Work Text:
Kad wakes to darkness and a soft hush, sprawled in a bed he doesn’t know, with the ache of one of Hod Ha'ran’s tricks lingering in the back of his skull and a thin collar of beaten beskar locked tight around his throat.
Wariness sharp in his chest, Kad doesn’t move, doesn’t make any sign he’s woken. He remembers the Trickster, remembers being summoned to meet him, and that alone is proof enough of what happened. For weeks now Hod Ha'ran has been perfectly silent, all but absent from the universe in any place where Kad could find him, and while it’s been a very long time since Kad last dealt with one of his large-scale tricks, he remembers the shape of their creation perfectly well.
Even Arasuum, wallowing in the stagnation and rot of the Republic beyond their traditional borders, had noticed Hod Ha'ran’s absence, sent Kad a message for the first time in ages beyond count to warily enquire if he knew anything. But—
There's no motion in the room, no sense of enchantment beyond the collar, and after a long moment, Kad pushes up from the thin mattress, frowning. He presses his fingers to the metal, and—this part at least is familiar. Hod Ha'ran has tricked him into this particular torque before, used it to trap Kad's power beneath his skin, to render him powerless until Hod Ha'ran himself removed it. But Hod Ha'ran rarely if ever repeats his tricks; he’s a warrior in his own right, and knows better than to assume such a thing won't be anticipated on a field of battle. This is an old trick, though, if he brought Kad here to keep him out of the way, or maybe to play at ravishing Kad the way he sometimes enjoys.
A new trick, but—using old pieces. And that isn't like Hod Ha'ran at all.
Suspicion slips through him, and Kad casts a glance around the room, distantly familiar. An old shrine to destruction, lost to time when the planet’s settlements dwindled to nothing, left to fall into disrepair as the grasses grew over it. It’s been cleared out somewhat, straightened up, the heavy obsidian of the altar polished to a bright and menacing gleam, but the signs of time and wear are still obvious.
The only thing out of place is the mattress, hauled in and set against the wall, covered with several blankets, and Kad himself, collared and stripped of his armor.
The bed, Kad thinks with a flicker of cool amusement, is almost enough to make him assume this is Hod Ha'ran wanting to play at recreating their first meeting in Arasuum’s halls, maybe a variation where he’d led Kad to his bed instead of his death in the Well. But something about that guess feels incomplete, just a little off.
He touches the collar again, and—Hod Ha'ran doesn’t realize Kad knows how to escape it. He’d taught himself, after the time Hod Ha'ran used it, because that sort of vulnerability isn't something Kad can stomach in himself. No warrior would be able to accept it without at least trying to fix it, and Kad knows Hod Ha'ran well enough that he’ll never trust him. Not with something like his own freedom, certainly.
And then, distant, there's a scrape of stone on stone.
Kad raises his head, eyes narrowing. The door of the shrine, he thinks. It’s built into the side of a hill, surrounded by grassy fields and scattered stands of trees, and he can smell the heady sweetness of the flowers that grow in the meadows, the crisp night air that enters in one whirling burst before it’s cut off with another scraping grind. Footsteps sound, heavy, but not Hod Ha'ran—the beads on his cloak always chime and click, unmistakable. This is someone else entirely.
There's armor, though. Kad knows the sound as well as his own name, and whoever is approaching, they’re dressed in armor, though it sounds just slightly off from what Kad is used to. Not metal, he thinks, frowning, and pushes the rest of the way upright with an effort, the collar making every limb weigh like lead. But—
The inner door opens, and the low lights catch on blood-bright red, bleached-bone white. Mandalorian armor, unmistakably, and Kad feels it in his own soul, the presence of one of his chosen people, even with the collar on.
A Mandalorian kidnapped him, he thinks with rising amusement, though he doesn’t let it show on his face. How interesting. No one has ever had that sort of backbone or initiative before.
“You're awake,” the Mandalorian says, closing the door after himself. He triggers the lock, deliberate, like that will do anything to hold a god, and takes a step forward, then reaches up to pull his helmet off.
There's something strange about this one, Kad realizes, and it prickles across his skin, needle-sharp and aware. Within him, time has been bent and reforged, shattered and pieced back together like an old shield, bound in iron to make it whole again. Not as though this man is out of time, but as though he’s made time anew around him, and Kad has existed for as long as there's been a concept of Mandalorians in this galaxy, but he’s never felt anything quite like this before.
