Archive of Our Own

Blade spends the first three days of Sunday's absence convinced that the entire universe has conspired to scrape his nerves raw with a blunt spoon.

He doesn't know why he's being like this. It's one thing to be out of his mind, and another for every single thing to be driving him up the wall.

First things first, the ship is louder than usual. 

He knows this, because everyone's footsteps echo too sharply in the corridors. Every hinge, every vent, every distant clatter sounds like it is aimed directly at his skull.

Kafka's voice through the comms grates. Silver Wolf's commentary in the room currently is a drill in his teeth. Even the stars outside the viewport feel wrong, angled in ways that press against his nerves.

He sits in the common area with a cup of tea that usually Sunday makes for him, tight-jawed, watching the steam curl up and vanish before it reaches his face. 

"Stop glaring at your drink," Silver Wolf calls lazily from the couch, eyes still on the game hovering in front of her. "I can hear it over my audio."

"Stop listening," Blade replies.

She snorts. "Stop sounding like a broken radiator, then."

Normally, he would ignore her. Or engage in banter, if he's in a good mood. Or leave.

Today, though, every syllable she speaks scrapes against his skull. Tough luck.

"Turn it off," he says.

"I’m winning."

"Turn it off."

She pauses her game only then to glance over. Her gaze gives him a once-over, then her expression shifts to the side, a quiet alarm bell he doesn’t have the bandwidth to decode but feels faintly bad for setting off regardless. 

He must look like a nutcase, for even Silver Wolf to react like that.

"Right, well," she mutters, powering down the projection. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

He pushes himself up without a word and leaves before he says or does something to hurt or scare her. Even if she has never once flinched in his presence, he won't start making her now.

The door hisses shut behind him. The silence in the empty corridor is thin and mean.

He drags his nails down his forearms as he walks.

It should be a distraction. A line of pressure to keep him from digging his nails elsewhere. But violence, too, exists in him in abundance.

First to rip apart is the bandages. Then the skin gives way, and the sensation jumps from annoyance to pain so quickly it sobers him. 

Dark red wells up under his claws and streaks across his wrists, drips between his fingers and onto the floor. He digs harder, until the burn in his arms drowns out the buzzing in his skull.

By the time he reaches his room, his elbows are slick. He's bleeding out with his feet on the floor. The buttons blur behind a haze of crimson. He stares at his hands and thinks they would belong better to a corpse, then remembers that they never will. 

The sting helps, somehow.

It focuses him, narrows the field. The irritation that has been clawing at his ribs recedes under the more immediate clarity of torn flesh. The Mara stirs briefly, curious like a small creature under his skin. Yet it remains uninterested in this self-directed carnage.

He sits on the edge of his bunk and watches as his torn skin stitches itself back together.

Fibers draw in from the edges, pulling, sealing tight, as if the wound has never been there. The red smears dry, then lift, flaking away as new, unmarred skin presses up from underneath. In the span of a few minutes, the damage vanishes.

He's nauseating to witness. A creature of horror, abominable beyond belief. There is no one to tell him otherwise. So it must be true.

He flexes his fingers to observe the clean, pale forearms that remain, and irritation returns to him in tides.

His palms drag on the towel hanging at the foot of the bed until there is no visible trace of what he did. 

The next day, a loose panel in the engine corridor rattles for the fifth time in an hour. 

Each tremor shudders straight behind his eyes. He should ignore it. There are bigger problems than a stupid vibrating piece of metal. It shouldn't irritate him the way it does.

The sixth rattle grazes the last nerve he has left.

He grips the edge of the nearest support beam—and slams his forehead into it. Bone thuds against steel, pain explodes bright beneath his scalp, and for a glorious half-second, the annoyance cuts out completely.

He does it again, harder. Again. Again. Each hit makes the sound more distant. Good. It's not something he wants to hear.

On the fourth impact, his vision flashes white. On the fifth, his legs buckle. On the sixth, the world snaps into two, a string pulled too tight.

A soft, distant awareness of falling envelops his consciousness, a smear of warmth at his brow. Then nothing at all.

When he comes back alive, memory fails him for a moment. The skin of his face feels flaky with dried blood. Death, once again, slams its door shut to him. It's futile. He's stupid to even try. He has never been anything but foolish. 

Begrdudgingly, he drags himself to the shower, makes sure the water roaring down is a punishing torrent hot enough to scald straight through a human. It would scald him, too, if he was one.

Blistering heat scours across his skull, down his neck, his shoulders, the raw remnants of impact singing beneath the stream. The blood that had dried in a sticky mask over his face has already thinned, pink trails running down his throat and chest, swirling around the drain in lazy spirals.

His fingers twitch against the tile. The mirror outside the stall is fogged, so he tracks the healing by touch instead.

No dents, no cracks, no split skin.

He tips his head back and lets the water beat against his forehead until the flesh there feels sensitized and awake, but there is no relief in pain this time. The annoyance has burrowed too deep.

Deep enough that he can't claw it out, deep enough that he can't evaporate it out of his flesh. His greatest wish would be to be dumb enough to not realize what this itch is.

He's seen addicts claw at their own skin when the dose runs out. He’d pitied them once, in a far-off life, for being so dependent on a fix that wasn't even permanent. 

Now he stands here with the water scorching his face off and realizes he’s no different; strung out on a tune he can’t play for himself, pacing the ship like a dog missing its master, wearing his body down for crumbs of silence that never last. He presses the heel of his palms to his face and pulls on the skin coming off with the heat until it grows back faster than he can rip it off.

