Work Text:
“I will not calm down. This is insane!” Rage wells up in Mark like a geyser. He looks at his balled up fist and the crater in the ground. Did he just do that?
His father stares up at Mark with wide red eyes and blood in the corner of his mouth. Mark’s ears are ringing—the impact must have been loud. His knuckles are split and leaking blood; he hasn’t hit anything that hard before. A tremor runs through his arm—muscles shivering like they’ve been shocked. He can hit his dad harder. More than that—he wants to. He needs to. Earth needs him to.
He dives downward, arm cocked back, ready to punch Omni-man again. His dad’s arms come up on instinct, just in time to protect his face from caving in. he winces on the impact of Mark’s fist. A burst of heat floods through Mark, crawling from his heart into his veins. Is he stronger than his dad?
Nolan drags him into the impact crater, sticky with the fertile mud below, and slams his knee into Mark’s gut. Mark buzzes like a tuning fork, resonating into the pain. Mark can’t breathe, sure. It doesn’t matter. He can go weeks without air. He smiles, gums and teeth pink like tulips, and digs his fist into Nolan’s stomach—he pulls back at the end of his swing so that he doesn’t split his dad open from seam to seam.
Nolan gasps, slick and wet, spitting blood, eyes round and red. Mark thinks of his mother. Thinks of Amber, William, and Eve. Thinks of Maya. Raises his fist again—maybe he shouldn’t have held back.
“Mark, listen to me,” his dad wheezes.
Mark doesn’t. His hands are hammers, fast and hard as hail. His skin is laced up with sweaty, nervy excitement. His dad takes it. Mark doesn’t give him time to move or block. It’s so easy to hurt him. Mark isn’t even trying. His dad’s body rocks back with each of his punches, ground into bedrock, skin rending like peach-flesh and leaking red that smears against Mark’s knuckles. Mark’s jaws hurts; not because of his dad—he hasn’t even punched Mark in the face. No. His teeth are bared. He’s smiling.
“Mark, they can see you—” His dad’s eyes are focused upwards, beyond Mark.
Mark turns, and looks at the helicopter circling above them like a vulture, the glint of its camera trained on Mark and his father.
Rage effervesces through his skin, beading on his body. No one else is allowed to see this. This is his fight with his father. He rears back and that gives his dad just enough space to uppercut him so hard he’s launched into the sky.
He stops himself mid-air and bursts forward—the helicopter shudders, caught in the gust—and slams straight into his dad. His dad tries to resist, struggling against Mark’s arms, trying to push them off course. It doesn’t matter. His dad isn’t strong enough. Where’s that pure Viltrumite power now? Has Mark taken it all?
Mark has to get them farther, somewhere private, somewhere where it will be just the two of them.
“Mark,” his dad says, breathless, “Mark, listen to me—” His voice is faint over the screaming rush of air. “Mark, you will die if you don’t listen to me!”
Mark slows down minutely, enough that they can hear each other. His arms tighten around Nolan’s waist, drawing his back closer to Mark’s chest, and his dad heaves out a splatter of blood. “You can talk once we get there,” his voice sounds weird and harsh, scratching out his throat.
His dad twists his neck; his eyes are too close to focus on, but there’s a bruise at the cup of his chin, sweet and red. Mark put that there. Mark’s the only one on the planet who can do that. “You’re in blood fever, Mark,” he hisses out.
Mark doesn’t even know what the fuck that means. He looks down—the scenery has shifted from cool green fields to rich forest—old and thick as Earth. He loosens up as he decelerates, careful not to disturb the treetops. The GDA won’t be able to see them through the tree-cover—probably.
He settles them on the floor, beneath the shelter of a tall pine. He doesn’t let go of his dad. The only thing capable of holding him down are Mark’s arms. For a man so massive, he feels small like this. Weightless. Viltrumites aren’t much bigger or heavier than humans.
“You aren’t gonna let me look at you?” His dad asks, facing forward to the rest of the forest.
“I’m not stupid. You’ll try and kill me if I let you go,” Mark says. His stomach still aches from his dad’s knee.
“You’ve already noticed that you get stronger when you’re angry, right?” His dad says.
“Yeah. It’s adrenaline.”
