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Takemi wasn't much a fan of this plan.
Neither were any of his others, of course. Akira's thieves were all so possessive of their omega. The bites carved into his skin were proof enough.
(He wanted every single one. They all thrummed with their love for him. It wasn't just a precaution, but they had rushed it, a little. Akira had heard the jokes police made about an unmarked omega the first time he'd been arrested.)
(No one got to put their teeth on him unless he allowed it.)
But in matters of life-or-death, there are very few options.
Manipulating someone into a mating bite is fucked up, Akira. Yeah, well, so are assassination attempts. Are you really sure you want that with someone willing to kill you? So sue him (or don’t, really don’t, that brings back memories he’d rather not touch on as this set of drugs wears off), but he can’t help but feel like, despite everything…
There’s something more beneath the surface of one Akechi Goro. Beyond being the media darling and hitman both. And if it takes teeth to drag it out of him, Akira won’t hold back.
“This is a horrible idea.” Makoto stares him down. The rest of his thieves nod with her.
“I know, I know,” he says, raising his hands in surrender. He’s sitting on his bed, Morgana at his side. The others are in various states between sitting and standing. “It’s just…”
“I, for one, do not wish to share you with him,” Haru says. Calm, collected. The steel of her axe is brutal in her tone. He’s tasted that steel before, in many different ways. He knows she could deliver that promise.
“Put your stupid crush to the side.” Ryuji definitely wants to be standing, crowding in close while he speaks. He’s been forced to take the couch, though, with the way his leg’s been acting up.
“This isn’t about my crush,” Akira responds. “I know it’s stupid. I know he’s trying to kill me. I know what he’s probably done,” he inclines his head as an apology to Haru and Futaba. “But I…”
Morgana hops into his lap, and fills in the rest for him. “You don’t want to die.”
And Akira can only nod.
“Our plan is great though!” Futaba says, from his work desk bench. “He’ll have no idea! It’s foolproof!”
“I’m not doubting you,” he smiles, a flicker on his face. “I… I can pull off my part, but what if they don’t give me the chance? What if something happens? What if he plans on using the Metanav? I don’t… feel safe without a backup.”
It’s a cruel line to speak to his crowd of alphas and he knows it, but it’s true. He trusts them all with his life, and he knows they can feel that through their bond as surely as he feels their distaste for this idea. Akira can feel the urges to growl that they’re all barely restraining.
Yusuke sits where Morgana was earlier, and runs his fingers through Akira’s hair. It makes his bones want to dissolve, and a purr starts to build in his chest, but he doesn’t allow himself to slip further into that comfort. Still, he whispers a “Thank you,” to him.
“Of course,” is the soft reply. After a pause, he continues, louder. “I believe our plan is a masterpiece, we have finely crafted each stroke. Nevertheless, if you feel you need a backup plan, are there not other options? Ones far less unsavory than allowing him to have a claim on you?”
He laughs. He really can’t help it. “Say I need this failsafe, and he later attempts to betray the bond, it is six against one.” They all care for each other just as they do him. They’ve all accepted each other as part of the pack. It’s the only reason this works, six bites on his neck, all sharing space. Six sets of teeth have met his scent glands, and he’s met each of theirs in turn.
If one bond were rejected by the rest of the mates, it would hurt. It’s not a pain Akira has felt before, but the very thought gives him a gut-deep aversion. He could no sooner carve out the flesh of his own neck, dig those glands out himself, than he could reject one of the bonds bitten into his skin. To break a bond is to scoop out the pieces of himself and toss them in the garbage disposal, feeling the absence and shredding metal both.
All of them flinch. Yusuke’s arm tightens around him.
“You can’t be serious…” Ann breathes out. “Akira, that would…”
“I know.”
It’s not that breaking bonds is impossible. It just isn’t done. Akira did research before suggesting this, of course he did. Abuse cases are the most prolific, but there were some forced removals from happy couples too. In all cases, even the most horrific, the omegas have said they regret it. That anything, even living with constant harm, was better than that emptiness, that inability to ever feel safe again. Alphas too, note the distinct loss. They become far more prone to lashing out, directionless without that missing piece.