By the time he turns the water off, his skin is as untouched as his forehead.

He looks at the mirror, and an already healing face stares back at him. There is nothing indicating that he is a living being and not a doll.

For a brief, absurd moment, he misses the raised skin of scars he used to get.

By day six, Kafka asks if he wants anything from the next station in that teasing tone of hers, and he nearly tells her to stop talking to him like he’s a moody pet.

The impulse dries on his tongue when his mind shamefully reminds him that is exactly how Sunday talks to him all the time, then he remembers his absence and the anger returns to him again.

Sunday.

It is ridiculous how much space his name takes up in the ship when the rest of it feels unbearable.

He notices the gaps of him everywhere: the chair in the observatory, the quiet in the galley where one more voice should be, filling the air with gentle commentary about tea leaves or archival files, the absence of a hand reaching out to steady him when his balance flickers. 

It would be easier if he were here.

He stares out at the stars from the observatory couch, and catalogues everything that has irritated him in the past hour: the flicker of a faulty interface panel, the distant clang of maintenance somewhere above deck, the tick of his own jaw grinding.

The fragments of his remaining sanity ache for a distraction. For a palm on his chest, a thumb against his jaw, a voice in his ear.

Sunday, finally, returns on day seven.

The ship's docking clamps engage with a dull thud. The ramp lowers, Firefly appears first, helmet under her arm, hair messy under the band. He's surprised to see her out of SAM. He hadn't believed Silver Wolf when she told him she was holding up better than usual on this mission.

Sunday follows her from behind, cloak settled over his shoulders, hair a little mussed from travel, wings drooping from exhaustion but smile still intact and bright as if he’s been away for a single afternoon instead of days.

Then his eyes seek him out instantly, as they always do, feathers fluffing up imperceptibly when the gold pair lands on him.

"Blade," he breathes, and there is a warmth in there that makes Blade's chest clench. "You came to greet us."

Blade wants to throw himself at his feet. But that would be strange. So, he tips his head towards him, aiming for non-chalant. "You took your time."

"A wound to my pride," Sunday answers, hand pressed to his heart with mock offense. "We made good time, actually. It was better than last time's delay. Isn't that right, Miss Firefly?"

Firefly gives him a small nod as she passes. "I'm going to report to Kafka," she informs, then looks at Blade. "He didn't let the diplomats talk. You would have liked it."

"Would I," Blade asks flatly.

Firefly disappears down the corridor with a giggle.

Then, Sunday’s attention settles fully on Blade, voice dropping into a soft, private register.

"I missed you," he states simply, and lifts a gloved hand to his head.

Long fingers card through his hair, smoothing the strands away from his face with a care wholly disproportionate to how little Blade actually needs grooming. The other hand cups his jaw briefly, thumb rubbing under his chin in a slow, idle stroke. 

"There you are," Sunday murmurs. "You look strained."

"I’m fine."

"Do not lie to me," Sunday chides, but it’s soft and fond and entirely too unfitting for a man like Blade. His fingers continue to rub under his chin, a rhythm the other man has learned to tolerate, then to crave, then to lean into. "Did you behave while I was gone?"

Even the mere concept of the question is ridiculous. Blade is not a child, nor a dog, nor a subordinate in any chain of command Sunday technically controls. He could knock his hand away. Step aside, walk past him. 

Alas, there is nothing in the universe he wants less than that. His body stays where it is, muscles loosening in shame.

He leans down and tilts his chin up slightly to make it easier for Sunday to scratch under his jaw, because dignity becomes a foreign concept as soon as he puts his hands on him.

"Maybe," he replies simply.

"Mm," Sunday hums, pleased. "You’re tense. We’ll have to fix that."

Fix. Yes, he'll have to fix. It's what he's good at—correcting what's faulty in him, fixing up all the parts wired wrong in his brain. Suddenly, everything that's been grinding under his ribs all week comes to a stop. Sunday is so good at fixing that even the promise of it tightens the screws.

He must be staring like an idiot, because Sunday pats his cheek twice to make him focus, then soothes his thumb over his cheek as if rewarding a patient animal. 

"Come find me after I’ve changed," he says. "Unless Miss Kafka steals me first. I’ll pry myself free eventually, I promise."

"I'm not that impatient," Blade mutters.

Sunday laughs, bright and delighted. "My sharp-tongued stray."

Blade doesn’t dignify that with a reply, but follows him out of the hangar regardless.

Kafka does, in fact, steal him for a while. Reports, debriefs, discussions about fuck knows what. He doesn't care for any of it.

Blade hovers at the edge of it, unwilling to sit, but unwilling to leave, either. He leans against the wall where he can see Sunday's profile as he talks, hear the cadence of his voice, watch the way his hand moves when he flicks through projections.

His irritation, unfortunately, has not vanished. It just…rearranged itself, a tide contained by something much stronger than itself. The urge to claw his own arms open again is still there coiled in his fingers, but it drowns under a more pressing need: to get Sunday alone.

Eventually, Kafka tires of the discussion. Or chooses to be merciful.

"Go," she mutters, flicking her cigarette towards the ashtray. "You’re both fidgeting. It’s irritating."

Sunday blinks. "Am I?"

"Yes," she replies. "Shoo."

He glances at Blade, eyes bright with amused apology. "Dismissed," he says lightly. "Come along, then."

Of course, he follows.

Sunday's quarters are tidy as always, with just a few details that tells Blade he was in a hurry leaving and had to straighten things by habit rather than intention. His cloak hangs over the back of a chair. A small stack of reports rests on the low table. 