His dad sighs, raspy and wet, telegraphing disappointment in a way that is pure dad. “You aren’t human. Don’t mistake the things that happen to you as human experiences. Humans can’t do what we do. They don’t even understand. You’re beyond them, Mark.” He coughs hard, retching up blood. Mark holds him through it. He must have broken a few ribs. “You will outlast every fragile and insignificant creature on this planet. These trees. Your friends. Everything. You’ll live to see this world crumble to dust and blow away. What will you have after five hundred years?”
His dad’s chest expands again, like he’s gearing up to turn around and punch him. Mark tightens his hold, drawing them closer together. He answers without thinking. “You, dad. I’d have you.”
His dad curls forward, like Mark has struck him in the stomach and pulled out his guts and liver. Mark lets him go, and his dad collapses onto his hands. The nape of his neck is so vulnerable. Mark could crush it without even breaking a sweat, before his dad would even know what had happened. “Mark,” his voice is strange and still, “Viltrumite blood is so pure—you may be half your mother, but you’re all mine. You’re my son.”
The rage in Mark softens but still pricks him. He’s bleeding, though not from every pore. It hurts more this way. Everything is stoppered up—without an out. Inside, he’s getting hotter. “I made you angry—why didn’t you get stronger, like me?” Mark asks softly—trying to exhale out the heat.
“Mark, can I look at you?”
Mark doesn’t say anything.
His dad turns, settling down onto the forest floor and looking up at Mark. He looks old in a way that Mark doesn’t recognise. Red eyes, blue iris, bruises blooming inside his cheeks so that they puff out with vicious vulnerability. There’s dried blood on the corner of his mouth, leaving dark flaky trails down his chin. “For Viltrumites, times of stress set off blood fever—but only in young ones right around your age. It happens once. For some, it never happens at all. You’ve been edging towards this for some time now. I should have expected it.”
Mark looks at him, aching like his veins are riddled with thorns, “but it’s over now. I won. We’re done fighting. Why does this blood fever matter?”
“It’s not over. Just look at yourself,” his dad says.
Mark does. There’s a fine tremor running though his body, almost like he’s vibrating. A strange clawing in the hollow of chest, craving something without name.
“There are only two ways to slake blood fever. Either you kill another Viltrumite—an equal—in combat. Or you fuck them.” Nolan looks down. It’s strange to hear his father say fuck, so much so that that everything Nolan just said takes a moment to register.
Mark stares at his kneeling father, head down and dripping blood that will nourish the trees and earth. He’s waiting for Mark to kill him.
Nolan keeps talking: “It’s better this way, Mark. I can’t kill you. And I can’t abandon my duty to Viltrum. This is better. This is good for everyone. Viltrum might not return to this planet if they find out it has the capacity to kill one of their best soldiers.”
“Dad,” Mark starts, getting down onto the forest floor. His dad doesn’t even look at him. “I’m not gonna kill you.”
“Then you will die, Mark,” he says it softly, speaks with tenderness to the green and fertile ground of this flowering place. “There isn’t any other way.”
“No—no. You won’t. I won’t do it.” Mark presses his shaking hands into the soil, tries to will them still. It doesn’t work. They shake harder. A spasm rolls through his body, and he nearly topples over.
His father’s hand catches him before he hits the ground. “This isn’t homework or training. I can’t force you. Mark, you have to.”
Finally, his dad looks at him, with such soft eyes and swollen cheeks, so capable of hurt, so ready to be hurt. Something sparks in Mark’s chest, travels down his arms, cruel as anything as it bifurcates along the length of his fingers, and Mark cups his dad’s bruised face, presses pain into it with the flat of his palms. His dad’s eyes close—he’s ready, waiting to break. Mark will be the last thing he sees before he dies.
Mark kisses him.
All at once, there’s fire. His blood pours out from his skin, nettle-sharp capillaries that open into the hot swirl of the outside. He glows red like a burning coal, made to consume.
His dad’s mouth is hard against him. Mark doesn’t even know if he’s kissing him right. Is there a right way to kiss your father? Probably not.