They all say it’s worse than if the other had died. There’s an absence that’s been taken, not just lost. A violation of everything that body has changed to accept.
But none of those cases ever dealt with multiple bonds. The few reports of a new bond being formed—whether it be the old partner or new—all seem to agree that it eased away the pain. He had six already there, with claims staked first. It would hurt him, but they would be able to protect him through the worst of it.
(He doesn’t want to hurt Akechi like that, either.)
(But then again, Akechi is planning to kill him. All is fair in love and war, if it keeps him alive.)
“I know the risks,” he repeats. “I know what I’m asking of you all. If shit hits the fan, then this allows me to still have some modicum of control. If any of you deem it necessary, I am telling you here and now: do what needs to be done. If you refuse, it won’t take anyway. I know I’m already pushing the limits of your concerns by taking the fall, that it is your trust in me that allows us to go forward with this plan. So… I trust all of you. I trust you all to do what you believe is best. I trust you to take care of me.”
Akira doesn’t want it to be necessary. Not the backup plan, nor the breaking of a bond. But there are very few ways out of an interrogation room. Even fewer when they need everyone to believe he’s dead, reported by the hitman himself.
Either Akechi needs to believe he’s done it, or Akechi needs to have no way out except to lie for him. To lie, without any choice in the matter at all, because they can’t very well ask him to sacrifice everything ahead of time.
(Forcing a bond is quite possibly the worst thing Akira could ever do to him.)
(He doesn’t expect to be forgiven. Not for this. Desires and wants are different from actions, near-irrevocable and impossible to take back.)
(But he’s seen Akechi want, in their games and duel and Jazz Jin dates, and Akira wants to live. He wants them both to live.)
Later, Ann is sitting at his side. It’s her turn to spend the night with him (and they do all take turns, ever since they learned about Akechi they’ve been unwilling to leave him alone. Futaba’s cameras and Morgana aren’t enough). She holds him tight, and sighs. “I don’t like this backup, Akira.”
And he nods, burying his face in her neck and breathing deep. Sugar-sweet, strawberries dipped in chocolate on top of a crepe with whip cream. She’s always been tasty. “I knew you wouldn’t. Not just because of… us, but… Kamoshida, yeah?”
“I don’t like the guy, but it’s not right.” Always so firm in her convictions. It makes him want to be devoured. “You shouldn’t be put in that position, where you have to give your soul to someone just to live, and…! He shouldn’t be forced to give away his, against his will like that. I just… It reminds me too much of him, even though it’s not the same.”
Her hair is soft as he strokes it, giving her neck a kiss before he leans back to look at her. “I don’t… Talk about him much, with everyone. For a while, no one really wanted to hear about him, since he was on our case. Then he was blackmailing his way onto the team, and then we heard that call. But… There’s something driving him. Something he’s willing to sacrifice everything for. I don’t think he’s ever felt wanted in his life, always ready for others to move on and toss him to the side. So despite everything between us, he’s prepared for me to do the same. He’s prepared to do the same to me.”
He has to break, tapping his fingers against her side twice to let her know he’s still got more to say. It’s a system they all worked out, in moments like this. Words don’t always come easy to him. They’ve always been willing to give him the time he needs.
“That doesn’t make it right.” It’s what he needs to state first, he knows. “But he hates to see me not give something my all. He declared us rivals, I rose to be worthy. The words he says, Ann!” Akira huffs, laughing. “He challenges me to a duel in Mementos—I won, for the record—And at the end he says shit like But if we go any further, we’d both go beyond the point of no return, wouldn’t we?” He mimics Akechi’s voice, and that gets her to grin. “No, no, hold on, Ann, you know what he said next? In all honesty, I’d love to see just how far we can go.”
She’s laughing, wide-eyed, “Oh my god. What is wrong with him?”
“He says he hates me, lists off all the qualities I have that he’s jealous of, and then throws his glove demanding a rematch. And don’t forget, he’s trying to kill me, and is likely a hitman, there is so much wrong with him!”
