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1
The first time he feels her touch, her hand is on his cheek, warm and gentle compared to the iron arms restraining him.
“Want to see how the undying die?” she says, after she compels him to listen.
He agrees to go with her, but she has to alter his mental state first so he’ll stop trying to kill her. It’s anaesthetizing, so much so that when Sam unhands him he just stands there, unmoving, unknowing. Kafka takes his hand in hers and tows him along, presumably back to their ship.
His world narrows to only her, his focus catching on the texture of her hands. Soft, but calloused in places like his own. She shot him on sight, but apparently, the sword at her side is not just for show. There are other rough areas, too, the tips of her left fingers.
“Do you play an instrument?” he asks. He’s not sure why he cares.
“Aren’t you observant,” Kafka says. “Violin. Do you like music, Bladie?”
He shrugs.
“Well, I’ll play for you sometime anyway,” she says.
2
He quickly learns that Kafka is what Sam calls ‘touchy-feely.’ As his handler, she rarely leaves him alone, and when they’re together, it’s clear that she considers personal space optional. She brushes his hair from his face when his bangs get too shaggy, and falls asleep on him during long flights, and links her arm in his when she takes him shopping. They fall into step with each other more and more easily after every mission, which makes their missions more and more successful.
Her proximity confuses him. It’s not that she doesn’t treat the others the same way—Sam is neither soft nor squishy, but the rare times Firefly leaves the suit, Kafka treats her like she’s her favourite doll, and Firefly seems to love it. Even Elio, on occasion, leans in when Kafka insubordinately scratches him behind the ears. But the others aren’t like Blade. They don’t have the past he does, don’t carry the same sins. He knows Kafka isn’t afraid of him, but—
“Doesn’t it bother you?” he asks one day. She saw him flexing his left hand in pain and insisted on massaging it. “Touching me, when you know what I’ve done?”
She rolls her eyes. “You say that like I’m some kind of saint, Bladie. All of us have done things we regret—though, actually, I regret a lot fewer of them than you do. And I won’t regret this, either, so don’t worry so much about it, okay?”
Blade lets her win. It’s not worth the argument.
Plus, his hand feels better.
3
“Shit. Keep your eyes open,” Kafka says. But it’s getting dark, and he’s tired, and the ground beneath him is sticky with blood…
“Bladie!” Kafka snaps. “Don’t pass out on me!”
“Why?” It doesn’t matter; it’s not like he won’t come back. His leg hurts like hell, and it would hurt a lot less without Kafka digging around in the wound.
“With this much blood loss, resurrection could take a while,” she says, “and we can’t hang around here all day. Plus, I’m not actually the biggest fan of watching you die, so wake up for me, alright?”
He groans. If his death is going to make her upset, he supposes he can try to stay alive. Ignoring the pain, he pushes himself up on his elbows, blinking away the unconsciousness. His leg has stopped squirting blood. Kafka appears to be holding his artery closed with her fingers.
“Put pressure on this so I can make a tourniquet,” she says. He does as he’s told while she rips the sleeves from her shirt and ties them together. By the time she gets the tourniquet in place, it only takes a few more minutes for the wound to knit itself shut. She pulls him to his feet when he’s able to walk, and he uses his phone to send their ship their location.
Her arms are bloody up to her elbows. He takes off his jacket. “Here,” he says, wiping them as clean as he can.
4
Before joining the Stellaron Hunters, he had been away from civilization for long enough that it took him a while to realize that his new companions were not normal people. Their new recruit, Silver Wolf, however, is confusing on a whole new level. He barely understands a third of what she says, and she gets increasingly frustrated with him when he doesn’t follow her winding trains of thought. But as irritated as she gets with him, it’s nothing like how she reacts to Kafka.
Kafka treats her the same as everyone else, kind and solicitous, but for some reason, Silver Wolf hates it. Sam explains it to Blade one night after the two of them fight. “Silver Wolf thinks Kafka is treating her like a child, which pushes her buttons,” he says, “and Kafka has a bad habit of pushing buttons just to see what they do.”
“Will you stop pawing at me?” Silver Wolf snaps when Kafka tries to touch her hair while she’s playing on her phone. “It’s so annoying!”