“Who are you?” he asks, though he doesn’t move as his Mandalorian approaches with heavy but graceful strides, more accustomed to the armor than even most Mandalorians are. He wears it like a second skin, an extension of himself in a way Kad knows intimately, and for all it’s plastoid instead of beskar, Kad can see that it’s soul-bound armor in the same way as his own. He raises a hand before he can stop himself, intending to touch, to feel out the edges of that raw-bright soul—
The Mandalorian catches his wrist, fingers so tight they're bruising. “I'm the man who captured a god,” he says, and it feels like broken glass in the air, furious, seething with rage and conviction and determination, a blinding-bright edge of hope with teeth in a way that crawls with dagger-claws down the line of Kad's spine. “You're mine now, for as long as I want to keep you.”
How arrogant. How conceited. How interesting. Kad hasn’t dealt with a warrior like this in millennia, and he somehow entirely missed this man until today, this moment. An oversight he won't make again, certainly.
“Yours?” Kad echoes, keeps it flat and sharp, a warning just to see if he’ll quail before it. “I belong to no one but myself. Remove your hand from me.”
The sound that shakes out of the Mandalorian isn’t a laugh, too fractured, too angry. “I'm about to put a whole lot more on you,” he says harshly. “On your back.”
Kad has slipped in and out of the beds of mortals plenty of times over the years, his chosen warriors granted special treatment or those skilled or lovely enough to catch his eye granted favor. He’s never before had someone assume that the god of destruction could be theirs for the taking, though, and the confidence is amusing. No wonder, then, that Hod Ha'ran is part of this; he would have taken one look at this mortal and gone along willingly, just for the glee gained in helping him.
“Arrogance,” he says, cold, and jerks his hand back—
Runs up against strength as great as that of a Taung and pauses, caught entirely off guard.
The Mandalorian grins, all teeth that should by rights be covered in blood, if he’s making a face like that. “Not arrogance,” he says, vicious. “You're the arrogant bastard, thinking I'm in over my head. But you're the one trapped in that body, and now it’s mine.”
The thrill of those words shivers through Kad's veins. A true Mandalorian, he thinks, focused on what he can have, what he can take. He worked with Hod Ha'ran to take Kad, to set this up, and now—
Kad is a harsh god, a cruel god, but he’s a fair one. His people have always known that he’ll favor them as long as they hold to his ideals, carry out his message and his will across the universe. Even those who forswear him still do his will, are still his, and this man is no exception.
Even if Kad himself is on the receiving end, he’s happy to grant his favor to a victorious soldier. Especially one who sets his sights so high as to conquer a god.
Of course, giving in without any struggle is impossible, and Kad scoffs, wrenches at his hand again. Considers, for a moment, removing the collar, but—asking a mortal, no matter how strong, to face a god in their full might is likely too much.
“Why should I go along with your whims, Mandalorian?” he asks, watching the man’s face. He looks worn, sharpened like a blade set to a honing stone. It passes beyond just the tangle of remade time around him, clear in the white streaking his dark curls until they look like a black fox’s pelt, in the lines carved around his golden eyes and his stubborn mouth from care and worry. “It will gain me nothing.”
The man pauses, something about Kad's words catching him off guard. “Mandalorian,” he repeats, and something about it cracks, fractures right through. “A Mandalorian god can't even tell when there's just a clone right in front of him?”
A clone? That fact is interesting, but hardly matters, and Kad snorts. “What you are is one of my people,” he says plainly. “Nothing else beneath that has ever had any weight at all.”
A bark of laughter, rough, harsh, and the Mandalorian shoves Kad back, drives him down to the bed. Pins him there, that greater than normal strength brought fully to bear as Kad jerks, twists, tries to throw him off as he would another warrior in a grapple, but—this man is seasoned. He rides out all of Kad's bucks and heaves, unmoved, and Kad can feel the building fervor inside of him, that sword-sharp hope leaping high like a bonfire in the wind.
