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There’s not much to it, really, probably far less than there should be for a decision as monumental as this. In the end, a glimpse is all it takes to send him into a delirious spiral.
The idea lodges itself in Blade’s mind when he sees Dan Feng with Bailu after the ordeal with the Arbor, right before the Hunters are set to leave and while Blade is idly waiting for Kafka to finish her business.
The girl clings to Dan Feng’s sleeves in broad daylight, eyes pleading, looking for support in what seems like an inane thing, escaping from her caretakers of all things – but Dan Feng, though guarded and uncomfortable, gives that support even as he insists on them having no connection to each other either now or in the past. He’s not being very convincing in his displeasure too, as Bailu just happily nods along to his words without taking them to heart, and he lets her hold onto him and hide behind his back when others pass by, lips curling in amusement when the girl isn’t looking.
There’s one small thing that came back to Blade with time, a rarity, one that he’s not sure is even a memory at all and not a delusion – still, it only leaves a bitter aftertaste of disdain. Dan Feng has seemingly always had a weak spot for all things sweet and in distress, and Bailu is what most would call a sweet child, evidenced by how both the Trailblazer and the pink-haired companion of theirs coo at her as she huffs and puffs and asks them to stop.
Bailu.
A being part Dan Feng’s blood, mixed with a strand of Baiheng’s hair caught after the explosion, and Shuhu’s flesh. Bailu might be considered Dan Feng’s child on a technicality – his and maybe even that person’s that Blade no longer is.
That person’s heart blood is in her too, poured into Bailu’s vessel to give her a chance at being the High Elder Vidyadhara worshipped in Dan Feng’s stead.
But the heart already wasn’t his then, exchanged for the dragon one from Dan Feng’s chest not long before the grave sin they committed when attempting resurrection, and so she isn’t his, of that Blade is sure. There’s undeniably Dan Feng in there – Vidyadhara features and all – and, were one to remove those, it’s all Baiheng of the old.
All that survived in the fiery flames of his death and rebirth is the mark on the junction of Blade’s neck, the one that kept coming back even as Jingliu slashed at it time after time, implacable in her ruthlessness as she sliced through his throat too for good measure to silence the screams. It kept coming back, and so he earned it, earned like he hadn’t had anything else in his life before that point, which in turn makes Dan Feng irrevocably his.
Will this Dan Feng even remember it – his severed connection with Permanence, his inability to be reborn and thus absolved of all sin, a right of all Vidyadhara? Does he realise another curse of his people might have been lifted, that of having the urge to have an offspring of their own blood, like every species bestowed a secondary gender, but never being afforded the possibility of one?
He might not – but Blade does. He didn’t earn it, that splatter of flesh and blood running down his thighs as Jingliu’s sword pierced through that person's hands and then his stomach for the first time after he was exiled, did that with the very sword he had forged for her. He earned his mark with each death, but those clots of blood sired in the last frantic weeks Dan Feng had with him after he gave up his heart and before they were torn apart were gone too fast, a proof that he didn't earn them–
Still, through the daze of those early, excruciating days of being stabbed over and over and over again, he remembers how he scratched at his thighs first and pressed a palm between his legs as if trying to keep it all inside.
It might've come and gone unnoticed, lost in the seemingly endless sea of pain and blood… But Jingliu bent over him after plunging the sword right into his navel, ready to cackle as she noticed the growing wet patch on the light grey of his trousers, and froze up, recognition dawning before she erupted in gleeful laughter. Serves them right, she said, a life for a desecrated life.
That person didn’t earn it – but Blade is going to, and the number of things he's earned in this undeath will grow to two, and he'll have both of them at his fingertips.
Dan Feng tried to have his pie and eat it when he handed his heart over and went to resurrect Baiheng almost immediately after. He didn’t even stay to see his success. Well, Blade would like to think he’s learned something from their mistakes – he is going to grab it all and never let it go.
Hidden in the shadow of an alleyway, his eyes trail behind Dan Feng and his crew as they disappear behind the curve of a bridge; only then does he snap out of his daze and turn around to leave, newfound, blind conviction stirring in the depths of his heart.
The first thing he does upon returning to the Stellaron Hunters’ ship is march into the room serving as their infirmary and grab a scalpel to cut out the suppressant implant.
Maybe, just maybe, it would've been better to pause for a moment and think things through – even through the fog addling his judgment at most times, he knows it might not be his brightest idea. It might not even be in the middle of that list, and he would have been the first one to judge such recklessness were he not the one falling victim to his baser instincts right now. The way his mind switched from I want us to die together and die at each other’s hands to I want him mine and on an unbreakable leash in less than a week feels like whiplash, sends Blade reeling with the strength of the longing rending his heart.
There's no one at the doors waiting to stop him, no Sam's robotically flat voice trying to talk reason into him, no Silver Wolf's mocking concern, no Kafka to snap him out of it with deceptively gentle hands and genuine worry, and no Elio climbing out of wherever he usually sleeps his days away to bluntly tell him he's straying from the big plan. They would've been there, at least one of them, if his thoughts truly didn't make at least an ounce of sense.
Silent for several beats, mind blank or maybe waiting for something, anything, to happen, he shrugs the jacket off and plunges the scalpel into the back of his upper arm.
The implant is a new one – Silver Wolf changed it for him only a couple of months ago, and getting used to those is always a pain and a half, but he doesn’t feel even a shadow of regret now that it serves no purpose.
Long ago, he used to opt for over-the-skin pods, the ones easier to apply and take off himself. They quickly proved to be ineffective in a fight, what with having to be switched out every couple of weeks and getting detached too easily, posing too much of a risk if his hormones, volatile with all the changes mara put his body through and whatever Jingliu was doing to him afterwards, were to go out of control. They went out of control – he went through several heats under Jingliu’s “tutelage” with nothing but his hands and her malicious stare as she enjoyed seeing him writhe, denying him suppressants for no other reason than to teach him a lesson. Blade got the first suppressants he could once she let him go, the next – and the last – heat he went through happening when he lost the pod after a fight and didn’t have time to get a spare. That one was dulled down by an emergency shot, made marginally better by the comfort of his own bed and the team dropping in to make sure he ate from time to time, no questions asked.