He presses harder with hands, pushes against bruises, into cuts, and his dad’s mouth opens because it hurts. Then Mark can kiss him how he wants, can taste blood. Licks in with wet tongue, gets spit down his mouth and his dad’s, which runs red as it mixes with dried blood. “Mark—” Nolan starts, eyes red, white, and blue, open in horror. “What ar—”
Mark pushes him back flat onto the soil—gentle, gentle, he’s not gonna hurt him; they’ve done enough of that—and crawls on top of his dad, bracing his weight on his bent arms, careful not to press down on his dad’s ribs. “Shut up,” he says. “Shut up. Shut up. I have to.”
Mark tries kissing him again but gets the angle wrong. He’s shaking too much. His fingers clench in the ground, digging into fertile soil, into teeming ground, into a pool of blood. There’s so much complexity to kissing. Do Viltrumites not kiss? Is that why he’s so bad at it? He tries again, and his tongue is in Nolan’s mouth like it belongs there. His dad lies there, taking it, eyes closed tight. Mark is kissing him.
Mark is kissing his dad. Mark is going to have to fuck him or kill him. Or he will die.
Mark can’t bear it. He’s shaking so hard as he pulls back, mouth red and wet and sticky. “Dad—I can’t. Please—I don’t.”
His dad opens his eyes, blue, blue against green soil and his red-purple face. “It’s okay, son. You tried to save me, you tried. I know you love me.” He bares his bruise-braid neck like he wants Mark to choke the life out of him. “You have to. Think about when your blood fever breaks. You won’t be able to protect the planet from me anymore. You have to kill me now. It’s okay. You can do it.”
“No. No—” Mark’s eyes are hot, hotter than coal. He’s crying pink, down his cheeks on his dad’s skin. “I won’t. You won’t hurt me. You won’t hurt this planet. Promise me.” His dad shakes his head, and Mark’s hands reach for his throat, holding it like the stalk of a sunflower, fingernails caked with blood, “I’ll break your hips, every time you get close to recovering. I’ll break every bone in your body. I’ll keep you down. You won’t hurt anyone.” He rubs his fingers against his dad’s adam’s apple, feels it bob beneath his thumb.
“Mark, that’s worse than killing me,” his dad says, eyes blown black with distress. He pushes against Mark’s arms, trying to get out from beneath him. It doesn’t matter. Mark’s stronger. He doesn’t let him up.
“I’m not gonna let you die. I’m not gonna let you kill anyone. It’s what you’d have done to me, to get me to listen. I have to. You know I do. I’m sorry,” Mark’s still crying, but its easier now. The burning doesn’t hurt as much, like his body knows that everything will be fine—or as close to fine is it can get.
He kisses his dad again, cupping his jaw, trying to find the places where there are no bruises. He’s trying to be tender. He’s trying to be good. This is so hard. Why is he so hard? He presses his dad’s wrists into the grip of one hand, locking it above their heads. His other hand reaches down to cup himself through his suit. Fuck. That feels good. The burning flares back up. Hot stone in sun.
“Do I need to—do I need to fuck you?” Mark pants, want threads through him, and he presses down so hard he might have broken his dad’s wrists. He eases up. “Sorry. Sorry. Or can I just rub one off and—?”
“What do you think is enough?” Nolan asks, voice flat. He doesn’t look at him. There are pink smears at the corner of his eyes. Jesus. Mark made him cry.
The answer is obvious. “I want to fuck you. Will you let me?”
His dad looks at him. Eyelashes wet. Eyes rimmed and coloured in red like some kid forgot to stay in the lines with their crayola. Mark’s so close he can count pores and stubble, the severe line where it shifts from white to black—no grays anywhere. His father’s face. His 2000-year-old face. How many people have seen his face before they died? Mark’s never seen him cry before.
“Please, Dad. I’m sorry. I have to. Please, I don’t wanna die.” His dad’s face softens, features smeared with blood and dirt. He loves Mark. He does. If you peeled everything away, you would see it. Mark’s written somewhere inside of him—maybe on the insides of the ribs he’s broken. It’s going to be okay.
“Mark, my boy,” his dad says. To Mark that’s enough of an answer.
“Thank you,” Mark whispers, pressing his forehead against his dad’s. They look alike—from slant of jaw to contours of cheek and chin—when the meat is pecked off them they’d look the same. Two smiling skulls. His father’s face is still water, Mark tilts forward, enamored, prepared to kiss him and drown.
