Chapter Text
Saṃsāra.
That was what the temples called it. The soul’s endless journey through multiple, mortal shells. The karmic cycle of life and death, escapable only through the attainment of pure enlightenment. If a man lived a good, just life, embracing honesty and virtue, then he could climb the karmic ladder approaching nirvana, closer to the coveted end.
But if he scorned the temples’ teachings, if he spat upon the concept of human kindness, his karma would grow, weighing him down, heavier than any earthly burden.
That was why there were so few omegas left in the world – or so the monks in Radiant Garden so often preached. So much time had passed since the world’s creation that human beings as a species had grown and improved so drastically that they were beginning to tip the karmic scales. Social welfare and gene therapy spelt a quick end to poverty. Fewer criminals walked the streets. With the recent focus on human rights, nobody ever heard of genocide or chemical warfare in the news, anymore. Now, more people than ever were content to lead good, decent lives, caring for their friends and neighbors. Humanity climbed the karmic ladder together as a whole, but because of that, there were now fewer stragglers than ever left to rot on the bottom rungs.
In current years, alphas had grown plentiful, dominating society, while arguably “lesser” humans who carried the heaviest karmic debt – the cripples, lepers, and omegas of the world – were now nearly nonexistent. Nobody mourned the shortage of the former, but with only a handful of omegas surviving to maturity, alphas everywhere were getting antsy. Birth rates were at an all-time low, and people were getting older. Humanity was dying out. By instinct, every alpha wanted to breed, and yet, for every warm, wet hole, there were twelve alphas lining up to fight over it.
When omegas were so rare and so precious, any children of the “weakest sex” were herded up by the government, to be enrolled into their sponsored omegan Academies, where gods only knew what happened to them.
Saïx never talked about it, and nobody asked.
But whatever was going on within those walls, it was bad enough to warrant guard towers and tracking collars. Electric fences lined the rooftops. Iron bars blocked bulletproof windows, if only to discourage defenestration.
Considering everything that Saïx had endured, from rejection, to dehumanization, to public humiliation, Axel was surprised that he hadn’t tried to end it, yet. He knew plenty of alphas who wouldn’t be able to take the heat, in his shoes. Hell, Axel didn’t think that even he could walk around bearing that scent: the smell of a fallen omega, unmated, yet sullied by an alpha’s knot. That scent burned brighter than any red letter. It was the mark of a whore. An “un-omega,” too dirty to be accepted into any home or family. If they weren’t recollected by the government and “reeducated” in the Academies, never to be seen again, they were thrown out onto the streets and forced to resort to prostitution or gods only knew what else to survive.
Saïx was lucky, perhaps, that he’d died and become a Nobody before he could fully mature. Upon his eighteenth birthday, he would have been forced to report to the Academy wardens with proof of his changed scent and mating mark. Just two more years, and Saïx would have faced the consequences of his dishonor. Paying the ultimate price for his failures.
In a way, it wasn’t fair.
Axel was the one who had knotted him, and yet only Saïx would hang. Though they’d both been active participants, there would only ever be one “whore” amongst them. The strangest thing of all, however, was that during his heats, Saïx lived up to the title.
Despite his aloof personality, he swallowed his pride in the bedroom, fucking like an omega straight out of the pornos. Arching his back, he put on a shameless show of submission, purring and trilling, those sounds worming straight into an alpha’s subconscious. He knew all the right ways to stroke Axel’s ego – though of course he did, when he was an Academy omega: a government trained perfect partner. A loyal companion and eager bedmate, Saïx could be charming when he needed to be.
Axel felt powerful, pounding into Saïx’s body as he writhed beneath him. Blinded by the scent of an omega’s heat, he fucked the mess of slick and precum thick and frothy, easing the way for his growing knot. As he felt the pressure building, Axel dug his fingers into Saïx’s neck, holding him down in an instinctive grip to ensure he couldn’t run. A knotting was always painful, and theirs was no exception. With neither warning nor ceremony, Axel forced his knot past the rim – and Saïx let out a silent gasp, trembling from the strain. Though Axel was sure he’d wanted to flee, the omega never tried to pull away. His fingers curled, clawing desperately at the mattress, and yet he arched his back all the same, dutifully pressing his ass against Axel’s hips to deepen his thrusts as he fucked him through the first spurts of come.
It was only instinct.