He switched to an implant the day he left his room after that one and hasn’t had another heat ever since.
And yet back then, the removal process only left a tiny bruise from a needle and sticky adhesive residue. Now, it’s a jagged line where his hands shook too much to keep the scalpel straight.
Wincing, he digs his fingers into the opening, plucking the implant out on the second attempt; the metal glistens red with blood. That’s how Kafka finds him – sitting on a gurney with a bloody chip in his hand and a slowly closing but still sluggishly bleeding wound on the upper arm.
The way she looks at him, judgmental but not worried in the slightest, quietens the voices starting to clamour in his head; when she sits down on his other side, the one clean of blood, he leans his head on her shoulder out of habit and closes his eyes, waiting for her to speak.
Kafka smells clean, a mixture of soap and woodsy perfume she favours, and though it's too early for him to start sensing pheromones again, he feels safe knowing there won't ever be anything else he can feel on her. She's not an alpha in nature, after all – her people have no second gender at all; still, having grown up in a society so heavily governed by them, Blade can't help but notice how she carries the hallmarks of an alpha all the same.
And look where letting alphas have any sort of control over him led Blade to.
Though Kafka reminds him of an alpha at times, he's still grateful for her presence – or maybe despite that. Even without any of that mind-control schtick she has going on, Kafka has an uncanny ability to know what's going on in his head, and so far has had the highest success rate of helping him figure things out without it literally blowing up in their faces.
Kafka knows a lot, but she doesn’t know everything, so when her hand falls on the sore shoulder, first to move his hair away and then to rub soothing circles into it, he can't help but purse his lips and hope she doesn't ask useless questions.
Not that his hopes ever come true, of course.
When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet. "Mind sharing why you did that?”
It does sound like a genuine question, even to his ears, but Blade still goes on a hunch with his reply – tone is not much of an indicator when it comes to Kafka, and she’s being too gentle for simply thinking he’s falling into one of his slumps again.
And so instead of answering, he asks, "Elio didn't tell you anything?”
"He did,” she admits, no pause at all. "But only as a warning not to stop you. Said there's no future where he can see a different outcome and all that. I want to know why you did that just now, though, and not what Elio believes is going to happen.”
Blade huffs but chooses to stay silent, instead staring down at the implant still held between his fingers. It mockingly glints back at him when Kafka sighs and lightly swats him on the back of the head before smoothing down the hair on his nape with a tender caress.
“I already know you’re going to go through with whatever you concocted in that pretty little head of yours, Bladie.” She tips his head up to force eye contact, and he can’t look away when she asks, “Will it all be worth it for you, in the end? Will he be worth whatever you’re thinking of putting yourself through?”
It takes him a while to sift through his thoughts before replying, but her piercing eyes on him seem to help.
Turns out he doesn’t need Dan Feng, but does he want him?
“Yes.”
“Well then, do your worst and come back. The team would be terribly merry without your sulking face.”
Kafka takes a long breath and lets his chin go, pressing her palm to his eyes until they slip shut.
Cutting the implant out is the easy part, unlike the following months when he has to plan, bribe the right people, get the right intel, choose the right time. All those things shouldn’t feel too different from what he has been doing for years already, chasing Dan Feng around the universe to try and get justice, but they somehow do. There’s a different sort of weight on his shoulders – it doesn’t press him down into the ground with the desire to finally turn into a pile of ashes, but pushes him forward instead, a yearning he can’t quite put into words no matter how hard he tries. It’s what keeps him up at night, too, an incomprehensible swirl of emotion buzzing in his head in a dozen voices he can’t stifle.
A doctor on one of the planets Dan Feng visited with the Express sold him the man’s medical record from Dan Feng's brief visit there, but who’s to say that it’s still true? Is Dan Feng still taking that same medication from a couple of years ago? Those, not made for bonded alphas, would be useless if he were to face Blade in heat, but what if he’s switched to something stronger? What if the bond is not even there anymore, and Blade is the only one still tied to him, the only one who fought for it?
He gets hold of scent enhancers and rut inducers not long after, starts taking the former every day, and stashes a syringe of the latter in his jacket’s most accessible coat. A shudder runs through him each time his fingers accidentally brush the plastic casing. It feels good, knowing how much power that little thing grants him. Above all, Dan Feng hated the loss of control – he did, too, once upon a time.
There’s little Blade can control now, and, out of everything he's lived through, losing himself to the mindlessness of heat seems like nothing at all.
When the time finally comes, it’s almost an out-of-body experience – Blade feels like he’s dreaming, high on adrenaline, drugs and beginnings of his heat, feet light as he throws himself chest first at the spear rushing towards his stomach, ducking so that it pierces his lung instead, painful but not fatal. He needs it to be intact for what’s to follow if he calculated it all just right.
Even if mara will completely treat the lung in mere hours, he needs to make every moment from now on count.
A needle sinks into Dan Feng’s shoulder. Blade presses on the plunger at the same time as his blood sprays on Dan Feng’s face, covering his cheeks in crimson freckles, and the man looks too stunned by Blade’s lack of fight to pay much attention to the small syringe falling on the ground seconds after.
A thin stream of red rolls down the shaft of the spear to pool between Dan Feng’s fingers where they clutch at the wood, growing stronger by the second, catching Blade’s attention; he watches it, transfixed. How much of his blood is already soaked into it, left deep inside to fester and rot forever despite all the cleaning and polishing? He doesn’t care anymore. There will be no more until he finds a way to make his death a forever and not a temporary inconvenience; he likes to think that his death would be by Dan Feng’s hand, just as Dan Feng’s would be by his.
Thus, it’s the last time until the day comes. He savours it, reaches one shaking hand out to clasp over Dan Feng’s cold, unyielding one, and watches with sick satisfaction how those teal eyes widen in shock and confusion as Blade pulls on them and impales himself further, breaths leaving his lungs in wheezing bursts, weakening with every millimetre of the spear going deeper inside his body.
It only serves to stoke the flames of the fever he’s felt since last night, tinting the edges of his vision in both crimson heat and gold delirium.
