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The whole world, of course, has sympathy for the tragic omega. They have the kind of sympathy that sends their scents cloying sweet—that pushes their bodies to croon and purr—that makes them try to scent a mated man's pup, instinctually feeling the lack of any alpha in the child's life.
The whole world has sympathy for a tragic omega, and becomes angry when that omega snarls at them for it—snaps at them for it—draws their sword to keep their stinking hands off his pup for it.
"I am so sorry for the loss of your master," croons another faceless fool intruding on Cang Qiong's business.
"My mate," Luo Binghe snarls, his pup held tight to his chest, still suckling, "is alive."
Room must be made for such delusions, the world agrees, sadly watching the ruined omega tend to his pup, observing the way Cang Qiong's disciples and peak lords alike sweep in to stop any alpha from speaking to the poor boy—his mating mark so clearly aging, his pup smelling only of him, not even bearing the scents of Cang Qiong's pack.
"You do not have to come," Yue Qingyuan says, with endless patience and endless sorrow. "I will ensure Qing Jing is not forgotten."
"I am the head disciple of Qing Jing," Luo Binghe replies, cradling his child. "I will not let Shizun return to a peak that has fallen by the wayside."
It does not matter to him how Yue Qingyuan flinches from his words. How sad the expressions of the others become. How Liu Qingge always storms away.
His master—his mate—is alive. He is alive, down there in the abyss, and when he comes home Binghe will be ready. Binghe will give him everything he's ever wanted.
Binghe will be everything he ever wanted.
Once, years ago now, a boy on the verge of his coming of age sat before his shizun, smiling across the table at him. His shizun, perfect and composed, calm and adoring, had taken soothing sips of the tea his disciple had so lovingly prepared. Had looked at him with consideration across the table. Had asked:
"Binghe, do you want to be strong? Even if you have to suffer?"
And Binghe, his body hot and tight, uncomfortable in a way that he knew meant he was starting to change—to mature—had thought about it. Really thought about it. Did he want to be strong? Of course. He wanted to be the strongest, so he could ensure no one would ever harm him or his family again.
But he also wondered if that was really what Shizun was asking, or if…
Everyone knew that Shen Qingqiu was an Alpha. Everyone knew it even before he'd changed, scenting his peak and his students with protective but often bewildered intensity. He often looked baffled while he rubbed his wrist across Binghe's head, carried away in his enthusiastic patting.
He was strong in the way of any good alpha—sturdy, protective, safe. A harbor in the storm. What he needed, what Binghe wanted to be for him… It wasn't the strength of another Alpha.
Binghe knew how tightly he'd been gripping the slight swell at the base of his cock at night, hissing "No." to his disobedient body. Knew how he'd rubbed over and over against his entrance, hoping to feel a hint of slick.
He also knew that wanting it bad enough had changed something. Meng Mo had shifted, uneasy, when Binghe noticed one morning a couple of days ago that his itching privates had changed—the swell vanished from the base of his still-enormous cock, and something honey-sweet starting to tinge his scent.
"You shouldn't be able to do that unless…" the demon had said, and then he hadn't said any more at all, just hovering silent in the back of Binghe's mind, fretting and troubled in a way Binghe hadn't seen him before.
"Shizun," Binghe said aloud, cautiously. "Does shizun want my honest answer?"
Dark eyes narrowing, Shen Qingqiu set down his tea only to lift his fan. He gave a solemn nod, even as he tucked his mouth away behind the delicate folds of paper, rivers racing between them.
"This Binghe would like to be loved most of all," his favorite disciple said.
He watched Shen Qingqiu's eyes widen. Watched his face drain of color. He didn't understand why, but he understood the smile that followed—only barely tucked away and carrying a trace of pain alongside it.
It was the same sort of smile he'd worn when receiving the prognosis of Without a Cure.
"I hardly think Binghe needs to worry," he'd said.
Binghe had agreed, and he had noted carefully that nothing in that response was in any way inclined to turn him away.
"Something's got them riled up," Ning Yingying notes, a cut still healing on her cheek and a divot missing from her ear, continuing the line. The demon she'd faced off against must have nearly taken her head off, to have scored such a hit.
"I'll look into it," Binghe promises.
A-Zhu chews on his finger as they speak. She is a good child, soft and sweet-smelling. He finds traces of Shizun in her everywhere—her dark eyes, her perfect hands, her serious expression as she drinks from him.
She is growing too fast.
Ning Yingying's eyes drift down to her, and her whole posture softens.
