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lorelune · 8 months

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|| blade x reader || M || captive reader x necrobiome blade || wc: 3.2k || ao3 || previous + next ->

The Stellaron Hunters and their newest prize settle in and find routine.

minors, antis, and ageless blogs dni

a/n: HELLO >:3c this lil story has me gripped!! this piece is meant to be read after "scrap metal" but can be read as a standalone. mind the tags and enjoy 💕

CW: dark content, captive/pet reader, violence, implied/partially depicted physical abuse, force-feeding, general talk about food and eating, thoughts of violence toward the reader

"They didn't eat again."

Silver Wolf tosses the metal bowl on the counter with a frown. It’s full, heaped with eggs, kixi wafers, and some yogurt-based sauce. It’s untouched, sauce gelatinized from being out in the open air.

Kafka clicks her tongue from the cockpit, pausing her scrolling. Her gaze flicks up, "Not a bite?"

"Nope." Silver Wolf frowns and fidgets. "They didn't even look at me when I gave them their lunch either."

"They haven't eaten since the day before yesterday then. That’s no good." Kafka sounds concerned, but there's an edge to it.

Blade feels antsy. Out of his skin. He doesn't know why.

“They haven’t been drinking much either.” Silver Wolf frowns. “They’ll shrivel up and die at this rate."

Kafka nods, "That’s more than likely their intention, even if it's a long and foolish way to die. That’s a shame. I thought they'd be better than this."

Blade drums his stiff fingers over the hilt of Shard Sword. He hardly remembers summoning it.

"Bladie, dear? Try and convince them to have a bite or two tonight." Kafka's attention almost drifts back to her phone before she meets his eyes. Her own are clear, pupils intact. "Be careful, though. Hungry pets will still bite the hand that feeds them."

Blade doesn't reply with anything other than a jerky nod. He ferries himself across the ship to a padded training room and shreds two dozen practice dummies until they're nothing more than piles of polymer leather and filler.

...

Kafka had implemented a rotation. A 'feeding schedule' to acclimate you to your new environment, and get you used to your new comrades. You’re pricklier than she originally anticipated, but she doesn't seem concerned.

(If anything, she seems... delighted. She has a spring to her step that she usually doesn't. She leaves your room glowing.)

It’s Blade's turn to bring you dinner. Your meal is piled into the same metal bowl. Heaps of rice, covered in a sticky sauce with chunks of meat and veg. It’s still steaming as he walks silently to your cell— room. cell. He's not sure.

He undoes each lock (seven) and enters your room without any announcement.

The room is... less destroyed than it was yesterday. When Blade brought you lunch the day before, your mattress had been dragged onto the floor, sheets torn to shreds and spread around the room. You’d thrown a book at his head when he'd entered.

(Which he caught and gave back to you. You looked terrified when he got at all close to you.)

Blade didn’t like it. And he isn't sure why.

Today, you're less frantic. Instead, you’re balled up on your mattress, tucked in a corner with your knees up. Your head is down. You only flinch when Blade enters, but don't regard him otherwise.

Blade's frown deepens.

"Dinner," he says, and sets the food on your nightstand. Kafka has replaced the diffuser you broke the day prior. A new one pumps out an herbal-scented mist. "Eat it."

"Just leave it,” you reply, voice scratchy and raw. You rarely speak to him.

"No. Eat it now."

"I will later."

"You won't. You aren't eating."

"And what's it to you?" You unfurl just a fraction and shoot him a glare. It’s angry. vitriolic and guarded. (But a scared stray will bear its teeth and bite, won't they?)

(What is it to Blade? Other than Kafka's order. There’s something there. There has been something there since he saw you muzzled and dead-eyed, and Blade's always half-aware of it. How it refracts and shudders and fills him with such intense unease. He knows the feeling— recognizes it like the scent of an old lover. But he does not like it. It does not feel like it is his.)

He’s struck with the particular urge to throw you against a wall and watch your skull splatter against the metal paneling.

He doesn't. Because his mara isn't that uncontrollable, not now anyway. Instead, he frowns at your scowl.

"You'll die if you don't eat."

"Ah, and if I die, you'll lose an asset, right? I'm not stupid, I know how these things work." You sound... almost petulant. Blade does not know how to approach you, or it, or this attitude.

"You'll die. You shouldn't die. You should eat and live."

"Fuck you." You snap at him, fist balling up in the sheets at your side. You've picked your nails short and raw. "Fuck you."

Blade doesn't know what to do.