Axel hadn’t mated him when they were fourteen years old, and he wouldn’t mate him now. They both knew it, just as they knew that the skies of their isolated world were black, and yet Saïx exposed his neck, regardless. Perhaps a good, decent alpha would have bitten him and given him that mating he coveted, after he’d served him so well, and yet Axel just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Binding himself to Saïx for the rest of his life wasn’t a future that he’d wanted for himself.
Ignoring Saïx’s invitation, Axel shuddered through the throes of his orgasm. Grinding into Saïx’s ass as he milked his cock. The strength seeped out of his bones, and yet, by some grace of the gods, he stopped himself before his arms gave out and he collapsed onto the omega below him.
He didn’t know how much time had passed until the heat wore off, and they both returned to their senses. After catching his breath, Axel had intended to comfort his old friend. He truly did. He was going to stroke Saïx’s hair, and hold him close, and apologize that he couldn’t mate him. He was going to tell him that he was a good omega, regardless. That he didn’t need a mate to be worth something. That he did a good job, and that Axel would stay with him for as long as he wanted.
But the real Saïx, the one that wasn’t bound by hormones and scents, had a way of repelling him. After being knotted, an ordinary omega would have cried, or whimpered, or begged to be held, but Saïx did nothing.
It was almost as though the life, itself, had been bled from his body.
Lying there like a corpse, cold and still, Saïx never shifted. He remained propped up on his shoulders and knees, his gaze, a thousand miles away. He stared off into the distance, his eyes empty, veiled by long, blue hair, soaked through with sweat, draped onto his pillows.
Plummeting from his fleeting high, Axel coughed awkwardly into the ball of his fist and tried not to look at him. He couldn’t fight the thought that what he was knotting was not a beloved friend but a dead body, half-rotted.
Though he’d never been more sexually repulsed by anyone or anything in his entire life, trapped by his own knot, Axel couldn’t pull out of him. He winced as another gush of come emptied into the cold, pliant body pinned beneath him. The only evidence that Saïx hadn’t suffered from a heart attack and died during sex were the rhythmic pulses of his inner walls, even when the man himself lay completely still.
Axel clamped his hand around his mouth; he was going to be sick.
Throughout every knotting they’ve ever shared, Saïx never said a single word – and that time was no exception. His silence spoke volumes. Axel stared down at his cock and begged the gods to hurry up and let it deflate, so that he could run back to the safety of his den and pretend that Saïx was happy somewhere else, with a loving alpha and six pups. If he focused on that imagine, he could forget the fact that he’d used his body and tossed him to the wayside like he always did.
…Even if, technically, it was Saïx who used him.
He needed a way to get through his heats, and for some reason that Axel couldn’t understand, he wasn’t willing to take suppressants. He’d tried to convince him, once or twice, but Saïx just looked at him like he was scum and told him that he hardly had any right to order him around. It wasn’t as though Axel was his alpha or anything.
That argument, that guilt trip, never failed to shut him up.
Half an hour into the knotting process, and Axel was positively sweating from dread and anxiety. Even when he could still feel the contractions around his cock, he was tempted to check for a pulse, just to make sure that the omega pinned beneath him was still alive and breathing. He settled for making conversation, instead.
“That was good,” he muttered, stroking the curve of Saïx’s ass, playing at pillow talk. “You were good.”
Unsure of what to do, Axel draped himself over Saïx’s back and pulling him into a hug in a blatant mockery of tenderness. He hadn’t expected a thank you, but he had never expected the omega to shudder in his grasp, shrinking into himself. Running away as best as he could. Even Axel, as oblivious as he could be, at times, recognized that as a clear rejection.
Defeated, he sighed, his hips stuttering as he released his embrace and ran his sweaty, slick-soaked hand through his hair. The minutes ticked on like centuries. Eager to put an end to their farce, Axel dug his knees into the bed, grounded his palms, and tried to pull out – only to find that his knot held fast.
Suddenly, then, Saïx whispered – his first words in almost an hour.
“Why are you so intent on making this harder than it has to be?”
His voice cracked, exasperated, as though he, too, couldn’t wait for their knotting, their torture, to be over. It wasn’t the rejection that crushed him but Saïx’s stone-faced misery in the face of it all.
“Sorry. I know it’s uncomfortable,” he signed, subtly trying to lean over and get a glimpse of the omega’s face from his limited angle. He couldn’t see him without shifting his cock any further, and he wasn’t willing to torment Saïx by adding a muddling layer of pleasure to his punishment. “Is there anything I can do? You want me to roll you onto your side, or something? …Isa?”
He waited in silence. It felt as though hours had passed, and yet Saïx didn’t respond. He only lay there, staring at the wall.
