the war is over and we are beginning

[notapaladin]

me getting through the rollercoaster that is the end of Master of the House of Darts only to be absolutely bitchslapped by teo & acatl watching the sunset together & them FULLY ENACTING THE TROPE OF
"person a, looking at the sky: "isn't it beautiful?"
person b, looking at them: yeah"

ms de bodard are you TrYinG TO KiLL ME i DEMAND a 20k epilogue of them having soft feelings at each other! i demand it! but there isn't one so instead i wrote this.

-

“No,” Acatl said, “it hasn’t changed.”

Teomitl gazed at the sunset for a long time, silent and thoughtful. Heart full of too many emotions to name, Acatl watched him.

But you have. The knowledge of it beat under Acatl’s skin like a second heart. Gone was the impetuous, reckless youth who’d barged up to him and all but demanded to be taken on as a student. He could still see traces of that boy in the set of Teomitl’s jaw, but now there was more than that. Much more. The boy he’d known back then could easily have turned into a man who would have taken what he wanted and damn the rest, who would have trampled over his objections and crowned himself even as Tizoc’s corpse cooled at his feet and the star demons fell. He would have seen only the standards Tizoc failed, and not the consequences of his removal. He never would have smiled, with only the shadow of his old carelessness, and reminded Acatl that they spoke together as men. That he, whose destiny was to wear the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown, spoke to the son of peasants as an equal.

For a moment, he could imagine the shining future ahead of them. Could see Teomitl leading his army farther afield than the Empire had ever ventured, spreading their glory to the very edges of the world. Could see him ruling over Tenochtitlan itself, a clever and generous and above all capable Emperor, respected and loved by his people. Could see himself by Teomitl’s side. He exhaled slowly, softly. The moment felt fragile as butterfly wings, and he didn’t dare disturb it with words. Gods, I’m proud of you.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from him. If there’d ever been a time when he could, he didn’t remember it. Of course he’d seen Teomitl in full regalia, the white-and-red-and-jade costume of the Master of the House of Darts on the warpath, but never like this—never with the setting sun turning everything to molten gold, bringing out the warmth of his dark eyes and lingering like a lover on the curve of his smile. In this light, he already looked imperial. Look at you, he thought. Look at you, my future Emperor.

Teomitl was turning back towards him. Acatl hastened to avert his eyes, but he was too slow; Teomitl was favoring him with a teasing smile that made him blush at the knowledge that he’d been caught staring. “Is there something on my face?”

He shook his head, wondering why his stomach seemed unsettled. Maybe he’d eaten too quickly. “Drink your chocolate.”

Teomitl tipped his head back to drink, and Acatl found himself captivated by the sight. He knew he should be looking away. He should be thinking about the temple accounts, about the vigils for the dead, but his mind was full of the curve of Teomitl’s throat. Briefly overwhelmed, he closed his eyes. It was stress, nothing more. Stress and lack of sleep and the lingering warmth of knowing deep in his bones that one day Teomitl would be a Revered Speaker for the ages and still, still, calling him Acatl. He’d never imagined that his name could sound so soft in Teomitl’s mouth.

He felt as well as heard Teomitl sit down next to him, and was suddenly acutely aware of how close they were. They weren’t touching, but they could be. “It’s good. Did you have some already?” And then, with a familiar thread of suspicion, “You did eat, didn’t you?”

It was an exchange they’d had dozens of times. Like he did every time, Acatl sighed heavily. Really, Teomitl spent far too much time concerning himself with his health—he was hardly going to waste away overnight, even if work did sometimes cause him to skip the occasional meal. Dignity precluded him actually snorting or rolling his eyes, but it was a near thing. “Of course I ate. You should too.”

“Hm.” Teomitl stared down at the halves of his maize cake for a moment before taking a bite. He chewed thoughtfully, brow furrowed, and then eyed it with the kind of dubious expression he usually reserved for unidentified sauces. “Acamapichtli brought these?”

They were good maize cakes. Granted, Acatl had had better—these were a little dry, and he personally would have added a bit more salt—but there was nothing wrong with them. He’d never known Teomitl to be particularly picky over his food. “He did. Why?”

Teomitl took another bite, chewed just as thoughtfully as the first, and swallowed. “Yours are better.”

Now that was rank flattery, and he fixed Teomitl with a glare even as heat crawled up his face. True, he could cook—he would have starved if he couldn’t—but that didn’t make him particularly good at it. The best thing any truthful man could say about his culinary efforts was that they were edible, if you were hungry enough and smothered them in hot peppers. But still...still...Teomitl doesn’t lie. Ever. And he certainly wouldn’t do so for something as trivial as this. “Teomitl.”