He pushes the bowl closer to you on the nightstand before departing.

Kafka catches him as he heads to the training rooms (again, because he needs to shatter a few holograms with his bare fists if he wants to feel close to sane in the next few hours.)

"Any luck, lovely?" Kafka's expression is kind. She must already know.

"No."

Kafka sighs, and shakes her head. "I'll take care of it, Bladie. I suppose we’ll have to do things the hard way.”

...

Kafka is the one to bring you breakfast the next morning. Blade does not normally keep track of Kafka's morning routine, because she is insane, but considering it involves you, he's more keen to it. Kafka prepares a light breakfast of garlic and shash rice, and secondarily, a shake of greens and nutrient powder.

(He... he thinks he knows the substance. Recognizes the acrid, must-driven smell of it, and remembers how awful it tastes. Like bile mixed with metal shavings. Who knows where Kafka acquires it from. He has smudged out memories of choking it down when Kafka first pulled him out of a crater, covered in blood and scarred— but not dead. Never. Never, never dead— )

Blade fractiously goes to your room and waits outside your door. Kafka is still inside when he arrives, speaking to you in that sweet, syrupy tone that drips into muscle and bone like molten metal.

"You need to eat, darling."

"Fuck you—"

"The more you fight, the harder this will be. Why don't you be good and let me help?"

"Don’t fucking touch me—!"

There’s the muffled sound of a struggle, which Blade assumes isn’t much of a struggle because Kafka is far stronger than she looks. Blade leans against the wall, next to your door. He can feel vibrations of a fight in the soles of his shoes through the floor. The thump of a body hitting the wall echoes.

Blade hears crying. You’re crying.

"Oh, tears? I’ve hardly done anything."

"You’re fucking monsters. Just let me go—!"

"You know that won't happen. Play nice.”

"Don't—!"

You sob, probably, and there's another sharp sound of flesh on steel. Blade would've flinched if he wasn’t an abomination.

"Let me take care of you, sweetheart. The sooner you give in, the easier this is. This doesn't need to be difficult."

"Get off of me—!"

More struggling. Blade closes his eyes and tries to imagine it. Kafka is ruthless in getting what she wants. She knows how to pry people apart, pick at their inside, and pull strings until they fracture. It is why Elio is such a fan of hers. It is why Blade keeps her close, as she knows the delicate, bowstring dance of keeping his mara in check.

He wonders what Kafka sees in you.

(He wonders what he sees in you. You're nothing like— like— who? Who are you so different from?)

Blade has a headache.

The sounds echoing from your room dissolve into muffled sobs and the occasional sharp cough. A gag. Inhaling and what must be your fist beating against the metallic paneling of the floor. He hears Kafka hush you, over and over. Quietly praising you after each gag and retch.

Blade's not sure how long it goes on before things feel still and quiet.

The sound of a kiss, audible, "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"... F-fuck you.

"Such a filthy mouth. Do you need me to wash your mouth out with soap? I'm happy too."

"Wait, don’t— no—“

Blade realizes his shoulders have hiked up. He forces them to lower. You scream and fight just feet away, really. All that separates you is seven locks.

Kafka seems to be handling things. The sounds continues, and become dull background noise. Shouts and pants fade into his thoughts as they get sap-sticky.

(Someone beloved, something far away. Bitter liquor on each other’s lips. Blade can’t recall the name.)

(A comet with a tail burning yellow. It is cold. A blade, driven into his chest. A blade stabbed into his eye. A blade put sidelong through his skull. A blade splitting his throat. Cold, cold, cold, cold.)

(Do you know cold? Do you know how frostbite turns flesh black? Do you know necrosis? What pain do you know?)

Blade, startlingly, does not want you to know pain. He wants you to eat your meals.

Kafka exits, almost startling him. She does not look surprised to see him hovering. She rearms the locks and glances at him from the corner of her eye.

“Down, loverboy. A scared dog will bite.”

“Do not call me that.”

"Alright, alright,” she laughs and her grin grows sharper. “I’ll be taking care of their meals for the next few days. Listen, grab a medkit, the poor thing needs it. Though, I’ll let them hurt for a while first.”

Kafka walks off, and Blade follows at her heels. There are indentations in Kafka's gloves-- half-moon bite marks of teeth.

He decides he is going to break his own fingers, maybe. He can watch them heal back into place.

It’s meditative.

...