Blade always feels like a crooked tree in his room. Strange, big and out of place—with misshapen branches and moss growing all over. But Sunday is good enough to touch him despite hating messy things. It must be because he's easy to bend, he thinks.

"Make yourself comfortable," Sunday says as he shrugs off his gloves. "I’ll be but a moment."

He stands in the middle of the room for a while, hands hanging uselessly at his sides, watching the closed door to the small washroom where Sunday is changing. 

The faint rustle of fabric filters through—hanger on rail, shoes against tile, the soft thud of a closet door. His head still rings from yesterday’s collision, the restlessness still there, buzzing, crawling along his nerves with nowhere to go.

He should sit. That is what people do when told to make themselves comfortable.

He looks at the sofa. It's too clean for him. The armchair in the corner is worse. The edge of the low table is a boundary line he has no right to cross without being told.

By the time Sunday opens the door again, Blade is still planted in the same spot, as if he has grown out of the floor.

Sunday steps back into the room in a dark turtleneck and simple slacks, feathers straight again and hair fluffed up from a fresh combing, the fringe falling over his bangs more gracefully than it had been minutes ago. 

"You are still standing," Sunday observes obliviously, mildly amused. "That is not quite what I had in mind when I said comfortable."

"I’m fine here."

"You are not fine anywhere," he says, and crosses the room to lower himself on the sofa. "Come here."

A tug on his leash, and Blade’s feet move before the rest of him can argue. He steps closer to the sofa, then Sunday reaches out and takes his wrist.

The grip is so, so gentle. It's nothing like Blade at all. 

Gloved fingers have been replaced by bare ones, and they circle the bone like tree roots circle bones six feet under. Blade feels his own pulse jump against the pads of them, ridiculous, a reanimated corpse.

"Down," Sunday tells him.

So down he goes until his knees fold on the rug, the fabric rough against his skin through the layers of his clothes. Sunday guides him with ease, a hand at his wrist, then at the side of his head, arranging him like a piece of furniture too out of place for the room decor. 

A moment later, his temple finds Sunday’s thigh, and Sunday's bare palm settles in his long hair. Warmth seeps directly into his brain this way. It's golden in color, bright in hue, blooming gentle inside. He wonders if Sunday will ever run out of this warmth, if his fire, too, will grow teeth.

Sunday’s fingers thread through his hair, combing it back from his forehead as if he has any use for grooming. He thinks he wants it to swallow him whole. Maybe he will only find peace if he pulses inside someone like a second heart.

"There," Sunday praises quietly. "So well-behaved. I've missed you terribly."

The words grow around him until they're big enough to contain him.

Then, Sunday starts talking.

About the trip, at first. The tedious diplomats with overpolished manners after that. About a conference room that Firefly had to blow to smithereens. A minor incident with a tampered report that would have amused Silver Wolf.

Blade hears the words as if through water. He understands them; his mind is not gone. Sunday uses Harmony less and less nowadays. But the meaning parks itself far away, on some shelf he will not reach for until later. What stays is tone, cadence, the rise and fall of a voice that has smoothed his edges so many times before.

The hand in his hair moves in slow strokes, fingertips tracing his scalp, nails scratching lightly, reminding him; You are here, you are mine. Be good.

He stares at the pattern on the rug and thinks about ripping his arms open again. Maybe his face, too. He could reach down to his throat this time, rip it out just so he will have nothing to swallow with for a while. Nothing good has ever come from swallowing. The lumps are too big.

He's too big, too old to be reduced to this. He wants to tell Sunday so badly of what his absence did to him.

He wants it, with a vicious, childish pang. To be told off. To be forbidden from his own worst habits by someone who can back the command with warmth and force both. To be punished with concern, ordered into safety.

The urge to admit it is heavier than the lumps in his throat. The words jostle at the back of his molars: I cracked my head open like an idiot just to stop hearing. Tell me not to. Tell me I cannot.

He knows he would not, if he was told not to—there is a switch in him now that is not his. If Sunday says 'no more,' his brain would latch itself around the order like iron filings around a magnet.

He could, and he doesn't. Pride is a stupid thing to have when you have already crawled on your knees before, but he has always excelled at being stupid.

Above him, Sunday's hand moves idly in his hair, slow strokes that scrape against the scalp, nails grazing skin. Each pass leaves a trail of warmth behind, a line of heat that feels achingly close to the way Harmony settles in his veins.

His cheek rests against the line of Sunday's thigh, the fabric beneath his skin soft, the muscle underneath firm. He wants to bite through it. Tear it open. See how bright Sunday looks on the inside. 

He nudges his face closer in instead, nose nudging the seam where leg meets hip. 

His mouth feels empty. Useless. Too many teeth, no purpose. He imagines all the different ways he has used it badly in his life—spitting, biting, talking back, swallowing blood. It would be better pressed to use on something kinder. On someone kinder.

"Blade?" Sunday scratches behind his ear. "Are you uncomfortable?"

Yes. He is an exposed nerve in human shape. 

No. Not in the way Sunday means. He shakes his head, then realizes he is rubbing his cheek against his thigh when he does it.

His mouth is too close to the inside of his thigh, nose dragging along the line of it, inhaling clean fabric, skin underneath. 

"I want to taste you," he mutters into the air.

The hand on his head goes very still, his wings flap in surprise. To Sunday, it must be quite out of nowhere.

"...Why?"

"Wanna make you feel good. Why else."