Teomitl smiled at him. There was a crumb caught in the corner of his mouth, and Acatl itched to brush it away. “It’s true!”

“Hmph.” If he finished off his own bowl of chocolate, he didn’t have to look Teomitl in the face. The fact that it seemed to agitate the flock of butterflies in his stomach was immaterial. “You don’t need to say such things to me.” There was no need for flattering apologies between them, not when both of them had so comprehensively erred. What was an attempted coup—especially when you would eventually be Revered Speaker anyway—next to his own weakening of the boundaries in service of an unworthy man? Because Tizoc was unworthy. He could admit that now. And he could admit, in the privacy of his own heart, that he would love to see Teomitl crowned.

“Hmm.” It was a quiet, satisfied noise. “No. But I’d like to.”

“Teomitl!” It came out sharper than he intended, and the fading flush of his ears returned tenfold. Don’t say such soft things. You’ll make me—

He didn’t want to think what it would make him do. He didn’t want to think what it would make him want.

Because that was the problem with spending time around Teomitl, really. The man made him want things. It had started small; he’d been met with arrogance, and he’d wanted to be treated respectfully. He’d been teased and cajoled, and even as some corner of the wall around his heart crumbled he’d wanted to be addressed with...well, with some sort of deference, at any rate. But somewhere along the way, it had gotten worse. He’d found himself seized with the desire to protect his student, to soothe his hurts, to gently erase his frowns and disappointments. (To hold him in his arms—no. That was going too far.) Things he shouldn’t waste time thinking about, because he’d never have them.

Teomitl heaved a sigh. “Alright, alright. No more complimenting your cooking. I’ll find some other way to show my appreciation, then.”

Acatl nearly choked. The butterflies in his gut rioted. “What?”

He had to wait a while for an answer; Teomitl seemed to suddenly find his maize cake delicious, and polished off the whole thing in utter silence. Finally, he brushed crumbs off his hands and gave Acatl a sidelong glance that, if Acatl hadn’t known better, he might have called shy. There was the faintest tinge of red in his cheeks. “...I never truly thanked you, I don’t think. For—for when I was sick.”

Oh. He had to close his eyes again, remembering the pain and the terror that had gripped him. Remembering how heavy Teomitl had been in his arms, heartbeat like a trapped bird, and the way he’d staggered through the streets with Duality, I can’t lose him too as an endless litany in his head. It had been far, far too close. Even now his mind’s eye, ruthless as ever, provided him with Teomitl flushed and feverish and in pain before he shook his head to clear it. No. He’s fine now; he’s healthier than he’s ever been. He’ll live a long, long life. “You never need to thank me for that. Anyone would have done the same.”

Belatedly Acatl recalled Teomitl saying the same thing to him in Nezahual’s summer palace; he wouldn’t have been surprised if it angered him, but Teomitl only gave him a long, steady look. “You carried me in your arms. I would have died without you.”

A boat pulled by ahuizotls. Huitzilopochtli’s magic, hot and brilliant as the sun. A drawn macuahuitl, obsidian edges glittering. I would have died without you, too. He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “You remember that?” He wouldn’t have thought Teomitl would have been in a state to remember anything; his own memories of that flight through the city were badly fractured, and he’d at least been conscious.

Teomitl dropped his gaze. “...I do. Not very well, but—I do remember that. I remember you holding me.”

Acatl thought holding was probably an unnecessarily kind way of putting it; that implied someone with the muscles and stamina to make such a thing easy, and he was far too slight for that. Still, his mind had no issues dredging up the sensation of how Teomitl’s skin had felt against his own, and for a moment he had to suppress a shiver. “You were very ill.” He almost died. He almost died, and there would have been nothing I could have done to save him.

Lord Death didn’t give up His souls easily, not even if his High Priest asked—but he imagined himself owing a lifetime of favors to Quenami, and thought it would have been a fair trade. (The boundaries would have split open like rotten fruit around the return of Teomitl’s life, and he would have known it was his fault—but he would have done it anyway.)

“I was.” Teomitl looked down, slowly flexing his hands. “But I still remember...there was screaming in my head, and everything hurt...but someone...” He swallowed convulsively and took another long sip of his chocolate. “I think someone held my hand. Was it you?”

Acatl’s own fingers twitched at the memory. Teomitl’s hand in his had been warm and dry, the fingers and palm calloused from swordhilts and knife handles, striped here and there with thin, raised scars. He’d squeezed it, seeking to give what comfort he could, and gotten no response—but Teomitl had felt it, nonetheless. “...Ah.” He couldn’t find words. “Y—yes. That was me. Forgive me.” At the time, it had felt like the least he could do, even if it still wasn’t nearly enough; now, he found himself regretting it. Teomitl was a proud man, after all—he couldn’t have wanted to be comforted like a child, though Acatl somehow doubted he’d ever been comforted like that when he was a child. It was a thought that made him wish he could have spoken sharp words to whoever had raised him.

