meet me in the dark

[notapaladin]

Secret relationship angst, and Acatl finally internalizing that he is loved.

-

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

Acatl can think of half a dozen reasons why they shouldn’t be doing this, just off the top of his head. Teomitl is the Master of the House of Darts. He will one day be Emperor. He is his brother-in-law, married to his most beloved sister who is also the Guardian of the Duality in Tenochtitlan. Tizoc would happily have them both killed if he ever found out—for adultery, for treason, for corrupting an upstanding young warrior, for debauching a priest. And Teomitl is—was, was—his student.

Like a son to me, he’d thought once. And at the time, he’d even believed it.

But then Teomitl had turned to him and smiled (like the sun, like the first dawn of a new age, like gold given life) and...

In the end, he’d been wrong. He’d been weak. He’s past feeling guilty for it now, at least; there’d been a good few months where he’d been rabbit-shy of even looking at Teomitl for too long, until the day he’d realized Teomitl was looking back.

Still, though. This thing between them is a terrible idea on so many levels. He’s the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, sworn to a life of chastity, already in disgrace with the Imperial Court and probably only still alive because his magic is the only thing keeping the Revered Speaker in this world. He cannot—should not—risk his life over something as selfish as this. He should have turned Teomitl down the first time.

But he didn’t. Now they’re here in his house, their cloaks and sandals distant memories, and it’s getting harder and harder to remember his objections. Teomitl kisses him again, rough with pent-up desire, and presses him back against the mat. “We have time. For once.”

They’ve barely been able to exchange more than glances in days. Acatl can’t lie to himself and say he doesn’t want this, not with the blood racing through his veins. Even as his hands find purchase at Teomitl’s shoulderblades, though, he hears his mouth form the words. “But if—“

“No.” Teomitl draws back just far enough to glare down at him. He’s been growing his hair out; it flops in his face, casting shadows over his dark eyes. “Do you want me or not, Acatl?”

“I...”

In the morning, they’ll have to go their separate ways. Pretend to be friends, nothing more—and not even that, if Tizoc or his favorites are around to see them. If they meet at court, Acatl won’t even have the brush of a hand against his own to remind him that he is loved. They’ll be separated by their roles and their lives and Tizoc’s hatred, and the memories will haunt him.

Teomitl sits up with a jerk, turning his face away; it’s too dark and Teomitl’s too quick for Acatl to make out his expression, but the bitter edge to his voice tells him all he needs to know. “I see.”

In another heartbeat, he knows Teomitl will storm off. He can see it laid out in front of him clear as day, and it chills him to the bone with how much he doesn’t want it. He’s picking himself up off the mat almost before he registers moving; it’s a position that reminds him viscerally that Teomitl is more or less sitting in his lap, but he’s in no mind to enjoy it. “No. You don’t.”

His fists clench in his lap, shoulders rolling like he’s preparing for a fight—like he’s ready, even now, to go to war over this. “If this is—too much of a risk for you—“

Acatl covers his hand with his own. Gentle, he thinks. Teomitl’s had little enough of that in his life; if nothing else, it will give him pause, enable Acatl to stop the built-up momentum before it goes too far. Before they go too far, and they ruin what’s between them. “Teomitl.”

He’s not sure whether it’s his tone or his touch, but Teomitl turns his face back towards him, and Acatl kisses him. He intends for this to be gentle too, to be soothing and sweet and all the things Teomitl needs, all the things it still amazes him that he can give. (He hadn’t thought this kind of gentleness could live in him, had been terrified at first that he wouldn’t know how to let it bloom. Teomitl melting in his arms had taught him otherwise.) But intentions are one thing, and following through is another; Teomitl is warm and solid and so very alive in his arms, and it’s still been days, and before he can stop himself he’s making a rough little noise in his throat and turning that kiss filthy. There are teeth in it, and when he bites at Teomitl’s bottom lip he’s rewarded with a sound that makes his blood sing.

When they pull apart, Teomitl’s eyes are soft and glittering, and he knows he’s been understood.

He has to speak anyway, sentences tumbling out over one another in a hushed, desperate rush. (His house is secluded, but there are ears everywhere, and he is not brave enough to speak too loudly.) “It is a risk. It’s a risk for both of us. But—Teomitl—I don’t care.” Teomitl looks like he’ll raise his voice again at that, and so he has to kiss him again to stop the words.

It ends too quickly; Teomitl tears his mouth away, face flushed, and can’t look him in the eye. “You always urge caution.”

He takes a slow breath and sets both hands on Teomitl’s forearms, feeling solid muscle under the rough edges of old scars. “One of us has to.” We could die today. We could die tomorrow. Your brother could break under the strain and send the Empire—nay, the Fifth World—tumbling to pieces. I can’t forget that. I can’t allow myself to forget that.