Dan Feng scrabbles at Blade’s fingers clasped over his on the spear, and then at his shoulders to try and push him further away, fights back and looks ready to run, stench of fear rapidly pumping out of him, mixing with the telltale beginnings of his rut, the smell he has been deprived of for years, decades –
The nails of Blade's other hand catch on the edges of the bandage he's hastily slapped onto his neck hours ago, now nearly soaked through and slightly oily; next he’s hit with the wave of dizziness at the strength of his own pheromones, usually so familiar he never notices them unless pointed out, even off suppressants. His leg gives out, chest sliding forward with a sick squelch and nauseating crunch of a broken rib grinding on metal.
He spits up blood as he chokes on it, droplets landing on Dan Feng’s pale brow.
But the pheromones must be doing something – Dan Feng’s pupils go impossibly wide, the black of them overtaking whatever teal was left there earlier.
“Wh-what the hell are you doing?” he spits out, accusing, terrified, mind still fighting his body in an unwinnable battle. ”What did you give me?”
But Blade knows he doesn’t have to answer. Words won’t make this easier, words won’t make his plan come to fruition, they won’t bring Dan Feng back to him – time will, and so he waits, vision blurring, for Dan Feng’s fight with his instincts to go up in flames.
He doesn’t have to wait for long, too, the drugs and the onslaught of omega pheromones doing their job. Even with all of his memories seemingly forgotten and past attachments forsaken, Dan Feng yanks Blade forward soon after, a dazed look on his face as he does so. Disregarding both the gush of blood splashing on his white coat and the pained, wet cough barely making it past Blade’s lips, he steps closer to smash his face into the underside of the omega’s jaw, not at all gently nosing at it under his ear. Dizzy and pale, Blade feels fangs scraping at sensitive skin irritated by adhesive, sharp enough to draw even more blood from him at the slightest pressure, and – despite growing numbness, despite darkness creeping at the edges of his vision and scorching fire in his chest – grins wide and triumphant as he turns his head to press his lips to that short hair.
It should be enough to make Dan Feng’s rut inevitable – he feels it starting in full, the scent of cedar cutting through the metallic taste of blood and washing over him, making his body tremble and then go lax with the promise of pleasure and safety he hasn’t felt since waking up undead.
No other scent has done it for him since he’s been bitten, and the silvery scar on the junction of his neck and shoulder set ablaze after each rejection and each failed death. He writhed in pain and burned from the inside, willingly fell into Kafka’s tender, soft hold, and her callused fingers carded through his hair as he hid his face in her stomach and still felt no relief.
Dan Feng’s hands are the last place he considers safe, and yet he, brain fever-addled and wired to yearn for his mate at his most primal, is pathetic enough to melt into Dan Feng’s form the moment the cedar of his scent hits his nose.
This man hasn’t been tender or soft with him for even a single moment, and yet the ghost of him from the fragmented memories lives deep enough in Blade’s bones that his eyes sting in something other than pain.
He forces his hand to come up to cup Dan Feng’s nape, fingers smearing pheromones onto the alpha’s glands, claiming him in any way he can.
“That’s it,” the words come out as raspy breaths, barely there as he feels the lung deflate despite regeneration trying to kick in as the blade of the spear slices through more muscles of his back. His hands fall away from Dan Feng when he loses the strength to keep them in place, and so he weakly rubs his cheek on the alpha’s temple. “You won’t leave me alone again now, won’t you?”
“I–I think…I–”
Whatever he thinks gets lost in another crash of pheromones hitting his nose. Serpentine fangs extend as Dan Feng’s breath stutters, as he greedily mouths at the pheromone-slick skin, breaking through it with the ease of a needle sliding into fabric. Those jaws clamp down on his throat, and blood pulses out with the beat of his heart when Dan Feng withdraws only to bite him again, lower this time, almost at the junction where his old mark sits. He grabs at Blade’s chin with slender fingers as he does so and yanks it up, completely exposing the neck.
Some of the blood must be getting into his alpha’s eyes – his lashes flutter against Blade’s skin.
This new bite is different; lightheaded enough from the pierced lung and high out of his mind on the ceaseless, incessant desire to be consumed that is fueled by Dan Feng injecting his pheromones, he notes the site of the bite only after Dan Feng swallows for the third or fourth time.
A vein.
The last thing Blade remembers before his consciousness fades out is how his own blood glints sick crimson on black under the fluorescent lights of the hallway.
He’s burning up, he’s being touched, there’s a heavy weight on top of him that he feels too weak to fight against–
Blade comes up on the tiled floor in a tacky pool of his own blood, cheek smushed into the dirty grey surface.
Some time has surely passed – his chest doesn’t feel like a mess of flesh and bones anymore, just tender, but he barely manages to note that they are no longer in the hallway when he’s flipped none too gently, back slamming into the hard surface and sending him into a coughing fit that won’t subside.
And Blade tries to get it under control, desperately, as he scrambles to hold onto at least one thought, but all of them slip through his fingers like smoke. He must’ve died again. The strong, ever-present scent doesn’t help either, wrapping around him like a suffocating fog. The smell of an old temple in a rainy forest, deep cedarwood and cypress mixed with tender orange blossom, seeps into his consciousness and envelopes him, comforting and enticing in the same breath, leaving his mind blurrier than before.
Amidst the coughing and the struggling, Dan Feng notices that he woke up, but just moves closer and hooks a hand under his knee to rake it up higher, silent except for heavy breathing. Fingers pump in and out of him, long and thin and not enough, and a thumb digs into the crease of his thigh, leaving a crescent mark.
He needs more, and so he tries to ask, but what leaves Blade’s mouth resembles no words – he doesn’t know what to say except for pleas and begging. His tongue feels leaden, and his lips don’t move to form those words, something stopping him each time. Each time he tries and fails, and every attempt comes out as a shivery, desperate moan, perhaps more telling than words could ever be.
Though hazily, he knows he planned this… But in that moment, drowning in miserable, painful humiliation, angry and aching and empty, he barely remembers why.
Still, Dan Feng doesn’t say a word too – just presses him further into the floor as the alpha’s pheromones permeating the room make it nigh impossible for him to resist.
It's an emotional rollercoaster. Blade feels his back arch off the floor when the man’s fingertips drag along his insides; he writhes, barely held down by Dan Feng’s weight on his leg, nails scraping along the floor in a futile effort to find purchase. Burning, that’s what this is like. He’s being set on fire, and Dan Feng is, if not the lighter, then the accelerant, stroking the flames until he’s incandescent with it.