“Don’t call me that,” he commanded, sounding so intolerably exhausted. “Just stop talking and be quiet. I don’t want to hear the sound of your voice.”
“…Huh? What’re you -”
“What did I just say?” Saïx growled, snapping his head around to glare at him with those sharp, golden eyes, turning cold and predatory. Humiliated, Axel would have fought back if not for the fact that, almost immediately afterwards, Saïx’s anger drained right out of him, replaced by an expression of absolute, crushing sorrow as he collapsed back down onto his pillows.
By all means, it should have been shameful, cowering before an omega, but when that omega was Saïx, Axel was more than a little willing to allow social norms to fly out the window. After all, Saïx was the ultimate omegan paradox, with the diligence and loyalty of a mate, the temperance of the virgin, the shameless confidence and musky scent of the experienced whore, all grounded by the prudence and authority of the mother.
And it was always a combination of those traits that rendered Axel helpless in the bedroom, every single time. He may have been the alpha, but it was Saïx who ran the show.
“Sure. Fine. Whatever you want.”
They lay there, sealed together, for another forty-two minutes and eighteen seconds. Axel had kept count of every single one. The second his knot deflated, he tried to pull away, but he didn’t withdraw his cock a single inch before Saïx’s elbow slammed against his stomach, sending him reeling. He doubled over, clutching himself.
“What was that for?!” Axel snarled.
Glaring back at him with palpable disgust, Saïx tugged his blankets up to his neck, curled into himself, and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Turn off the lights on your way out,” he grumbled, refusing to move a single muscle for himself. Axel couldn’t help but roll his eyes. His was the only omega in all the known worlds who would dare to speak to his own alpha with such flagrant disregard for his authority – perhaps because, all things considered, Saïx wasn’t really his omega.
Though he’d been knotted hundreds of times, he didn’t have a single mating mark to prove it.
Even Axel’s patience had its limit. Staring down at that little lump beneath the blankets, his anger grew, and he snapped.
“You know, that’s a hell of a way to treat the guy who comes down here once a month, just to get you through your heats,” Axel scolded, knowing full well that Saïx wouldn’t heed his complaints. He never did. “Maybe I should let you go without my company for a month. Then maybe you’d stop being such an insufferable cu –”
Even in his seething anger, Axel was able to stop himself before he’d completely let go of his own morality. There was something particularly nasty about referring to an omega as nothing more than the sum of their parts – not that Saïx would have cared if he had, when that man was so taciturn, and when he’d certainly been called far worse by better.
But just because Saïx wouldn’t care, didn’t make it right. He was still an omega. Still the one stuck holding the short of the stick. Even if he couldn’t walk down the street without dodging stones and sexual slurs, he didn’t need to hear those kinds of derogatory words from the closest thing he had to an alpha.
“You don’t have to be such a jerk about it,” Axel corrected himself with a reluctant sigh. “I’m doing you a favor, you know?”
“Are you? You’re the one who created this problem in the first place.”
He couldn’t take the blaming anymore.
“Yeah, well, I’m trying to make up for it, aren’t I? I’m here in bed with you instead of sitting on the sofa with Roxas and Xion, aren’t I? This is the first time we’ve all had a day off together in weeks. You think I wanted to miss out on movie night for this? The least you could do is show a little appreciation for once in your life. You make this entire knotting thing so difficult. I swear, every month, it gets harder to convince myself to come back here. You are just… so fucking frigid. You think punishing me for not mating you is going to change my mind? You’re just confirming that it would have been a mistake. Maybe the reason why no one wants to mate with you isn’t because you’ve been knotted already. Maybe it’s just you, Saïx. Maybe the problem is you.”
Axel regretted those words almost as soon as they’d left his mouth. Only after reconsidering what he’d said did he realize he’d made it sound as though Saïx were intrinsically unlikable – which was a line of reasoning that his omega had surely considered before, in the past. Maybe Saïx was unlikable. Maybe he was frigid, just like he’d said, but at that point, there was hardly any reason to rub salt in the wound.
Every omega wanted to feel loved. He knew that the insult must have stung.
Sucking in a deep, heavy breath, Axel closed his eyes and prepared himself for a verbal onslaught – for Saïx to turn on him, claws out, and call him every name in the book… but what followed was nothing more than silence. The scathing lecture he’d anticipated never came, and Axel cracked an eye open, daring to take a glance at the omega by his side.