“I am well aware of the risks.” Teomitl smiles then, bright as the thinnest sliver of the moon above. “Which is why I’d rather seize what moments we can.”

Acatl spares a moment to think about the consequences of discovery—certain death for him, only slightly less certain death for Teomitl, disgrace for his whole family and his order. But he’s spent enough time thinking about this, and all the reasons he’s stacked up like stones in his heart always crumble when Teomitl is in his arms again.

So he says, “I’m here now,” and Teomitl takes it for the invitation it is.

They fall back onto the mat together. Teomitl lowers his mouth to his throat, licking hot and wet and exactly the way he knows Acatl likes, and it shreds his doubts to pieces the way the sun does to morning mist. Yes, tomorrow they might die—which is why, tonight, he wants to live. So he shoves the tattered remnants of his thoughts to the back of his mind and digs his nails into Teomitl’s back, arching under the sting of teeth at his pulse, and even when he finds words it’s only a breathless “Duality, more...”

He feels Teomitl grin against his skin. “Like this?” And he does it again, harder and a little lower down, just where the knot of Acatl’s cloak might (might) hide any marks left behind in the morning.

“Ah—!” It’s too loud, but under the rush of embarrassment is a second, headier tide of arousal coiling up his spine. “If someone sees—“

Teomitl huffs, frustrated, and the way he grinds his hips down against Acatl’s own drives all thoughts of marks and consequences out of his head. They’re both more than half hard, and the thin cotton of their loincloths is entirely too much fabric. “I’ll be careful.”

You’d better be, he thinks, but the flash of annoyance is gone the next instant because Teomitl is stripping them bare, and the first slide of calloused fingers against his cock is enough to make him tremble. “Hnnh...”

Teomitl’s eyes gleam as he looks him over, wrapping his hand fully around his length; a few slow strokes is enough to raise him to full hardness, and he’s rocking his hips lightly by the time his lover murmurs, “It’s been a while.”

“It’s been too long.” It’s amazing, how patience seems to desert him when it comes to this man. Teomitl is kneeling between his spread legs like a supplicant, but the devotion in his face is the farthest thing from religious purity. He draws his nails down slowly over Teomitl’s spine and thrills to the low groan it pulls out of him. Your name like smoke and mist, he thinks, your presence like a jaguar among deer, and you look at me—at me!—as though I am precious jade.

It’s entirely too much to resist; he has to roll up into Teomitl’s hand and press their bodies together to take another kiss. It’s hungry and sloppy and has Teomitl rutting against him by the time they break apart, but his lover’s voice is utterly controlled when they lock eyes again. “So.”

Teomitl always makes him ask. Always, as though he’s afraid to presume too far when it comes to what Acatl might approve of. He supposes it’s a reasonable fear after all they’ve been through (he’ll never forget that attempt at a coup, never forget the way Teomitl had been so sure he was doing the right thing) but that doesn’t make him less flustered. His shattered vows of chastity left shards behind, and he’s still picking them out of his mind. He’s blushing like the virgin he no longer is when he whispers, “Take me.”

There’s oil. There’s always oil, rich and expensive, and Teomitl coats his fingers with it so liberally that it drips all over the mat and Acatl’s thighs. He’s thought many times of saying that they don’t have to, that he’ll welcome the pain if it means he’ll still be feeling it the next morning, still have that reminder of his lover’s presence when they must be apart—but then reality reasserts itself, and the words never do leave his mouth. This time is no different; by the time Teomitl’s stretched him to his satisfaction, he can barely find words at all.

Even when he tries, it comes out in something like a whine. He’s spread out on his mat, entirely at Teomitl’s mercy, and if he wasn’t so desperately aroused he’d probably be mortified at how needy he sounds. As it is, though, all he can think is that it’s worth it. “Nn, Teomitl...”

Teomitl smiles at him, soft as the dawn. “My Acatl.”

Yes, he thinks. Yours.

And then Teomitl is sliding into him, and his world blurs into heat and skin and the building coil of pleasure through his veins, and there are no thoughts left.

Afterwards they curl together, catching their breath. Teomitl is still capable of speech (he isn’t always, especially when Acatl takes him, and gods it had thrilled him to realize how patience and focus could reduce such a proud man to incoherent ecstasy) but, for the moment, he’s humming quietly with his head tucked into Acatl’s shoulder. Acatl strokes his back, and stares at the ceiling, and feels obsidian-flake shards of fear stir back to life in the dark corners of his mind.

Teomitl breaks the silence. “...This is the part I miss. Holding you.”

Oh, my heart. He gives him a squeeze without thinking, fighting back the urge to say something sweet and useless like you don’t have to let go. “We have tonight, at least.”

