This is habit.
Blade idles outside of your room. He has dripped mess across the vessel and left little piles of flesh and muscle in his wake. The quiet sound of blood splattering against the floor (his, maybe, though his regeneration should be almost complete) makes him aware of this.
It feels uncouth to enter your room like this.
Blade shakes himself off and leaks scarlet droplets against the metal paneling. methodically, he releases the five locks on your door. Each clicks when fully disarmed, and by the time Blade enters, you"re already looking up at the door, eyes wide.
You"re tucked into bed with a soft blanket over your lap. A tablet (a gift from silver wolf at Kafka"s behest. For "good behavior". Not connected to any internet, but you"ve told Blade it helps pass the time.)
The device is promptly forgotten as you push yourself out of bed, "Aeons, Blade, what happened? Are you hurt?"
You approach him with no caution. It"s reckless. It"s foolish, especially with this much adrenaline tumbling around between his eyes and in his veins. He has the distinct urge to shove you away and into the floor. Compress you until you break and bleed and bleed and break.
Blade does not.
Instead, he lets you flit around him. He lets you draw your own conclusions.
You are not foolish. You know he is dangerous; he knows you know this. It is your... good nature that creases the surely-soft skin between your brows. It"s your kindness that has you frazzled, shaking in your hands as you hover over him. Searching for wounds that are mostly healed.
"Blade, I said, are you hurt?" You ask, voice strained, bent at the waist while examining a slice in his pants. A lance had torn his calve wide open. It has already healed.
"I"m fine."
"Sure." You don"t sound convinced, frowning. "You look like shit. Am I really supposed to believe that?"
"I have already healed. my injuries are no longer a concern."
"... Really?"
"I am an abomination of Yaoshi. This is my nature."
You already know this, yet you look defeated. Your jaw is tight. "Uh-huh. Alright. Fuck, do you feel alright?"
"I"m fine. I need to be clean."
"... Alright?"
"I need to bathe."
"... I see that... Do you want me to call Kafka?"
"She"s off ship."
"Oh, fuck." you curse and shake your head. "I-is she going to be back soon?"
"No. Help me instead."
"M-me?" Your voice trembles and you take a fearful step back. Ever the skittish thing. something in him— sort of him— vibrates.
"Yes."
"Can you— not?"
"It"s cumbersome to wash on my own."
"I see." You run a hand over your cheeks and adjust the wide collar of your shirt. It’s too big. It’s one of his— probably? A sleep shirt. One that Kafka stole from him to give to you. He knows you own several. "Alright. Okay. Fine. Fuck, I-I can help."
You shoo him into your bathroom.
You turn away from him almost immediately, poking around in a cabinet, plucking brightly colored products and muttering under your breath. Kafka mentioned that isolation is getting to you more than you think. She thinks it"s cute.
Blade wordlessly begins to strip. First off is his blood-soaked overcoat, shredded around his ribs and with massive gouges taken out of the back. Then his undershirt. Followed by his pants. One of his belts rings a metallic clink as he undoes it.
You choose this moment to turn around and your eyes go wide.
"BLADE!" You cover your eyes, dropping a bottle. "What are you— you can"t just do that."
"Do what?"
"Get... naked?"
"You are going to help me bathe. This is necessary."
"I understand that." You sound exasperated. Your voice is shaky. The tone is pulling something in the back of his mind. The corners of his lips almost want to curl upwards. "But you can"t just strip without warning. Aeons, have some manners."
Blade nearly laughs— good-naturedly. The urge to is something dormant and poisonous. Seldom used. Usually it"s a sharp impulse, but it"s almost warm now. Tepid and pleasant.
(All for you.)
You cover your eyes as you fumble to turn on the tap, "At least go rinse off a little in the shower first, please?"
Doable, albeit difficult. Blade grunts something akin to an affirmative and finds your shower. He turns the water on (hot or cold doesn"t seem... relevant) and steps in. The spray pours down from the ceiling, sending the worst of the gore down the drain.