Several days pass with your ‘new routine’. Kafka handles each meal. Blade stays away from your room. The entire wing you’re located in feels nuclear. He stays in the training room. Throws himself at matted walls until his shoulders dislocate, only to pop them back into place to repeat the cycle.

He makes a point to check the kitchen after each of your meal times. There’s always an empty dish, a clean plate. A chunky-looking film left on a glass in the sink. Kafka is diligent, Blade doesn’t doubt this.

The whole thing fills him with unease.

He asks Kafka to wipe his memory, but she denies him. She’s in the cockpit, swiveling in her seat.

“You don’t need that yet, Bladie. Give it some time.”

“But—”

“Discomfort isn’t mara suffocation, dear.”

“You’re patronizing me.”

She sizes him up, sighing, “Listen to me, keep it together. You’re alright. How about this, you can feed your pet starting tomorrow for lunch. Would that make you feel better?”

It would. He’s not sure why.”

“It would.”

Kafka looks pleased with the outcome of the conversation. She tells Blade to get some rest, pats his cheek, which does take the edge off the mara rooting around in his psyche for purchase.

Blade takes a long route through the ship to his chambers. A deliberate path that brings him in front of your door. He doesn’t dare to enter, only listen. It’s late, you could be sleeping given the hour— but Blade can hear you shuffling around. Grumbling to yourself. One of your feet is dragging on the floor as you walk. Blade wonders how it was injured.

He departs after hearing the shifting of your sheets, and the light under your door goes out.

(He feels insane. Insane in a way that isn’t mara-ridden, which is more terrifying. He knows the gnawing beast of Abundance that crawls around inside his skull and bones, he doesn’t know madness that has burrowed itself between his ribs. It feels light, like the carbonation bubbles in the bottled soda back on the Luofu. His palms sweat when he becomes aware of it with each thought of you.)

(Maybe he’ll try tearing out his organs again. That could fix it.)

Blade returns to his room and paces, before stripping and climbing into bed.

It’s only when he’s half-asleep that he realizes he’s hard.

He’s not sure why.

...

Lunch is some takeout. It scalds his hands through the bowl he heaps it into. Braised trelk ribs with scallion and carrot, ladled over a bed of chewy-looking noodles.

"Bladie," Kafka tells him from the cockpit. She glances at him with a curling smile. "Be careful, they're sensitive."

Blade does not know how to be... careful. Not like how Kafka is implying he thinks anyway.

Silver Wolf snorts from her seat, speaking through a bite of noodle, "You’re asking a human-shaped hydrokenia bomb to be 'careful'?"

"Blade's a good boy, I'm sure he'll do great." Kafka's eyes are that spatial, nebula magenta. He feels pleasantly high when she looks at him. "Won’t you?"

"Yes."

Kafka looks pleased, "Listen, take your meal too. Eating with them will get them comfortable."

Silver Wolf raises an eyebrow, "Is that really a good idea?"

"I think so. Blade can handle it if they get testy."

She looks at him with a grin that's collapsed empires and immolated planets. Blade leaves the room with two bowls in his hands.

When he arrives at your cell— room. It's your room. He unlocks the locks methodically and enters without a greeting.

Today, you are not tucked in the corner of your bed. You’re instead perched in the rounded window, gazing at the starscape. Your knees are raised, and your arms are wrapped around yourself. You look small and defeated, eyes darkened and downcast. Blade watches you rub your shoulders.

You look up when he enters. Blade sets the bowl on the ledge next to you, and sets a pair of chopsticks on top, "You will eat."

It's not a command, but a statement of fact.

You scowl, looking so angry. Alive with it. He recognizes vitriol so easily. It's in your eyes and in the way you bare your teeth at him, ready to strike. Maybe you'll bite down on him, into him, until you taste blood. Blade's sure you wouldn't leave a scar— he heals too quickly from the types of flesh wounds to give him a lasting mark.

(There's something enticing about you trying. Blade does not know the floating, filmy part of himself that suggests such a desire.)

You carry Kafka's mark. There are bruises around your throat, the clear shape of hands. There are lumps across your jaw, darkened in color. Scratches of nails over your neck, down to your collarbones. Your eyes are red-rimmed. Your lip is split, barely scabbed over. You're shaking.

You open your mouth, ready to snap. Maybe you'll spit venom— Blade doesn't know your species. You could.