It’s better this time. His dad’s lips part, tasting Mark’s blood. Their tongues press: strange slimey things—they must not kiss on Viltrum, but they’ll kiss here on Earth. They’ll kiss each other and make everything okay. His hands come down to twist in his dad’s hair, to press their mouths closer together, to split their lips between them. Soft pulp and shared blood-breath. His dad won’t fight back anymore.
His dad’s left wrist is broken—it’s easy to tell by the way he keeps that hand open and lax against the ground, bent like a branch, leaf cradled in his palm. The other hand reaches for Mark, skates up and down his back, up and down, keeping Mark from vibrating out of his body. Mark moans as he pushes their hips together, grinds them closer to the tempo his dad sets on his back.
“Arch up a little,” Mark whispers, shaking, shivering, hungry.
His dad does. Mark settles in closer, reaching for the zipper at the back of the Omni-Man suit. His fingers grasp for the slider. It takes a couple of tries, but he finds it. Tugs it up and open, careful not to jar his dad’s torso too much. The fabric peels off with little effort—leaving his dad bare from the chest. His ribs are dark, smudged shapes, pushing against steel-skin from below, block printed with the red mold of Mark’s fists. He rearranged his father from the inside.
Mark moves downward, kissing the imprints of his hands, the painful edges of his dad’s body. His dad groans—probably in pain so shrill and acute that it stutters back into pleasure—and Mark skins the rest of his dad’s suit down his legs. Mark should probably break one of them—just in case. He’ll do that later. The blood fever hasn’t broken; he’s still strong.
He kneads the thick muscles of his fathers thighs; the flesh turns colourless where he presses at it and then flushes soft pink once he’s moved somewhere else. His dad is half-hard—cock blood-thick and hot like the rest of him. It’s likely pain gets him off. There’s no way he could be hard otherwise.
His father spreads his legs wider, all open space for Mark to occupy. His right hand works down Mark’s back, feeling for the zipper. Mark presses his flat palm against his father’s cock; it twitches to his touch, hot even though Mark is burning. His dad finds the slider and drags it down; his fingers bumping against Mark’s back.
Does his dad have enough strength to reach through his skin and pull his spine out? Would he, if he could? Could Mark do the same to him? Blood, bone and fluids—the tower of his spine and stacked on top his skull.
Mark tugs his suit away; the sweat steams off him. There’s a darkening bruise on the center of his stomach, but besides that he’s barely injured. Way better off than dad. He slots himself between his dad’s thighs, hooking his hands beneath his dad’s knees and holding them up and open. Mark thinks of how his dad will feel around his cock and grows dizzy with such tender, burning nausea. His hand tightens on his dad’s kneecap, crushing it as painlessly as he can. His dad doesn’t scream, just looks at him, bare, pain-purified, with his chest cut open and sticky with love.
“Sorry, dad. I’m so sorry,” Mark says, and leans over and kisses his dad’s other knee. His dad’s dick has softened a little, but Mark reaches down and strokes him, struggling with the angle.
Mark’s so hard. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so hard in his life. It should hurt, but nothing registers as pain anymore. He’s ascended beyond it. He stops jerking off his dad to focus on stroking his own cock, squeezing pre-come and slicking himself as best as he can. He’s leaking more than usual, not enough to make fucking his dad smooth and easy, but all the lube in the world wouldn’t fix that.
He rubs the head of his cock against his dad’s ass, flared head nudging the hole. He rocks his hips, trying to get used to the feeling. He’s never done this before. His stomach swoops. He’s gonna lose his virginity to his beat-up dad, while shaking with alien fever, “Dad, have you ever—is this okay?”
Nolan’s good hand reaches for his face and smooths dirt away from his cheek. His face is pale; the bruises receding into his skin. He heals so fast. Mark will need to hurt him again soon. His stomach churns. “Just do it, Mark. I’ll be fine.”
It’s dry and hot when Mark pushes in. Once he gets the head into him, it’s easier. His dad spasms around his cock, face twisted up—it’s so weird how close pain looks to pleasure. Mark was never any good at telling them apart.
