notapaladin

“Fine. I’ll be kinder to your clothes than you seem to be. You might as well come inside.”

“I’m not sure what Teomitl busied himself with when I was sleeping, but I woke up to find him still sitting in the courtyard, glaring at the lone pine tree as if it had personally tarnished his reputation.”

um???? umMM????? aliette??? ms de bodard?????? thiS SCENE TRANSITION??? WHAT DID WE MISS.

…pining. we missed pining, is what we missed. here it is, and as usual you can also read it on AO3!

“Fine. I’ll be kinder to your clothes than you seem to be. You might as well come inside.”

For a moment, Teomitl said nothing and slowly felt his face heat up, grateful that it would be hard to spot. He briefly thought of protesting—I can sit against the wall, Acatl-tzin, it’s fine—but the bigger (reckless, wanting, stupid) part of him had absolutely no intention of letting him miss this opportunity, and was already nodding and following Acatl inside. It would be all the better for protecting Acatl-tzin if something did happen, he told himself, since the man was clearly half dead on his feet with exhaustion. The fact that he sort of did want to watch him sleep was immaterial. It was only that even in normal circumstances (which these were not, his brother was dead, he’d been Revered Speaker almost all of Teomitl’s life and he was dead—) Acatl always looked so tired. Careworn. Serious. It made him long to see him smile, to hear him laugh.

(He had, a few times, usually in the presence of his family. It made something clench hard and painful in his chest.)

Acatl didn’t speak as he unrolled his mat, and Teomitl took the opportunity to look around. Almost immediately, he wished he hadn’t. It was so…bare. He’d call it depressing and make a crack about not needing to live in Mictlan even if you were a priest of Lord Death, but somehow it didn’t seem the time. There was a simple, mostly monochrome frieze of owls and spiders on the wall, a few woven chests on the floor holding Acatl’s meager possessions, a table that had seen better days, and a sleeping mat. And that was it. Granted, he didn’t keep much more in his own chambers—he had never been comfortable with the ostentation of the court, especially when there were more important things to think about (the glory of war, the power of magic, Mihmatini, Acatl), but it rubbed him entirely the wrong way to see Acatl’s house like that. At least his rooms in the palace had color. And there weren’t—he squinted—yes, that was a spiderweb in the corner of the ceiling. He knew Acatl had spent years in Coyoacan as a simple priest, with a simple calling, living in a plainer and much smaller house than this. Still, the High Priest of the Dead (his Acatl-tzin, his) deserved so much better.

“What is it?”

Oh, he’d been glaring at the wall. He shook his head dismissively, and aimed a smile at Acatl instead. It was easy to smile for him. It always had been—especially now, with the man blinking tiredly at him on the mat, hair unbound to spill over his shoulders in a fall Teomitl was not going to let himself contemplate yet. So instead of saying what burned through his mind—you deserve the finest dishes from the palace kitchens served on gold platters, with beautiful slaves rubbing your shoulders and fanning you with quetzal-feather fans—he told him, “Nothing, Acatl-tzin. Get some rest. You need it.” Another thought flickered across his mind, and was just as firmly squashed before it could escape—namely, the idea that if there was fanning and shoulder-rubbing to be done, he would probably (definitely) volunteer.

Acatl let out his breath in a long sigh as he settled down and arranged himself into a comfortable position, but he didn’t say anything else. Teomitl watched, leaning against the wall. It was far, far too warm to cover him with a cloak, but the urge to protect him—to mother him, as he knew Acatl would huff—was nearly overwhelming. At least Acatl drifted off quickly, body all but melting with the release of tension.

He closed his eyes briefly, relieved, and sank down to the floor to sit a bit away from him. Finally. Thank the gods. He didn’t want to see the shadows under Acatl’s eyes, or the careful way he held himself upright. With luck, this nap would help.

Stand up and keep watch, his survival instincts told him. Keep a hand on your sword. He could manage the second one, but the first seemed suddenly impossible; as his eyes opened again, his gaze flitted around the room and landed on Acatl’s face, where it stuck. He couldn’t look away. He could count the number of times he’d seen the man truly relaxed—not focused on magic, or investigations, or whatever was going on around him—on one hand, and probably have fingers left over. He’d certainly never seen him like this, looking younger and softer in sleep. He’d never had a chance to simply study Acatl’s face before.