Once, Binghe knows, she loved Shizun too. Not as he did, though. Never as he did. Not even when Shizun was still cruelest to Binghe and kindest to her.
"Xiao Zhu, Xiao Zhu, is your mama tasty?" she croons.
As she crouches to speak to the child, the image of the fearsome warrior peels away from her, leaving the sunshiny little shijie Luo Binghe once thought he'd come to love.
He knows better now, but he permits her this. She never speaks as if Shizun is dead; never suggests Xiao Zhu would be better off with some new Alpha in her home; never attempts to scent her.
"I can feel her first tooth," Binghe tells her, in deference to those facts.
"What a good girl," Ning Yingying says, smiling wide. "Every lady needs teeth, Xiao Zhu."
Luo Binghe wonders whether she ever wanted to have children of her own. If she ever did, it seems she doesn't now. Her omega scent never flares these days—it hasn't since Shizun shied away from her rather than rising to vicious defense when she let it swell in his presence.
Sometimes Binghe sees Ming Fan watching her in her happier moments, his nose lifted hopefully. He doesn't call him out on it, only because Ming Fan is still helping keep the peak in order and never uses past-tense when speaking of their missing master.
He didn't mean to trap him, really. He'd wanted to, yes. He'd thought of it often. But wanting to and meaning to were two different things. He'd daydreamed, and wondered, and wanted, but he'd never meant to trap him.
Huddling out of the acid rain in the cave they've found together, Luo Binghe feels as if his heart has migrated down, down, down, until his pulse is centered on his guts.
"As expected, the Acid-Rain Death Worm lives up to its title," sighs Shen Qingqiu, staring out at the sky crowded with purple clouds. "How literal… At the size of this one, we can expect for the storm to cover roughly a mile around. Best to wait it out. Now Binghe understands why we needed to ensure we controlled where the fight took place and—Binghe?"
"Shizun," Luo Binghe answers, though the word comes out stained by the needy whine pitching upwards in the back of his throat.
"Do you smell something a little…" Shen Qingqiu's voice falters, and peters out. Lips still slightly parted, he inhales again, his dark, wise eyes tracing across the small cave, as if seeking the mysterious source of the scent he'd noted.
He didn't mean to trap him. He didn't mean to do this—to finish his presentation here and now, when there's no escape. When there's no one else.
He didn't mean to, but he's so, so, so glad.
His eyes have finally locked on him. His nostrils flare, his lips still parted. He shakes his head.
"Binghe's an alpha," he says, firm and certain, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
It hurts, and Binghe cringes from that hurt. He's not rejecting me , he tells himself firmly, he's just confused.
But the omega instincts he forced on himself when he willed away that hateful knot are not creatures of reason. They curl, sour and terrified within him. Alone, alone, alone, always alone, they cry, and it swells up through all Binghe's defenses—reeks like sour rice spilled over dirt, too little too late, if he was good , if he was enough, if he'd been better, loved better, tried harder—
"What—No, don't cry!" Shizun drops his fan in the dirt, crossing the scant two steps between them and wrapping his arms tight around Binghe as if his arms were made to do it. "Don't cry, don't cry, you're okay Binghe."
It's hard to tell, sometimes, if Shizun entirely knows what he's doing. He says 'don't cry' though Binghe's eyes are dry. Holds him close, his alpha scent swelling protectively, blanketing Luo Binghe in the scent of autumn rain and fresh tea. Safe , his scent says as his hands rub up and down his back, marking him. Safe, mine, safe.
"Yours," Binghe agrees aloud. "Shizun, Alpha, yours. Only yours, always yours."
"I don't—" Shen Qingqiu starts, and Binghe whines, loud and pathetic. Revels in the way Shen Qingqiu's scent spikes with panic, a spark of aggression flaring, like he wants to fight whoever's made Binghe sad, nevermind that it's his own words.
"I don't understand!" Shizun clarifies, squeezing Binghe tighter against him. Even as he cries it, he's pressing his face closer to Binghe's neck, inhaling deeply the scent of him. Binghe is nearly his height now, which means Shizun has to bend his head to do it, softly breathing in the omega scent weeping off of Luo Binghe.
"I'm presenting," Luo Binghe explains, having mercy on his master. "Shizun, this disciple—I'll go into heat."
"Oh my god," Shen Qingqiu chokes, he pulls a half inch back, casting his eyes towards the acid rain still pouring past the entrance.
Binghe locks his hands on his robes, clinging as tightly as he can, refusing to release him. Shen Qingqiu can be strange sometimes—can get hung up on details like 'master and student' or 'age gaps'. Binghe has heard him curse such ideas under his breath while furiously reading the foolish little novels he pretends not to indulge in.