A wanton moan escapes him, and the hand on the underside of his thigh squeezes harder, firm and unyielding despite how delicate it looks on top of a mess of muscle and scars. It spreads his legs wider and wider as Dan Feng’s fingers slide even deeper into him, three and then four, squelching with every thrust as more and more slick trickles out and seeps into the fabric under until it’s soaking wet, and Blade still bucks his hips and chases them, pain and pleasure making his eyes water.
Oh, he’s forgotten how it felt like, lifetimes ago, when that person was still young, happy, and alive. What he was, how ecstatic, how dizzy he felt when Dan Feng of the old held his hand in his own like it was his lifeline, how he kissed the very tips of that person’s fingers in reverence he’s only seen directed at Aeons and never at himself, and pulled that person to their bed to take him apart and make him whole again by the end of the night.
Blade is no longer that person; he’s seen only glimpses of him – and Dan Feng doesn’t seem to see him in Blade either. There’s no ardent love in the warmth of his palms now, no adoration when he pulls his fingers out to smear hot, viscous slick over Blade’s outer lips and cock, and yet it makes him jolt and gasp all the same as he gets overwhelmed by the sensation, by the gaping emptiness starting to eat him alive. The alpha seems distant even as his serpentine pupils trace Blade’s hand as it flies up to press to his chest, not to check on the wound, pink with fresh skin and still raw, but in an attempt to quieten his heart threatening to beat out of it.
Whatever breath has managed to fill his tender lungs gets punched out as more of his slick gets worked back into him, and long, bony fingers plunge even deeper inside, rough and borderline invasive. And yet…
And yet, the one in front of him is undoubtedly closer to the Dan Feng of those honey-sweet memories, at least in appearance. Now he traces those pointed ears, fingers briefly catching on the gold earring, before he guides them back to tangle in long pitch-black strands of Dan Feng's true form, still a bit too short and boyish for his liking, but infinitely better than the oblivious, empty caricature of the man he loves that they call Dan Heng. Blade doesn’t even have memories of seeing his mate at that age, never could’ve, being born long after youthful fullness of his face gave way to sharp jaw and cheekbones, and getting to see a thing he never got to tugs at something in his heart.
The lifetime they lived is still somewhere there, maybe damaged and broken like his own memories are, but there – he's seen it on the Luofu in brief glimpses of recognition flashing through Dan Feng's eyes. He sees it now, too, as the alpha leans into his touch without even noticing, the scent of cedarwood thick and only growing more so as Blade scrapes at his nape with blunt nails, looking for more traces of what had been.
And there he finds them not even a moment later – thin, curved lines of raised scars that even now would line up with the shape of his own teeth. A light caress makes hairs on the back of Dan Feng's neck stand up, and a firmer press elicits a groan that makes Blade's blood sing with elation, makes Dan Feng look right at him, eyes suddenly focused and sharp. Blade’s hand stills for a long moment even as the rest of his body keeps chasing the other’s touch. There's no way he can tear his eyes away from Dan Feng when the man is finally looking right at him.
He wants to bite until he draws blood, until Dan Feng’s neck is as much of a bruised mess as his own, or more, maybe more, he wants it to be black and purple and undeniably claimed.
After all, this man is his – Dan Heng, that husk, had no visible mark to prove their connection, the promise to be each other’s forever, the alpha having deluded himself so thoroughly that he ended up forgetting who – and whose – he truly is. No one stopped to question him.
Except for Blade.
He laughs, voice still wheezy despite mara having healed the worst of his injuries. The memories, the desire… They make him feel crazy all over again, and he calls, “Husband,” trailing fingers down Dan Feng’s spine as the man’s hips, still clothed, stutter against his bared thighs. That’s what he craves, the outline of his lengths felt through the thick fabric of Dan Feng’s pants. Wet fabric drags along his cunt and they both moan at the touch, Blade arching up to brush his lips against the alpha’s in a gesture that would’ve been almost tender were it anyone else. He manages to catch a taste of salt, metallic blood, and the subtle sourness of his own slick – he ate him out when he was unconscious, why was he unconscious for that, how could he miss it – before Dan Feng abruptly turns his head to the side and they skate across his cheek instead. Frustration wells in his chest; not the one to be spurned, Blade laves his tongue over his ear, breathing right into it, and latches onto Dan Feng’s earlobe, teeth sinking deep.
Goosebumps erupt all over the man’s back – he feels them where his palm is pressed between Dan Feng’s shoulder blades, and his hips stutter again, more insistently this time, driving them both insane. The hand on Blade’s thigh grips hard enough to hurt, and he rakes his nails into the alpha’s back in retaliation.
He touches his lips to that pointed ear again, gentle this time, voice coaxing and as soft as Blade can make it, even if all he wants is to be mean. “Won’t you give it to me now, husband?”
“Shut up,” hisses Dan Feng, and yet his eyes gleam with hunger and his fingers curl inside, forcing another moan out of Blade, making his toes curl. “Shut. Up.”
Shutting up is the last thing he wants to do – there’s so much he has to say and never enough time or desire to put it into actual words – but he will if it gives him what he needs.
And oh, how he needs more.
Blade can’t help but press into the touch, to arch. It feels like torture. He needs Dan Feng upon him and in him, ruining him, sullying him, tainting him. He needs Dan Feng with him, forever, inseparably by his side in both life and death, and it’s this hunger that led him to today, back scraping on hard floor as the man who once devotedly promised an eternity together refuses to just put his dick in him .
The body on top of him shifts, pressing him further into the floor, Dan Feng’s shafts a hot line against his exposed thigh, and when he strains his neck to look at it, there’s a distinct wet patch on the fabric of Dan Feng’s pants. There’s no denying the satisfaction it brings – he does have as much power over Dan Feng as the alpha has over him, maybe even more so despite the heat-induced weakness permeating his bones. The current Dan Feng would’ve never agreed to put his hands on Blade otherwise. He won't let him leave before he gets what he needs for his plan to succeed, what he's owed , truly.