“Yeah, there’s a lot wrong with you, too, Akira! You like this man!” But she’s got humor in her voice when she says it. Even when she sobers up, she’s not as heavy-hearted. “I still don’t like this. You’re forcing him into something with the same excuse he almost used to get at Shiho. If she’d been in heat…”
“I know. Trust me, I know. I don’t think he’d choose this of his own free will. I don’t think he’d want to bond with anyone. But I can’t die, I can’t leave you all like that, and… I wouldn’t be able to leave well enough alone anyway. We both know that. I think he’s like us, and I want to help him. I want… I want him to know he’s wanted. And the stubborn, pigheaded asshole he is won’t be able to accept it any other way.”
Akira lays down, pulling her with him as he adjusts the blankets. “I could taste his urge to bite in that duel, it filled the air. If his care for me were an act, he wouldn’t have done half that he did. He took me to a place special to him, where he hides away from the world. He’s told me about his mom. I want it to be his choice to come to me, but I’m not going to let him kill me waiting. You aren’t going to lose me like that.”
The moment he hears Akechi’s voice from outside the door, he slams his teeth together hard enough to break the false tooth-cap containing the backup plan.
And oh, it is instant, feeling his body kick into overdrive. He nearly doesn’t notice Akechi shooting the guard as heat builds in his gut. Takemi really was quite the doctor, being able to whip up something so fast-acting. She understood his words when he told her there would be so little time to save him.
“Did you really think I would fall for that, Joker?” Akira breathes deep. Focuses. He needs– He needs to stay focused. He can’t fall into the pseudo-heat yet. This needs to work. “Who do you think I am? I have years of experience. It’s game over.”
He can’t help but let out a laugh at that. Confirmation and damnation all at once. Akechi, certainly the Black Mask, really did come here to kill him. Akira hopes the thoughts of him bleeding out, his last gasping breaths, made his worthy opponent feel something. Crimson red images should’ve quickened his pulse with want.
“You really– You really think so?” he manages to gasp out past the clawing desires in his throat.
“Oh?” he leans forward—yes, good, closer, closer—”You have a scheme more insane than trying to trick me into shooting a cognitive version of yourself? Do tell.”
And maybe, and just maybe, Akira loves these games they play. The glint of the shitty fluorescent light on the gun. The derision in Akechi’s tone. It’s not just the drugs that send sparks through him, making him want. Akira went to Mementos for a duel with Akechi once, knowing he might die in under two weeks time at the other end of that very same gun.
“Hah,” he laughs, he pants. Is his face red, by now? “You shut the door on the way in.”
Akira can see it, see the moment Akechi realizes what he’s been breathing in. Not just stale air filled with an omega sitting there drugged for hours. No, not when he has slick pooling between his legs, drenching him better than that bucket of water ever did. He’s so beautiful, pupils blown wide and a hand against his nose, as if that could ever save him now.
“What did you–”
He stands, and pops open the handcuffs. They were getting in the way of what he wanted–needed–now. Small miracles, they hadn’t noticed that the padding of his bra was hiding not just underwire, but a lockpick. Easy enough to rescue after Makoto’s sister had left the room.
“It’s an enhanced pheromone drug with the strength to knock down an elephant,” he recites Takemi’s words. “I had my doctor create it, just in case. Definitely too much for humans, so we might die in heat.”
It’s cute how Akechi turns toward the door, taking steps away from Akira. As if he would ever allow that. He can see the unsteady shake of Akechi’s legs. “Our little secret, I half-wanted the chance to put this plan into action.”
(He doesn’t know if it’s true, right now. But he wants, he needs, it has to be true in this moment).
Akechi is frozen there, so close and yet so far away, and very obviously not fucking him yet. Rude, honestly. “You’ve inhaled far too much to just leave a poor, unsatisfied, defenseless omega in heat.” The words drip off his tongue, like the slick dripping down his legs. A little, needy whine escapes him as he takes a shaky step forward. “I thought the attraction was mutual. Just one bite is all it’d take. I’d be yours forever.”
Akira manages a few more steps, snaking his arm around Akechi’s waist for stability, and leans in close. Close enough that there really is no escape. Close enough to whisper.