"You don't have to please me to deserve this," Sunday answers, a reminder carved into him. "You do not need to earn soothing."

Truly, he hates how a part of him clings to the reassurance like a starving animal to a thrown scrap. Deserve soothing. As if that has ever been part of the equation. As if he has ever deserved anything.

"This isn't about...earning," he repliess. His lips brush the inside of his thigh when he speaks. Heat prickles under his skin, ugly and alive. "I want it. Let me."

Let me be useful, his hazy mind supplies. Let me reduce myself to a single function for a few minutes instead of a thousand conflicting impulses. Let me sink my mouth into an act that is not destruction for once.

I want to see you come undone, also, he thinks selfishly. So I can remember there is a point where your composure melts, too. I want something living between my lips instead of my own blood.

Sunday sighs above him. This is where he will say no and tuck him closer to himself. Tell him to stay there and not make a fuss. 

Mercy finds him, surprisingly. 

"Very well," another brush of fingers through his hair, "You may, then, since you do not usually ask so eagerly."

Ah. Must be his lucky day, then.

The words sink into Blade, a permission that floods his veins with relief. A sudden rush of it, hot and unbidden, coiling low in his gut.

Letting him. Allowing this wretched thing he is to touch—to reduce the world to this one act of pleasure. Sunday could have said no, could have pushed him away with that gentle firmness, but instead he's giving, always, always so generous, and Blade feels like he's been starved for this mercy all week. 

Everything in his life that's clawed at him fades to a distant hum, drowned under the thrill of being permitted, of being used in this filthy way.

There is no time to waste. Straightening up on his knees, his hands fumble at Sunday's belt, fingers clumsy with need. The buckle gives way with a soft click and he tugs the zipper down, pushes the trousers open just enough, and pulls Sunday's cock free from the confines of his underwear.

It's soft, limp in his clumsy hand, warm and pliant against his palm. 

Of course, he isn't hard. Why would he be? Sunday did not come here for this. Sunday does not need this. Blade is the needy one, the filthy one, the one who can't go three days without wanting to crawl into his own bones and tear it apart.

Still, the warmth in his hand tells him: Here. Use yourself on this instead of the walls.

Saliva floods his mouth before he even puts it around anything. It’s humiliating how ready his body is, how quickly his throat remembers what it’s for when it’s finally given a purpose that isn’t screaming or growling or whatever primitive sounds it makes whenever he is not himself. He has not been himself for a while.

His tongue darts out to press on the slit, then his lips lower with slow, small suckles—little pulls at the soft head, because kisses feel too wrong and tender from his mouth.

It makes Sunday's hand tighten in his hair as his lips seal around the tip, tongue flicking lightly, tasting salt and skin, the faint musk of Sunday that's clean and unmarred, like everything else about him. 

He suckles gently, drawing it in bit by bit, feeling the flesh twitch and stir inside the hollow of his cheeks. When it begins to harden, swelling against his tongue, the weight of it builds until his jaw aches with the effort of holding it.

"Easy," comes the soft encouragement above him. "Easy, open wider."

Wider he opens upon being coaxed, letting Sunday guide the angle, mouth sliding down the shaft in wet, sloppy glides. Saliva pools under his tongue, then slips from the corners of his mouth. 

He tries not to focus on the way it drips down his chin, tacky and stringing, because his mind can't catch on anything long enough to stay there. Sunday likes him a mess, anyway. Easier to patch him up that way.

For a while, the world narrows down to the hand in his hair, the hot wetness around his mouth, and the sound of Sunday's breath stuttering above him. Wanting to speed up a littlw, he chokes on the next downstroke, the blunt head nudging the back of his throat too soon. But that sting, too, fades into the bliss inside his head.

Instead of pulling back—because he doesn't want to do this in half-measures— he pushes deeper, eyes watering as he forces himself to relax, to take it, to have Sunday pat him on the head after this and tell him how well he did.

Tears prick at his lashes, spilling over as he gags wetly, and his thoughts slide off the edges of themselves, leaving nothing but noise and pressure and the rhythm of his mouth. They slide down his face even though there's nothing to worry about besides keeping his jaw open and his hands still and dragging more of those quiet sounds out of Sunday’s throat.

"Blade?" Sunday breathes quietly as he wipes a tear from his cheek. "Are you in pain? Tap at me if you are."

Then tugs on his hair to pull him away out of concern, but Blade stubbornly buries himself down as far as he can go even as his throat burns.

No, no, no, he doesn't want to be pulled away. Not when the quiet in his head is so fragile.

Blade shakes his head (or tries to, really) and the motion grinds the length deeper into his throat, making his eyes stream fresh tears. The burn is electrifying and raw and a fire that licks up his spine without the usual madness chasing it.

Sunday's grip loosens in his hair at his juvenile insistence, then tightens again, as if deciding whether to indulge this stubborn streak or reel him back. 

"Blade," he manages through a hitched breath. Blade hears it, even if it comes from afar. "Breathe, darling."

A part of him wants to ignore the order so, so badly. To stay sunk this deep, to keep his head down and his mouth full and his mind blank, but wanting has never been stronger than that voice.

Dragging in a ragged noseful of air around the fullness in his throat, he lets Sunday pull him back. The slide makes his eyes stream fresh again. Cool air kisses his lips, his tongue, his chin, and he coughs, unable to swallow it down in time.

His throat is raw, his jaw aches, face wet in too many places at once. Tears, saliva, a mess he can't really map right now.