A growl rips out of Blade’s chest as the ache in his flesh throbs, empty even with four fingers in him, insides on fire and dripping slick all over them and the floor. The anger fuels him, gives a sudden surge of strength – he kicks the leg held down by Dan Feng out to wrap it around the alpha's waist, nose scrunching as it jostles the fingers lodged inside him.
His dick aches, untouched, and his cunt is on fire with need, so wet Dan Feng’s fingers even barely register at this point, and Dan Feng still does nothing .
“Hurry up, ” annoyed, Blade slams the heel of his foot somewhere into the man’s tailbone, causing him to flinch and almost lose balance, hurriedly pulling his fingers out of Blade to use both hands to catch himself.
Interesting. So he doesn't want to hurt him on some level, maybe, probably – at least now, when he’s exposed, pliable and willing, unlike however many hours ago when Dan Feng had absolutely no qualms about running him through with a fucking spear.
It’s something he can use to his advantage, he thinks in a moment of furious clarity once Dan Feng’s fingers slip out of him, and lunges forward, slamming the man back-first into the floor. It's not that hard, all things considered – Blade is taller and heavier, almost pure muscle as opposed to the other’s lean build. Dan Feng’s head bangs onto the edge of a crate, and it’s the first time Blade has a chance to take in something other than the floor and the alpha's face. He was dragged into a storage room of some sort, apparently, not even afforded the dignity of a bed – though, to be fair, there were nothing but storage rooms around where they fought.
The distraction doesn't last long; Dan Feng’s angry pheromones hit his nose barely a second later, muddling his thoughts with the promise of violence and pleasure. Blade bares his teeth in response, using his bigger body weight to keep Dan Feng down. Adrenaline drives him to grab the man’s wrists and bash them into the ground.
Dan Feng is still silent except for ragged breathing and an occasional growl. He strains against the hold, sure, and bucks his hips in an attempt to throw him off, clothed groin rubbing against Blade’s ass and making them both moan.
Blade wants to fuck him. Wants to kill him. Wants to do his absolute worst.
He uses one hand to press on the hinges of Dan Feng’s jaw to force it open, laps at his lips, pushes his tongue deep inside Dan Feng’s mouth until he chokes, soft palate convulsing. He gags and fights harder, tries to throw Blade off again, and the omega just bears down and grinds his cunt on the rough soaked through fabric in an attempt to relieve the mounting ache. It’s not enough.
Sharp fangs slice through his lower lip, leaving a deep gash that stings from alpha venom; Blade’s blood drips all over his chin as he pulls away to probe at it with his tongue.
It will look ugly for all of five minutes before it completely fades away, and yet he wants every tangible mark to stay.
“You choose interesting times to be cruel or gentle, A-Feng,” he murmurs, distracted as his hand works on opening Dan Feng’s pants. His fingers shake, and, patience short, Blade just rips both buttons off and shoves his palm inside. The fly weakly catches at the loosened, dirty bandage on his wrist and lightly scrapes the skin.
Oh, Dan Feng is a wreck too, he notes, pleased. He’s just as wet and desperate for it, underwear a mess of Blade’s slick and his own come, face smeared in blood and saliva. Even furious, the man visibly struggles to bite down a moan when fingers wrap around both of his tips, rubbing them against the flat of his palm on each upstroke.
Blade wants more, more, more.
“I’m basically giving you permission to do whatever,” he snarks meanly. “Doubt that even you managed to forget the mark well enough to somehow manage to get through sex with someone else.”
Still deep in denial, Dan Feng snaps at him, words slurred. “There’s–”, a gasp, a squeeze of fingers, “no mark.”
And Blade laughs, truly laughs, and then leans over him, nose tracing the hollow of Dan Feng’s throat when the man so conveniently tries to turn away from him and puts damning evidence of past entanglement on full display.
“Then you haven’t looked in the mirror very well,” he whispers into his alpha’s skin, voice dripping poison, and bites down over the silvery imprints.
Dan Feng chokes and bucks into his hand, struggles under him with renewed vigour, only to freeze up when the tip of his cock touches Blade’s dripping wet opening.
One hand on the floor beside Dan Feng’s face, tangled in his long hair, pinning it down so that, were he to try and sit up or even turn his head, some of it would surely be torn out, Blade spreads his thighs wider and steadies himself. A brief look down – there’s blood all over him, all over Dan Feng, some dried but most mixed with sweat, slick and saliva, a bloodbath more than anything, and a shadow of hesitation flashes through his mind at the sight, a brief moment where he’s about to ask himself if this is truly necessary.
It gets swept away in the torrent of maddening desire not even a second after as another wave of heat rolls through his body.
The tapered point parts his folds, first too narrow for Blade to feel much, but soon trapping air in his chest as he sinks lower and lower, the stretch of it, though eased by the long preparation, significant enough for him to still when his thighs come flush with Dan Feng’s. He doesn’t notice when he closes his eyes, blissed out and finally relieved of the worst of this torture, and yet when darkness parts again and he peers down at Dan Feng, Blade half expects to see revolt all over his mate’s face.
There's none.
No, instead, there’s a disoriented look to him, unfocused eyes over flushed cheeks. Even more of that cedarwood fills the air around them, the scent thick enough to feel almost syrupy on his skin. Blade can’t get enough. Slowly, he breathes in and out, and then raises himself, hands shaking, the drag of it overwhelming enough to drown. His lung might not have recovered enough after all – whatever air he manages to drag into himself gets punched out by the steady rhythm his body settles into, by the desire growing ever worse with each rise and fall. Looking for something, anything to tether him, not let him melt away completely, Blade blindly grasps at Dan Feng’s hand, almost crushes it in his grip. A whine escapes him, needy and desperate, when Dan Feng doesn’t squeeze back, and then another when he bears down and doesn’t feel the alpha moving to meet him; Blade lets his head fall, canines tearing into the gash in his bottom lip, but doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down.
And then he finally feels it, an answering rise of Dan Feng’s hips.
There might be no love between them, but as his eyes fall on Dan Feng’s face again, there’s no disinterest there either. Desire, an echo of his own, is painted on instead, and, when he looks over, a hand hanging mere millimetres over his hip is shaking with the effort it takes Dan Feng not to let it grip onto the bare skin of Blade’s thigh.