“Mando or not, it doesn’t matter. I have you. You're mine,” the man says, and his fingers dig hard into Kad's forearms, his kama falling around their hips. Kad's mortal form changes with his whims, but this one—this is the one Hod Ha'ran favors him in, Taung but smaller than standard, lean and quicker than most. Clear proof that Hod Ha'ran is neck-deep in all of this, and that his silence has been for the purpose of planning Kad's abduction. It’s hardly the first time, though Hod Ha'ran is usually the one to take advantage, rather than leaving it to another.
“And what,” Kad asks, soft, threatening, even as his pulse picks up speed, “will you do with me, Mandalorian?”
A ragged breath, those fingers on his arms tightening, and the Mandalorian shifts. He curls over Kad, body set like a blockade, and that flicker-flash of hope is so bright it makes the whole world spin darkly around it. “I'm going to take what I want,” the man says, and meets Kad's eyes, holds his gaze like it’s a challenge, a promise. Kad stills beneath his grip, because in those eyes—
A world collapsing, he thinks. A world lost, and time remade, and the forge-fire will of this one man, desperate to fix things, save things. And those things—
“The Trickster told me,” the man says, and it’s so raw it scrapes his mouth as it emerges, all broken pieces of a man in the shape of a weapon, “that if I—I'm a clone. And you're a god. If I get you with child, he’ll call their souls back. Even across time. He’ll make them the way they were, and you just—you just have to carry them.”
Ah, Kad thinks, watching him. He wants Kad to bear new life, create bodies for souls that were already lost once. Shadows of them are in this man’s face, soldiers, Mandalorians, men lost to treachery and malice and sloth, and Kad can feel, far distant from this time and universe, the screaming of a whole people—his people—with all the life crushed out of them under the weight of bland, blind obedience.
Bringing their souls back isn't something Hod Ha'ran can do. Bending time is far more his trick, though Kad has never known him to use it for someone else’s sake. But—
Calling doomed souls back is something Kad can do, and Hod Ha'ran would know that.
Saying it outright was too great a strain for the trickster god, clearly. Kad feels a flicker of annoyance at the scheme, even if it did bring him the man currently on top of him, braced and waiting.
“I may be a god,” he says, mild, “but if you plan to make me birth near a billion Mandalorian babes, I'm afraid you’ve overestimated even me.”
Another bark of laughter jars from the man, though this time at least it’s a thing of humor, brighter than Kad expects. There's an easing, a settling, and the man shifts, pressing Kad's thighs open wider around the bulk of his armor. “Not a billion,” he says. “I have—all the rest are here. I took them off Kamino already. But—they're not going to be the same. Not these ones.”
There are names in his soul, carved in and bleeding now that they’ve been torn away. Thorn and Stone and Thire and Bacara, Wolffe and Cody and Alpha-17 and Fordo. Generals in all but name, men with thousands of victories marked into their armor. Not billions that this man wants remade just as they were, souls called back with memories intact, but—a hundred or so.
For a Human or a Taung, an impossible number to carry, but Kad has none of those limitations. There's a reason Hod Ha'ran spun this particular plan for his new toy, all but handed him Kad on a platter. A reason why he picked this form for Kad to wake in, too. He’s coupled with Kad before, gotten him with child and been eternally pleased about it, badgered Kad to allow it to happen again, especially when Kad wears this form. Kad has refused, largely because he finds sleeping with his mortals far more satisfying than bedding another god, but it’s no surprise at all that Hod Ha'ran hit upon this plan of all those he could have come to.
The result of their last coupling in this fashion was a great black mythosaur, still asleep and hidden on Mandalore, waiting for a leader of mortals to wake it, and Kad watches the man curled above him and wonders if that leader has finally been found.
He's willing to conquer the god of destruction himself to save his brethren, after all. A Mand'alor is meant to be a commander among commanders, someone whose vision can lead their people into the future, protect them and guide them and forge a path, and Kad can feel all of that in the strung-tight body pressing him into the mattress.
“So you plan to breed me?” he asks evenly, and the catch in the man’s breath is obvious, as is the way his grip tightens, bears down. “Again and again, until you regain what you’ve lost?”
“What was stolen,” the Mandalorian snarls, and this is pure, vicious poison, a surge of rage that could devour the galaxy, so breathtaking that Kad can only just contain a moan. “The Sith took them from me, and then he wasted them. They died as karking trainers, or guards, or were completely abandoned and died in the gutter of whatever world he dumped them on. I want them back, and I want him dead, and if I need to conquer the whole damn Republic to get that, I will.”