(Blade remembers your expression on different faces from the glitter of your canines. It reminds him— of—? Jingliu was colder. Frigid in her rage. Dan Feng was always so calm with his, Only shattered near the end, like a tide that swelled too high on the shore to swallow the world whole. Your expression is white-hot, like metal pulled fresh from a stoked forge. Desperation and terror make dull teeth sharp. Actions become erratic and desperate.)

(Blade has not remembered so much, so clearly in a long time. He really needs Kafka to wipe his memory again.)

The mara in him writhes. It’s a necrosis, a vitality that has long since sank into his marrow and will not leave. It rolls through him. Blades tips back his head and rolls his shoulders. There's a high to it, followed by an immediate and tumbling withdrawal and dread and clarity—

And it's all interrupted by the little gasp you make. The abrupt jolt you take backward, into the window, closer to the depths of deep space. Your body thumps against the glass.

('Fragile', Kafka had said.)

Your mouth closes, and your bloody lower lip wobbles. Tears glitter on your lash line as you retreat. Maybe, Kafka broke you. She’s good at that.

"Fucking— I-I mean, fine. I’ll fucking eat." You stumble over your words with a sniffle. Your voice is raw and strained. You rub your nose on your sleeve and scramble for the bowl and utensils.

Blade stares as you eat your first bite. Then your second. Followed by your third. You start crying after the fourth, sobbing with the fifth, and hiccupping between mouthfuls. You're eating too fast, occasionally looking at him with an expression he recognizes as terror. He's used to seeing a look like that at the end of his blade. Frozen before draining of blood and death.

He frowns. You should not look that way..

"Slow down," he says, sitting next to you.

You look at him and wipe over your mouth, lips parting, but seem to think better of speaking. You take another bite, chewing slower. Blade picks up his own bowl and eats small, meticulous bites.

(He shared a meal all the time. Shoulder to shoulder with Dan Feng, splitting casks of viridian wine in the moonlight. Food tastes better when someone you... like is near.)

You finish before him, and don't stop crying. If anything, you cry harder. It sounds painful.

Blade pauses his meal, idling. searching. There's something there. A feeling coated in the roots of mara, but... perhaps it's a delicious agony. Not so much a memory, but a want. Something other than— than what and why—

Blade stands. He departs to your bathroom (there are blood stains on the counter) and grabs a cloth towel. He dampens it with water, letting the sink run until it's pleasantly warm.

He sits closer to you when he returns. You flinch away in retreat, leer away as he comes close, hands up—

"Please, don't, what are you—"

"Hold still." Blade grabs your wrist and you wince.

With entirely conscious thought and great effort, he loosens his grip. And... gently, Blade brings the cloth to your face. He dabs around your eyes, then your cheek and nose, and lastly your mouth. you're frozen, wide-eyed, and still shaking.

When he's done, he grabs a blanket from the bed. He wraps it around your shoulders. It feels... somewhat right.

"You should rest." He tells you. "You need it."

Blade thumbs over a swollen round on your jaw. You tremble, eyes wide.

But maybe a little less scared.

"... Are you gonna stay while you finish eating?" You eye his half-full bowl.

"Yes."

"... 'kay... and you're not gonna rough me up like Kafka did?"

"No." He has no plans to.

"... Fine."

You cautiously make your way back to your little bed, sitting at the head of it, and half-slipping under the covers. It's... cute.

(Blade has not thought of anything as cute in several centuries.)

Blade wants to break your legs.

When he finishes, he collects both bowls, and looks around your room. It's sparse, though. There are a few books on the nightstand.

"... Are you bored?"

"Huh?" You ask. You'd been lost in thought, eyes lost. "Oh, I mean. yeah? There's not much to do."

"I'll bring some things. Bear it until then."

"Oh! Okay." You wrap the blanket around your shoulders tighter. "You're... Bladie, right?"

"Just Blade."

"Oh, okay. sorry." You wring your hands. "Thank you, Blade."

The thing in his chest blooms. A monstrous flower, mycelium under acres of land in a network that eats and never dies. Undergrowth that does nothing but rot and grow, grow and rot.

Blade doesn't reply as he leaves the room. He gets halfway to the training wing before he has to pause, withdraw his phone, and send Kafka a frantic text: 'Meet me in the weaponry room.’

He pockets his phone before punching the wall. Clumsy fingers break upon impact, and the indentation of the fist remains in the metal.

#lore writes #blade x reader #blade x you #hsr x reader #hsr x you #tw dark content #tw yandere #blade's pov is so :3c #guy is nuts!! bonkers!!!#(affectionate)#alright gonna go farm for fu xuan eheh ENJOY!!

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