“Didn’t you want to see just how far we could go, Goro?”
Brick meets his back as Akira is slammed against the wall.
It stings, and he lets out a whimper as his head aches from the contact. It wasn't enough to do damage, but it was already hurting. The sound earns him a low growl, and his answering purr vibrates in his chest.
“I hate you,” Goro says, though his hands are pushing down Akira's pants.
“Ha, you—so you've said.” He grins in answer, even as he tries to buck up, find something, anything to give him a little bit of friction. He takes a risk, and seems to be allowed to use his own hands to remove his shirt.
There's already six marks, three per side—Ryuji, Ann, and Yusuke to his left, Makoto, Futaba and Haru to his right. It'll be uneven, this one will go left he's sure. The skin is bared now and free for the taking. And he wants, he needs—
Goro hasn’t taken off his pants yet. There’s a bulge, and Akira needs it. Before Goro can stop him, he’s leaning forward and yanking the pants down. Only to his knees, but enough to reveal the beautiful, thick cock that he knows, he knows he needs in him. He’s so empty, and it would help fill the cavernous ache.
And yet, and yet! Goro isn’t shoving into him. Still with some modicum of self-control, refusing to give in. He’ll just have to fix that.
Akira takes one of Goro’s hands from his dick, and moves it up to his chest. Akira doesn’t have the biggest breasts, and it’s nothing he hasn’t already seen at the bathhouse, but there’s enough there to squeeze, and squeeze he does, before he can pull away.
“Go-ro,” he moans, “your hand is hardly going to be enough for you, and I’m right here. Take us to the point of no return~”
“Shut. Up.”
Akira’s mouth clamps shut so fast he almost bites his own tongue. Fuck. Shivers run down his spine and through his legs at that commanding tone. He felt that down to his bones, and he wants more.
So he smirks, and leans in. And starts to suck at Goro’s neck.
The surface of his pheromones is syrupy, a dark addictive maple. But Akira knows, even before now, that Goro leans into that with perfumes and acting. Underneath isn’t pancake batter, it’s iron with a bloody bite, and beyond that, meeting his tongue, an elusive hint of smoke. Ill-defined and hard to pin, more a memory than a taste. It reminds him of tobacco, and of cinnamon cookies burned and crispy and eaten anyway.
And his taste-test-turned-meal has done its job, because Goro slams into him, and Akira jerks at the shocks running through him. He grips tight, hands slipping under Goro’s shirt to dig into his skin as he sets a brutal pace.
“I’m going to kill you once I’m through with you. There won’t be enough of you left for your precious little thieves to mourn, and then I’ll kill them too.”
Akira can’t help but giggle. Goro has him fully pinned against the wall, balls-deep in his pussy, and he’s still making threats. “Take me to the Metaverse and— And you can— You can shoot me all you like. I know Robin Hood has Samerecarm, and I don’t go anywhere without— Without at least one bead.”
He’s on fire. He’s burning up and there’s only one cure. The thoughts of being bloody, shot through the head and heart and any place Goro wants, crimson pooling on the ground, don’t help. Revives being cast again and again and again, as Goro fucks him and brings him back just to do it all over. Until he’s nothing more than paste on concrete. Maybe then the heat would be satisfied. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel like the only cure to this insatiable clawing emptiness is to be fucked to death, because he’d have died!
“I thought I told you to shut up,” he growls. “Not—Not a very good omega, disobeying orders.”
The words come with a particularly deep thrust, and he can’t choke back the whine, the moment of panic. The overwhelming urge to be good, good enough so that he’s loved and cared about and taken care of. Because if he can’t please then he’s nothing–
“F-fuck you.” The tears in Akira’s eyes aren’t just from the pain of hitting the wall with every movement. Aren’t just from the wounds and the non-Takemi drugs and the heat drugs all the same. No matter how much he works to be the leader, to be strong, instinct is very hard to overcome. Especially when intentionally made so intense. Anything else he could say is swallowed by a moan that comes out half-whimper.
