there's you in everything i do (teocatl, obsblood, T)

[notapaladin]

Five times Teomitl thought "I love you" to Acatl

One time he said it out loud.

-

ce cipactli (one crocodile)

The first time Teomitl thinks the words, it’s in the shadowed privacy of his own courtyard after a lesson. Acatl is binding the wounds from their bloodletting—he insists upon it, and at any rate it’s easier than Teomitl trying to wrap his own forearm one-handed with the other end of the bandage held in his teeth—and Teomitl looks at him, grave and dark-eyed and careful, and the words fall into his mind like stones into a still pond. Slow. Heavy. Creating ripples that waver to the very edges of who he is.

I love you.

He inhales too sharply, and Acatl looks at him. “Too tight?”

What—oh, the bandages. He shakes his head.

Acatl hums quietly in acknowledgment and keeps winding. They’re focusing this week on the very basics, since they’d discovered that Teomitl has barely managed to retain the magical schooling he received when he first entered the calmecac—in his defense, swordwork is much easier than sitting still—and building a firm foundation for later knowledge requires extensive sacrifice. Many small wounds are easier to manage than one large one, and quicker to heal. He could make use of a healing priest, but he doesn’t think he will. Some part of him likes the idea that he and Acatl will match, though Acatl’s scars are more extensive than his.

At the time, he’d wondered why he couldn’t get the sight of Acatl’s wounds out of his head. It makes a lot more sense now. He loves him. It should probably be more of a shock, he muses. They’ve only known each other for less than a month, and for two weeks of that they were separated by Acatl’s trip to the Chalca mountains with Neutemoc. Surely love ought to take longer. He’s quite sure he doesn’t love Mihmatini yet, and he’s courting her. But Acatl isn’t his sister. They are both beautiful and determined and powerful, with tongues sharp as their knives when the situation calls for it, but aside from that...

Acatl is righteous. He knows the difference between good and evil, knows how balance can be such a fragile thing, and never balks from doing what has to be done. That alone would create a soft spot in Teomitl’s heart for him, but then the man has to go and be kind and patient as well—acerbic, yes, but kind. He doesn’t mind when Teomitl paces or drums his fingers on things, and he’s never even threatened to swat him for bouncing a too-energetic leg. The calloused and scarred fingers on his arm are gentle as a moth’s wings and pleasantly cool in the heat of the day. He finds himself watching them silently, afraid to speak lest he somehow shatter the strange peace of this new realization. The cuts do pain him, but next to the steady beat of the heart in his chest and the words in his brain he can’t focus on it. Even the lesson Acatl’s imparted upon him today is far from his mind.

His teacher is kind and righteous and honest, brave as any warrior—braver! He’d love to see some of the snootier generals stand in front of the Storm Lord or Jade Skirt without flinching, without being scoured clean of all life, and then to drive a knife into the Storm Lord’s eye!—and he is in love with him.

And he threw a knife at me.

It strikes him, suddenly, as faintly hilarious. He bites back a grin—unsuccessfully, because Acatl’s noticed and is raising an eyebrow at him. “What?”

Oh, there’s the heat prickling his face. Acatl’s asked a question, and he knows he should respond. Making a jest of it is safest; rile him up, and he won’t look below to ask more. “I was just thinking that you’re good with knives. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry when you threw one at me.”

Acatl bristles immediately. Teomitl decides he’s never going to tell him he sort of sounds like a turkey when he does that. It’s cute in a way no man of thirty really ought to be. “I did not throw it at you—”

“Alright, yes, you were aiming for the beast of shadows—it was an excellent hit, by the way—but it was still in my direction...”

Now they’re sort of squabbling, but Acatl’s relaxing at his smile so clearly he isn’t too offended, and the way the line between his brow smooths out makes Teomitl want to stroke it. He refrains. There’s too many reasons why it would be a terrible idea. Acatl’s vows, chastity and celibacy and the gods knew what else. Their families, and the way Teomitl’s has treated his; gods, there are days Teomitl could slap Tizoc for it. His own status—youth of imperial blood, Acatl’s student, a dozen years his junior. None of that makes him someone Acatl would want, even assuming he’d want a man at all. Mihmatini.

He can’t let himself forget Mihmatini, and the thought makes him a little sick. Yes, she’s as strong and brave as her brother. There’s no shame in caring for her, in wanting her. If he’d never met Acatl, he’d still be interested in her for her shining brightness and the beauty of her oval face. But he has met Acatl, and the gulf between what he feels for her and the tide that rises in him when he thinks of her brother can’t be described in words.

