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Eric Killmonger is first and foremost an outsider. It doesn’t matter who his father was, what books he’s managed to read, or how much information he’s managed to scrape together in his ops. He is an outsider and there are certain things, like laws that are old and dusty because no-ones needed to look at them in generations that are still very relevant, but one simply can’t learn about until you’re knee deep in the middle finding out about them the hard way.
Erik wakes from dreams of a woman claiming to be his mother and jolts up out of a grave of velvet blue sand. The room is empty of any of the attendees, but he recognises it, but last time he saw it it was bathed in fire, and now those vines he ordered destroyed crawl around the room undamaged and glowing orange.
He assesses the blue sand still falling from his bare shoulders and chest and the room at large as he places discrepancies. The panther statue is smaller, slick, the colours are all wrong, the planets have taken over most of the columns, flowers up high rather than on the ground. “This ain’ the same room at all.” He drawls and rolls his neck, ready for battle. He feels like someone’s reached inside and rearranged his insides, but it doesn’t feel bad, just odd.
He should be dead. Doesn’t matter what that woman said while his eyes were closed. Ghosts aren’t real and he should be dead just like she is. He touches the spot where his cousin stabbed him, feels the ridge of a new scar but no tenderness. “Torture then, I’m down for that.” He scans the room for weapons or more clothes than his pants, finds none, so sets his weight even and ready for a fight before the prowls out of the only exit.
He doesn’t expect to step outside, so the enclosed stone courtyard is a surprise and so is T’Challa sitting on the edge of a fountain, one foot hooked up over his other knee and looking like he’s preparing for to deliver bad news. Erik isn’t sure how that will bode for him, but he’s ready. By now he can’t possibly have the powers of the Black Panther and T’Challa clearly does, so it’s all a matter of what T’Challa still wants with him.
His cousin hears him and goes to stand, “Nah no need to stand for me,” Erik smirks.
“It is better that this is done properly.” T’Challa disagrees and does stand but he does not move closer, instead he folds his hands behind his back and meets Erik’s eyes unflinchingly. It is something not everyone can do, but Erik lets one of his darker smiles out because he’s not scared, he’s already died once, what’s a second time after that?
“There is a tradition in Wakandan history,” T’Challa begins gravely, “challenges for the Throne are not uncommon-”
“We gonna fight to the death again? We alrea’y done that. But if you’re so hard for it I’ll kill you again.” He does it to see the little lines of tension around his cousin’s eyes, a sick thrill to rub the spoilt brats face in his insolence. And T’Challa doesn’t disappoint, but the expression is short lived.
“The heart-shaped herb is sacred to Wakanda, it’s role in our traditions and culture is irreplaceable, and you have destroyed it.” T’Challa allows the slip of anger in his voice, steel and authority that cannot be questioned. Erik wonders if little princes get taught how to do that or if it’s a thing unique to his cousin. He shrugs at the accusation, unrepentant and T’Challa’s eyes slip shut exasperated. Erik loves it.
“You should never have been an outsider,” T’Challa apologises, then cuts it down just as fast with, “but you are.” His voice is hard, unforgiving and Erik feels the first lick of real concern. This man is superhumanly strong, he’s faster, sharper, and he is a king. If Erik knows anything it’s the power of a king to do whatever he wants, however he wants. There’s a reason he’d wanted to be king. “And now I am left with dealing with you according to the laws of Wakanda.” T’Challa breathes in deep and something in his expression closes off. Erik can’t place the change, but he perseveres.
“You should have let me die.” He argues as sweat begins to build, because whatever this is, whatever is about to happen is not his fault, “I wanted to, I was ready.” He makes a broad gesture to show that he’s still ready. There’s no freedom for him here, he’d skin a man if they did to him what he’d done to his cousin. Nothing good can come from being alive, but there are no weapons in this room, just a fountain with its grand pillars and an exit Erik can’t see, and only T’Challa can kill him here, in this room.
“I let you die. The herb did not.” T’Challa snapped sharp and so very angry, “You should not have taken the herb without knowing what it meant.” The tone sends a fission of electricity right down to Erik’s core, he doesn't understand the reaction.
“So why am I here then?” He gestures to the courtyard, the curved walls of stone, and the night sky above them cutting to the chase. “I ain’t here to sit pretty and apologise, because y’all know I’ll never do that.” He steps up to T’Challa, breaks into his personal space like it means nothing, like the other man couldn’t snap him in half. He’s never been stupid enough to look intimidated when faced with a threat.
What he doesn’t expect is for T’Challa to snap. One second he’s getting up in the man’s face, watching T’Challa’s pupils dilate rapidly, and the next he’s been shoved face first into one of the fountains stone pillars.