Kad shudders, heat curling through him, fervor and excitement rising. “A new Crusade?” he asks, makes it mocking. “You want to attempt what even my greatest warriors couldn’t accomplish? Indomitable and Ultimate both failed in their quest. Why do you think this time will be any different?”
The Mandalorian bares his teeth, leans down. The kiss is a brutal thing, biting, bruising, entirely devouring, and when he finally draws back, Kad is breathless for the first time in as long as he can remember, lips swollen and too sensitive.
“They didn’t have a god chained to their beds,” the man says, arrogant, confident. “And they didn’t know the weaknesses of every single major world between here and the Core.”
There's a war in his head, still carried in his heart. Information, more than any one soldier should know, and battle plans, and tactics, and all the vicious focus of a hunting dog that’s been straining at the leash too long, finally loosed and allowed to run. Beautiful, Kad thinks, and the fire in him is entrancing in a way nothing has been in far, far too long. Arasuum has his fingers deep in the soul of the Republic, and all that stagnant squalor is spilling over the border, festering in Mandalorian worlds. But—
This man could shake the universe, destroy it. Burn everything down, ready for new growth to spring up, like the barren landscape after a devastating wildfire, flush with new growth in spring.
Flush with growth like Kad will be, carrying a new generation of warriors. Hardened, tested, ready for war, and once they’re born, Kad can tweak things a little, change things a little. Have them grown and ready in a matter of months, returned to his new Crusader and ready to wage a war Kad has desired ever since the moment the last Crusaders fell to treachery and Sith influence.
“You’ve sealed my strength, but I'm still a god,” he says, a challenge just to see how this Mandalorian will push back. “Why should I let you use me as a vessel for regaining your commanders? What do I gain?”
The man kisses him again, a slant of hungry lips and teeth that break skin, make Kad moan. He strains even as he kisses back, but there's no shifting the hold on him, and it only feeds the heat of blood racing in Kad's veins.
“You get a billion Mandalorians worshiping you again,” the man says, shifting his grip to pin Kad's wrists above his head with one hand. “You get a new Crusade against Arasuum. All those conquered worlds getting the option to become Mandalorian. All the war and destruction you could want while I burn the damn Sith right out of the galaxy, and the whole Senate that helped him use us along with him.”
“And what,” Kad asks, holding those golden, burning eyes, “if I want you to worship me, Mand'alor?”
The man doesn’t even hesitate at the title, though something vicious and victorious kindles in his face. He bares his teeth, almost a smile, the humor as deadly as a knife, and says, “You're going to be the one worshiping, Kad Ha’rangir. Your new god is me.”
Kad laughs, and it’s the answer he’d hoped for, the only one he would respect. This man took what he wanted, and he’d best know how to keep it. How to keep Kad, and Arasuum had tried once, had used flattery and poisoned words and trickery that ultimately failed.
But strength, ambition, confidence, courage—those will keep Kad in this man’s sway as surely as the sun rises.
“Your name, then,” he says, demands, and the Mand'alor—his Mand'alor—leans down, kisses him like it’s a threat, a challenge, a victory.
“Fox,” he says, low, against Kad's mouth, and his free hand slides down Kad's chest, teases the sensitive tendrils hidden in his ash-black hair, presses flat against his stomach. “I'm Fox.”
Cunning and clever and ruthless, just like his namesake. No wonder at all that Hod Ha'ran sank his claws into this man, chose him as much as a trickster with moods that shift like the seas ever chooses anything. Kad hums, pleased, and takes the next kiss, deep and intent, and breathes out, eagerness rising like the din of a battle suddenly joined.
“Mand'alor,” he echoes, soft in the space between them, a promise. Too long the Mandalorians have squabbled without a leader, stagnant, unchanging, lacking any push to grow, but—Fox will change that. Fox and the soldiers he’ll breed in Kad's body will shake this whole universe, and Kad can't wait to see the destruction they wreck.