His cock keeps pushing in. He can’t help it. Watching it go into his dad kicks his heart up. He’s inside someone. In. In. To the crumbling, brown-rust centre. Till his balls press against the meat of his dad’s ass. This is as close as he can get. They’ll never be closer than this. His dad is occupied territory. Defenses down, legs spread, crumpled up and taking it. Mark glows with love of him, like a kid with a firefly crushed in their fist. It’s too much.
He comes—squishy, strange, slick. Cock pumping into his squirming father. “Oh, da-d—” he says, struck, poised over his father like a sea wave about to break against the shore.
It passes through him, leaving him shaken, sweaty. He lies there—panting, body an old drum.
He’s still hard. He’s burning inside out. It’s not over yet.
His dad’s cock bobs between their bodies, leaking onto his stomach. Mark wants to make him come. It would be better if they both did. Less fucked up. Or more—maybe. He isn’t sure.
His dad doesn’t say anything when he pulls back and thrusts into him—movements fast and slick. He felt Mark come. Of course he did, Mark’s never come that much in his life, and he did it inside his dad. He lies there pliant as a doll as Mark fucks his come back into him.
Mark bends forward, supporting himself with his elbows, staring at his father’s face. He needs to see him. Dad’s always looked the same. In 20 years or 200 years or 2000 years this will be the only face Mark will recognise. He changes the angle of his thrusts, rolling, circling, searching. His dad’s mouth parts—breath hitching like maybe Mark’s pressing on his ribs.
“Oh, fuck. Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Mark—Mark—please,” his dad gasps.
“Shit. I’m sorry—” Mark tries pulling back but his father’s good leg hooks around him, pressing him deeper.
“Do that. Keep doing that,” he smiles at Mark, teeth pinker than his lips. It thrills him. This is okay. It will all be okay.
Mark fucks him like that. His dad’s dick throbs between them, and his dad reaches down to stroke himself to Mark’s thrusts. The sight of that—his dad’s hand on his dick. Slick. Wanting it. His dad’s face—open to pain, open to touch, open to Mark. All of him open. Mark did that to him, as much as he reshaped his dad’s ribs.
Mark comes again—electric wire pulled to fray, presses his hips in deep. Keeps coming. Wants to fuck his father forever.
“Fuck, Mark. That’s it,” his dad whispers. “Let it out. I’m here.”
He feels better now. Less dizzy. Less hot. He’s still hard, but so’s his dad. He readjusts himself, unsticking their thighs and trying not to let the come leak out his dad’s ass. Jesus Christ. Maybe awareness is worse.
His dad’s hand is in hair, stroking it, soothing him. Mark leans forward and kisses him, smears their lips together. He starts fucking him again, hips moving with jagged thrusts, meant to cut his dad open. Mark needs him to come.
He’s so tight on his cock; there’s not enough space inside for both of them. Mark presses his dad’s thighs wider—makes space where there is none. He wants crawl inside his dad and be safe there, but he has to claw him open first.
His dad moans against his mouth. His body tightening around Mark. He’s gonna come. Mark is gonna make him come on his cock. His hips move quicker, harder, deeper. He wants to feel it. His dad’s hand scrambles on his back, breaking skin, letting blood, insides open. Mark holds him open with his cock, stabs when he finds blood—yeah, his dad’s coming, bleeding, all over Mark. Crying like a stuck pig, made a mess by his own seed. God, Mark loves him. Mark’s never loved anyone like him.
His ass squeezes Mark’s cock, pulling him in further, past that final fragile barrier. He wants it. He wants Mark’s come, and Mark gives it to him. More. More. He’ll fuck his dad so full he’ll die from it. Replace the blood his dad used to make Mark with Mark’s own semen. He’s Mark’s. All of him, from the fine sweep of his ecstatic face to the broken curve of his wrist to the splash of come on his stomach.
He’s Mark’s dad.
The heat evaporates from his body, convects into the sky, conducts into his dad, radiates into the ground. It’s over. The fever’s broken. He lies there limp, chest to chest with his father, limbs made of lead. His dad chokes, spitting up blood. Shit. Mark’s pressing on his ribs. He has enough energy to roll off him, curling against his dad’s side. His dad turns to kiss him on the forehead, pulls back to look at his son—Mark.
“You can sleep, Mark,” he says, eyes dimming blue, white, red, gray.
When Mark wakes up will everything be again okay?