Sunday’s hand doesn’t leave his hair. The other comes up to his face, thumb brushing under one eye. The pad comes away damp.

"Shh," he soothes, silky voice cradling his senses. "Shh, ssh. Don’t cry, dear heart."

What a ridiculous thing to hear when you are this, something that has lost the ability to shed tears as soon as it was able to bleed endlessly instead.

Though his eyes have no such concept of loss. 

They keep leaking traitorously, tears tracking down over his cheekbones, over the bridge of his nose, dripping to his chin to add to the rest of the wreckage there.

"I’m not," he mutters. Maybe if he keeps denying, it will be true. Is that not how he placed himself so far away from contentment?

Sunday huffs an incredulous breath through his nose above him, then tips his chin up with two fingers so he can look at him properly. Blade’s neck strains with the angle, but he doesn’t fight it.

"Look what you did to yourself," Sunday sighs. He is so beautiful, so untouched by the world. Blade wants him to tell him his secret, or keep the world away for him. 

Another gentle swipe of his thumb catches the wet sheen there, then moves up to rub the corner of his eye. "What am I to do with you?"

Blade has no answer. The question is too large; it stretches back over years, over deaths, over every ugly, animal thing he’s done to himself to keep going. What is anyone to do with him. The answer has always been: weaponize, discard, repeat.

Every morning, the mirrors tell him the same thing: You should be on a hook, not in a lap. You should not be allowed near softness; you break what you touch; you ruin what looks at you too long.

"Hush. No more thinking," Sunday chides, pacifying without even hearing. "Do not start climbing into that grave. I have not dug it for you."

Blade is entirely willing to do exactly that. He forces his senses to loop around the touch—too kind, too good, too addictive. Yes, he can think about this instead. 

"Do you want to continue?" Sunday asks, eyes searching his face for cracks.

Blade nods before the words settle, eager and desperate, his head jerking like a marionette on strings. Yes, gods, yes—anything to chase this silence deeper into his bones.

Sunday's smile softens. It brightens his features, cuts the years away from his eyes. 

As Blade stares dumbly, Sunday captures his limp hand in his own and guides it up.  His bandaged fingers wrap around warm, slick flesh, Sunday's cock heavy in his palm, still hard from the mess Blade's mouth made.

"Be good for me. Understood?"

The command cradles him in warmth. "Under...stood." 

He lets his fist close loose around the base, stroking in time with his lips as he leans forward again. Tongue flat against the underside, hand twisting in tandem, recalling fragments of what Sunday likes: the slow build, the tease at the head, the pressure that rewards Blade with a series of shallow breaths if he works for it.

Wet, obscene sounds fill the air—his saliva mixing with the slick slide, dripping down the length to coat his fingers. It's filthy, the way his mouth stretches around it, cheeks hollowing on each suck, but the effort grounds him, turns the chaos in his skull to white noise.

A subtle buck of Sunday's hips shoves him deeper into his throat. There is his reward.

Blade glances up through wet lashes, and there, even more of it: Sunday's face flushed pink, eyes half-lidded, tips of his wings no doubt covering his mouth parted on shallow breaths. So undone, so human in this moment.

A desperate moan vibrates from Blade's chest at the sight, humming around the cock filling his mouth. His mind sinks its teeth into the fact that he can crack perfection like this. For once, the damage isn't on his own skin.

The wet slide and the spit-slick grip of his hand all fade under the loop in his head: this is purpose, this is good, I am good for one thing. So good that Sunday's thighs close around his shoulders in a few more strokes, a warning. 

Sunday's release hits him with a shudder, spilling hot and bitter over Blade's tongue. Blade swallows it down greedily, throat working around the taste. It's proof he's been useful. 

His tongue darts out again to lap up what remains, and it makes Sunday let out a hiss. "Such enthusiasm," he sighs condescendingly. "Enough, you'll make yourself sick."

"You'd love if I did," Blade replies, voice rough.

"Yes. But still."

Blade only grunts in response, lips swollen and numb, and rests his cheek against the firm thigh under him.

For a while, nothing matters. The universe ceases to exist beneath his feet. No voice, no ghosts of the past reach him, no tasks to complete, here in this bubble.

He's only faintly aware of Sunday tucking himself away with a quiet wince, fingers neat as he fastens his trousers again. 

The small signs of sensitivity—creased brow, the way his hand lingers at his waistband—spark a vicious spark of pride in Blade’s chest. He did that. He made that.

"Look at you. My pretty thing," Sunday murmurs, palm smoothing over his hair in passing. "You did so well. I'm proud of you."

Upon hearing the praise, heat climbs up his neck so fast it makes him dizzy.

It’s ridiculous. He has done far filthier things, endured far worse, and yet that soft 'I'm proud of you' slices straight under his ribs and drips straight down his belly.

He makes a strangled sound in reply and promptly buries his face deeper into Sunday’s lap. His nose presses against the faint line of the seam; he can still taste salt at the back of his throat. His cheeks burn.

"Don't," he mutters, or tries to, words muffled against dark fabric. "Don't say things like that."

Sunday, naturally, takes this as encouragement. "Don't be shy, now," he croons, palm smoothing over his hair again. "You're precious."

Blade makes an unhappy noise. He's anything but that. Is Sunday stupid? His fingers dig into Sunday's thigh just shy of bruising, because he has no idea what to do with his hands when praise feels worse than pain.

Sunday laughs above him. He might as well be watching a kitten trying to disappear under a curtain. 

"Ow," he says mildly, though there is no true reproach in it. His hand presses briefly at Blade’s nape, thumb rubbing at a tense knot there. "Bad. Don't claw at me."