Will he curse Binghe too? Will he be disgusted to be wanted? Will he turn him away?
The fear infects Binghe's scent—still developing, but turning towards a rich and sweet scent like mandarins, only now infected by that rotten smell of spilled rice growing rancid as he fails to clean it—as he fails to dig a hole deep enough to bury her, as he—
"Shh," croons Shen Qingqiu, bending closer again, wrapping Binghe up tight and rocking with him. "Shh, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. This master—I'll find a way to get Binghe out, to get him help, to—"
"No," Binghe says. "No. Shizun, it has to be you."
A shudder runs through Shen Qingqiu. An alarmed sound escapes him. He can't pull back, though. Binghe has him now—has his arms around him, holding him back.
And he cannot hide how his scent flares—the ozone scent of lightning piercing through that gentle rain smell. Binghe has never smelled want on his master before. He tilts his head up, shoves his nose against those high-necked robes, and breathes it in deep, deep, deep.
"But," Shen Qingqiu stutters. "But Binghe is—has—will have…"
"Shizun," calls his best disciple—his favorite person, without a doubt. The one he invited into his home, the one he cherishes beyond all reason, the one he will choose, he must choose, surely he'll choose, surely he'll—
"You deserve better than this old man," Shen Qingqiu says, threads of horror in his voice, but that lightning scent only burning stronger.
"I will accept no other," Luo Binghe says, fierce as he can, clutching his whole world in shaking hands, smearing his omega scent across fine silks. "No one but you. If not Shizun, then no one."
Outside their cave, the acid rain steams and burns against stone and trees—melts leaf litter and the monster corpse their battle had left behind. Xiu Ya and Zheng Yang rest together tucked as deep in the cave as possible, safe from the corrosion and already polished clean. Shen Qingqiu is still and silent, but Binghe can practically feel him thinking.
"Shizun, please," he says softly, not whining this time, only honest. "This Binghe knows you expected me to be… But don't throw me away just because of this, please. Don't throw me away…"
"Who could throw you away!?" Shen Qingqiu demands, alarmed and bewildered. "I—this master—if Binghe is…"
"Quickly, while I'm still thinking clearly!" Binghe demands, though he feels that the mind-altering haze of the heat is still far off in his future. "Shizun, now, while I'm still myself, let me tell you—I want this! Alpha, I want you."
He pushes his scent—still annoyingly youthful, but ripening quickly as his presentation rolls onwards. He can feel the warmth building under his skin, the arousal pooling low in his gut, the telltale dampness of something wet between his thighs.
It's answered by a hot, wet breath against his neck. Luo Binghe shudders, going stock still. He can feel lips—or are they teeth?--brushing against the shoulder of his robes. Shen Qingqiu is still before him. Or, no, not still so much as…
Frozen. Frozen, save for the fine shudder working its way through the slender body under Binghe's hands. The smell of lightning fills the small cave, rising to meet the fresh, juicy citrus of Luo Binghe's new scent.
"Shizun," Binghe croons, low and sweet.
He shivers again, harder. Shen Qingqiu breathes in deep through his nose, then out past his parted lips, the warm, damp heat against Binghe's shoulder deepening.
"Your wives," Shen Qingqiu mutters to himself, nonsensical and bleary. The motion brushes against Luo Binghe's aching scent gland, and the motion frees his scent like a fingernail piercing through the flesh of an orange.
"There's only Shizun," Luo Binghe says, his vision going hazy as he gazes out at the rain. He's never smelled Shizun like this before. He's never smelled like this himself before. He didn't know what kind of Omega he would be when he forced his body to be one, but he sees now. He sees he was right.
Only the best omega for Shizun could push him into a rut like this. And it is a rut, even if Shizun is still holding back. There's something hard pressing into Binghe's hip where Shen Qingqiu is crushed against him, and he will have it. He will.
"Shizun," he breathes. "Help me."
"This is so out of character," Shen Qingqiu wheezes, but when Luo Binghe grabs at his face, he melts into his clumsy, biting kiss without restraint.
A-Zhu travels well, for being so small. She hides her face in Binghe's chest while flying on the sword, but when he slows down, she'll look out over the world and laugh. It was important, he knew, for her to learn to love traveling. Shizun loves to journey.
"Someone else can go," Yue Qingyuan had said, pretending he wasn't begging.
"I know more than them," Luo Binghe had replied, and turned away from the sect leader before he could turn those tragic eyes on his daughter again.