“You set this up so I’d be fucking you. A–A low blow is nothing to what you’ll get after this.”
But he’s panting, off balance. So close and yet nearly near enough. Akira hums, though it turns strangled as another brutal pound comes, and the hands roaming him are going to leave their fair share of bruises and scrapes.
“G–Goro. Whatever you want. I–ah–I promise, it’s fine.” It’s getting harder to talk, but he has to, he has to, he has to say it. “I wouldn’t—Wouldn’t have considered this—This plan unless I wanted it. Wanted you. I–I already made up my mind.”
Pressure.
Finally–Blessedly–Full.
Akira’s mind turns to static.
His tongue tastes blood, and all those layers, a maple-tree turned firewood.
There’s a stinging to his left, too.
Something in him shifts, and it’s not the knot buried deep in him. No, he knows this well, but it’s so different every time.
A new bond snaps into place as he goes limp against Goro.
He thinks they ended up on the ground?
Akira is purring.
Full of cum and a knot and with a new bond, how could he not? Half-curled on Goro’s chest, he can ignore the aches and pains across his body for this.
Something starts to sour the affection he’s pouring through that new connection, though, so he lifts his head. Blinking at Goro beneath him.
“I’m going to kill you, Akira.” The words are cold. It makes him frown. “I have to kill you.”
He should—He should probably say something to that. He taps Goro twice.
Goro doesn’t understand the message. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
“Means I’m thinking,” he says, as he taps again.
Something about that must be confusing, given the way Goro looks at him, but at least he waits.
The post-orgasm haze is starting to clear, so he sits up. They’re still knotted together, but that’s okay.
“I think it’s obvious I knew what you were planning—”
“–No shit.”
“–But. I wasn’t going to just let you kill me. Not without a fight. Not without a backup plan in case the first fell through.” He laughs. He has to. There is so much nervous energy in him, and it has nowhere to go. The drugs have all run their course. “I can’t stop you. Literally, physically, I can’t. But, Goro–”
He traces the bite-mark on his new mate’s neck. “I’ve made sure that if you kill me, at least it’ll hurt.”
This time when his back stings, it’s from hitting the floor.
He’s not done, though. Even with Goro in all his fury towering over him, hands boxing him in. “You can point that gun at my head. You can pull the trigger. But now you won’t be able to live a life after this without knowing just what you took from yourself. Just how you carved away at your own soul.”
“I will do it.” One of Goro’s hands has managed to find the gun and point it at him. He’ll hurt himself, that way, but oh well. Akira would be too dead to care.
“Or–Or, you could call your boss and tell him the deed is done, and let Niijima-san help you cover up the fact that I’m not dead. I’m sure they won’t even need to see the body to believe you. Oracle is all ready for the next phase of this plan, though I’m sure she must be losing her mind with worry.”
He’s hesitating. He’s not pulling the trigger.
“I know you have that script memorized to perfection. I know you’re perfect at masking your voice. Your boss won’t have a clue you just fucked the living daylights out of me–Hah. Not intentional.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
“Then call your boss, and you’ll make time to tell me. You can always blow my brains out later if you’re so unhappy with the results. Literally, metaphorically, or both. I haven’t forgotten about Samerecarm.”
Goro looks about on the verge of laughing, crying, or both. It’s the hysterics, really. Akira has just ruined quite a lot of his planning, he’s sure. But he doesn’t break down. Not yet.
Still knot-deep in him, Goro takes out his phone. His gaze pierces Akira, and with all the rumbling force of a freight train, he commands, “Stay. Quiet.”
The weight of it makes it hard to so much as breathe as Goro makes the call. His voice is light and chipper as he reports the death of the leader of the Phantom Thieves, and Akira doesn’t miss the way he so deftly avoids agreeing to carrying out hits on the others. He hopes that Goro would’ve done that anyway, even without this, but it makes him smile all the same.
The call is quick. Far quicker than it really has any right to be, but Akira won’t be one to complain. Not with his pulse still beating in his chest, and–oh.
The knot is deflated enough that Goro pulls out, frowning at the mess. Cute.
“Akira?” Goro shakes him, and he flinches, inhaling deep.