Blade grumbles. He has no idea what the complaint is supposed to be, only that it feels necessary to make one.

"Let me see your face," Sunday adds.

Every part of him says no in a chorus—hell no, because his lips feel twice their size, because his eyes are probably red-rimmed, because his pride is somewhere on the floor back in the first half of this encounter. Unfortunately, none of those parts are connected to his muscles.

Begrudgingly, he tips his head back.

The angle pulls at the knot in his neck Sunday had been rubbing a moment ago. Healing from fatal wounds in seconds, and still being susceptible to aches of old age is cruel and unusual punishment, he thinks.

Still, he squints up at Sunday through damp lashes, fixing him with the closest thing to a glare he can manage when he can feel wetness still clinging to his cheeks.

Sunday, for all intents and purposes, looks enchanted. Utterly, irreparably charmed. As if Blade is not a wreck on the floor with red eyes, a raw throat and a wet mouth, but the sweetest sight he has beheld all week.

"Oh," he smiles gleefully. "There you are."

Blade scowls at him on principle. "Don’t."

"Don’t what?" Sunday tilts his head. "Admire the view you have so graciously arranged at my feet?"

That earns him a scrunch of his nose. Sunday, infuriatingly, only looks more endeared.

"You are going to die if you keep looking at me like that," Blade informs him.

"I assure you I will not," Sunday replies. "My heart is quite sturdy."

"That makes one of us," Blade mutters.

Sunday hums, clearly delighted by this admission. His hand slips back into Blade’s hair, combing lightly through the damp strands. 

"Oh, look at this," he coos again, and Blade is losing the battle of appearing displeased by something that's clearly melting his coherence away. "Your cheeks are matching your eyes. My wonderful creature."

"Stop," he grits out, looking away. "You’re embarrassing."

"I am being perfectly reasonable," Sunday tips his chin up all dignified. His hand settles over the back of Blade’s head, thumb stroking the shell of his ear in a way that has statistically proven to liquefy every protest in his brain. "Up. Come now. Up here."

"Why," Blade grumbles. He is comfortable on the floor, on his knees, in his place, where his body knows what to do.

"So that I may hold you," Sunday explains. "Do you want me to touch you?"

Does he want to be touched. Blade thinks about it.

His lower half is pulsing with arousal, and it does feel a tad bit uncomfortable if he focuses on it.

However, the idea of any more sensation right now, even pleasant, makes his skin prickle. His nerves feel skinned and overused. The itch under his ribs is quiet for once. He wants it to stay that way.

"No," he says, and it surprises him that he could draw that line without being coaxed, as he usually does in this state. "I don’t. Sorry."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Sunday waves a hand. "No need for an apology. I will simply hold you, then. Come here."

Up he goes as ordered, even if every instinct in him snarls to stay folded on the floor where purpose is simple. Sunday draws him up without effort, rearranges him like a too-large blanket—back against the arm of the sofa and the pillow, legs stretched out, and Blade ends up draped over him in his awkward angles.
 
His head finds Sunday’s chest. The rest of him spills down over his torso and legs, big and heavy and inelegant. He's a carcass over a flowerbed.
 
Yet, Sunday makes do.
 
He doesn’t complain about the weight, or shift under the bulk of him or push at his shoulders to adjust him. One arm tucks around Blade’s back, palm spreading between his shoulder blades; the other settles lower at his side, caging him in gently. His fingers rub absent circles through the fabric, soothing.
 
Now that he thinks about it, Sunday has never minded being pinned under the worst of him. Why would he start now.
 
Blade’s arms creep around his torso on their own, wrapping around his waist. His fingers find the back of his shirt and curl there, hanging on. He could snap Sunday in half. It would take so little.

The strength in him is disproportionate. Ugly. Unfit to be contained by things more beautiful than he. Perhaps that is why it comforts him that Sunday chooses to grow around him, instead of asking him to walk inside with his own two feet. 
 
His nose nudges against Sunday’s sternum, a small, unconscious nuzzle, the way a dog would give when it’s finally allowed up on the bed. He doesn’t mean to do it, but he's rewarded for it anyway, palm moving up to his hair, fingertips scratching lightly at his scalp.
 
"Feeling any better?" Sunday asks, and he feels the vibration on his cheek. 
 
"Yes," he admits.
 
"What happened in a week to wind you up this much, hm?" Sunday probes, because that is what he does. "You were a taut wire when I stepped off the ramp."
 
Blade stares at his sweater, focusing on the stitch of thread holding one half-hanging loop in place.
 
"I don't know what to do with myself anymore when you're not here," he replies flatly. No need to put up airs about it.
 
"Ah," Sunday says softly. "I see."
 
His fingers pause a moment in Blade’s hair, then resume their gentle scratching.
 
"That doesn't sound very healthy," he observes.
 
"What, you want me to knit to cope?" he mutters. "Take up gardening?"
 
"You would be terrible at both, Sunday decides.

He supposes that's true. They all require patience, and he is not a very patient man. "So why ask."
 
Sunday's chest rises with a sigh under his cheek. "I want you to call me and ask me to talk to you when I'm away."
 
It is a sound suggestion, all things considered. He turns his head a little, cheek dragging against fabric.
 
"You…want me to bother you more than I already do."
 
"Yes," Sunday answers, without even a hint of hesitation. "If your head is loud, I want you to bother me."
 
So the problem isn’t that Blade is already circling him like a starving animal around a single food source, but that he hasn’t been using him hard enough.
 