Blade grinds down again, and long, slim fingers feel like yet another brand as they hesitantly touch his skin; he rides and Dan Feng groans and obliges, and as he works himself on the alpha’s length, the other one rubs against his cock with every stroke, sending sparks down his body. There must be something else that he wants, though, something is missing, he needs just a bit more–
It’s then that Dan Feng suddenly, finally squeezes Blade’s hip and pulls him down onto his length. Sharp, long nails scratch at his sweat-slick, reddened skin – that’s all it takes to tip Blade over the edge. He tries to hold still, shaking from the sensation, his channel spasming with Dan Feng still inside – that only seems to spur the man further, and he drives his hips forward in search of release, tearing moan after moan from Blade’s lips, the omega oversensitive and shaking when warmth erupts inside him, spills out of the tiniest gaps left between his fluttering walls and Dan Feng’s girth; the alpha's other cock, splattered with Blade's release, cants along Blade’s folds and length a couple more times before a shiver passes through him and seed paints their stomachs in hot, pearly while.
The last thing Blade wants now is to move, face scarlet from exertion and chest heaving; he falls into Dan Feng's chest and stays there, listening to rugged breathing as he feels more dripping out of him. The urgency of his heat fades for now.
Knowing it won’t last long, he can’t help but press his nose to his mate’s collarbone, seeking more of his scent despite being drunk off it already.
How must it have been to have had it all given freely at all times? A husband and a confidante at his side, and he, always enshrouded in this deep woody scent that Blade now greedily steals mouthfuls of?
Blade doesn’t remember, but it surely must have been blissful.
Now his head just clamours with pointless thoughts, the person under him talking no note of his continued silence.
No matter. After today he will surely have at least a facsimile of it back, and for what’s left of him that will be enough.
A hand falls on the middle of his back, the touch too tender; Blade almost flinches, a flare of anger flashing and going out in his chest at the same instant as it strokes up and then down in a rhythmic motion. He’s not being pushed off or sworn at – it feels off in a way that he can’t quite explain, and so Blade says nothing, too, until another bout of hunger comes and they entangle once more.
They go at it again then, and again, and one more time afterwards, lose all sense of time and past and present grievances get temporarily put to rest – almost all. The next time Blade’s heat-addled brain lets him remember starts with him being laid down on the coat Dan Feng shrugged off at some point, the back of his head cradled when it lolls back from exhaustion. That almost makes Blade snicker as anger scratches at the back of his throat; after everything he’s done to him, Blade banging his head on the floor one more time should be the last thing for Dan Feng to concern himself with.
What is it, driving Dan Feng’s actions? Rut-induced lust? Pity?
Whatever the reason is, they are still not over their cycles. The moment his fever spikes, Dan Feng is upon him again, fangs scraping at Blade’s ankle as it rests on the alpha’s shoulder, centering himself between the omega’s hips and giving them a shallow thrust where he is still half-buried inside.
Streams of jet black hair streaked with azure blue fall around them, tickling the side of Blade’s face when Dan Feng pulls out of him to fist both of his cocks and hesitates for a moment afterwards, as if not sure if he should be doing it.
Oh.
His thoughts screech to a halt at the image. Both of them in him, stretching him impossibly wide. Wider than any knot ever could.
“I can take it,” says Blade, maybe a bit too fast, moves his legs slightly wider, rolls his hips, both shuddering as the lips of his cunt slide along Dan Feng’s knuckles. He’s dripping again, empty and gaping, the ache building with each second; he hooks a hand around Dan Feng’s neck, pulls on the hair on his nape – gently, but it seems to be enough of an encouragement. A clawed hand slides both tips along his entrance, gets them wet before slowly teasing them in.
He almost doesn’t notice that something seems to be different this time around, lost in the sensation, but Dan Feng appears even more out of it than before, movements too gentle and careful as he presses in. The initial stretch is easy with how tapered his lengths are. Blade’s toes curl at the ridges dragging along his walls, the sensation growing more intense as the alpha sinks deeper into him until their thighs touch.
It burns, burns enough for Blade to fight for breath as he struggles to relax and take all of him in. Even the desperation of heat is not enough to prepare his body for the stretch; Blade’s knuckles go white with the force of his grip on Dan Feng’s coat and hair, fingers nearly ripping through the fabric, making the alpha growl quietly at the sting of pain. Words escape him at the first shallow thrust, and his back bows to try and ease the strain, moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes as both cocks go in and out of him before he has enough time to adjust.
Blade is so full he can feel him all the way to his throat, can feel his stomach swelling.
He must look truly pitiful because unexpected happens – Dan Feng’s gaze softens, losing some of the ice that persisted through the first several rounds of fucking. Mind not fully present, Dan Feng leans in and plants a single kiss on his sweat-damp brow, the first kiss he initiates that night, a gesture so uncharacteristically tender it makes Blade grit his teeth, eyes burning, brings fractured remnants of that person to the surface of his skin to poison his mind with the rotten carcass of their love.
Another kiss falls on the bridge of his nose, and then on the cheek, the jaw, until Dan Feng’s half-open lips touch the puncture wounds on the side of Blade’s throat he left earlier. A puff of hot breath, a scorching tongue pressing on them as if trying to lick them off. Blade feels lightheaded, floaty, overcome with the impossible desire to take even more of him in, to let tears fall as Dan Feng’s weight presses him into the floor. Hair keeps tickling his neck and shoulders, sliding along sweat-sticky skin as the alpha adjusts the angle and thrusts, punching little breathy sounds out of Blade’s lungs, and sharp bursts of pleasure rob him of thought. He’s floating, lost in the mind-numbing pleasure of being filled.
Dan Feng seems to be whispering something, too quiet for him to hear as he goes lower down his body, lips tracing the scars on his chest–
Until a barely audible “my star” slips out and Blade jerks and struggles, snapping them both out of this reverie.
The moment snaps, and Dan Feng’s mouth leaves his skin, confusion painted on his face, and, panicked, stills, throat bobbing as he looks for words to justify it to himself first and foremost.
Angry tears finally slip off the corners of Blade’s eyes, tracks turning dirty pink as they mix with sweat and blood on his skin. They seem to come out of place long hidden and guarded – they fall, silent, as he tries to grapple with inexplicable emotion crushing his ribs from the inside. It’s him but not Blade being called, and this can’t be happening, how would he manage to keep going if this happened to–
Overwhelmed and so, so exhausted, he swipes at Dan Feng’s face only for the hand to be caught and pressed into the floor.