Fox kisses him again, letting go of Kad’s hands to slide his fingers down, quick and eager, right between Kad’s legs in an instant. Kad closes his eyes as the first finger finds the edge of his opening, already slick with his want. Taung don’t show much difference in the sexes, and Kad has never cared much about such things regardless, enjoys becoming whatever sex he or a partner would prefer in the moment. But the slick slide of Fox’s fingers delving into him, pressing him open, feeling out the heat of his channel and dragging heavy across hidden nerves—all of it makes Kad desperately glad for this form as he arches up into Fox, pleasure trembling through his muscles. Fox doesn’t hesitate, but shoves Kad’s thighs further apart, armor slick and cold against Kad’s inner thighs.
“Open,” Fox says, an order, unwavering, and Kad tips his hips up, lets Fox crush him down into the blankets. His hitching gasp is taken by Fox’s kiss, by the sharp nip of teeth before Fox licks the blood from his lips, drives his tongue deep like he’s going to fuck Kad’s mouth the same way he’s going to fuck his cunt. Kad sinks his fingers into soft curls, gets an arm around Fox’s back as Fox reaches down between them.
“So quick?” he asks, a taunt more than an actual question. “Are you that eager—ah!”
Fox’s knuckles dig in, hard, right against the knots of nerves just inside Kad's opening, and he pins Kad to the bed as Kad bucks, squirms, tries to grind down on those deft fingers and can't get them nearly deep enough. “Eager to get you bred,” he says, and Kad moans, nails scraping plastoid as he fucks himself down on Fox’s fingers, riding the grind of those knuckles. Fox presses them in further, mouthing down Kad's chest, biting, and drives his fingers in as far as they’ll go, like he’s going to force his whole fist in. He rolls his hand, presses in again, gets his fingertips on humming nerves and strokes.
Kad comes with a breathy, ragged cry, legs locking around Fox’s shoulders, back arching. Pleasure fractures through his nerves, his orgasm so sudden and overwhelming that it makes his head spin, and Fox doesn’t let up. He keeps rubbing and stroking and digging his fingers in, mouth slanting hot and probing over Kad's cunt, tongue pressing in to follow his fingers, and Kad hasn’t even come down from the first orgasm before the second is winding tighter in his stomach. He squirms, trembling, breathless with it as high, involuntary cries break from his throat, but Fox just pushes deeper, fucks Kad with his tongue and those maddening fingers until Kad is tipping over the edge again with a wail. He falls hard, clutching Fox’s armor, shaking apart as the world slides dark, his vision swallowed up by the force of his climax.
It takes a long, long minute for thought to come back, and longer for his vision to steady, but when Kad finally manages to turn his head, nerves humming and body still trembling faintly, it’s to the sight of Fox just stripping off his armor, still kneeling between Kad's sprawled-open thighs. He looks smug in a way that’s entirely deserved, hungry as his gaze sweeps over Kad, and as he hitches the sleek black flightsuit down to fall open around his waist, he leans forward. The slow, deliberate drag of his thumb across Kad's opening makes Kad moan, and Fox raises his gaze from the clench of Kad's muscles to meet his eyes.
“Looks like I'm not the only one,” he says, a little rough. Presses his thumb in, tugging like he’s going to open Kad up to his sharp gaze. “Are you that desperate to get fucked? That needy to have a Mando pin you on your back and stuff you full of their brats? Want to be bred and used like a karking bitch in heat?”
Kad shudders, sinking his fingers into the blankets as Fox’s thumb drags up and down across blindingly oversensitive nerves, the jolts of pleasure so sharp they feel like electricity across his nerves.
“You're the one who chose this, Fox,” he says, breathy, and Fox swallows, pulling his finger free. He tugs the flightsuit down more, shoves the kama back, and pulls his thick cock free. Despite his derision, he’s hard, dripping with it, the wide head purpling and slick. Stroking himself once, then again, he catches Kad's sprawled thighs, pressing forward, and the fat head catches on Kad's cunt. A careful hitch of Fox’s hips pushes it in, and Kad clutches at the blankets, trying to breathe through the slow, deliberate slide.
Taung bodies aren't meant to take Human cocks. A Taung's shaft is slenderer, the tip narrow and pointed, long but easy to take deep. Fox is just as long, but as thick as two Taung together, that wide head pressing Kad's inner walls so wide it aches, shivery and sharp all through his core. He moans, thin, hitching, as Fox presses in, grip bruising on Kad's thighs, body straining as he holds himself back. Knowledge of his restraint is almost as enticing as the pleasure, the tightness as he sinks in with a low groan, the throbbing, burning pressure as he pushes forward, folds Kad in half and hitches his legs up over his shoulders.