Maybe he should, then.

He imagines his need growing like mold along Sunday’s voice, creeping in the grooves between words, thickening every time he calls. Of his spine curling tighter around the shape of him until it can’t remember what being upright ever felt like. Of his mind becoming a room with only one window, and Sunday’s face the only thing on the other side.
 
He does not want to examine whether that is good, or sane, or survivable. Those are questions for people with better options.

"Okay," he hears himself say, before the thought can twist into doubt. "I’ll call next time."

Sunday's heartbeat fastens under his cheek.

"Good boy," he praises, and Blade wishes he didn’t feel the way he does about that. "That is all I ask."

It really isn't. Sunday's requests are always gateways to demands that sink hooks deeper into him. But Blade is the one stepping through them every time, so he supposes that’s fair.

Silence stretches over them for a while. A thin blanket, a fragile thing. Then, Blade starts thinking again. One thought weaves into another, then they trip over themselves.
 
"Sunday," he hears himself call flatly. "What do I do if you die."

Sunday's ribs pause against Blade's cheek, then resume their slow rise and fall.

"Mm," he muses quietly. "Move on with your life, I suppose."

"Do you listen to yourself when you talk."

"I try to," Sunday replies. "Why?"

"You know I am in this state because I have never moved on from anything," Blade reminds him. "You know that, right."

He should. He should know that every old wound still lives somewhere in him, every failure is stored in his bones with their marrow. 

"I do," Sunday admits. "It is one of your more inconvenient traits."

"Then your advice is useless," Blade decides. "I’d do the opposite."

"Hmm," Sunday considers. "Then you may settle in Penacony and live inside a dream bubble with the memory of me, if you wish."

The hypothetical future where he damns himself to a different shaped eternity because he couldn't grieve like a normal person pulls a visceral reaction out of him. How terrible would it be, to have his own body suspended in a dream pool, flesh turning pale and unused while his mind loops through the same day with the same man for centuries. 

Hasn't he done that enough already before Sunday came along? 

"I don't want another ghost haunting me," he huffs, stares off towards the wall blankly, "I want it all to end for me... the way it will for you."

Sunday shifts under Blade’s ear with an amused sigh. "I suppose that is fair," he concedes. "I am only listing out the option that will hurt you the least."

"Then your list is very short," Blade mutters.

Sunday hums again. "What would I do if you got your wish before I die, I wonder."

What a backwards question to ask. For a few seconds, Blade cannot parse the mere concept of that.

Him, gone. Sunday, staying. The notion that Sunday’s life would shift in any meaningful way around that is so foreign it may as well be scripture from a fallen planet.

"You would not do anything," he says finally, because that is the only thing that makes sense. "I would be gone, and that would be the end of it."

Blade feels Sunday's chest rise, hold, then lower again beneath his cheek. Thinking. He is thinking, really thinking, taking the question seriously, and that alone makes Blade wish he could peel off his own skin and crawl out of it.

"I suppose that is true," Sunday says at last.

"Yeah."

He continues to lie there, heavy over Sunday’s lap, and his own words start to rot inside him. 

It is not as if he has learned anything new with that answer.

It would happen. He imagines his own absence in this room and the space left behind is filled, in his mind, with the vague outline of another body. Another stray, another violent thing to put between Sunday and the world.

His stomach turns. The tea he drank earlier sours in his memory. He feels like he has swallowed a mouthful of rust, of nails and old pennies, and they are all sitting somewhere under his heart corroding.

He imagines peeling his chest open and scooping them out with his hands, dropping them one by one onto the floor until they clatter to a stop. Maybe then the nausea will pass.

He suddenly cannot stand the feel of himself spilling over Sunday, cannot stand the idea of his filth leaking onto anything this clean. Better to rot somewhere else than stain this room.

So, "I wanna go," he declares abruptly.

He starts to push himself up, hands braced against the sofa, muscles bunching. He has to go. 

But lithe arms close around him at once, an unassuming band across his back and ribs that turns into iron the moment Blade tests it.

"Don't."

"Let me go," Blade insists. Does nothing to resist the grip. "I want to leave."

"And I don't want you to," the words leave Sunday quietly. "I would be very sad," he draws Blade closer, rearranging him back where he was. "and very alone. If you left."

Just like that, his mind melts again.

Sunday would be alone. Not in the way Blade is without him, of course. He is not an irreplaceable organ, he reminds himself. But he is a splinter under the skin, and once that has been in place long enough, its removal will leave a tender hole. The difference between an organ and an intrusion barely matters when his brain is starved enough.

"Yeah?" he hears himself ask.

"Mm," Sunday confirms. Then he rests his cheek against the crown of Blade’s head, feathers cradling the crown of it, and breathes in the scent. "Yes. I do not wish to be alone. So, stay."

Blade doesn't know what to do with himself.

He pictures prying his ribs apart and finding, instead of organs, a replica of this room tucked inside. A little sofa, a little man in a black turtleneck, a little cadaver draped over his lap.

If Sunday cut himself open, would Blade be in there too, then?

The thought makes him a little nauseous and a little giddy.

"I will have to die someday," he says into the knit of his sweater, because he can't say the rest. "Elio promised me."

"I know," Sunday replies, then cups his face with both hands. "You would leave me to myself."

"Why is that bad," Blade asks. "You do well on your own. You don’t need me like I need you."

"Need is a strong term," he says. "I simply prefer the world when you are in it. It arranges itself…more agreeably."