But it wasn’t a lack of air, despite the command. No, it’s much, much worse.
“Hey Goro?” he asks, as the adrenaline fails him, as exhaustion crashes against every molecule of his being. “Get me home? I think I’m gonna pass out now.”
It’s satisfying, he thinks, to see just a little bit of panic make its way onto Goro’s face before the world goes dark.
Akira catches snippets of words as the car rumbles and everything fades in and out.
“–Wasn’t this bad before, what did you do to him?”
“He did what?”
“No, of course not. You’re fine being accountable for murder, but not for a mating mark. That makes perfect–”
Huh.
He’s wearing clothes again.
Did Goro dress him?
They’re dirty and soaked and disgusting, but at least he’s not nude.
“ –Sae-san–”
“–Fine, but you owe me an explanation.”
He smiles at Goro’s voice.
Ugh.
Nevermind, smiling hurts. So does moving.
At least he can still purr.
It’s soft, self-soothing. He’s trying to keep it quiet, he doesn’t want to interrupt. Or be any more conscious than he already is.
Still, the other two in the car fall silent. He’s been noticed.
When the car hits a bump in the road, he whines.
A hand brushes through his hair, and oh, wait. He’s slumped against Goro. He didn’t notice.
“You’re pathetic.”
It’s more of a wheezing cough than a laugh, and even that much is a strain. So is saying, “Alive, though,” but he manages to get the words out anyway.
Goro hums, and it sounds wonderful to his ears. “Did you know you smell different, compared to June? Back then you were less obtrusive. Now you’re all coffee and curry spices. Obnoxious, really.”
It doesn’t hurt, not the way the scolding did, or the way his body yearns to pass back out to avoid the pain. This is familiar. Comfortable. “Hormone therapy. Six–seven–bites. New home. Tada. Changed scent.”
Anything else is cut off by the arrival to LeBlanc. Niijima parks the car, and Goro helps him out. Careful despite everything to not aggravate his injuries. Mostly. The elbow to his gut that was definitely at least semi-intentional he could do without.
The door opens, bell ringing out, and he’s already flinched at the shattering sound, plate hitting the ground.
But it’s fine, Sojiro is there, staring in shock, relief plain on his face. And Futaba can see him now, full-view. She can tell all the others he made it home.
“Thank god you made it back–”
This is the part he least wanted to deal with.
Sojiro is staring at him, draped over Goro. Bite marks fully in view. For him, both old and new.
“Kid, what did you do?”
“Got myself another mate. We’re home.”
He smiles. The warmth is still there, though that might be his exhaustion blurring his emotions.
Sojiro sighs. Looking to Goro, he says, “Get him upstairs. I’ll make sure the doc knows to come this way.”
Akira can feel the flicker of annoyance Goro has for Takemi, but laughing hurts. It hurts a lot. So once the pain fades, he lets himself be guided up to his attic.
Goro doesn’t just let him flop into bed. Instead, he guides Akira down, and then helps him into a change of clothes. Muttering all the while about how sleeping like that would’ve been disgusting, and really, how does Akira live in this dust-hell in the first place?
Then Goro is standing, getting ready to slip away, and Akira jolts, eyes wide and full of panic. “Don’t–Don’t leave.”
Hah.
Goro wasn’t kidding. He is pathetic.
He stands in the middle of the room for several seconds. Akira doesn’t really keep track. All he can do is weakly hold his hand outstretched. Can’t even support it past the edge of the bed.
“... Fuck. Fine.” Goro grabs a chair, and sits by the head of the bed. “I’m shooting you at least once more for this,” he says, even as his fingers find Akira’s hair again.
“Keep a tally, I’ll let you fill me as much as you want. Lead or otherwise.”
“You are insufferable.”
Akira would respond, but his eyelids are rebelling against the strict order he’s given them to stay open. Fog is encroaching on his mind again, and all he can really do is lay there, purring to himself and Goro, as it envelops him.
The hand in his hair is one that was ready to pull the trigger on him. The fingers carding through his curls are gentle.
They can talk tomorrow.