“Are you alright?”

He twitches; he’s lost track of what they were talking about. They’ve dropped the topic of knives, at least. “I’m fine,” he lies. “Just hungry; you must be, too.” At Acatl’s reluctant nod—Duality, he’s never met anyone with so much love for a good meal and so much reluctance to admit he needs one, it stabs him in the heart—he can arrange his face into a smile. “I’ll have someone bring us some food.”

He can’t have Acatl, not the way he wants. But in these little ways—in food, in companionship—he can have enough. He’s going to marry Mihmatini, and then they’ll be bound by that as well. It will be enough.

It has to be.

 

ome xochitl (two flower)

The feeling settles in him, steady as the rising sun. And like the sun, it burns. He turns that love over inside him, examining it from all angles, and every time he lifts it to the light it practically blinds him. This time, it’s during a walk home in the early morning after a long, long night. His brother is dead. There is a star demon loose in the world. He should not be thinking such things.

And yet, there it is. Acatl is prodding at him to tell him who’s spoken out against his union with Mihmatini—the union that is still going forward, even if he’s nearly sure she’s figured out he has feelings for someone else—and he’s biting his tongue on his own near-treasonous fury. It was Tizoc, of course, Tizoc who loathes Acatl and all that he stands for, all that he’s come from. Tizoc who spares no bile towards “jumped-up peasants and conniving priests.” He doesn’t think telling his brother that he really loves someone he can’t marry would change his mind at all.

It’s a relief when they reach Acatl’s house, a further relief when Acatl invites him in. There’s so little that he can do to help, but at least here he can be useful, even if it’s only guarding his mentor while he sleeps. Acatl’s courtyard is a tiny little patch of dirt with a well and a tree, and it tugs at his heart. The man should have a pool. A garden. Teomitl casts a sideways glance at him, as tired as ever, and has to close his eyes for a moment at the mental image of marigolds caught in the waves of his hair.

Closing his eyes doesn’t help. He can hear the way Acatl stretches, and his mind fills in the ripple of lean muscle and the arch of a too-thin spine. It makes his blood pound and his voice come out sharper than it should be. “Go to sleep. You need it.”

“What about you?”

“I told you. I’ll stand guard.” But oh, his heart is a traitor. It’s too easy to picture laying down beside him, watching that face go soft and slack in sleep, knowing they’d be safe together. His gaze drifts towards Acatl’s sleeping quarters. “Should I bid you good night?”

“Hah,” says Acatl, dry as ever. “No.”

“Very well.” He finds himself smiling. Some things don’t change, even in the midst of so much upheaval. Acatl’s never liked to be fussed over. “Sleep well—” And then he has to clamp his mouth shut, because he’s almost added an endearment to that, almost added I love you. It would be so easy. He’s a fool.

Luckily, Acatl is too tired to notice his strange intonation. He trudges off into his rooms and lets the curtain drop behind him in a jangle of bells, and for the moment Teomitl is alone.

He breathes in. Out. In again. It should center him, but it doesn’t. The world still feels...still feels wrong, and not just magically. His brother, his Emperor, is dead, and now all that’s standing between them and the star demons is a paper-thin ward and whatever strength and cunning they can muster. Tizoc is Master of the House of Darts, and if he had the sense the gods gave a turkey he would be using his position to help them.

He’s pretty sure his brother does not, in fact, have that much sense. At least not enough to see past his own prejudices where Acatl is concerned. It makes something sick coil in his stomach. Acatl is strong and capable, but he doesn’t take care of himself, too concerned for the boundaries and the fate of the Fifth World. If Tizoc expresses his vitriol in more than words, if he decides that Acatl or his family is a threat somehow...

It’s too much. He creeps to the entrance curtain and lifts it as slowly and carefully as he can, holding his breath when a bell chimes. Don’t let him wake. Please don’t let him wake.

Acatl doesn’t wake. He sleeps like a corpse, mouth open slightly and the great wealth of his hair spilling over his mat, but he is sleeping and not dead. For the moment, he’s safe. For the moment, there’s nothing more Teomitl has to do here.

So instead, he watches. In sleep, Acatl’s face relaxes; he looks his age, or maybe a little younger, and it’s a stark reminder that this man is beautiful. That it would be a joy to touch him, to lay down beside him, to wake from slumber to see his face. That if he dared, if he was brave or foolish enough, he could gather him in his arms and kiss him awake.