Kad shudders as that cock bottoms out inside him, just kissing the end of his channel. It’s so tight he feels like he’s about to burst, like he wants to squirm away from the overwhelming pulse of heat buried so deep it’s almost in his cervix. Fox curls over him, breathing hard, jaw clenched, and his hand is planted on the mattress beside Kad's head, gripping the blankets in one white-knuckled fist. The other hand clutches Kad's thigh, and as Kad tries to breathe, tries desperately to find air when all that’s left in him is heat, Fox turns his head, presses a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss to Kad's skin.
“Shit,” he breathes, and rocks his hips, slow. “Slag. You're—taking it so well, shit.”
Kad presses his hands to the wall, fingertips digging into the stone, just trying to do something to bleed off the trembling, twitchy feeling of being too full, too hot, too needy. He claws at the stone, tendrils twisting and writhing through his hair, curling around Fox’s knees, the remnants of the armor still attached to the flightsuit, and the high, sharp sound that breaks from his throat is almost a sob.
It makes Fox groan, and the slow roll of his hips breaks into short, sharp jerks as he bears down, fucks into Kad like he’s going to punch right through into his womb. Hard, jolting thrusts that jar Kad up the mattress, make him catch the wall to brace himself as short, breathy sounds are punched right out of his lungs, not enough air left in him for anything louder even if he wants to scream at each deep drive of that thick cock. Fox’s eyes are fixed on him, intent, almost awed, and as Kad tries to hold himself in place for those short, pounding thrusts, tries to meet them as best he can with another orgasm rising, cresting, about to shake him apart, Fox bows over him, hands catching Kad's hips, thrusts getting even harder. He rides Kad even as Kad wails, comes a third time spasming around Fox’s cock, and through the spinning light and heat and the blinding burn of too much pleasure, Kad can feel the press of a forehead against his lower chest. Fox’s cries are quieter, trapped behind his teeth as he fucks Kad through his orgasm, but the feeling of him—
Incandescent hope, fury, drive. He wants, such a vast want that it makes the world tremble, and Kad locks his ankles behind Fox’s back, urges him on, urges him deeper. Feels the painful, bruising jolt of those thrusts right against his cervix, the pain twisting the pleasure even higher, and drags one hand off the stone, grabbing for the back of Fox’s head instead. He clutches Fox close as Fox slants sloppy kisses across his skin, more hitching breaths and heat than anything, clenches down hard, and feels Fox’s jolt like it’s his own. There’s a cry, sharp, ragged, and Fox comes too, bottoms out and spills deep, the heat of his release making Kad moan—
The heel of Fox’s hand grinds down, presses hard against the top of his cunt in three long, deep strokes, and Kad locks up around his cock, comes again without being able to make so much as a sound. He shakes through it, spasming, arching, and spots spin behind his eyes, more and more until it feels like the whole world fades out.
Dimly, distantly, he feels a shift, feels Fox let his legs slip down, the harsh bend of their position ease. He doesn’t pull out, but he lets Kad's legs fall, slumps down on top of him with a groan, and Kad whimpers at the shift of that still-hard cock over too-raw nerves. He raises a hand, clumsy, and strokes Fox’s white-speckled hair, letting his eyes fall shut as he tries to catch his breath.
Fox is still hard inside him, and he’s not going soft.
With a careful breath, Kad shifts, eases himself a little further away from the wall. Fox is stroking his chest with a languid sort of attention, thumb dragging across the swell of a breast, and Kad huffs a little in amusement, letting his head fall back against the mattress.
“Take the collar off and I can make them more interesting for you,” he says, and feels Fox glance up.
“Interesting?” he asks, faintly suspicious.
“If you want milk,” Kad clarifies, and when Fox goes still and startled, almost frozen on top of him, he snorts. “You're breeding sons into me and you didn’t think I would nurse them?”
“I'm a clone,” Fox says, the sharpness only just covering up the mingled flare of embarrassment and intrigue. He brushes a thumb over one of Kad's nipples, then jerks his hand away, as if he’s worried about being caught in his fascination. “We got nutrient drips until we were decanted, and then we ate solid food or we starved.”