He took that chance, propping his chin on his hand. With his usual slight frown erased—though it had left a faint crease between his eyebrows, one Teomitl’s fingers suddenly itched to smooth away—Acatl looked a good deal more like his actual age. He found himself remembering a moment with Mihmatini when she’d been teasing Acatl for his seriousness over a game of patolli—Like an old man, Acatl, should we call you Grandfather?—and Acatl, cracking the faintest smile, had pointed out to his little sister that he was old. Teomitl had stayed silent, focusing on his meal; then as now, he felt very strongly that thirty-one was not old at all, especially when anyone with working eyes could see how handsome Acatl was when he smiled. Less so now, which was probably good for Teomitl’s heart, but still his sleeping face drew the eye. It was a narrow face, unlike Neutemoc’s and Mihmatini’s but apparently quite like a long-dead mother and aunts, with sharp cheekbones and a blunter, less hawkish nose than Teomitl had unfortunately inherited. (Most days it didn’t bother him, but then he thought of Tizoc and—no. He wouldn’t think of Tizoc now.) There were the beginnings of lines at the corners of his eyes. He has longer eyelashes than I thought, he realized. They shadowed his cheeks, and he could so easily imagine them brushing his skin like the wings of a butterfly. And full lips, slackened a little in sleep. Teomitl clenched his fist before he gave into the desire to trace them with his fingertips, just to see how soft they were. He resolutely did not wonder if Acatl was the sort of priest to pierce his tongue with thorns. It was better for his sanity if he didn’t think about Acatl’s tongue at all.

It was probably a good idea for him to spend less time staring at Acatl’s face before he did something stupid (before he started imagining those eyes opening, gazing at him warmly, for once not exasperated but proud, loving…) He should look out the window at least—but no, his gaze trailed over Acatl’s throat and down his shoulders and chest instead. His priest would never be a warrior; he was slight, and what muscles he had were more wiry than anything else, but Teomitl could never think him weak. Not now, after all they’d been through. He found his eyes lingering on old scars, not all of them ones he recognized. The ones from the beast of shadows were invisible, he knew, unless you reached out with magic. He shivered at the memory of those wounds. Duality strike me if I let you get any more. Acatl’s chest rose and fell with slow, steady breaths, and before he could think better of it, his hand was hovering in the air a scant inch or so from warm skin. The half-formed thought in his mind—to trace those scars gently, to lay a hand over where his heart thumped away in his chest—skittered away the next instant, and he yanked it back. Idiot. He’s just gotten to sleep, what are you thinking?

But he knew what he’d been thinking. The memories of that night never faded.

(A night of chaos, of fury, of both of them fighting for their lives, and there’d been a second he’d thought they would both die there. And then Acatl had thrown his knife at the thing, missing him by inches—but striking true. In the dark, aiming by magic, with one good arm. Looking back, Teomitl was pretty sure he’d fallen in love as soon as the battle high wore off.)

Acatl moved, and he held himself very still. To his relief, the man wasn’t waking, only shifting a little in his sleep; muscles and sinew flexed under the skin as he curled in his arms and stretched his legs. The movement drew the eye to his hands, and Teomitl look a moment to admire them too; long-fingered, scarred, and as skilled with a reed pen as they were with a knife. He flushed, feeling his pulse kick up speed, and expelled a harsh breath. He would consider all the things those hands could do to him later, under the cover of night, when he was too far gone with lust to remember any of the reasons why that was a bad idea.