The unrest in the demon realm had a name now. They called it the swirling green death. And it was making its way to the borderlands.
They are well matched. One coupling in a small cave, hemmed in by acid rain, is all it takes. Luo Binghe has made himself the perfect omega. Mu Qingfang declares him pregnant within a week, the change in his hormones unmistakable.
Shizun looks shell shocked still, wandering pale and confused through his days. He blames himself, he says, and Luo Binghe scowls at the wording.
"There's no blame," he insists, wearing robes parted enough for the world to see the mating mark on his neck. "Shizun, there could be no one else."
"True mates," Mu Qingfang agrees with a tired sort of acceptance.
Shen Qingqiu does not look appeased. He looks worried, and confused, and it takes ages for Binghe to pry why out of him.
"I've ruined your life," he says, eyes cast aside and fan lifted over his face. "I never meant to trap you with me, Binghe."
I did, Binghe doesn't say.
"Shizun," he says instead, taking his master's hand and guiding it to the planes of his stomach. There's no swell there yet—the child doesn't even fully exist yet—but Shizun seems to understand anyway. His slender hand splays wide over Luo Binghe's flat stomach, fingertips trailing over the wide belts of his Qing Jing uniform.
Those hands on his skin, unwinding him—delicate but strong, clenching senselessly as Binghe rode him, their panting and moans muffled by the hiss and steam of acid rain.
"Alpha, Alpha," he'd chanted, riding him harder than he'd ever ridden one of Qing Jing's steeds, hands braced on his chest. "This Omega—I—"
Shen Qingqiu snarls beneath him, then whines to follow the snarl, soft and high and sweet. His hands lift, tangling in Binghe's hair, dragging him down into a kiss. Luo Binghe bites, and Shen Qingqiu bites in return. They are both bleeding. The blood tastes sweet between them.
Held down like that, Binghe loses his angle, writhes and humps down eager and sloppy against his alpha. Shen Qingqiu groans into his mouth, braces his feet against the silken robes he'd thrown down for them both and thrusts up. There is a swell at the base of his cock now—Binghe can feel it thrusting up against his fucked-open hole, dripping wet and squeezing, hungry for more, more, MORE.
"Knot me!" he cries against Shen QIngqiu's mouth, their lips and teeth smearing together with his words. "Alpha, knot me, breed me, mark me, TAKE ME!"
Shen Qingqiu's hips snap up again, again, again, harder and harder, his hands clawing in Binghe's wild hair, his breaths coming deep and desperate as he gives himself to his disciple.
When his knot slips inside and swells, locking them together in a screaming mass of bliss, teeth lock on Binghe's neck at the same moment, breaking skin, binding them. Binghe's world goes white with bliss. His, his, his, his, his forever, only his.
The moment Shen Qingqiu parts his lips, dragging his teeth free to gasp for breath, Binghe tears aside the last remnants of his shizun's robes to return the mark with one one of his own.
"Will Shizun forgive his Binghe?" he asks, then more softly: "Will Alpha forgive his mate?"
Heat floods Shen Qingqiu's face, staining his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. His fingers twitch as if he wants to pull his hand away to fish free his fan, but he doesn't pull back.
"There's nothing to forgive," Shen Qingqiu rasps. "But doesn't Binghe regret…" his eyes trail to the bite mark at the side of Binghe's neck—not picture perfect, blurred by their twin enthusiasm rather than carefully sculpted. It is proof living on Binghe's body of what he knows about his master—that the elegant, perfect, untouchable immortal is a mask, and the man beneath it is real, wild, and beautiful.
"This disciple's only regret is that I will not be able to bring glory to Qing Jing at this Immortal Alliance Conference," Luo Binghe declares, splaying his hand over Shen Qingqiu's against his belly. His hands are the same size now, and he is not yet done growing. He will be bigger than his master, in the end. Thank heavens he fell into heat with him now, when he could still pretend to be a small, pathetic omega.
"Yes," Shen Qingqiu says, his voice raw, and closes his eyes as if wounded.
Luo Binghe's stomach had swollen mightily by the time the conference came around. His sword forms no longer look anything like those in his cultivation manual, his center of balance constantly changing. He trains each day to ensure he can still wield his weapon as well—still move as quickly—still succeed in the face of any danger.
It is all for nothing. The Cang Qiong delegation comes back from the Immortal Alliance Conference battered, bruised, and smaller in number.
They return. Shen Qingqiu does not.