There are no sounds in the room aside from their own steady heartbeats and the soft rush of air through their lungs. After a long moment, Teomitl whispers, “I could kill him for you.”

They don’t need to say who he is. Acatl shakes his head, feeling his heart like a stone in his chest. It is tempting. He can’t lie to himself, not here. But he remembers star demons, remembers the ghosts, and—no. He won’t allow it. “The boundaries are barely stitched together as it is. You know you shouldn’t...”

A long, indrawn breath. The loosely curled hand on Acatl’s chest slowly clenches into a fist. “I know. But I want to.”

A shudder wracks his body, and he drops his nose into Teomitl’s hair. Somehow, it helps. “Don’t. Not yet, and not for me.” He closes his eyes. “It can be for the glory of the Empire or the strength of the Fifth World, but not for me. I don’t deserve that.”

Teomitl sighs, but he doesn’t argue. Instead he mutters softly, stubbornly, “You deserve the world.”

It shouldn’t make his heart melt. It does anyway. “...Teomitl...”

“You know I lo—“

“I know. Don’t say it. Please.” What he loves can be taken from him far too easily; it’s not safe for him to say it back. Not yet.

He can feel Teomitl’s face burn against his skin. “...So long as you know.”

One day, he vows. One day, when you are crowned, I will tell you.

If they were prudent, they would stop doing this until then. This night would be their last together, and in the morning they would be strangers. There would be nothing for Tizoc to discover, no secrets that could come to light at the most inopportune time.

Acatl’s never been a particularly prudent man.

Still, in the morning, he must act like it. He has to put in an appearance at court for formality’s sake (thank you, Ichtaca, he thinks without much sourness), and so he knows there’s a chance he and Teomitl will see each other there. It has him on edge all day; he is, for once, glad of the heavy skull mask that hides his expressions. He’s never been a skilled actor, and he’s sure they’ve only managed discretion thus far by keeping their public interactions brief.

When it happens, it’s a surprise. He’s turning the corner out of a meeting room, thinking vaguely that it must be nearly time for lunch, and there is Teomitl in his finery coming the other way. He’s dressed simply but there is jade in his ears and at his wrists, and the first curve of a smile on his lips stops Acatl dead in his tracks.

“Acatl-tzin.” Warm. Friendly. Barely even a flicker of his gaze to show they are anything more than that.

“Teomitl.” Not “tzin.” Never “tzin.” He’d tried that mode of address once, and Teomitl had looked so stricken he’d apologized immediately. Ahuizotl is out of the question; it’s too formal, leans too hard in the other direction, and anyone hearing them would assume something happened. So now he addresses him by name, trying very hard not to think about the way that name had felt in his mouth. (How everything had felt—Teomitl’s hands, the dry mat crackling under them, the way the crescendo of pleasure had built and built until—)

It’s killing him.

He sets a hand on his knife, and the ice-cold emptiness of Lord Death wipes his thoughts clean. When Teomitl looks him in the face, he can even muster a smile.

And then Teomitl looks past him again, a picture of studied casualness. “Mihmatini mentioned she hasn’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ll stop by for lunch.”

He has...mixed feelings about the Duality House, these days. Of course he loves Mihmatini. Of course he loves Teomitl. He knows they both love him, that he can be Mihmatini’s older brother and Teomitl’s lover and it is good, it’s an arrangement they’re all happy with. But seeing them together, being reminded that this should be their space and theirs only, that by all rights of society he’s an intruder...

It is, in a word, awkward. (Even so, he has to thank the gods that Mihmatini knows about them. The current situation might be moderately unpleasant, but the idea of going behind her back makes him want to die. He’s fairly sure he would actually literally die if that was the case and she discovered it.)

Mihmatini might have been missing him, but she’s not expecting him; she’s midway through a grilled newt when he’s escorted in, and nearly chokes on it. But then she’s beaming at him and tugging him down to sit, and despite himself he finds he’s enjoying the meal. The Duality House feeds its inhabitants well.

“You look healthy,” she tells him.

“I...” He doesn’t feel healthy. The knowledge that Tizoc has never been worthy to rule sits in him like a stone. Filling his belly hasn’t helped. But he nods anyway, because the last thing he wants is to burden Mihmatini with his complaints.

Especially now that she’s smiling. “I’m glad. Not too busy?”

“Mn. As busy as I usually am.” He would rather be investigating dozens of suspicious corpses than giving his testimony in a single nobleman’s death (to his surprise given the amount of people who’d wanted the man dead, it really had been a heart attack), but he’s not that fortunate. “Yourself?”