He’s taken a step into the room before his mind catches up to him. No. No, he’s twice and three times a fool. Even if he was free to make his feelings known, Acatl has to get some sleep. It’s the least of what he’ll need to survive what’s coming.

His heart hasn’t gotten the message, though, and hammers against his ribs until he’s back in the sunlight. Even then he can feel it in his spine, in his fingertips; he falls to his knees and squeezes his eyes shut, and it doesn’t help. The bones of Acatl’s slender wrists look so fragile. It’s too easy to imagine shackles on them, or worse. He knows how easily men die, he’s seen it in battle, he’s seen the ruin of Ocome’s corpse, and to think of that happening to Acatl—

No. Acatl will be safe. He will. Teomitl will keep him that way. Monsters—even star demons, even sorcerers—can be fought. Tizoc still hates him, and that’s a problem they don’t need, but...surely Tizoc wouldn’t move against him. Not now, with star demons among them, a very likely coronation in his future, and Teomitl’s marital prospects an easier target. Surely his brother isn’t that stupid.

 

yei ocelotl (three jaguar)

Tizoc is that stupid. Teomitl is going to kill him. No matter that he’s his brother, no matter that he’s set to be his Emperor, Teomitl is going to kill him. With his bare hands, if necessary. And then he’ll gut Quenami and feed him to an ahuitzotl and laugh.

They’ve put him in his chambers, with an armed guard outside his doors, and he paces like a caged jaguar. His jaw is clenched so tight that his temples ache, and he’s long since sliced shallow half-moons into his palms with his own nails. It’s been all he can do not to rake them across his own forearms over and over, letting the pain drive his thoughts away. He can’t afford to let his mind be blank now, not when he needs so desperately to find them a way out of this. He doesn’t know where Nezahual is—in his quarters, probably. They wouldn’t have wanted to imprison an allied Revered Speaker. Not for their precious politics. When he blinks, he can still see Quenami’s smug, sick smile behind his eyelids, can still see the edge of a blade pressed to Acatl’s throat.

On second thought, maybe he’ll kill Quenami first.

But before he can do that, he has to get out of here. He stops, turns, and takes a breath, pitching his voice to carry to the guards. “When is Acatl-tzin’s trial?”

“Tomorrow.” For a moment he feels hope, and then the guard dashes it. “The outcome is set, my lord. Acatl-tzin will be executed for treason.”

His mind goes blank with horror. No. No. Nonononono. The word beats in tune with his heart; he wants to scream or sob or break something, like a table or a bowl or someone’s neck.

He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t sob. The bowl does break over the guard’s skull, but he’s pretty sure both of them will survive. He didn’t hit either of them that hard. Anyway, now he’s free, and he needs allies. He needs...

Ugh. He needs Nezahual.

For once in this waking nightmare of a day, luck is on his side. Nezahual is in his chambers, and they haven’t set a guard on him. Perhaps they think he’s too honorable to break out; perhaps someone’s pointed out how close they are to war. Either way, there’s nothing stopping him from bursting in with a cacophonous jangle of curtain-bells, nearly out of breath from running through the palace. “We have to get to Acatl,” he snaps, and Nezahual rises to his feet as he sucks in a breath to add, “They’re going to kill him.”

Nezahual doesn’t move. His head tilts, all polite commiseration. “Oh. That’s...unfortunate. Still, I don’t see why I should risk—nghk.”

He’s had enough. He slams Nezahual against the wall, and a knife is in his hands and at the man’s throat before he can blink. The Revered Speaker of Texcoco seems suddenly to remember that he is mortal. He shuts up, at any rate, but maybe that’s just because Teomitl has a blade pressed to his jugular. “You will risk it,” he snarls. He can feel his eyes burning and knows they’ve turned yellow as an ahuitzotl’s; when he sucks in a lung-scorching breath, it smells like the lake. “Because if you don’t—if you do nothing and he dies, Nezahual—you will be next, and I swear by all the gods that I will make it slow.”

Nezahual’s eyes are round with shock and more than a bit of fear, but as Teomitl speaks some of that fear seems to leave him. “Ah,” he says, in the same utterly calm tone he might use for commenting on the weather. “It’s like that, is it?”

His hand shakes. A tiny drop of blood wells up at the point of his knife. “Like what.”

“Never mind.” And Nezahual has the nerve to smile at him. Teomitl entertains thoughts of carving it right off his face. “If I’m going to help you, you do need to let me go.”