“You are here,” T’Challa growls close to his face, “because what you took cannot be replaced, and therefore-” His breaths sound almost like pants and Erik has a sudden sharp idea. He’s seen this before, he’s done this before, but he never expected it here. Not from a man who was so obsessed with what was morally right that he let a man into his throne room who could dethrone him and ruin his entire country in the first weeks of his reign. A man who let the man who killed his father live so that he would face the courts. But T’Challa’s breath shudders out of him, and Erik feels a mouth settle on the back on his neck, feels the touch of teeth and spit and there’s no pretending. “Therefore,” T’Challa continues, “you cannot be replaced.”
“What the fuck?” Erik tries to shrug the man off, braces his hands on the pillar and pushes, but T’Challa doesn’t move an inch, inhumanly strong and plastered along his back, every curve crushed together and Erik knows what’s going to happen, because there’s a part of him that would have loved to have knocked T’Challa’s feet out from under him and rape him in front of his entire family and council but he still thinks he must be mistaken. “What the fuck are you doing?” He demands, as T’Challa starts to push his pants roughly down past his hips and over the curve of his ass with no preamble.
“The herb has an effect on your body,” T’Challa explains as he works, his lips tickling the hairs on the back of Erik’s neck with every word uttered, like he can’t bring himself to move away, “it changes things that cannot be unchanged.”
“I sure don’t feel super powered anymore.” Erik reminds because he’d be beating the other man’s skull in if he were. Then he grunts in surprise as T’Challa jerks his hips up fast and hard into the meat of his ass. Even through T’Challa’s clothes Erik can feel his hard dick and it sends a fission of fear straight through him, the kind he’s used to inspiring in others. It’s unpleasant and his heart starts to beat fast, his sweaty hands slipping on the pillar leaving him more vulnerable.
“Weaker, but changed.” T’Challa breathes deep again, and Erik’s going to demand to know what the fuck is up with that but T’Challa continues, “Otherwise you would not give off this perfect scent.” Which is a side of crazy that even Erik hasn’t encountered, and he’s meet some of the craziest bastards there are in the world. It’s always been his speciality.
“Yeah?” Erik grit through his teeth as T’Challa’s hips pause the rhythmically rolling against him as he wiggles a hand in between their hips to pull unzip himself. Erik panics. “Think I smell nice, bitch?” He demands and tries once more to escape, tries to get some sort of leverage, “Think you can just do whatever you want and I’ll let you?” tries to break the bastards nose with the back of his skull, to hook a foot around his ankle and trip him up. It’s not the first time someone’s tried it on, but it is the first it’s been someone who could hold him down single handily and the difference makes him feel small and pinned and at his cousin’s mercy.
And T’Challa laughs, a light breathless chuckle that sneaks out through the hot panting breaths sliding down Erik’s neck as his cock rubs between the crack of his ass checks. “Soon, N’Jadaka, you will beg for it.” He promises, and the scary thing is that T’Challa has never lied to him, maybe never lied at all, but there is nothing in this world that Erik can imagine that would make that a truth. Dread settles thick and heavy in the centre of his chest.
“That ain’t my name.” Erik grits out defiantly. “You gonna get this over with any time soon, or am I supposed to fall asleep waiting?” Behind him T’Challa makes a humming noise, and stills shifting his hips away. It’s exactly what Erik wants but even he knows it’s not for the reasons he wants. This isn’t stopping, not now, not unless he can make it stop and he is all out of ideas.
“You never let me finish speaking, N’Jadaka, and now we are running out of time.” T’Challa laments, and Erik’s gonna cut him when he’s free for that alone. Whatever happens today he’s going to torture the man behind him until there’s nothing left for making it sound like this is anyone but T’Challa’s own fault. T’Challa runs his hands up Erik’s back mapping out the many scars with his fingertips. “With the heart-shaped herb the Black Panther is stronger than any man or woman they may take to their bed. It is tradition for the Black Panther not only to have a king or queen who he will respect as his equal, but also a consort to fuck as they please.” The word fuck is so foreign on T’Challa’s tounge that Erik can barely process the rest at first, but it doesn't take him long.
“I ain’t your consort.”
“But you are.” T’Challa assured breathily and his fingers slip down to rub at the tight ring of muscles he’s going to invade. Erik doesn’t like the way his body tightens up then loosens as a finger breaches him dry but he bites back on any sound he wants to make, unwilling to give anyone that kind of vindication. “The consort is designed to take the Black Panther at the peak of their strength. Designed to be fucked -hard -fast and -unrestrained. That is why,” he says as he pushes his finger in all the way, it feels too big, too dry, and Erik strains away from it pushed up onto the tips of his toes to escape but with nowhere to go, “the consort must first consume the heart-shaped herb, and then the tear-shaped herb. To prepare them for what is to come.”