"Mine left me too," the omega behind the counter at the inn says, her sad, tired eyes fixing on A-Zhu in her wrapping on Binghe's back. "There's work to be had without them out here."
"My Alpha didn't leave," Binghe says, baring his teeth at her.
She shrinks back, and he reins in his instincts. Apologizes quietly and overpays for the room. Her child is behind the counter, flapping scraps of cloth and babbling to himself.
His scent must have soured, though, because A-Zhu starts patting her little hands against his hair and shoulders. She's taken to it recently—'comforting' him. She pats his head, like Shizun used to, and it's good that he escaped to his room so quickly, because it splits him open every time. Splits him straight in half. His daughter, their daughter, with his Shizun's little pout, and his clever eyes, and his kind, kind hands…
She is so big now. Bigger every day. She can stand. She has started to speak. Already he is baba. And curse him, damn him, but Liu Qingge has become 'shushu' to her--the closest she can get to the moniker Luo Binghe is still obligated to call his martial uncle.
The first time she'd called him that, he had gone pale and stricken with grief, and Luo Binghe had almost— almost!-- invited him inside after all. Damn his omega instincts. Damn Cang Qiong for being his pack. He didn't ask them to. He didn't even want them to.
But they were Shen Qingqiu's pack, and much though he still hates them—much though he wishes they had never stolen their long looks at his Shizun, or taken up so much of his time—they loved him. Not as much as Binghe, not enough to believe him, that a small thing like The Abyss wouldn't be enough to kill his master, but they loved him.
In another world, Luo Binghe would hate them more for it.
In this one, he is the one with Shen Qingqiu's bite scarred into his neck—imperfect and forever.
"Let's go into town, A-Zhu," He murmurs to his child, once he's settled again and she's started wiggling in his clinging hug. "Baba will find some nice things to make your dinner, hmm?"
Because yes, she has begun eating real food, even as Binghe still permits her to nurse. She is only just more than a year, after all. Still so small, still so weak. He will give her everything he has.
The produce in the borderlands is worthless. It's good he packed peaches from the mountain in a storage compartment. Better that his breasts have not dried. He is looking over a withered melon when the distant sounds of battle reach him.
He lifts his head slowly, turning towards the distant screams of battle.
"Happen often?" he asks the hastily-disguised demon shopkeeper, as withered as her produce.
"Less and less with our lord here," she says. "I can only hope he stays a little longer. No one's ever cleared them out so much before."
Binghe hums, setting down the melon and going towards the sound. 'Our lord' indeed—seems he'll finally get to sneak a peek at the new scourge of the demon realm. He makes a mental note to send an extra tip to the spy who tipped him off to this location. One of Qing Jing's incognito contacts, if he remembers right. "Airplane," or something.
The battle sounds are already decreasing. With each screaming voice that falters to silence, the squelching, tearing sounds grow louder.
"Time to play 'no peeking', A-Zhu," Luo Binghe croons to his daughter, bouncing her on his back a couple of times to test how well her wraps are holding her. She coos winningly in answer, and shoves her face into his hair, gripping on with both small, strong hands.
He doesn't draw his sword as he rounds the corner, not yet willing to reveal himself as a cultivator just to catch a glimpse of this newest threat. He's glad he didn't.
There is a pile of bodies, almost neatly arranged—corpses in one pile, heads in another. The only exception is the final corpse—currently in the making. Long, elegant hands are still busy in their work, tipped now with long, vicious claws, soaked red in blood. The stench of blood blends with the soothing chill of new rain, mixes rancid with freshly poured tea, tinges the distant edges of lightning.
"A-Zhu," he rasps, as Shizun rips his final opponent's head from his shoulders, dropping his body into the corpse pile at his feet and callously tossing his head aside. "A-Zhu, baba was wrong. You can look. Look, A-Zhu."
As he speaks, low and ragged, he unfastens her from his back and draws her instead into his arms. He feels his scent swelling—a tide of fresh citrus where for so many years there has been the taint of spilled rice on dirt. The demon—for he must be a demon—lifts his head, sharp and abrupt, his eyes flaring poisonous green, only to freeze and falter, his bloody claws falling limp at his sides.
"It's your A-Die," Luo Binghe rasps, standing empty-handed before the demon calamity who had emerged like a storm from an abyssal vent and torn through the demon realm towards the borderlands. His shizun. His alpha . His everything.
There is only space for a breath before they fall towards each other, blood forgotten, his shizun's clear demonic nature and Binghe's hidden one set aside, unimportant. There is only the fresh rain, once again enriching youthful citrus, and between them the milk-soft scent of their child.