The smile flickers, and her gaze drops to the table. As he watches, she puffs her cheeks out thoughtfully. “...I’ve been hearing some interesting rumors. I think I’m going to have a lot of work ahead of me.”

The frog he’d just eaten feels like it’s about to come back up. “Howso?”

“Palace gossip.” She waves a dismissive hand, but when she looks up at him again her eyes are distant. She doesn’t look upset, though, and he clings to that for the sake of his own sanity. “Teomitl can probably explain it better; he doesn’t want to strangle everyone there all the time.”

...Palace...? No. He wouldn’t. He sets his plate down and rises. “I think I’ll talk to him. Where is he?”

“He should be coming home soon.” She looks up at him and adds, “You should come visit more often. We both missed having you here.”

He has to pause at that, fingers tightening on the entrance curtain as her words sink in. Gods, he’s been so busy wallowing in his own mire of shame and trepidation, he’s forgotten. He’s forgotten that he’s loved and welcomed here. That he’ll always be loved and welcomed here, even if—Teomitl—

( He wouldn’t. He promised me he wouldn’t, and he never lies. This fear of mine is groundless. Disgusting.)

(He knows it is. He knows. But it has him in its claws, and he knows only hearing otherwise from Teomitl’s lips can shake it off.)

He finds Teomitl in one of the rooms nearest to the Duality House’s main gate. His lover has shed most of his jewelry, but the smile he has for Acatl shines brighter than any gems or gold he could wear. “You’re here already. Have you eaten yet?”

“I did.” He takes a breath and sits down on the mat across from him. He thinks he’ll want to be sitting down for this conversation. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Something in his tone or expression must give him away, because Teomitl’s smile vanishes. “What about?”

Now that he’s been given an opening, he’s not sure how to take it. His gaze drifts across the smooth floor, over the bones of Teomitl’s ankle and the curve of his hand where it rests on the ground. His cloak is very red in the light of day. “Mihmatini mentioned palace gossip that might make her...busy. She said you’d know more.”

For a moment, he doesn’t think Teomitl is going to answer, but then he proves him wrong. “...I’ve been...talking to the She-Snake.” Teomitl doesn’t look happy about that, but that could mean anything. He’s never been a great fan of the man. “He mentioned that Tizoc has looked unwell lately.”

Not for the first time, he regrets bringing Tizoc back at all. Still, the flatness of Teomitl’s voice makes his fists clench in his lap. “Has he, now.”

Teomitl shrugs. “Of course, he is often unwell. It might be nothing.” But he’s looking at the ground, not at Acatl.

Ice slides down his throat, suffusing all his innards with cold. “Teomitl—“

“I don’t know anything else.” He huffs, and mutters, “He certainly doesn’t act like he’s dying.”

He bites his lip. He promised me. “...And if he was?”

Teomitl’s head snaps up, and he meets Acatl’s gaze with his own. The heat in it rocks him to the core, and he finally feels like he can breathe. “I wouldn’t mourn him. But I wouldn’t hasten his death, either—or do you think me so impatient, so inconsiderate, as to break a vow I made to the man I love? I told you I’d be patient, didn’t I? I haven’t won him enough victories on the battlefield for his damned reign to be even close to stable.”

Oh. It’s one thing to hear it whispered in the dead of night, when they’re wrapped in each other’s arms and the rest of the world seems so very far away. It’s another thing entirely to hear it in broad daylight in the middle of the Duality House, and it makes his face catch fire. “No.” It’s too soft, too shaky, and he raises his voice. He can’t be shy in this. “No. I believe you, Teomitl. I’m sorry.” He swallows hard and admits, “I needed to hear you say that.”

Teomitl’s still scowling at him, but his apology has clearly gone some way towards clearing the thunderclouds from his lover’s face. “Which part?”

“That you love me.” Enough to want to kill for me, and yet enough to stay your hand when I ask. Forgive me. Forgive me. There are days I still can’t believe it. But he’s not bold or desperate enough to say that out loud, so instead he risks laying his hand on the ground between them, loose and open, for Teomitl to take in his own.

He doesn’t hesitate. His hand shoots out, lacing their fingers together and squeezing as though he’s afraid Acatl will pull away. For a moment he stares down at them, just as unused to the sight of their clasped hands in daylight as Acatl is, but then he lifts his head to meet Acatl’s eyes. His gaze is direct and honest, a perfect reflection of his heart. “You never need to doubt that, Acatl. You know I love you.”

“I do.”

Maybe it’s the sunlight or the hand in his, maybe it’s Teomitl’s words, but he feels the frozen tension in his heart start to thaw. When Teomitl smiles, he smiles back.

I love you, too. The day is fast approaching when he’ll be able to say it. Until then, he’ll follow Teomitl’s example and take what joy he can.