Blade does not move for quite some time.
"Blade?" you ask warily. "You... done in there?"
It takes him a moment to reply. The cold spray lags him, "Yes."
"... Can you come out? The bath is ready."
He idles, thinking about your question. The softness of your voice. The candle that he can smell, lit on the countertop. You yourself, dressed in soft lounge clothes and covered in scars that strangers gave you. He thinks about the way skin and muscle rend under his blade. The way yours could. Under him. Under—
"Blade."
You open the glass shower door, worry-eyed.
He blinks at you.
Gently, you grab his arm. He flinches with it. Has half a mind to slam you into the tile until you pop like an perfectly ripe fruit—
But he doesn"t.
"C’mon, bath time," you coax him out, dripping, careful to not look down. It’s a preservation of modesty. It feels useless, Blade thinks, as he pulls away to clamor into the bath.
... There are bubbles. Fragrant and herbal, with a soft oil shimmering on the top of the water. It is the perfect temperature. It feels... good. He forgets how nice warmth is. He softens. You heave out a sigh and settle next to him, outside the bath. There"s a dampened washcloth, already in your hand.
"Is it okay if I touch you?" You ask.
"I don"t care."
"Give me a yes or a no,” you press him, glaring a little. You roll up your sleeves and rise to your knees.
"Yes, then." He does not care. Do you not understand?
(You probably don"t. You definitely don"t.)
Your expression is unreadable as you dunk the rag into the bathwater and begin to wash him. First his right arm, then his left. Gently rubbing him down, taking extra care with his hands. The rag is gentle over his stiff fingers. You check under each of his nails individually.
You’re meticulous.
You ask a question or two about how he washes himself, specifically his hair, but Blade can"t give you answers. Kafka stocks his bathroom. His bottles are numbered, and he never deviates from their preassigned order. It makes things easier that way. Even in Kafka’s tub, she tends to use the same order of expensive-looking products that she favors.
The treatment you’re currently giving him is not routine.
The ends of your sleeves dip into the water as you stretch over the tub, toward his legs. Your tongue peaks out from your lips, bitten in concentration. (It’s cute.) Blade feels... compelled to assist you. He raises his leg up at the knee. Just as carefully, you scrub him down, and then focus on his other leg.
The experience fills him with a sense of unease.
(It’s too tender.)
(You treat him too delicately. Even Kafka acknowledges the damage he carries, and her touch is only gentle to punctuate a roughness later on. She toys with him— it’s a farce. The way you touch him is too kind. You are too kind for him. It reminds him— makes him feel the ghost of a touch from hands more delicate and powerful than your own. From a different lifetime, blotted by Mara, corrupted and molten in his mind—)
“Blade—?” Your voice is shaking, shattering. You’re frozen at the side of the tub.
Blade blinks.
He has his hand wrapped around your wrist; his grip swallowing the fragile limb. The force of it is bruising. He holds it under the water, forcing you to lean over the tub. You are submerged up to your elbow. Your expression is pinched, afraid. Your pupils pinpricked.
An animal snared.
His grip tightens.
“Let go, please.” You ask, lip wobbling.
He does not want to let go. He really does not want to let go. Blade cannot trace the feeling, it’s miasmatic. It was a bad idea to have you assist in bathing him. Mara webs itself behind his eyes. His jaw locks and breathes hard through his nose. He wants to sink his teeth into your throat.
“Please, stop,” You whine— whimper while tugging against his hold. You are half bent over the bath. Your eyes water, all shiny.
The tone does something to him. Many people plead around him— for their life, mercy, favor. It’s useless. He does not care. He has no reason to care. There are scripts to follow. However— there’s no script here. Just the warm suds, the blood pumping through your veins, and Blade’s tunneling vision.
With a sharp pull, he drags you into the bath.