And indeed, Teomitl was frowning—but then he spoke, and his words took Acatl’s breath away. “There’s nothing to forgive, Acatl. You...you gave me something to cling to.” He dropped his voice. “I only wish I’d been alert enough to enjoy it.”

A slightly strangled noise made its way out of his throat. Enjoy it, he says. As though even when he’s well, he’d want me to... He felt almost dizzy for a moment, and had to swallow several times before he could form words. “Ngk. You. Um.”

Teomitl drew himself up, seeming to come to a decision. Carefully, he laid his hand on the stone between them, loose and open. An invitation, one that made Acatl’s head spin. His eyes were soft and heated, filled with something that Acatl couldn’t—no, didn’t want to name. There were some things that he couldn’t contemplate, even in the privacy of his own head. “I’d like it if you did it again.”

His mind went almost entirely blank. (Almost; some tiny corner where he kept his sense of hope had woken up and was screaming. He could focus on that later.) But Teomitl had given him permission, was looking at him like the dawn, and he could no more resist it than a drowning man could a piece of driftwood.

Wondering how those words could absolutely destroy him, he reached out and took Teomitl’s hand for the second time.

It was nothing like the desperation of the first one, where his own grinding agony had been the backdrop to Teomitl’s harsh panting and fevered murmurs—where he’d watched the flickering of his closed lids and felt his pulse and prayed, prayed desperately to every god he’d ever even heard of, that it wouldn’t stop. This time Teomitl was watching him with clear, warm eyes; when Acatl squeezed his fingers lightly, he squeezed back and quirked up a tiny, devastating smile.

Acatl couldn’t speak. Speech was beyond him.

“Mmm.” Teomitl’s eyes shone, and he thought he might catch fire from their warmth. “Your hand is nice and cool. I thought it was just the fever.”

He took a breath, surprised at how easily it came to him. If my hand is cool, it’s because there is absolutely no blood going to my extremities right now. “...It will warm up.” There was no chance of him letting go before Teomitl did, and Teomitl didn’t seem to want to. Teomitl, in fact, was twining their fingers together, which anchored him in place as effectively as a spear to the chest. He was amazed the man couldn’t hear the pounding of his pulse through his skin. “You—you run rather warm yourself, you know.”

Teomitl studied their joined hands. “The magic?”

“It might be. I don’t know.” Most of the people he touched on a daily basis tended to be dead, and thus made terrible points of comparison.

Teomitl shrugged lightly, lifting his head to smile at him. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

“I—“ He floundered for a moment, searching for a way to explain the feeling of a secure future ripped away, the path before him left blank. “There isn’t much I do know, anymore. Except—“ Except that you are brave and bright and beautiful and you’ll be the finest Revered Speaker this land has ever known. Except that I pray with all my heart to gods who are not my patron to keep you safe. Except that the times when you are at war and away from me, I can barely sleep for worrying even though I know that with the Southern Hummingbird’s blessing no foe can touch you.

Except that I—gods, I—

Oh.

The sound that escaped him barely sounded human, never mind like the start of any recognizable word.

(Strong hands. A proud smile. His own heart racing at the sight of him. The way he’d been almost afraid to see him, even while he longed for it, because the thought that Teomitl’s feelings towards him might change—might lessen, that he might see Acatl as an encumbrance rather than a help, that even the little respect he held would fade once he was no longer in need of teaching—terrified him down to the bones. The thoughts he’d had, sour and fleeting, that he’d have to at least be satisfied with respect because surely...surely Teomitl, who was so happy with Mihmatini, wouldn’t...)

He couldn’t quite feel his hands. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Another. Another. No. Storm Lord strike me, why must my heart betray me now?

It had to be a betrayal. He’d certainly never intended for the walls of his heart to crumble, for all these emotions to rise in him like a flood. Yes, he’d woken from dreams in the middle of the night, but those were supposed to stay dreams—the product of an overactive subconscious, nothing more. It didn’t seem possible that he could sit on the steps of his temple with the Fifth World’s destruction allayed and Teomitl’s hand in his and still feel his heart crack open with the desire for more. Not now, not with Teomitl’s smoke and mist rising, not with his marriage in tatters (and gods, Mihmatini, how could he do this to her—no, he’d keep it locked away in his heart and it would be fine , he’d not ruin his sister’s life with his feelings—)

“Hm?”

