Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kullervo sat on the floor, head bowed and eyes staring into the tiles, picking at the fabric of his clothing. "Hello Kullervo! Sorry, I came a bit late, I needed to pry Gauss away from Garuda." Garuda, how unsurprising she got chewed on by Gauss. Instead of answering with words, he rattles back, a humming calling from the knives embedded into his flesh. It was a haunting sound, like a chorus droning from far away, but had no effect against the Tenno marching up to him. Some weird noises weren't enough to keep Adel from coming closer, or more than half the frames in his care wouldn't be here.

With no shame or hesitation, Kullervo undresses, throwing the armor into a pile. He hears the Operator chuckle and rattles back at him with his knives singing of an empty threat as he feels a hand pat him just above the ass. "Aight, get down and let me get you clean." Cleaning, what a foil to Kullervo. In his prison, he hadn't had any need to wash anything, or the ability to, or the desire, or-

No, spiraling wasn't a good idea. If Kullervo spirals, he won't want to do anything, and if- "What soap?" Soap, think about soap. The bathroom had many soaps, from neutral ones to some that smelled of fruit or some imagined scent. "The usual." It was always the usual. Adel still asked, and it made Kullervo feel mushy on the inside, as if beneath the carapace was nothing more than the soft pulp of fruits. "Let's go then." As Kullervo knelt on the floor again, the shower sprung to life, and water pelted his hard shell, warm and soothing.

Small streaks of dirt, blood, and other things blossomed beneath and slowly crawled toward the drain. "Were you rolling around in filth?" Once again, the knives hummed like tuning forks, and Kullervo let out an airy hiss. "Grineer." The Corpus didn't smell much better on the inside. Blood was blood, but it's become a joke. It had already been a joke when he had joined in, so he had no idea why or how it started.

Soft hands scrubbed over his carapace, a manual task that comforted both. Ordis pressure washing him would skip all this, but if the Operator wanted to do it manually, that was fine. The same hands dealing void blasts that could turn their enemies to a mist of gore were now kneading into his flesh, not attempting to bend the carapace but sparking nice pressure spots. Kullervo really liked the soft application of that same deadly power as it scraped over his jaw, pulling a throaty purr from deep inside his chest.

They curled around his head, dragging over the metal and wiping it clean of blood, sometimes pausing to inspect some scratches. "Grineer got you, huh?" They had, but not enough for it to be significant. The worm they followed was a menacing thing when she wanted to be. Her asking if he was going to start moaning when they tore the knives from his body was uncomfortable. If he was, it wouldn't be because of her or the people she kept. Any of his pleasures were firmly reserved for the Operator or his warframes.

Once again, Kullervo hummed, this time without his blades. "Not in the mood to speak?" No, he really wasn't. Adel didn't ask and quickly dumped a fat glob of soap on the Warframes head, scrubbing it over the carapace slowly. Lavender, he liked it. Remembered Adel walking into his temporary room and giving him a pillow drenched in the scent. It was calming, even if Kullervo had bit through the pillow and eaten the insides in a fit of wild loathing.

Some of the soap trickled down, curling around and over the knives, trying to melt into the wounds. Kullervo supposes they wouldn't even count as wounds. Their insides were coated with a thinner sheet of carapace, like scars. After the head was sufficiently soaped up, it was up to deal with the chest. "Tell me if you want me to stop." Once again, it was something that the Operator always said. "Yes." It felt necessary to verbally respond instead of only acknowledging it with a hum.

With care, those hands wandered lower towards the chest, avoiding the knives. It was weird, feeling the mild energy interact with the waves blazing out on their own, twirling around each other. Kullervo liked the taste, twirling it around in his mouth, reaching towards his blades to yank them out and allow the foreign taste to slip deeper. A hand batted away his gently, prying away fingers from the hilt. "Be careful, please."

The Operator stroked over his neck, replacing Kullervo's hand with his own. Adel's mint energy seeped inside, mingling and feeling like comfortable sparks. "Let me pull them out, Kullervo." In a show of obedience, he relaxed, tilting his head back to expose the fine metal of his throat. "Oh, my little pincushion!" He was no pincushion, but Adel got away with far more than should be allowed anyway. Slowly, the first knives were pulled out, their instinctual drive to embed themselves back into his flesh suppressed by the burn of his Operator's energy.

They slowly found themselves on the floor, each blade carefully put down and kept out of the way. "Again, a reminder to tell me if it hurts..." The fingers gently dipped into the old wounds. Instead of pain, it felt almost comfortable, like scratching an itch that had been complaining for hours. Kullervo purred and rattled, allowing muscles to go lax as fingers worked through his flesh slowly, kneading out old pain.

Hands abandoned his chest to pepper attention to the flesh of the warframes neck, tracing over the living metal and scratching along it. "Awww! Purring? For me?" Kullervo grabbed one of the knives and immediately heard the Operator start laughing.