“I don’t feel too prepared, if ya know what I mean.” Erik growls, because T’Challa is not letting up, and there’s more than one finger now, and he might be stretching but it’s not comfortable. At the rate this is going, it’s gonna be bloody.
“Relax,” T’Challa soothes, “the change is new and your body is learning how to respond, but you consumed both scared herbs, and it will not be long before the transition is complete.”
“You think maybe your whore herbs ain’t doing their job-“ He cuts of on a dreadful noise of surprise, the fingers in him pressing down firmly on something that jolts through him, flares pleasure through his limbs and unlocks every single one of his joints. If not for the bulk of T’Challa still pressed in against him he would slip to the floor in a lose limbed mess. But he bearly has time to realise that before he realises his body is responding unexpectedly. The heat in his limbs doesn’t recede, the shock doesn’t creep back in, the pain gone, and he realises that the slide of the fingers in him has become smoother, quicker, lubricated, and T’Challa is making a pleased sound, his teeth scrapping up and down across the skin of Erik’s neck and they feel sharper but he can’t pick why when his body’s overloading with sensation and unwelcome want.
“There you are.” T’Challa croons, his voice low and rough. “I told you,” he pulls his fingers out, theres a wet pop in contrast to the way they’d scratched dry inside him, “soon you will beg for it. But for tonight this is enough.” And then Erik feels the thick heavy press of what can only be T’Challa’s cock pushing into him. Relentlessly punching out a space in his insides until he’s stuffed full and pinned. It should hurt, he should protest, he needs to protest, but all he can do is keen as hormones flood his brain and every nerve never knew in his ass fires off in pleasure. All he can remember, all he can do is to want more, and more and everything the man behind him is giving him. T’Challa gives him everything and more. Each hard push and desperate groan, a litany of curse words and epitaphs chanted into his hair line again and again and again as T’Challa takes his pleasure like he’s dying for it. Like he’s never fucked a man before, never wants to stop but can’t slow down. It’s hard, rough, thoughtless. A sloppy rhythm of in and out, and hard shoves that scrape Erik’s chest across the stone pillar. The kind of thing Erik’s done and seen done, but he’s never thought the sap being raped enjoyed it, no matter what he’d said to see them squirm, but he loves it. Loves the feel, the glide, the fucken way he doesn’t have to think because it’s happening with or without his consent and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. His cock is hard, has been for longer than he’s been able to focus on it, he drops his hand, wraps it around himself and jerks in time with every slap of skin as T’Challa uses him and ruins him for anything else.
Eventually he feels the twitch, the jerks of his cousin nearing the end, and his heart beat stutters over, his cock spurts and then there are teeth sinking into the back of his neck. It should hurt, he knows it should, but it’s like lightning fizzling through his veins and it goes straight past logic and any resistance he has left shuts dow into a mindless blissful haze of nothing. He spills over his hand, sags against the pillar and is nothing but a rag doll as T’Challa shudders and fucks his cum in deep, teeth still clinging tight to Erik’s neck.
Erik takes longer than T’Challa to pull himself together, and by the time T’Challa has detached his teeth and pulled out and pulled out of him the world is only just starting to come back into focus. T’Challa steps back tucking himself back into his slacks, and Erik’s barely got the strength to stop his slump to the floor from hurting, slidding down the piller onto the cold stone floor. He looks up at his cousin blurrily, but T’Challa is not looking at him.
“You bought this on yourself.” T’Challa explains to a wall, “If the herbs had not been destroyed there would be volunteers willing to take your place. But there are no more herbs, and a king must have his heirs.”
And with that, a hair barely out of place, T’Challa leaves him alone, a mess of a ruined human being who can barely move.
Erik takes his time remembering how to be human, or at human as he ever was. He rolls himself onto his back instead of righting himself and stares up at the midnight sky a laugh bubbling up from deep in his chest. He tries to stop it, but it slips out, then there’s another, and another until he can’t seem to stop. And between one moment and the next his breath hitches and he’s glad no-one else is there, because the sounds he makes are horrible dying noises that choke and strangle him until the only reason he’s breathing are the sharp desperate gasps of air his body keeps forcing him to take.
He had wanted to die. Anything was beter than being a slave. And here he was.
When he sleeps that night on the courtyard ground too tired to move, he dreams of the woman who could be his mother. She smiles at him and puts a flower behind his ear and tells him how proud she is that he’s come so far. How she never thought she’d get the chance to be a grandmother. And he doesn’t mean for it to happen but some fundamental part of him gives up.