He nearly wrenches something stepping back, but he doesn’t sheathe his knife. Not yet. He might still have need of it. At first he watches as Nezahual gathers his things, but the man is so damned calm about it that he winds up fixing his gaze on the doorway instead. It’s easier to focus on with the rage threatening to shake his bones apart. “Hurry up.”

Nezahual throws a few more things into a bag and straightens up, meeting his eyes. “Do you have a plan?”

“I,” he starts, and then feels a hot tide of shame crawl up his face. He doesn’t have a plan. Well, he has the start of one, but since it involves fratricide he’s keeping it very far in reserve. “What do you think I needed you for?” he snaps instead. “Aren’t you Quetzalcoatl’s agent in the Fifth World?”

There’s that smile again, thin and fanged as a snake’s, and Nezahual nods coolly at him. “There is a spell He has granted me, a manifestation of His energies. It can get Acatl-tzin out of the palace, but I’ll need your help. How good are you at controlling those ahuitzotls of yours?”

Acatl’s taught him well. He inhales, tastes lake water again, and whatever Nezahual sees in his face makes him still. “I can do it.”

He has to. There’s no other choice. He meant what he said; if Acatl dies, so will everyone responsible. If Acatl dies, he’ll—

No, he thinks. I love him. I won’t let him die. To contemplate failure is to be halfway to the stairs, halfway to the edge of the fire. They’ll rescue Acatl, and then they’ll figure out where to go from there.

The hours pass in a haze. They need boats. They need to find Nezahual’s warriors. They need to be armed. Teomitl takes care of that, as well as the run to the Duality House to get Mihmatini to safety. She’s furious, of course, ready to rip Tizoc’s throat out with her teeth, but when Teomitl clasps her hands and begs she straightens her spine and starts packing. It’s a relief. He’s not in love with her, no, but if he lost her too he might really break in half from the inside out. He can already feel the cracks forming.

When Acatl slides off the monstrous feathered serpent Nezahual’s summoned, he’s almost afraid to breathe too deeply lest he shatter. He’d thought he knew what an exhausted Acatl looked like, but this goes beyond that. Acatl looks...he looks drained. Diminished. There’s a half-healed cut on his hand, but that can’t account for the shadows under his eyes and the way his limbs are trembling. Whatever happened to him overnight, it’s taken more out of him than he can afford to lose.

If they make it out of this, Teomitl’s going to skin his brother alive. “Acatl-tzin. You look...”

“I’m fine,” he says.

Teomitl wants to spit. He wants to weep. He wants to pull Acatl into his arms and stay there until the Sixth Sun rises. You’re not fine! You almost died! I love you, and you almost died! But he keeps his mouth shut. Nezahual is an unsheathed blade dripping poison at his side, and Teomitl can’t be weak here.

Acatl is alive. He’s with them, and he’s alive. Teomitl’s going to make sure he stays that way, no matter what it takes.

 

nahui tecpatl (four knife)

Acatl is walking away, and Teomitl is letting him. There’s nothing else he can do.

He thinks, distantly, that he should be screaming, but he can’t seem to make himself open his mouth. We need to talk, he’d said to Acatl, cold and calm and still as the turquoise in his brother’s crown, and look where that had gotten him. Look where it’s getting him now. Acatl’s looked at him in helpless fury and spat out his words as a parting gift, and he hasn’t listened to Teomitl at all.

“Just don’t expect any help from me,” he’d said, and something in Teomitl’s chest had turned to stone. He thinks it’s his heart. He can’t believe he’s still on his feet, still breathing; surely the look on Acatl’s face should have killed him. For a moment he’d thought Acatl would strike him. Gods, he’d actually hoped for it. It would have hurt less.

I love you. I’m sorry. I love you.

It’s not too late. Acatl hasn’t left the compound yet; he could run after him. Could grab him by the cloak, spin him around, and tell him—tell him—

Tell him what? It won’t change what he has to do. It won’t heal the rift between them. It certainly won’t erase the darkness in Acatl’s eyes or relax his clenched fists. Acatl wants him to give up, wants him to lay down his arms and come home, and he doesn’t understand that he can’t. That this is the only way forward, the only way he’ll be able to save them or the Empire. It’s not about his own grudges, not anymore.

“My lord?”

One of his warriors. He’s forgotten the man’s name. “Leave me.” The words burn his throat.

“My lord—”

He whirls on his heel, the courtyard shimmering like sunlight through water in his vision. The warrior looks terrified. “I said leave me! Both of you!”

