Author's Note: this has been lurking about my files for a dog's age, or thereabouts, and I finally decided to start a new story set to post it, and similar things lacking in taste that I've come up with over time. This was written for a fic battle over on the saiunkoku_fic livejournal community, for prompt 82: Senka/Ryuuki - not so innocent fatherly moment. Warnings for zombie pr0n! Well, nothing explicit, anyway, I don't do explicit. But all the fics in this series will have similarly questionable content, you've been warned!
The only remaining Prince came as he was bid, secretly, to stand before the Emperor. He shivered, just barely, under the brush of the chill breeze of early spring, and the Emperor's thinned lips tightened. But the Prince did not flinch under his father's assessing gaze, and he was unmarked. That no scar of any sort marred the smoothness of his skin or wrote another's mark over muscle and whipcord tendon was a silent testament-- this one had some worth, well-hidden though it might be.
"When I am gone, he will come for you. I will not have him take you unprepared."
The golden eyes narrowed, and suddenly he was looking through time at a mirror. "I've been bedded."
The Emperor snorted, scornful, and rose. "Who said anything about bedding? Come."
Each step he took was slow, deliberate, controlled. His body was failing, but his will was purest steel. The room beyond was splendid but bare, impersonal, with all the marks of humanity and personality long since eradicated. The Prince's eyes flickered over the unpadded chairs, the empty walls, the map inlaid in stone in the floor, the uncushioned couch.
"Tomorrow, or the next day, it will be my death bed," the Emperor said. "And perhaps, some day, it will be yours."
He gestured imperiously, and the Prince did as he was bid and removed each successive robe from his father's shoulders. Age had only hardened him, but his sword arm hung withered and useless at his side. The curse scrawled dark over the puckered flesh and exposed lines of bone, with coiling tendrils creeping across his chest under the skin to claim his heart. Aside from his father's brand and despite years of battle, it was the only imprint he bore.
The Prince made no effort to hide his stare, and the Emperor laughed without humor. "Yes, I bear another's mark."
"What is it?" the Prince asked.
"Each of my sons I have saved, but only once. You wasted my largess early, drowning yourself in a fish pond. Your second eldest brother waited until he was nearly grown. With this arm I took his curse."
"It's killing you."
"And soon, it will succeed." The Emperor raised the withered limb and flexed the skin-and-bone claw of his hand between them. "Does it disgust you?"
The Prince took the putrefying arm in his hands without hesitation and raised its rotten flesh to his lips. "This arm," he said, "is the part of you I love."
"Lie down," the Emperor commanded.
He was not gentle, but never once during the long night did the Emperor-in-waiting cry out.