“Fine!” Kafka storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Blade rarely sees her temper flare—she’s rarely mad at him—but it’s not pleasant. She doesn’t return to the common room for the rest of the night.
Later, he’s surprised to find her in his bedroom instead of her own. “Mind if I stay here for a while?” she asks. “You make me less grumpy.”
“Sure.” He sits next to her on the bed, trying to think of something reassuring to say. “You’ll get used to each other eventually,” he tells her. “She’s been alone for a long time. She’s probably not used to being around people.”
“So were you, though, and you never minded me touching you. Or did you? I guess I never asked.”
“I didn’t,” Blade says.
Kafka turns toward him, leaning into his shoulder. She puts a hand on his chest. “And what about now?”
He tells the truth. “It doesn’t bother me.”
This close, it’s easy to see her expression change. Her brow creases; her nostrils flare. She’s annoyed, but he doesn’t know why. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” she says, the lie audible. “Not at all. I’m going now, though. Goodnight, Bladie.”
She heads for the door, and he doesn’t call her back. Her decision sounded final.
5
Kafka and Silver Wolf work out their differences; Blade thinks Sam probably talked to both of them. They’re thick as thieves now, Kafka having finally learned what a boundary is. She doesn’t touch Silver Wolf more than is necessary.
The problem is that she also stops touching Blade.
Gone are her hands on him, her hip bumping against his. She apologizes when she has to squeeze past him in a doorway, which is just bizarre—Kafka never apologizes for anything.
Blade knows it was something he said that night, but he doesn’t understand what. He’s also too much of a coward to ask Kafka directly. He takes his problems to Sam instead.
“Kafka doesn’t touch me anymore,” he says.
Sam’s face is impassive, but Blade can feel Firefly’s judgement through the suit. “Okay? Did you tell her not to?”
“No. I specifically said it doesn’t bother me.”
“What exactly did you say?”
Blade repeats their conversation. Sam sighs, and Firefly pops off the helmet to stare at him.
“Blade. Do you really not understand?”
He shakes his head.
Anyone else would call him dense, but Firefly is nicer than most people. “I think Kafka was hoping you’d say something a little stronger than ‘it doesn’t bother me,’” she explains. “You’re different than Silver Wolf and Elio and I are. You’re special to her. Do you understand?”
Blade thinks he does, but— “Special in what way?”
She puts the helmet back on. “That you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
He appreciates that that’s all he’s going to get out of her. He thanks her and heads back to his room to think.
He supposes he could have figured this out sooner. Kafka is always with him, making plays for his attention. It used to be because he needed to be handled, but he needs a lot less handling these days, and she’s still always by his side. He could have thought about why that was, but—
Maybe he was too busy enjoying it.
It would be a horrible idea to give her what she wants—what they both want. It’s a trainwreck waiting to happen. But Kafka has long made it clear that everyone on this ship is a disaster. He decides to do what he usually does: let her decide for him.
He knocks on her door. “Hey, Bladie,” she says when he enters. He doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of her, taking her hand and lifting her out of her chair. “What’s going on?”
“It doesn’t just not bother me,” he says. “You touching me. I like it, as much as I can like anything.”
“That’s not a ringing endorsement,” she says, “but from you, it’s practically a confession.”
His insides twist. He moves her hand to his face, laying it over his cheek, just like the first time. “Well?”
She smiles. “Feel free to stab me if you want me to stop,” she says and kisses him.
He doesn’t stab anybody. He wraps his hands around her waist and holds her, then slips one into her hair. When they break apart, her hair tie comes off on his thumb,
“You know,” he says, “for someone who’s always playing with other people’s hair, yours is constantly about to fall out of its ponytail.”
That makes her laugh. “If it annoys you, I can teach you to fix it for me,” she says. “I’d love that.”
+1
He wakes before Kafka, which is unusual not because she sleeps overly late, but because he often doesn’t sleep at all. It’s early in the morning; the lights that keep them on a day-night schedule are still dim. He shifts, unsticking the piece of Kafka’s hair that’s stuck to his lower lip.
Unfortunately, the movement wakes her up. “Mm, what time is it?” she asks.
Blade glances at the clock. Their alarm will go off in ten minutes, but they don’t have any big plans today. He turns it off and pulls her closer.
“Early,” he says. “Go back to sleep.”