You fall in headfirst. Instantly, you clamor at the side of the tub and his submerged legs to get yourself back above water. You scramble. It’s— cute. Your hair is slicked down around your face and forehead, eyes wide as you pant. His legs bracket your body. He tightens his thighs around you.
Your thin clothes are soaked and cling to you. Fabric over curves and folds over your flesh. Blade’s half-hard and feels bad about it.
(He can’t trace why. It’s far from the first time he’s been physically aroused in relation to you. It always makes him feel bad. Not with Mara, but something personal and sour and less mad. He hates it. He’s almost torn out a rib over the feeling.)
You hover, frozen, between his legs. The only sounds in the bathroom are your panting breaths and the drips rolling off your body, into the bathwater. You swallow, trembling, but remaining otherwise unmoving. It occurs to Blade after a few tense moments that you are waiting for him to strike.
Always like a little, frightened animal.
(Something in him writhes.)
He moves quickly, shooting a hand out to fist into your hair. His grip is unyielding, giving you no slack (though, he doesn’t yank and pull as he could. He could tear out chunks if he wanted. He just doesn’t want you to move.) He wants you closer— maybe. He wants you far away, thrown through one of the ship"s thick windows and into the vacuum of space and dead.
(Though, it wouldn’t be as satisfying for the void of space to kill you. He’d rather do it. He wants to do it, if you’re going to die.)
You whine and paw at his wrists, babbling something.
Blade feels disgusting as he drags your body to his, his chest to your back, and he curls over your form. His arms wind around your waist and squeeze. You scratch at him, beg maybe— he can’t tell, his ears are ringing. Your fists that slam into his shoulders and skull feel like swats from a declawed kitten. He doesn’t budge despite your protests.
You stop fighting when you realize he isn’t hurting you.
Blade doesn’t... want to hurt you. He thinks. Not really. Not in the way that Mara is screaming at him to. He isn’t content, you’re too warm and too alive to be this close to his body, but it"s not bad. Contact both scratches an itch under his skin and aggravates a wound. It’s like a bath with Kafka, but worse—
(Because part of him wants this.)
Blade flinches when you go slack against him, chest heaving out breath. Even this little ‘scrap’ has tired you out. You’ve become weakened in your confined state— even if you really wanted to fight him, you don’t have the physical strength to be able to.
You sniffle, covered in soaked clothes and soap suds.
“Don’t cry.” Blade says without thinking. His voice is shot, dead-pan.
Trembling, you shake your head, “I w-won’t.”
It’s a lie. You’re already shaking in his arms.
It’s— unfair. You’re most used to him, and less wary of him than Kafka. Part of him, a loud but small part of his mind, thinks that a bath together could be enjoyable— if he wasn’t washing blood and filth from his hair, and you weren’t shivering in your soaked day clothes.
(‘This could be nice’, it urges.)
His hands rub over your sides in small circles at the idea.
You gasp and squirm, looking back at him with wild eyes, “Blade, please—”
He stops, but his hold around your waist doesn’t waver. You sigh and lean back into his chest, deflating. Your eyes go half-lidded as you look toward the ceiling. They look— dull. Light and life drained. Like how they did when he and Kafka first collected you from that gilded planet.
Blade knows that look— a dull mind and an active body. Your breath is still a bit too fast. Your heart is the same, running a prey-like rhythm. He assumes that you have left your body, gone elsewhere.
“Hey.” He shakes you lightly, dragging you back to the cooling bath. “Help with my hair.”
“... Hair?” You ask, voice soft and dreamy. “... Do you need me to wash it?”
“Yes.”
“... Okay.” You nod after a moment and rotate in his lap.
Your shoulders sag forward as you fumble for shampoo and squirt a generous amount into your palm. Half of it misses and the gel sinks into the bathwater below.