Everything spins as another powerful wave of pheromones crashes into him, making Blade’s body go limp once more, the mark on his neck stinging as Dan Feng’s smell spikes in anger. The alpha must’ve lost to his instincts again – there’s no more turmoil or hesitation as he pulls at Blade’s forearm to haul him off the floor and into his lap, taking no notice of how the omega’s head rolls back and Blade's hand bucks under him as he struggles to keep balance. Dan Feng grabs that one too and yanks, Blade's joints creaking at the strain.
Every stray thought gets fucked out of his mind. He feels mindless yet again, made stupid by the throes of heat, arousal rushing through him with the force of a tidal wave as he’s impaled on both of Dan Feng’s shafts, comes undone as his own length rubs against the alpha’s stomach on each up and down. Dan Feng fucks him through that too, seemingly only picking up the tempo as Blade sinks nails into his back and squeezes around him in overstimulation, head falling onto the man’s shoulder and eyes slipping half-shut.
The tiniest scales glimmer faintly along the side of Dan Feng’s neck, mostly hidden by the wall of hair; he focuses on them as the tension in his gut mounts and snaps, another climax pulling him under. Soft and pliable from exhaustion settling deep into his bones, all he manages is a stifled, miserable whine when that too is not enough to quell the ache in his gut.
He can’t keep going anymore. He wants this to end, wants to sleep for a decade. Dan Feng’s stamina has always been superior to his, and apparently that applies to this younger form too.
A firm, warm hand presses on Blade's neck and Dan Feng grunts right into his ear as he comes, hot, sticky wetness flooding into him until he’s uncomfortably full. Blade can’t find it in himself to move, but when he looks down out of the corner of his eye, a single claw-tipped finger lightly traces the bottom of his bulging stomach.
A distant thought scrapes at his brain, one he has been successfully avoiding all this time, and suddenly he feels a bit more coherent now after who knows how long lost to the murky depths of his mind.
Blade lazily cards his fingers through the sweat-damp strands of hair at the alpha's nape. “You have to remember, Dan Feng. You've always been terribly selfish, you know? Come on, won't you call me your star again?” His laugh breaks off into a gasp when another powerful thrust knocks the air out of his lungs. But Dan Feng doesn’t answer – not even a “not Dan Feng” – and clenches his teeth until it looks like they might break; it sends Blade into another bout of fitful laughter as he digs his heels into the small of Dan Feng’s back, stopping him from pulling out. He hasn’t felt this talkative in ages. “Or your heart, maybe. It might be a bit too on the nose, though, when it's literally your heart inside of me.”
Defiant silence again, but it’s fine. What he wants will be in his hands soon; he feels it.
Both Dan Feng and that person used to want a child of their own, a face to reflect both of theirs, but they never could. The grip Permanence had on them was too strong and old wounds too deep. That is no more. Dan Feng has lost both Permanence’s gifts and curses the moment he carved his own heart out of his chest and turned his back on the people every incarnation of his laid their life to protect, and Blade is now firmly in Yaoshi’s grip, that old body’s wounds discarded and forgotten.
There’s red running down his legs and sinking into trampled grass–
Sharp pain pierces his skull, and he claws at Dan Feng’s shoulder in hopes it will leave, nails sinking deep into scratched-up skin. This time, the world is merciful, as flames engulf him once more, and soon his entire being yearns, hungers for Dan Feng to release inside him again, even if he feels like he’s already full to the brim.
When the haze finally lifts, Blade opens his eyes to empty crates and a dirty coat haphazardly thrown over his form, and no one beside him. Dan Feng escaped again, and, head still heavy with sleep, Blade wonders what tales of his disappearance he will spin to his companions this time.
Blade comes back and resumes his life, ignores the stares, ignores fatigue settling into his bones, the sensitivity, the pains and aches. He closes his eyes when tasks go to others and not him, and doesn’t ask. The reason, the knowledge, lives among the Hunters like a silent being of its own; he ignores it up until months later when the first signs he can’t ignore come. He wakes up in cold sweat in the middle of the night, one hand clutching at the sheets and the other tearing into the shirt over his heart, and tries to fight down nausea as he stares into the pitch black depths of his room, not daring to close his eyes again, and can’t ignore anything anymore.
Her image seems to be burned on the backs of his eyelids, always there, inescapable as she plunges the sword into him over and over and over again until it breaks, until he bleeds out and loses what was supposed to be his all over again.
Will Jingliu, that atrocious, wretched woman, laugh when she learns of what happened? Will she chase him down after hundreds of years and teach him another lesson in karma, or will she watch and bide her time?
He doesn’t know, and so he gags and leans over the edge of the bed, mind raw and foreign all over again. Nothing comes out; Blade only heaves as his throat works uselessly. His eyes burn, too, but he doesn’t blink for the visceral fear of seeing her again, and they burn more in turn. The absurdity of it pierces through the fog, and he laughs, hysterical, until he finally throws up and laughs some more, like a madman or a person possessed.
Or maybe he’s both.
She will definitely know, it’s only a matter of time – and it won’t matter where he is, and now he has something to lose, too, something that isn’t his worthless life that can’t be lost no matter how hard he tries or ancient memories that are of no use.
The noise must’ve woken someone up because he hears approaching steps on the other side of the door. A heavy knock, metal grinding on metal – must be Firefly, then. When Blade doesn’t reply or tell her to come in for some time, the door slides open, letting in a sliver of light from the hallway where her hulking form fails to block it out. A moment passes as she takes in the room, the pool of vomit on the floor and his own prone form half hanging off the bed, and then her armour whirrs into action, pulling him to the other edge of the bunk and kneeling on the floor next to it, as quiet and careful as one in her condition can be.
A lot more than he can be, probably.
“Do you want me to get Kafka?” she asks, hesitant, clearly not knowing what to do but too soft to just leave him alone in the middle of the night. Even having no flesh and blood body doesn’t diminish the power of puppy eyes she possesses, because his resolve to refuse gradually melts away as the silence stretches, broken only by his uneven breathing, and she continues shifting her gaze between him and the mess on the floor.