They leave. He’s alone.

He takes one breath, two, and slams his fist into the wall. The rough adobe stings, but it isn’t enough; he strikes the wall again, splitting his knuckles, and welcomes the blood and the burn of it. Pain will cleanse him. Pain is...is...

He hears Acatl’s voice in his mind, a long-ago lesson, back when he was his student. “Pain is an offering to the gods.”

His legs buckle, and he falls to his knees and sucks in one great gulp of air after another. He has to get himself under control. He has to. Everything is coming together, and he can’t afford the distractions of his own feelings anymore. If he’s going to be a fit Revered Speaker, he can’t be like this. His heart has to be stone, not flesh and blood.

It feels like it takes an eternity, but eventually the urge to howl leaves him and he stares down at his aching knuckles, now curled loosely in his lap. Foolish, he thinks dully. He’ll need himself in full working order if he’s to succeed.

Footsteps behind him. Even if he didn’t recognize their cadence, he’d know his sister by her magic anyway; Toci’s power clings to her like oil, like smoke, and always makes him a little nauseous. Then again, he hasn’t had much appetite since his illness, so it doesn’t really matter. As she sits down next to him, her voice is soft and dry as sand. “It went poorly with your teacher, didn’t it.”

That’s one way of describing it. He half-turns, keeping her in the corner of his eye. “Mm.”

There’s a long, gusty sigh. “Ah, Teomitl, I’m sorry.” She sets a hand on his shoulder like a bird’s claw, and it takes everything he has not to flinch away. “He never will see you as a man grown, will he? Always thinking he knows best.”

He thought I’d gone mad. He thought I wasn’t thinking, that I hadn’t planned—

Tizoc is twisted and craven, and he’ll twist and twist until he tears the Empire apart. Why can’t Acatl see that? They can weather this storm, can stand to break just a little more if it means they’ll heal strong in the end. He’ll be able to fix what his brother is breaking. He knows it. “He’s wrong,” he chokes out. “But—”

He can’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t have to. “He’ll see. You know what sort of man he is. Too stubborn for his own good, always pushing himself into danger and being surprised when he bleeds for it. He simply can’t adapt to change.”

Ah, that’s right. He’d still looked at Teomitl as his wayward student, his responsibility, someone to be brought to heel like an irresponsible child. The memory of his tone sends bile rising in Teomitl’s throat again, and he has to swallow hard. “...He was worried,” he murmurs. “About the Fifth World. About the Empire.”

“And not about himself at all.” She sniffs. “You told me he almost died of the plague. He’s already weak. Easy prey.”

He doesn’t like to think about that. Acatl had said he was fine now, but Acatl always says he’s fine. He doesn’t seem to place any value on his own life. “Mm.”

“He’ll never be safe as long as our brother is on the throne. Tizoc’s mere presence in this world tears a hole in the boundaries,”—of course she knows about that; he hadn’t meant to tell her but it had flopped out of his mouth like a dead fish anyway—“and even if it didn’t, you know he’ll try to kill him eventually. He’s always hated him. To say nothing of what he might do to your wife.”

The sword at Acatl’s throat. The noose seen through his ahuitzotl’s eyes. Collapsing against Acatl’s chest as their boat pulled into Texcoco’s piers and knowing that their lives were still at risk, that Acatl was a dead man walking as long as Tizoc was alive. And Mihmatini...gods, that heartstopping fear of knowing she was in Tizoc’s presence, in danger, and he could do nothing to help. His gorge rises, and he thinks for a moment that he’s going to be sick. “Ngh.”

She cocks her head. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was truly concerned. “Are you ill, dear brother?”

He shakes himself briskly, scattering his dark thoughts. Soon, Tizoc won’t be a threat anymore. “I’m fine.”

“If you say so. Ah, but listen to me prattling on.” She pats his shoulder again. “You don’t need me to tell you what we’re facing. You know you were made to wear the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown, no matter who tries to lure you from the path you were meant to trod. Shall we eat supper? There’s some of that dragonfruit you like.”

Slowly, reluctantly, he gets to his feet. “Mm.”

She’s right, as always. This is something he must do. It’s what he was born for—not just to keep the Empire together, but to make it great and powerful again. To lead it to glory. To keep the people he loves safe even if they hate him for it. He can’t waste time concerning himself with anyone’s feelings, especially not his own. His heart is stone, and it does not bleed.