It’s unfair— part of him says again— he wants to tear it out and shred it between his teeth or under his blade. It screams that it"s unfair that you dote on a creature like him. It’s unfair that you must shiver while lathering and rinsing his hair. That your pretty lips tremble with fear.
The Mara writhes. He has not been human in so long. He does not deserve the gentleness you so often give him. Especially now, when he has dragged you closer, made you filthy with the stench of blood, and forced you so close. He wants to bite out your throat as you tip forward to grab a brightly colored bottle of oil and begin to work through the knots in his hair.
You are frowning. You are crying.
He wants to eat you.
Blade reaches for your chest, studying the way that the fabric clings to your skin-gone-gooseflesh. He finds the top button of your soft blouse in his own unsteady hands and undoes it. You freeze when he does, breath catching.
You don’t breathe as he undoes another button.
Then another.
And another.
You don’t breathe until the garment is nearly off. Just one button secures the fabric. He can see the peak of your breasts under the fabric, nipples pebbled in the cold. You’re so cold.
(Blade wishes, dead Yingxing wishes, that he were warmer.)
Your hand shoots out and wraps around his wrist, and in a small voice, you beg, “Please, d-don’t.”
“You’re cold.” Blade says. He reaches past you, sloshing water, to turn on the spigot for hot water. “You will stay cold if you wear wet clothes.”
You look at him strangely. At first, it’s wounded. Like you’ve been lanced through with Shard Sword, and now bear the gaping wound. It morphs to one of confusion, then you bite your lip. And grab his hands in your own and stare at them.
“... That’s all?” You ask.
“Mostly.” Blade replies. There’s— more. Far more. But nothing that is concrete enough, or important enough, to share with you. It would more than likely aggravate his spitting Mara.
“Okay.” You reply, looking up from your joined hands. Your eyes are round and watery. “You’re not trying to rape me?”
He freezes.
The word ‘rape’ pulls something disgusting and festering up from Blade’s guts. Something he wants to purge. He has the distinct urge to lean over the side of the tub and vomit, but he hasn’t eaten in the last forty-eight hours, so there’s nothing to heave up. So instead, he is still.
It’s like he can feel the rot. He’s not sure why. He knows what the word means, he is pretty sure he has been raped. Probably. Either when he was a young child, a refugee fleeing a massacred world, or maybe when he was the bedmate to a dragon. Maybe, probably, from Kafka, any number of times. Maybe last week. His mind is cloudy.
What constitutes rape is foggy.
He knows it would mean that he wants to have sex with you, and you wouldn’t want to have sex with him.
And Blade—
(He— He— doesn’t want to have sex with you? Or he does. Maybe. He wants to be close to you, inside you. He wants to curl around you and make you swear to never leave. He wants— he wants so much. Blade is selfish. But—)
Not like that, he doesn’t think. Others have been, he’s sure— he’s sure.
Mara pours into his mind, and he remembers then. Pieces of times, fragments of old memories, of rape. Of violation of all kinds.
(At the hands of borisins holding him down as he screamed and cried, his body too little to do any fighting in the jaws of an Abundance beast.)
(A tradesman who allowed him to stowaway on a cargo ship, destined for the Luofu. ‘Payment’ — the man had called it. For safe passage and a little sack of rice.)
(Dan Feng, during one of his draconic ruts. He was the Child of a Cosmic Horror, ultimately. That’s all Aeons are, anyways. Yingxing had been split on his cock so many times, so full, he bled for a day, even with Dan Feng fussing over him with his cloudhymns, lucid-in-mind and torn apart by so much guilt for a wildly proud man.)
(Kafka, a few days after she first picked him up from the surface of the asteroid Jingliu had been beating him into. Kafka, a few weeks after that— in a hotel that stank of blue emory roses. Kafka, a few weeks ago, draped over his shoulders between missions. There’s more. Memories drenched in the smell of her rich perfume. They tangle in feelings of comfort and revulsion.)
Blade doesn’t want to do any of that to you.