"You would find something else," Blade insists, despite himself. His eyes drop, tracing the seam of Sunday’s mouth, the steady line of his nose. "You would find another thing to fix. The universe is full of those."

"There are many things to mend," Sunday allows. "But there is only one you."

His mind seizes on that reply. Gnaws at it, tears it apart. One you. Only one you. He imagines cutting himself into pieces and trying to spread them out so there would be more, leaving bits of himself in every room so Sunday would trip over him forever.

"If you died before me," Sunday continues softly, "I would be…put out."

"Put out," Blade repeats flatly.

"Yes," Sunday says. "Aggrieved. Deeply inconvenienced. Bereft, even. I do not enjoy losing what is mine. Especially if it has made a habit of nesting on my chest."

Blade stares at him, searching for some crack, some glint of jest sharp enough to cut this softness down to size.

He finds nothing but calm. He should be grateful.

Instead, a cruel, childish wish curls up inside him, small and hot and mean.

If Sunday ever tries to put another creature here—another sharp-edged thing on his chest, another stray to curl around his lap and soak up this warmth—he hopes it guts him. Hopes it does not fit into his ribs the way Blade has. Hopes every other broken toy cuts his hands open and leaves him unsatisfied.

He hopes the absence of him rots holes in Sunday’s neat little routines. Hopes every room feels wrong for a long time. Hopes it hurts.

He will never say this out loud. He is not that stupid, or childish. 

Outwardly, he only shifts closer, one leg hooking lazily over Sunday’s, making himself heavier, more impossible to move.

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yes," Blade confirms. 

"How rude," Sunday chuckles, and pulls him closer to himself. "Comfortable?"

"It feels like I'm lying on a remote," Blade huffs dryly. "You're bony."

Sunday laughs brightly at that, the sound puffing against his hair. "You do have a talent for ruining tender moments," he remarks, and nudges him up, palms firm at his ribs to shift him. "Here. Come here properly."

Before Blade can ask where else could he go, fingers slide up to his jaw, coaxing his face higher. Sunday tilts his head, leans in, and kisses him.

It’s not a chaste thing. His mouth settles over Blade’s, the press of lips deepening until his breath stutters. Thumb at his cheekbone, the other hand cupping his jaw, he holds him there with utmost softness, angling his head just so. Blade’s lips part on a breath, and Sunday takes it as invitation, tongue slipping in to taste him.

His brain, so proud of all its barbed wire, cooperates embarrassingly fast.

The world grows smaller in size until the only thing in his periphery is the slow slide of mouths, the faint wet sound when they part and come back together, the rhythm of Sunday’s breathing wrap around him, a net of warmth.

Sunday pulls back eventually to rest their foreheads together.

"I want to touch you," he confesses, "Properly. I wish you would change your mind already."

Blade stares at him, dazed, narrow-eyed. His voice comes out rough. "Why are you waiting for me to change my mind," he asks. "It’s not like you’ve never forced it."

Sunday’s brows rise with feigned offense. "Forced," he repeats. "Darling, really."

"It is what it is," Blade mutters. His pulse is still jumping in his throat. "You don’t usually ask this politely."

Sunday gives him a look so unimpressed it knocks a sliver of clarity back into place.

"Come now," he chides. "You make it sound as if I drag you into my lap kicking and screaming. You sulk and wait for me to soothe you."

Blade looks away upon hearing that, because it is, unfortunately, true. Every time Sunday has put his hands on him, he has gone down like a stone in water and stayed there.

"Whatever," he says, which is as close to concession as he will allow out loud.

"Mm." Sunday’s gaze tracks the line of his throat, the uneven rise and fall of his chest. "In any case, tonight I am trying to be good. You said no. I listened."

His hand starts a slow path from Blade’s jaw down the column of his neck, fingers resting at the hollow there, feeling the beat.

"And I am still listening," he continues idly "Unfortunately, what I am hearing is that you are very uncomfortable and will not sleep well like this."

"You can't hear that."

"I can feel it," Sunday corrects. His palm flattens briefly over Blade’s sternum, noting the tightness there. "Your body is wound as tight as your mind. I dislike it. I would like to correct it."

There it is: not I want to get you off, but I want to correct you. Fix the fault line.

Blade stares at him for a long, flat second.

He could say no again. He could dig his heels in, cling to the tattered edge of his own refusal just to prove he still has one.

It feels pointless.

"Fine," he mutters instead, throat scraping around the word. "Do whatever you want."

Sunday’s whole face brightens, a small, delighted lift at the corners of his mouth, as if Blade has just handed him a rare privilege instead of caving on basic bodily autonomy.

"Thank you," he smiles gleefully. "I intend to."

It makes Blade a little sick, how good that feels.

His 'no' has been pressed on, prodded at, held between careful fingers until it softened and gave way. He should hate that. He should bare his teeth and shove him off and spit in his face for getting what he wants.

Instead, his ribs loosen around the knowledge that Sunday wanted it enough to keep pushing. That he is not being indulged out of pity, but pursued out of preference. Treasured, even if he is a bad sort of relic.

He chooses, very consciously, not to look too closely at that.

He reminds himself of the facts instead: he is not human in any way that counts; he has done worse things than let a man he trusts override his stubbornness; Sunday would be alone and rattling around this ship without him, annoyed and lonely and less arranged.

If this keeps the world tolerable for both of them, then fine. It can be his offering.

He goes where those hands put him, breath stuttering under Sunday’s touch, and decides, for tonight, that being handled is an acceptable way to live.