But where the reeds have grown through it, the stone has cracked.

 

macuil ollin (five movement)

I love you. I love you.

It beats under his skin in tune with his pulse as he walks up the steps of Acatl’s temple. Walks, not runs, because he doesn’t know what he’ll find at the top. There’s cold sweat trickling down his spine under his layers of cotton-and-feather armor, and it’s only sheer force of will that has him breathing evenly. At least he’s run out of tears by now.

As he ascends, Acamapichtli is coming down. He must know Teomitl’s footsteps, because he aims a sarcastic smile in his direction. There’s no such sarcasm in his voice when he mutters, “Good luck.” The You’ll need it goes unspoken.

He doesn’t think all the luck in the world will save him now. His throat is so tight he can’t even manage a grunt of acknowledgment. One step, two, and then he is at the top of the temple and staring at Acatl.

The man he could so easily have disregarded, blinded by his ambition and his certainty that he knew best—the man he could so easily have killed—looks tired and worn-down and a little stunned to see him, and it cracks what’s left of his heart in two. Teomitl forces his name out through numb lips. “Acatl-tzin.” This is it. This has to be the last chance he’ll ever get, because surely, surely he’ll never be able to say that name again. He'd prepared a speech, but now it seems a shallow and tawdry thing. He can only beg, though he has no hope it will go over any better. He wonders how far he’ll get before Acatl orders him out of his sight.

Acatl doesn’t order him out of his sight. Instead he sighs, motioning him forward. “Come on. There are some maize cakes.”

Maize cakes? He’s getting maize cakes? Acatl feels kindly enough towards him to share food? Though he doesn’t move, he feels like the words knock him backwards anyway. Somehow he manages to stammer out, “I came to apologize—” Please. Please. You could kill me, and I would offer you the knife.

Acatl shakes his head; the movement dislodges a loose coil of hair to brush against his neck, and Teomitl’s fingers itch. "No need for that.”

What. The words knock all the air out of his lungs. It’s a warm day, but he’s frozen solid.

Acatl’s still talking. “I think we've both made mistakes that we shouldn't have. The important thing is that we're safe."

Safe. Safe. He can breathe again, the muscles in his chest relaxing enough for his lungs to expand. Tizoc is still on the throne, but the hole in the boundaries is smaller now; though his brother is a danger, at least they won’t need to fear ghosts or that terrible plague. Acatl and Mihmatini have saved them from that, and what has he done? Only gotten in their way, only made them grieve when they couldn’t have afforded that. Acatl might say they’re both at fault, but he feels guilt tear at his throat anyway.

Never again. I swear to the Duality, to all the gods who are listening, I’ll never treat them like that again. He’s scored welts on his forearms with his nails, blunt as they are; under the long sleeves of his feather suit, they itch. It will do as an offering for now.

There are maize cakes. He takes one and sits down on the steps, breaking the cake in half just to give himself something to do with his hands. The crumbs are soft and yellow against his skin, but he doesn’t eat. He doesn’t think he can. "I'll give it a few years,” he says quietly. “If we hold that long." Whatever else happens, whatever Acatl thinks of him, he won’t hide from him any longer. There will be no more secrets, save the one he holds deepest in his heart.

"I know."

He can’t bring himself to meet Acatl’s gaze. "You disapprove."

"...I don't know." That’s softer, an admission of vulnerability that makes his heart throb.

He pours himself a bowl of chocolate, half-hoping it will settle his stomach, but when he inhales its bitter scent he finds he can’t bring himself to drink it yet, not with more words laying like dead things on his tongue. "I don't think Mihmatini will ever forgive me." By some miracle they’re still married, and he’s not sure how he managed that. He thinks vomiting up the truth—that it wasn’t just his ambitions, that he’d looked at what Tizoc could do to the people he loved and he’d been terrified—might have helped, but it doesn’t change how he’s treated her. She should hate him. But so should Acatl, and now they’re sitting together and talking as though he hasn’t ruined everything. As though there’s hope.

"Give it time,” Acatl says. “I can't help you there. I don't think, in fact, that I can help you much at all.” He takes a breath, and Teomitl can feel his eyes on him. Acatl’s voice is far, far warmer than he deserves. “You were right in one thing; you're far too adult to have a teacher."

Without meaning to, he looks up—and finds himself smiling. It sits strangely on his face. "You said things as one man to another. That won't change, Acatl." That slips out before he can stop it, and he finds it flows smoothly from his mouth. Acatl. Just his name, because they are both men, aren’t they? Teomitl is longer his student, no longer someone he feels the need to protect. Now he’s someone he can respect as an equal.