(He wants something with you— but—)
(Not like that. He doesn’t want you to hurt.)
“I’m not going to rape you.” He tells you. He hardly sounds like himself as the Mara quiets.
He thumbs over your lips. There’s a scar in the middle of them where they had been split, repeatedly, and then healed over. You’d told him once that one of your old keepers used to deprive you of water if he felt like it. Your breath is hot against his fingertip.
You say nothing, but your breath is still fast and shaky. Your eyes are wide. A feral, wild animal.
“I’m not.” Blade tries to reassure you. You flinch with the sound of his voice. “You’re freezing. The bath can be refilled with warm water. Bathe.”
Tears break over your lower lashes as you stare at him. He stares back.
(He wonders what you’re thinking. If you have as much trouble thinking as he does— you probably do. You’ve sustained head trauma. Traumas. You’re both torn-up wrecks, maybe. It could provide him with some solace.)
“... Okay.” You rub your eyes with balled up hands and laugh. “Okay.”
Blade then helps you peel off your shirt. Then your shirts and underwear. When you’re bare, Blade drains most of the water from the, leaving you both with a layer of clinging bubbles protecting the barest bits of your modesty. You cover your chest and center with your hands, keeping your head down. Hiding your throat.
He refills the tub with more soap— too much probably. Mountains of bubbles appear as he dumps in a glug of shimmering, emerald-colored oil. It swirls into the water as it rises. You relax as it rises over your chest. Your eyelids droop. You look so tired.
Blade washes you like you did him.
You face each other as he does. Your gaze never leaves him, though it goes glassy again. Unfocused. Blade can feel your heartbeat through your skin, slowing more and more with each pass of the warm, soapy rag he is using. He massages products into your hair. He thinks that he may be doing so in the correct order. He hopes he is.
This close, he can see all of you. Most of you. Feel you too. He feels ridges and bumps of scars. Chunks of flesh that have been torn from you, replaced by cicatrix, uneven and unnatural under his touch. You shudder when he touches you, shivering despite the heat of the room. You’re sensitive. He doesn’t want Kafka to know.
You feel different like this. Blade is unable to place why.
When he is through with you, steam and bubbles still rising from the bath, you drag him closer. Your fingers dig into his biceps, latching on and scrambling to get closer.
“... You really mean it, don’t you?” You ask. Your eyes are still unfocused. “You’re not going to? You’re not fucking with me?”
“... What are you talking about?”
An unrestrained smile stretches over your face, “You do mean it. You do. You do.”
Blade can only guess what you mean. You clearly will not (or cannot) tell him. You shiver against a full body thing against him. It makes him uneasy. He flips you by the hips, so that your back is to his chest, and he can curl over your shoulders. He cast a shadow into the water.
Indulgently, he presses his nose into your cheek. You smell like fresh soap and skin. He thinks if he licked you, you’d taste like salt.
He doesn’t.
When that’s all he does, you laugh.
It’s a belting thing, the kind of sound that’s punched from your gut with the same force that could break ribs. Blade can imagine the sound and sensation of it obliterating your insides as your laughter bounces around the tile of the bathroom. It’s manic. It’s an unwell sound. You clutch a fist over your chest as you howl.
You don’t stop for a while.
It’s clearly too much. Blade can feel it. The sound echoes in his chest. It must be shredding yours.
His arm wraps around your midsection as you do, and he tries to press you closer— he thinks. He thinks it might help. Your breath starts to shake, each inhale pitching high and sharp. You’re hyperventilating around your laughter. You’re hysterical, but don’t fight his hold. Even as tears drip down your cheeks, splattering into the bathwater.
Blade says your name— it should come out sharply. He means it to.
However, it is gentle. His voice is hushed and rough.
“You’re alright.” He squeezes you until the breath is forced from your lungs, and there’s no fuel for your laughter anymore. “You’re okay.”
With a choked, quiet sob, you reply, “I know.”
...