Saïx didn’t talk for a long time, after that. He was motionless, lying so still that Axel couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. A cold sweat dripped down his back. He wondered whether he really did have that heart attack, after all.
“…Saïx?”
“You should go,” he said, at last, in cold, quiet monotone. His voice barely rose above a whisper. “And you don’t have to return next month, if guiding me through my heats is such a chore.”
“It’s not,” Axel relented, reaching for him, before finally thinking the better of it. “The sex is always great. You’re a good omega,” he tacked on at the last moment, heaping on the praise – knowing that Saïx wasn’t ever going to hear it from anybody else. “You’re good. Even if you’re not what alphas are looking for, you don’t need a mate in order to be somebody.”
No response.
Either he wasn’t listening, or even after all those years, Saïx still hadn’t shaken off that “Academy omega” mentality. He wouldn’t be able to convince him, regardless. With an unrelenting heaviness in his chest, Axel got up and started putting on his clothes, ignoring how Saïx lay motionless in his little nest of blankets, soaked through with cum, and slick, and blood. Just as he was about to leave, however, Axel turned back.
“Do you want me to stay?” he offered, for the first time in years. “We can have our own movie night. I can make you dinner, help you shower… I can hold you if you want.”
It wouldn’t be the same as having a mate, but it would be close. If they hadn’t already fucked and failed at mating, if Axel hadn’t already refused to bite him, then perhaps his behavior could have been interpreted as courting.
Saïx didn’t take the bait.
“What I want, Lea… is for you to gather your belongings and go.”
He watched him twist beneath the blankets: that little rustle of fabric as he clutched his arms around body, just barely curling into himself in a pathetic mockery of intimacy. There wasn’t a single omega in all the worlds that didn’t want to be held and nuzzled after a knotting. He knew that.
All those years, and Axel still couldn’t understand him: why Saïx would reject his kindness when he desperately needed it most. It must have been his way of punishing him, knowing full well that his pain and his torment were shared. Saïx always was the vindictive type, exactly the kind of man who would cut off his nose to spite his face.
Perhaps Axel should have insisted and stayed, regardless. He knew that it would have made all the difference: that Saïx would have appreciated the concern and attention, even when he pretended to be angry. In a way, however, when Roxas, and Xion, and a night of classic movies were calling his name, Axel just didn’t want to expose himself to Saïx’s hardship. It wasn’t worth it.
It never was.
______________________________________________
“Remember, young man, that you are being granted guardianship, not ownership, of an omega. The omega is a friend and a partner. Not a slave.”
“Why is it wearing a collar, then? Kind of looks like a slave to me,” Lea asked, earning himself a sharp elbow in the ribs. His father, sitting beside him in their cheap, plastic chairs, glared at him in silent warning. Lea had always hated those chairs; his school used the very same brand. One leg was always shorter than the other. To distract himself from the boredom and bureaucracy, Lea tipped his chair from side to side and prayed that he would tip over and break his leg, if only that would send him home.
“Sorry,” his old man chuckled, making a poor job of masking his anxiety. “You know how kids are. Lea’s a good boy, and he’ll take good care of your omega. Won’t you, son?”
“Yeah…” he grumbled, kicking the leg of the warden’s desk.
According to his dad and all the teachers at school, he was the luckiest boy in their neighborhood. Only one out of ten, or perhaps fifteen, alphas from the poorer rungs of society ever got assigned an omega by the state. Most of them were doomed to lives of ‘eternal loneliness and blue balls,’ whatever the hell that meant.
If he had to be honest, however, Lea didn’t even want an omega, just like he hadn’t really wanted a puppy for a birthday, two years ago. It was cute, at first, and he liked playing with it, but buying it food with his own allowance meant less ice cream on Saturdays. Taking it for walks had meant less time to sit in the house and play videogames. He didn’t want that responsibility all over again, and definitely not for a stupid omega. Lea always considered himself lucky to be an only child, but now, he was going to have to share his room, and his toys, and his ice cream, regardless.
Frankly, it was bullshit.
“You don’t seem excited,” the warden remarked, resting his elbows on his desk and leaning forward, getting a better glimpse at him. “This is a big day for you, you know.”
“I know. I just wanted a girl, that’s all,” Lea grumbled, much to his father’s chagrin. He could practically see the hair rising on his old man’s neck.
“Lea!”
“What? It’s true! Why do I have to get stuck with this one? In the movies, there’s always a lineup, and the alpha gets to pick the omega he wants! I don’t want this one. I want a girl.”