Acatl’s quiet for a moment before he responds. "No, I guess not.”

Teomitl takes a breath, ready to speak—it won’t change, it won’t, I swear that even when I stand before you as Emperor you’ll still be the man I—but he can’t say it. If he does, he won’t stop. Instead he drops his gaze to his bowl of chocolate, takes another breath, and begins, “When Tizoc comes back...” He still wants to carve his brother’s heart out, but that’s not as important as he thought it was. He can wait.

“Yes?”

“...I’ll ask him about Tlatelolco. It's high time that wound was healed. We can't keep making them pay for something that happened thirteen years ago." He wonders how Chalchiuhnenetl might have turned out if they hadn’t. If they’d modeled mercy.

"What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know.” He realizes he’s echoing Acatl’s own words, and it brings another smile to his face. It’s alright that he doesn’t have the answers right away. Acatl isn’t expecting him to, and it won’t make the man respect him any less.

This time, Acatl smiles back, a soft and half-uncertain curve of his lips that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners, and Teomitl feels his knees go weak even sitting down. Acatl is handsome already, but when he smiles he is radiant. He thinks, now, that his heart has never been stone; it’s always been flesh and blood, and now it’s beating for the sake of that smile. Duality, I was the biggest fool in the Fifth World to think I could make myself feel nothing for you.

They’re still sitting too close to each other. “...I’ll think of something,” he continues, and gets to his feet. If he keeps looking at that smiling face, he’s going to do something stupid.

The city below them is beautiful—noisy and bright and shining like a jewel on the water, and all theirs to love and protect. Far in the distance, he can hear the sound of music, and the wind carries the smell of dinners from a thousand kitchens. The canals glitter in the golden light of the setting sun, the sun that will rise again and again, the sun that will light Acatl’s smile forever. “It hasn’t changed,” he murmurs.

Acatl’s voice is soft with wonder behind him, and he’s glad he’s looking away. His heart already feels like melted honey; if he turns around right now and sees whatever expression is on the man’s face, he’s not sure he could handle it. “No, it hasn’t changed.”

But you have, he thinks. We both have, and thank the gods for that.

 

chicuacen acatl (six reed)

Acatl’s exhausted. All of them can see it. The renovation Tizoc is planning for the Great Temple shouldn’t be his purview, but with how thin the boundaries are and how useless Quenami functionally is—Teomitl still entertains thoughts of flinging the High Priest of Huitzilopochtli down the steps of his own temple and watching him roll all the way to the bottom—it’s somehow become his purview anyway. Nobody wants to risk Coyolxauhqui’s release, after all, even if her prison is on the very lowest level where the builders shouldn’t touch. Acatl’s been working nearly nonstop for weeks, and even Ichtaca and Ezamahual are concerned.

Teomitl is not concerned. Teomitl has left concern several miles back, and is now squarely in the territory of fury. He stomps up the temple steps to where he knows Acatl is still reviewing their oldest records, yanking the entrance curtain aside in a discordant jangle of bells.

“Acatl. It’s time for a break.”

Acatl looks terrible. There’s dried blood caught in a lock of hair by his ear, and the shadows under his eyes are dark enough Teomitl could drown in them. Still, he barely looks up from the codex he’s glaring at. “I’m busy.”

He feels a sudden, fierce sympathy for all the times Mihmatini has ordered him to slow down and relax. “It can wait,” he snaps.

Acatl draws in a breath. “I—”

He doesn’t want to hear excuses, not when it comes to Acatl’s health. There can be other priests, but in all the world there’s only one of the man he loves. “You’ve barely been sleeping or eating. Come with me.” And before Acatl can protest any further, he stalks over and hauls him to his feet. It’s so, so easy to wrap a hand around his wrist and pull him up, and for a moment Acatl’s too stunned to object.

Then he must remember his dignity, because he yanks his wrist roughly out of Teomitl’s grip and takes a step back, glaring at him. “I know my own limits—”

“No, you don’t!” It comes out too loud, but he doesn’t care. Making Acatl see is more important. “You don’t take any care for yourself, Acatl! You’re running yourself ragged, and I don’t—” His voice cracks. I don’t want to see you like this. I can’t let you kill yourself working for people that don’t appreciate you, that won’t let you rest. I need you.