It’s later— much later. Maybe the next day.
Your room still doesn’t have any way to keep time other than your little tablet, which has been powered off and charges across the room on top of your dresser, so Blade can only guess.
He lays beside you in bed, propped up on an elbow. You sleep next time to him, relaxed and soft-jawed. The soft duvet is pulled up to your collarbones, and you curl into Blade. He’s— warmer than the rest of your room. Even if he does run too cold to be properly alive.
He runs the side of his index finger over your face.
You had been so tired after leaving the bath, you’d hardly been able to dress yourself— you hadn’t been able to. Blade to pick out sleep clothes and help you get into them. He chose whatever he could find that seemed. Soft.
(A flowing, soft teal top and white shorts with golden thread sewn in the seams.)
You fell asleep quickly after that and have been ever since. Blade had only meant to sit on the edge of your mattress.
That did not happen.
Instead, he’s tucked next to you. One of your hands fists the front of his shirt, and your body is angled toward him. Seeking. Wanting.
Blade could take.
He recognizes that.
It’s a thought, though, not a temptation. Not after the bath. Not after feeling the ways in which your body has been torn apart and so painstakingly put itself back together. You are not a creature of Abundance, you are not built to live forever and to repair yourself endlessly like he is. Your vitality is finite. Every scar your flesh must restitch takes something from you and it will not be replaced.
You will end.
Your bedroom door clicks, five times, then opens with a whoosh of air. Kafka stands in the doorframe. A sickly-sweet smile stains her mouth. Her lipstick is the is freshly applied and glossy.
“I see you got all cleaned up, Bladie,” her voice is silken and smooth. He could drown in it. “Was our little pup helpful?”
“... Yes.”
“Good.” Kafka hums. Her heels click against the floor, and she takes a place next to you. Even as the mattress dips, you don’t stir. “You’re so helpful with training them. Good boy.”
Blade pauses his petting of you to glare and grunt at Kafka. She looks delighted.
“I wasn’t aware I was assisting with any sort of training.”
“It’s all implicit. As long as they’re getting comfortable, that’s what counts. Don’t worry your pretty little head about anything else.”
Blade doesn’t like that answer.
“I don’t want to see them hurt,” Blade says.
“That’s sweet of you.”
“I mean it, Kafka.”
“I know, I know.” Kafka laughs. She sighs and falls into the bed, over the cushy duvet. She spoons you, flattening herself to your back and winding her arms around your waist. Your brow wrinkles and a little whimper scratches from your throat. “I’d like to see our new puppy kept in one piece too, Bladie. I’ve grown quite fond of them. However, we are both beholden to Destiny. If one of Elio’s scripts—”
“I know.” Blade snaps.
He does not want to think about it.
His hand that had been petting you winds tightly into your hair and your face scrunches up.
“Listen, Bladie, everything’s alright. You’re okay.” Kafka soothes, dropping a kiss onto your cheek. It leaves a smear. Kafka works Blade’s hand out of your hair. “Be good and keep them company while I give Elio a mission report.”
“That’s what I have been doing.”
“Then, keep it up.”
Kafka rolls out of bed with a sigh, not a hair out of place. She leaves the room almost soundlessly, the door clicking as it relocks. Five times.
Blade does as Kafka says. He keeps you company, sinking down into the mattress beside you. He wipes away the lipstick left over your cheek and presses a kiss to the spot. He lingers there.
Kafka can have— a lot of him. But, perhaps, he will covet you, all for himself.
(If the Mara in his mind had not been suppressed, perhaps he would have heard:
(FOOL FOOL FOOL! DO YOU NOT REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU COVET AND CLING? DO NOT FORGET YOUR SINS! DO NOT FORGET HIS SINS—!)
Instead, his mind is quiet. He pulls you closer and sleeps. Space is dead around him, and you are dead to the world in his undying arms.
Blade thinks he likes when you bathe with him.