“Lineups are a thing of the past. That’s how things were for your grandparents, but there’s been a bit of a shortage in recent years,” the officer explained in calm, patient monotone. “Each omega is assigned to a citizen using a random number generator. This omega was chosen to be placed with you. It’s either this one or none at all, I’m afraid. If you don’t want it, however, we can reassign it to another alpha.”
“No!” Lea’s father interrupted, answering on behalf of his son. “He’ll take this omega, and he’ll be grateful for it. Won’t you, Lea?”
“Yes, Dad. …Whatever.”
“Alright,” the officer sighed, bringing out another heavy stack of paperwork that fell against his ornate desk with a loud thump. Lea couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the mere sight of it. “Then let’s get started. Just sign here, and here. Initial here.”
Because this was exactly what he wanted to be doing on a Saturday: filling out stupid forms to get a stupid omega that he didn’t even want, just because his dad said that he’d be thankful he did ten years later. It was so dumb. Ten years was as good as an eternity. He didn’t want to get stuck taking care of an omega in the present just so he could have a mate later, just like he wasn’t interested in depositing his birthday money into the bank, like his dad told him to, either.
That had been a waste of time, and so was getting an omega.
From the corner of his eye, Lea could see that omega looking at him, stealing furtive glances when it thought that no one was looking. It almost looked nervous. They made eye contact, and it quickly looked away, going right back to staring at its little white shoes.
“Well, that does it!” the warden said, gathering up his papers and slapping on a final stamp. Turning to the little omega by his side, he gave it a firm nod and a stiff, joyless smile. “Looks like today’s the day after all, 7S. Congratulations. Serve your alpha well, you hear me? I don’t want to see you back here.”
“Yes, sir,” it replied in a voice so quiet that Lea could barely hear it over the hum of the air conditioning unit.
“Why don’t you go say hello to your new alpha?” the warden recommended – though when the omega, this 7S, only sat still, paralyzed with fear, the warden pressed a button on his watch. The omega didn’t quite flinch, but an expression of mild displeasure flashed across its features as it grasped at the collar locked around its neck.
“I apologize,” the officer continued. “7S is usually so well behaved. I don’t know what’s gotten into it.”
“It’s probably just nervous,” Lea’s father said. “A new home, a new alpha – those are some pretty big changes, especially for a young omega like that. My mate wasn’t assigned to me until we were eighteen years old.”
“We’ve found that omegas tend to transition better if they are integrated into the den at younger ages,” the warden explained with a joyless smile that never reached his eyes. “It’s still fully trained at eight years of age, of course – 7S can take over all of your domestic chores immediately – but it is still only a child. It won’t be ready to mate for another six years or so.”
“I see. Well, my boy here will look after it in the meantime. Why don’t you go say hello to it, first, Lea? As an alpha, it’s your duty to take the lead.”
He just wanted to go home.
He already had to miss a morning of gaming with his friends just to come out to an office in the middle of nowhere. Rolling his eyes, he slid out of his chair and dragged himself over to the little omega.
“Hi,” he grumbled, with a pout that only deepened when the stupid thing wouldn’t even look at him.
He could see its chest rise as it took a long, shuddering breath, as though preparing itself for the performance of a lifetime.
“Good morning, Alpha,” the omega said, finally looking up at him with a trembling smile that dripped of fear and insincerity. “My serial number is 7S, but I look forward to getting a real name, soon. You can think of one whenever you’d like. I’ll be serving you from now on. In return, I hope that you’ll take good care of me. …I hope that we can be friends,” the omega tacked on after a brief pause.
It must have gone off-script. The officer glared down at it with such intense hatred that even Lea reeled back in horror. At the very least, 7S didn’t seem to notice.
“I already have friends,” Lea declared, still wallowing in his bitterness. “I don’t really want any more.”
“Oh. …But I’m a good omega. You’ll see,” the omega replied, still smiling, even when it was clear to him that it was just as miserable as he was. “I’ve been training my whole life for this. I won’t let you down. You’re the most important person in the world to me, Alpha.”
Lea already hated it. The way it talked, always giggling and stuttering, as though it couldn’t get through a single sentence without losing its nerve. He hated the way it focused its gaze on his nose and his mouth, instead of up into his eyes, like a normal person. It was a liar and a fake. He’d already convinced himself of that.
“Just stay out of my way and don’t touch my stuff.”
Ignoring his omega’s pleas compounded with his fathers, Lea turned and stormed out of the room. He didn’t want an omega, and there was nothing that would ever convince him otherwise.
Nothing.