“I am fine!” Now Acatl’s shouting—actually shouting, when he hardly ever raises his voice—and it sends a pang through Teomitl’s heart.

“You are not! Acatl, please. I love you, I can’t lose you—”

Acatl rocks back as though he’s been slapped, staring at Teomitl wide-eyed as a fawn. His mouth works, but no sound comes out; when he finds his voice again, it trembles.“...You what?”

Oh. Shit. He’s said that out loud. His heart drops into his stomach, which shouldn’t be possible with how hard it’s beating; he can’t hear anything past the roaring in his ears. His fists clench, but there’s nothing to fight here except himself and his own foolishness.

“I. Uh. Um.” He swallows hard, which at least seems to abate the lightheaded terror enough for him to form a complete sentence. “Please feel free to forget it—it’s only that I, that I care for you, and—”

Acatl holds up a hand to cut him off. He’s flushed—with anger or embarrassment, Teomitl can’t tell—but his voice is admirably steady. “I will not.” He takes a deep breath, and this time their eyes meet. “You...did you mean that?” He sounds...shocked. Disbelieving. As though there’s somehow any doubt that he could be loved, that Teomitl is the one who loves him.

He nods mutely. He’s amazed he can even move.

Acatl makes a small, strangled noise and goes even redder, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Ah.”

All of a sudden, Teomitl can’t bear it. He’s torn his heart out of his chest and laid it at Acatl’s feet, and Acatl is looking at it like something to be studied. He has to leave.

As he turns to go, Acatl’s voice stops him in his tracks. The last time he heard such wonder in it, they’d been standing on these same steps, and he’d been reeling with the notion that maybe he hadn’t destroyed what lay between them after all. Hearing it now makes it hard to breathe. “...You...love me. Truly? Me?”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and turns to face the man again. Every instinct still screams at him to flee, but he holds his ground. He’s not a coward. Weak, but not a coward. “I won’t apologize for it. But I know you don’t feel the same way, so...”

Again Acatl cuts him off, but this time it’s with his voice alone, soft and steady as the rock under their feet. “Teomitl.”

Acatl’s said his name thousands of times, but never like this. Never so soft and careful, as though each syllable is a jewel. When he takes a step closer, Teomitl realizes just how small the top of this temple is. They’re very, very close. “Ngh.”

Close enough to touch. Acatl sets a hand gently on his upper arm, anchoring him in place. “You’re wrong.”

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to say. Hope is a swarm of butterflies in his chest. “I—” he begins.

And then Acatl kisses him.

Oh. It’s barely even a brush of lips, like a bird’s wings, and it’s gone in an instant; he feels it down to his soul anyway. When Acatl draws back and looks at him, he’s sure he’s forgotten how to breathe.

Acatl doesn’t quite smile, but the way his gaze softens as he meets Teomitl’s eyes is just as heart-melting. “I’m not an eloquent man. But I...my feelings for you...”

He loves me. A fierce tide of joy rushes through his veins, and it’s suddenly the easiest thing in the world to reach for Acatl and pull him close, one hand at his waist and the other burying itself into tangled hair. They don’t need words, not when Teomitl can kiss him instead, but when he breaks the kiss for air he can’t help breathing, “Love you so much—” and then Acatl is hauling him in with nails digging into his shoulderblades so clearly they don’t exactly hurt.

By the time they pull apart, they’re both breathing hard. Acatl’s smiling gloriously, but as he catches his breath it starts to fade. His gaze skitters away for a moment before alighting somewhere near Teomitl’s left ear. “...I have to ask. What about my sister?”

Ah, Mihmatini. He truly had thought she’d never forgive him, but he’d been pleasantly surprised. True, things between them had been distinctly frosty for a week or so, but then she’d grabbed him by the front of his tunic and asked him if he was in love with her brother and...well. He’d been too startled to even think of lying, and the truth could hardly have made her any less angry. But she had only laughed—truly laughed, a horribly undignified snorting giggle he kind of loves—and wished him luck, and now they are friends again. It makes him smile. “I would be a fool to go behind her back, wouldn’t I? She gives her blessing.”

“...Ah.” And now Acatl’s blushing again. “That explains...quite a bit.”

He feels his own face burn. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

Acatl seems about to affirm this, but then his stomach rumbles. Loudly.

Teomitl can’t help but grin. “So,” he says. “About that break.”

Acatl sighs, but doesn’t so much as glance at his discarded codex. “...You were right. I am rather hungry.”

He takes Acatl’s hand, twining their fingers together. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s eat.”