Kad hums, dragging his fingers through Fox’s hair, stroking his scalp. “Your hardships made you a great warrior,” he says. Not a dismissal, but—hardship is the antidote to sloth, to stagnation and the peace of slow decay. Struggling, rising, tearing other things down in order to gain a foothold—Kad fought like that, when he was born from the ash of a razed town, parentless and outcast among the other gods with their elegant forms and perfect pedigrees. When he drowned, caught by Hod Ha'ran’s trickery and thwarted desire, dead for nine days and nights until his own will brought him back to life. He still fights like that, waging war against Arasuum’s greedy, grasping touch as it spreads over the galaxy.
There's a pause, then a snort, and Fox turns his head, rests his cheek against one of Kad's breasts. “We’re not done,” he warns, stroking a hand over Kad's stomach. “That was only the first round. You’re going to be bred before I let you up from this mattress.”
Kad shivers, stroking over Fox’s broad, scarred back. Doesn’t tell him that he’s already made sure that the seed took, but—
The more babes he carries at once, the less time it will take to fulfil Fox’s desire. The less time it will take to build an army for Fox to use to crush Arasuum and his pet Sith. A few more rounds of Fox’s undivided attention and desire aren't precisely a hardship to bear, too.
“How long,” Fox says against his skin, and it’s meant to be a question, but the desperate, hungry edge half-strangles the words in his throat. He presses his hand down, fingers splayed across Kad's belly, and that hope is rising again, as heady as Arasuum’s black beer. “How long will—”
He breaks off, can't bring himself to finish.
Kad hums, dragging light fingertips down the line of Fox’s spine. His neck was broken once, he thinks, and slips an edge of power around the collar’s magic, feeding it into Fox’s body. Reinforcing, shoring up, fixing, and—he might not offer the same to anyone else, but Fox has proved himself different.
Besides, Kad would be loath to have circumstances leave whatever children Fox gets him with fatherless.
“The cycle of the moon,” he says, and Fox stills, hardly breathing. It makes Kad chuckle, and he raises his hand, tips his head to see Fox’s face, the war between hope and disbelief. “It’s full now. By the time it turns dark, you will have the first of them back with you.” When Fox still doesn’t move, he tips his head, amused. “I am a god, Mand'alor. I birthed half the mythosaurs that survived the great hunts, and I'm sure Hod Ha'ran told you of fathering the loth-wolves on me long ago.” He strokes Fox’s hair again, and says, low, “I hold the souls of the dead, Fox, and mind their path. This time, the fact that the path runs through my own body is novel, but hardly improbable. Destruction has always been a bed for new growth.”
“You—” Fox starts, and then stops short. His annoyance flickers, even as he strokes a heavy hand over Kad's stomach again, compulsive. “Karking tricksters.”
“A familiar refrain,” Kad agrees, perfectly mild. He shifts faintly, breath catching as Fox’s cock drags within him, and—
When he glances down, Fox is watching him again, golden eyes burning in the stretching shadows, possessive hand curling tight around Kad's side. Victory is what he feels of now, victory and hunger, and when he turns his head, presses a slow kiss to the curve of a breast, Kad's breath hitches.
“I didn’t manage to get you screaming my name this time,” Fox says, low. “If I'm your new god, I think that’s the least you should give me, Kad.”
The name is an imposition, a taking, and it makes Kad's breath catch as heat winds through him. Fox’s gaze darkens, and he wraps an arm around Kad's waist, rolls them. Kad gasps as he’s moved, settles astride Fox’s hips with that cock pressing deep, and moans at the slide of Fox’s clever fingers over his cunt.
“Well?” Fox asks, harsh, eager, wanting. “If you’re so desperate to get knocked up, you’d better ride me hard enough to make me come, or it won't just be three or four more times tonight. I’ll keep you on your back with your legs spread all night, and then tomorrow I’ll breed you all over again.”
Kad groans, gets his legs underneath himself, and braces his hands on Fox’s raised knees. Normally it would take another god to fulfill a promise like that, but—
Fox is going to be the man who breaks the galaxy between his hands and remakes the world’s order to suit his own whims. Little surprise, then, that he’s the first mortal to claim Kad for his own and mean it.