Right. He’d been talking. He swallowed saliva, trying to remember what he’d been going to say before that world-shattering revelation. He didn’t think he’d even had an ending planned for that sentence. Slowly, he became aware that he was running his thumb over Teomitl’s knuckles, and that Teomitl had gone still next to him.

When Teomitl’s fingers curled slowly against his palm, he knew his heart was entirely lost. Except that I love you.

He bit his lip, gazing out over the city below, and spoke a truth. “You were my greatest student.”

Teomitl made a noise that might have been an abortive laugh, but Acatl turned to look at him and found his eyes warm and dark and serious. “...You know I don’t need a teacher anymore, Acatl.”

He drew in a slow, shaky breath. While he certainly couldn’t say he minded Teomitl finally dropping the honorific—it had taken him long enough, honestly, there was a point after which being called “tzin” by the Master of the House of Darts in public was just embarrassing—nobody had ever said his name like that before. Teomitl’s voice made the simple syllables into something rich and tender, and Acatl couldn’t have torn his gaze from his if the sky had fallen in. How could I have taken so long to see it? “...I know.”

For a moment Teomitl’s lips parted, and Acatl forgot how to breathe as he realized how close they were. Barely a few inches separated them, and it would be trivial to close the distance. Then Teomitl averted his eyes and murmured, “I’m glad I had you in my life,” with a tone so final it made something lurch in his gut.

The words came out without any input from his brain. “You’ll always have me.” As a friend, if you desire. As a brother, if I must. He licked his too-dry lips and watched Teomitl’s eyes follow the motion. It made his heart race. As a lover—yes, gods, I think I would break my vows for you.

“Always?” Teomitl’s voice was hushed. “Even when I am Revered Speaker? What will you be to me then, Acatl?”

It would be so easy to say your High Priest. It would be so easy to say your ally, your servant, your devoted subject. It would be so easy to say nothing at all—to lean in, bathed by the setting sun, and kiss that sweet mouth.

No. I can’t. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Distance. He needed distance. “Whatever you desire, Teomitl-tzin.”

“Eurgh.” Teomitl’s whole body flinched, setting his quetzal-feather headdress bobbing and almost jerking his hand out of Acatl’s before he seemingly realized what he’d been about to do and latched on again. This time his grip was almost painfully tight, and the look he turned on Acatl was something akin to wounded horror. “Alright, you are not allowed to call me that. Not ever, do you understand me?!”

Acatl blinked at him. Teomitl had always accepted the honorific as his due; it had seemed only proper that he, Acatl, should get used to using it regularly as well—even if the idea of doing so now, after having his heart ripped open and exposed to daylight, made him feel more than a little sick. “What...should I call you, then?” He supposed Ahuizotl would do, though being reminded of the creepy things every time he addressed him would not be pleasant. (Never mind how Teomitl could stand it, he’d always wondered what the boy’s parents had been thinking. Not even the association with Teomitl—Teomitl, whom he loved!—could make his skin crawl any less when he thought about those grasping claws or the horrible, high-pitched songs scratching at his ears.)

Teomitl sucked in a breath, holding his gaze. “My name.” Though his face and ears tinted themselves red, his voice held all the certainty of a royal proclamation. “I want to be Teomitl to you until the day I die.”

He had to look away. It was that or do something stupid. Exactly what that thing would be, he had no idea (that was a lie, his heart had plenty of ideas and they would all end in disaster if he followed through), but he knew a single misstep would shatter the fragile new relationship they seemed to be building between them. Teomitl’s presence in his life was too important to risk. His gaze drifted out over the city below them, with the last rays of the sun glinting off its canals. “...Even when you’re Revered Speaker?”

“Especially then.” He could hear the smile in Teomitl’s voice. “Promise?”

He let himself imagine the future at Teomitl’s side again. Teomitl crowned in turquoise, dripping with jade and gold, the army at his back and the Southern Hummingbird’s might enfolding him—and Acatl, alone among his court, calling him by name and getting that smile in response.

It was the easiest vow he’d ever made. “Promise.”

A thumb slid over the back of his hand, sending lightning through his veins. Helpless, he looked up into Teomitl’s face again; the man was openly beaming at him, flushed and radiant and happy, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Duality curse him, how had it taken him so long to realize it?

I could kiss you now. He felt his heart skip a beat, and in an instant he knew that Teomitl wouldn’t stop him. That neither their positions nor the state of the Fifth World mattered anymore, because if he leaned in and tilted his head just so, he would feel that smile against his own lips. That Teomitl, utterly heedless of the consequences, would kiss him back. He could have that, if he was brave enough to take it.

But he was a coward, and so he turned his face away.