For now, he let his eyes wander over the curve of a slender waist, or at least what he could see of it; Acatl’s hair fell only to the top of his hips, but it got everywhere when he let loose the ribbon keeping it off his face. Unlike other priests, those of the Dead didn’t mat their hair down with the blood of their sacrifices, something which turned it into an impenetrable, stinking mass. When he had been younger, when things between them had been…better, Tizoc had said to him that the reason people gave priests such a wide berth wasn’t anything to do with the power or dignity of the gods, but everything to do with the stench. Until he’d realized the hatred and spite in his voice, he’d thought his older brother had been joking; even when he realized Tizoc was deadly serious, it hadn’t been until meeting Acatl that it had made him angry. (Since meeting Acatl, he’d discovered that a lot of things about Tizoc made him angry.) While there sometimes was blood caught in Acatl’s hair—an unfortunate result of long hair and frequent offerings to the gods—it was never allowed to remain there for long. A good thing, in Teomitl’s estimation, because Acatl had beautiful hair; black and lustrous as obsidian, with waves that made him long to wrap it around his fingers and see how it looked in a thousand tiny braids dressed with gold. Apparently it was something else he’d inherited from his mother, because Mihmatini’s hair was straight as an arrow.

And Teomitl had never had the urge to bury his hands in her hair to see if it was as soft as it looked. Partly because she’d skin him alive, admittedly, but even if she would allow him the privilege…

He realized he was worrying the inside of his lip plug with his teeth and forced himself to stop. With only half his mind alert for danger, his other thoughts were free to roam over whatever topic they desired, and they were merciless as the sun above. He took a moment to breathe, focusing on nothing but the next expansion of his lungs. It didn’t help.

He liked Mihmatini. He admired how brave and strong she was, how much she loved her family—and how they loved her in return for who she was, not what she might do for them. (It wasn’t something you could have in the Revered Speaker’s household. He wondered what it felt like.) Her acidic tongue was a pleasure to hear even when it turned on him; mockery and insults cut deep, but not as deeply as empty flattery did, and Mihmatini was sparing enough with her compliments. He knew in his bones that if she had been by his side when he’d needed to borrow a peasant’s boat, she would have dragged him up by his ear to ask permission (which he would have deserved, honestly; Jade Skirt’s power had been ruthless in showing him how full of himself he’d been, and he was still amazed Acatl had never slapped him for it.) From what he’d seen of her wards, she would probably have been able to incinerate half a dozen beasts of shadow without blinking, never mind being mauled by one. Yet for all her ferocity she was kind to children, so patient with her nieces and nephews that he was sure she’d make a wonderful mother to any they had. And she was beautiful, of course, with her oval face and gleaming hair. He could easily imagine going to bed with her and thoroughly enjoying himself in the making of those children.

But.

His gaze slid over Acatl’s hips and the long lines of his legs, imagining gold-and-jade anklets and a loincloth of finest cotton. He very carefully did not let himself imagine what lay beneath. If Acatl woke, and saw him…

He knew he was staring anyway; he could feel his mouth water. If he was a woman, and not sworn to the gods…Southern Hummingbird strike me down, I swear I would be courting him instead, and with all joy. The idea felt like it was lighting his brain on fire. Acatl dressed in embroidered cotton and quetzal feathers, covered in gold and precious stones, turning that radiant little quirk of his lips on him. Acatl naked on his mat—their mat—pulling him closer so he could finally trace all those scars with his fingers—and his tongue, while he was at it. Acatl asleep just like this, open and soft and trusting him to guard him in dreams. The mat was only large enough for one person, but that didn’t matter—or it wouldn’t, at least, when they were tangled together. They were of a height, and it would be so easy for Teomitl to tuck his head in against Acatl’s chest and sleep. Together. Safe.

And here he was, panting over him like a dog in heat. He wrenched his gaze away from where it had been drifting down the curves of nicely muscled calves, disgusted with himself. Axayacatl is dead. My brother is dead. The next Revered Speaker—gods, it will probably be Tizoc, and I will be Master of the House of Darts if he is!—is all that stands between us and another slaughter like Ocome, except with people I actually care about. And I am supposed. To be courting. Mihmatini. Who has to be waiting for a proper marriage, it’s been a year now! She’d kill me if she found out I…I…and…Acatl is sworn to the gods, to a life of celibacy, I am actively courting his sister, and even supposing he is—is interested in anyone, surely it would not be me. Not a warrior, not a brother of the Revered Speaker. If I’m lucky, he sees me as a brother himself, and certainly not as a man.

He shut his eyes tightly and stomped out to the courtyard, where at least he could punch the tree until he felt better.