When he starts feeling less shaky again, Blade nods in acquiescence. “Help me clean this mess up before she shows up, though.”
“She’s seen you in more embarrassing situations. A lot more,” she says, gently pressing on his shoulder when he moves to stand up. “She won’t mind,” a pause, “probably.”
Blade absently tracks her movements as Firefly moves between the bathroom on the other side of the hallway and his room, fingers tapping a senseless tune on the metal at the side of the bed. His shirt, wet with sweat, makes the air feel even colder, and he pulls the covers over himself to ward off the chill.
There’s a conversation to be had. He’ll need to step down, at least for a while, as he ties Dan Feng down and… the child grows enough to remember him when he leaves and understand the reasons.
A child. He’s with a fucking child.
A trembling hand hovers right over his stomach as he stares at it, afraid to touch. It has been his plan since all those months ago, a plan conceived in the heat of the moment and a flash of insanity, and now, when the reality finally hits him, Blade can scarcely believe no one stopped him, that he himself hasn’t stopped.
A child, the one he has been thinking of as a plan this whole time.
What is he going to do with a child? Raise them?
Will they be long-lived or immortal, like Dan Feng or him? Or short-lived, like he was, fragile and easily killed? How would it feel then, to see them grow up and die of old age in less time than it takes their parents to barely even change?
Cool hands land on his cheeks just as his thoughts start spiraling; they guide his head up until he’s face to face with Kafka, Firefly’s hulking form awkwardly hanging behind her shoulder until Kafka waves the girl off and she reluctantly leaves. The room is plunged back into half-darkness as the door closes, and Kafka settles next to him, pulling him down so his head rests in her lap, one of Blade's hands awkwardly squeezed under him and the other still not daring to rest on his stomach.
As he puts it on her knee instead, she sighs and flicks him on the forehead, “Finally facing reality?”
Blade shudders, hiding his face deep in the crease of her thigh.
“I didn’t stop you because Elio told me not to,” she confesses. “Maybe I would’ve stopped you anyway, but he also said that it’ll be good for you, for the cause, in the long run. I, for one, thought it’s a horrible plan. Absolutely reckless and insensitive – to you in the first place, you know – but I also believe that Elio doesn't lie. You know…”
Kafka’s pause stretches, enough for him to grow restless again, but as she finally chooses her words, they come out almost warm, carrying her conviction.
“Well… a few decades of therapy first would’ve helped. I know you’re not a fan of that, but even like this... I want to believe you aren't going to be too bad of a parent, ” he feels Kafka’s sly smile even in the dark, her fingers tracing the shell of his ear and lightly tugging on his earring when they reach it. “You can always hand them over to me if you feel like you’re failing. Not when they’re an infant, of course – then just dump them on the Express. Worked with Stelle, will work with your brat, too.”
He decides to humour her, “What if I don’t want to dump them on anyone?”
“Then bring them to us all the same. We always need extra hands. Leave that man of yours behind, though. I doubt I’ll learn to stand his face in a million years. Humour me and at least put a bag over it when he comes over.”
That does for him – he snickers and Kafka follows suit. When she brings his hand to rest on his stomach, her fingers intertwined with his, just for a second Jingliu, Dan Feng, all of them slip from his mind, and all of it doesn’t feel as damning anymore.
The whirring and humming of the teleporter don't have the time to quieten down when Stelle already vaults over the couch, her hand reaching for that tattered bat of hers and only stopping when their leader – Himeko? He thinks her name is Himeko, that's what he was told by Kafka and Silver Wolf when the latter hijacked the Express’ system for him to come here – slams a teacup on the saucer harder than necessary. She tries to pin Blade in place with her eyes alone, gaze sharp and calculating, and it might’ve succeeded a couple of months ago, of that he is sure.
Blade has a weakness for women in power, after all, or rather, respect and deep-seated fear of what they might do to him.
But not now, not here.
Dan Feng might've told them something, after all. The last time he and Stelle parted was rather cordial, all things considered. This change must mean he told them enough to be on guard but not enough to aim for Blade’s throat the moment they spot him.
There’s no denying it – Himeko truly is a powerful woman, perfectly capable of wiping out a moon or even a small planet on her own if she were to put her mind to it, reminding him of Kafka from what he’s heard of her… But the are certain things even powerful women are utterly powerless against.
There's no one else but the three of them, and so he strolls in, deliberately casual, past the Trailblazer, whose hands keep clenching and unclenching, itching to grip onto something as she tracks him with wary eyes, body angling to put herself between him and the door to the crew's private quarters where the rest must be now, past Himeko, who doesn’t move to stand but still watches, unblinking.
And so the time comes to enact the final phase of his plan.
He sits down on the sofa opposite her, legs spreading slightly wider than usual, puts a hand on his stomach and smoothes down the black turtleneck he’s taken to wearing under his usual jacket he now prefers to leave unbuttoned; the gesture pulls the fabric taught, emphasising his midriff even with how dark his clothes are. Blade stops only when his palm finally comes to rest under the bump. It can still be hidden if he wishes for it to be so, but at a bit over five months since that day he’s undeniably pregnant, noticeable on even his tall and muscular frame, and he’s learning to live with the knowledge each time he sees his reflection.
The vengeful part of him, the one that suspiciously sounds like Jingliu, wants to keep this child away from Dan Feng, raise them with the knowledge their sire is a liar and a traitor, one worthy of only death by Blade’s side. The other part, the one gaining its voice each day, just wants to be wrapped in his alpha’s embrace, all thoughts pushed out by his scent as Blade hides from the rest of the world behind the wall of his hair.
Above all, now he truly needs Dan Feng to be utterly, inescapably his.
They would just exist in the same space, then, the three of them, the child as undeniable proof of what they are and an unbreakable link between them.
Dan Feng, even as he is now, would never turn them away – both of them.
If the child doesn't die first, whispers his traitorous mind, and he can’t help the grimace that flashes through his face, nor his hand that presses harder on the stomach, bunching up the fabric.
When their eyes trace his movements and finally land where he wants them to, Blade gives them a placid smile and watches their expressions shatter with dawning realisation as his fingers caress the bump, and they, speechless, look at it like it’s sharper than any sword his hands forged to this day.